STRATEGIES OF NONALIGNMENT

Traditionally there has been confusion over the differences among such terms as neutrality, neutralism, and nonalignment. In one sense, they all signify the same type of foreign-policy orientation, where a state will not commit its military

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capabilities and, sometimes, its diplomatic support to the purposes of another state. Unwillingness to commit military capabilities to others' purposes is the

« hallmark of nonalignment as a foreign policy strategy, but there are some varia­tions in the circumstances by which a state adopts a nonaligned policy; it is here that neutrality and neutralism have distinct meanings. 4 Neutrality refers to the legal status of a state during armed hostilities.

Under the international laws of neutrality, a nonbelligerent in wartime has certain rights and obligations not extended to the belligerents.¹ These rules state, for example, that a neutral may not permit use of its territory as a base for military operations by one of the belligerents, may not furnish military assistance to the belligerents, and may enjoy free passage of its nonmilitary goods on the

' open seas and, under certain conditions, through belligerent blockades.

A neutralized state is one that must observe these rules during armed conflict but that, during peace, must also refrain from making military alliances with other states. The major differences between a neutralized state and a non-aligned state is that the former has achieved its position by virtue of the actions of others, whereas the latter chooses its orientation by itself and has no guaran-

¹ tees that its position will be honored by others. A state is often neutralized when the great powers agree to guarantee its nonaligned position through a multilateral treaty. The European powers neutralized Switzerland in 1815, Bel-

- gium in 1831, and Luxembourg in 1867. More recently, Austria (1955) and Laos (1962) were neutralized by agreement between the major Western govern­ments and the Soviet Union. Under neutralization treaties, the state in question binds itself not to allow foreign troops on its soil or in any way to compromise its status by making military agreements or giving military privileges to other states on its own territory. In turn, the guaranteeing powers undertake not to violate the territorial integrity or rights of the neutral in both wartime and peace.

What motivates the great powers to establish and guarantee the neutrality of certain states? Sometimes, as in Laos, their own rivalry over the territory in question may lead to undesired results, or, more simply, the area under conten­tion may not be worth a possible military confrontation. A solution to this situa­tion is for both sides to withdraw and make an agreement that neither will again seek to gain military advantages in the territory. In other cases, a state may perform functions of value to the major powers, and it is understood that these functions can only be carried out if all nations observe neutrality. For instance, Swiss diplomatic establishments have frequently taken over minimal tasks of communication and representation for countries that have severed diplo­matic relations. During both world wars, the Swiss performed many additional services for the belligerents: They cared for prisoners of war, arranged for trans­fer of stranded diplomatic personnel, and served as the main liaison agents for the small amount of secret diplomatic communication between governments

¹ Neutral status and alliance commitments are not necessarily incompatible. For example, if state A makes an agreement to assist state В only if state С attacks, it could still remain neutral if any state other than С attacked B.

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at war with each other. Finally, the Swiss government, or the International Red Cross headquarters in Switzerland, has acted as a mediator or channel of commu­nication in preliminary armistice or peace negotiations.

The most common form of nonalignment today is found among those states that, on their own initiative and without the guarantee of other states, refuse to commit themselves militarily to the goals and objectives of the major _k powers. Even though they lend diplomatic support to blocs or bloc leaders on particular issues, they refrain from siding diplomatically with any bloc on all issues. Their roles (see below) are independent in the system as a whole, although within regions they might well be aligned militarily, ideologically, and economi­cally. The nonaligned states of Europe—Ireland, Sweden, Yugoslavia, and Fin­land—are usually sympathetic to Western values and interests but do not formally join military organizations such as NATO. They attempt to remain uninvolved in the major bloc conflicts, although on occasion they promote plans for nonvio­lent settlements. The nonaligned countries in the developing areas similarly avoid formal commitments to blocs, but they show a greater inclination to distrust the major Western powers, criticize publicly the actions of any state, and give vocal support to bloc actions when they are deemed in their own interests.

In the present international context, nonalignment strategies are mostly confined to military matters. On other issues, nations that consider themselves nonaligned do, in fact, create temporary diplomatic and economic coalitions. They have certain common interests, such as supporting anticolonial movements and organizing attempts to obtain better terms of trade from industrialized nations. In international trade conferences and on some issues in the United Nations, the nonaligned states combine to increase their influence vis-a-vis the industrialized nations and bloc leaders. The Group of 77, composed of approxi- . mately 115 developing countries, has acted as a reasonably unified diplomatic coalition at a number of international conferences, but most of its members claim to be nonaligned. Moreover, some nonaligned states have sought to create regional military alliances. Nonalignment thus appears more as an orientation toward East-West bloc conflicts than as a true strategy toward all issues in the system or in regions.

Successful strategies of nonalignment would seem possible in interna­tional systems with diffuse or diffuse-bloc structures. Theoretically, the military capabilities of member units in a hierarchical system are bound, by hereditary and contractual obligations, to the center unit. If the Chou monarchy was under attack from the "barbarians," or if it waged war to punish a recalcitrant vassal, the other units were obligated to come to its support by supplying foot soldiers and money. In the polar system, where all states belong to antagonistic blocs, there is similarly no room for, or tolerance of, states that attempt to remain neutral or noninvolved in bloc conflicts. In the Chinese system during parts of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, units that attempted to maintain complete autonomy in foreign relations were either forced into alliances or annexed by more powerful neighbors.

Nonalignment orientations can be linked to a number of domestic con-

I/

104 Foreign-Policy Orientations and National Roles

. г і siderations and pressures. Some political units have adopted this orientation || \J as a means of obtaining maximum economic concessions from both blocs, recog­nizing that to make permanent military arrangements with one bloc would close off the other as a possible source of supply, markets, and foreign aid. Given the strong commitment of many governments in the Third World to achieve adequate economic growth rates as fast as possible, few can afford to restrict their international trade to any one area of the world. Much less can they afford to restrict their sources of economic aid. Some nonaligned governments feel that because of the political implications of aid agreements, the more sources of aid that are available, the more the nation can effectively counter threats to cut off aid by the donors. To be nonaligned is to maximize opportunities to meet domestic economic needs, while minimizing dependencies.

Nonalignment, it is often argued by its practitioners, also increases the diplomatic influence of those who adopt it as a foreign-policy strategy. They , suggest that through alliances, nations give up freedom of action and lose the I opportunity to formulate their policies in terms of their own needs. In too many instances, an alliance forces weak states to sacrifice their own interests for the needs of the great powers; and, when tensions turn into crises, the small alliance partners are usually unable to affect the outcomes, even though these may have serious consequences on their interests. As independent states, however, nonaligned nations have room to maneuver and may be able to influ­ence the behavior and actions of both blocs.²

A strategy of nonalignment is particularly well suited to the domestic political conditions and needs of developing countries. By being expressed some­times in anti-Western terms, it accords with the anticolonial attitudes of indige­nous elites and mass political parties. By emphasizing dangers to the nation from the machinations of the great powers, it helps create national unity, a commodity sorely needed in societies torn apart by religious, tribal, or language conflicts. To many African and Asian nationalist leaders (most represent the first generation of native leaders), nonalignment foreign-policy strategies express and emphasize the independence of their countries. Understandably, they find that it pays political dividends at home and abroad not to give any impression of making military or ideological commitments to their former colonial overlords or to states that might compromise their independence in the future.

Nonalignment may be explained by perceptions of external threat as well as by domestic economic and political variables. Nations have traditionally sought to maintain their independence and territorial integrity by withdrawing or avoiding involvement in conflict areas. In the present international context, however, the fear is not so much of a direct threat to independence—except perhaps by way of "neocolonialism"—as it is concern that bloc conflicts will spill over into nonaligned areas or that regional conflicts in the developing

² This type of argument is ably presented by Alex Quaison-Sackey in his Africa Unbound (New York: Praeger, 1963), pp. 105-11.

105 Foreign-Policy Orientations and National Roles

world will attract great power intervention. The nonaligned states have had few concrete interests in the outcome of great coldwar crises such as Berlin, Hungary, or Vietnam. They have always expressed a fear, however, that such confrontations could escalate into nuclear warfare, which would eventually engulf them. Those nonaligned states that have perceived a direct threat emanating from one of the great powers have also considered abandoning the nonaligned strategy in favor of military alliances with those who could offer them protection.

Nonalignment as a strategy to defend independence and secure eco-ij nomic and social needs can usually be expected to succeed if the state in question) is reasonably distant from the main areas of international conflict. States like Switzerland and Sweden managed to stay outside of both world conflicts in the twentieth century in part because of their geographic and strategic position. Even though neither was very distant from the main scenes of battle, both enjoyed favorable topographical and geographic features: The high mountains surround­ing Switzerland constituted barriers that would have made Nazi invasion of the country extremely costly. The Germans could control both the Baltic Sea and parts of the North Atlantic by occupying Denmark and Norway, whereas control of Sweden was not crucial to either of these objectives. In other words, a strategy of nonalignment may be sustained successfully even in wartime if the area is of little strategic value to bloc leaders or various belligerents.

What other conditions can be linked to the success or failure of nonalign­ment strategies? Successful nonalignment is also basically a problem of credibil­ity—convincing other states that the strategy is actually advantageous to their own interests. When a nonaligned or neutralized state compromises its indepen-dent position or is forced to compromise it by outside pressures, then the strategy will fail. Actions, not just words, have to conform to the expectations of other states.

To safeguard its position, particularly when a crisis or conflict develops around or near its frontiers, the nonaligned state must avoid any kind of military engagements with major powers. Usually this means that it must also have the capacity to resist incursions upon its territory or pressures by outside powers to use its land for military purposes. If the nonaligned or neutralized state cannot resist such pressures, it can no longer expect others to respect its special position.

The most difficult time to maintain a nonaligned orientation is during large-scale war. Throughout history, nonaligned and neutralized states have proclaimed their intention of remaining uninvolved in great-power conflicts, only to be invaded or forced into alliances by those who respected their position in peacetime. Leopold III declared Belgium neutral in 1936, but the Belgians hardly had the capacity to enforce this position against the Nazi war machine, whose most direct route to France lay through Belgian territory. Norway, too, declared its neutrality prior to the outbreak of World War II; but, as its geo­graphic location was of importance to German military operations against Great Britain in the North Atlantic, it was invaded in 1940. Even where nonaligned

106 Foreign-Policy Orientations and National Roles

or neutralized states are not invaded at the beginning of military operations, wars have a tendency to "spill over" into areas originally uninvolved. A neutral state such as Laos was unable to maintain its territorial integrity during the war in Vietnam, because its territory was useful to the North Vietnamese for infiltrating troops and materiel into South Vietnam.³

Successful strategies of nonalignment thus require the juxtaposition of many conditions, including favorable structure of power and influence in the system, national capacity to defend independence and territorial integrity against those who do not honor a neutral position, the benevolent attitude or indifference of the great powers, reasonable remoteness from the main centers of interna­tional conflict, and a reasonable amount of internal political stability. In times of great international conflict or widespread war, however, most nations gravitate either voluntarily or through coercion toward alliances.

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