BACKBENCHER
Rod Kapunan
9/3-4/2011
The latest foray of international gangsterism by the US and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has caused people from countries that suffered the ruthlessness of modern-day imperialism to reminisce on the positive aspects of the Cold War. Although it was costly because of the unbridled arms race between the US and the then Soviet Union, it significantly produced its own built-in mechanism that prevented the spiraling of the conflict to one of cataclysmic global war.
To the “pacifists,” the arms race was something of a negative legacy. But to the realists, the race for nuclear superiority was seen as a natural deterrent that prevented reckless attempts to engage in incalculable adventurism. From there, the concept of a balance of power evolved to a balance of terror, and out of that looming shadow of nuclear war, a highly demarcated geo-political landscape was carved.
In a world then polarized by two ideologies, the important thing a country could do was to keep itself out of the military alliance. The socialist bloc had their war machine known as the Warsaw Pact, and the capitalist bloc had its NATO while hypocritically pirouetting as the “Free World.” Nonetheless, it was during that period that the so-called “Non-Aligned” bloc came to birth and gained relevance.
In fact, many international relations analysts attribute the peak of the Cold War as the Golden Age of the non-aligned movement because it was during that period when they succeeded in enhancing their international prestige, in bargaining for more economic assistance in exchange for keeping themselves out of the alliance, and most importantly, in keeping their territory free from proxy war that traditionally was understood as civil war, except for the added dimension of ideology.
The Bandung Conference in 1954 laid down the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. Unfortunately, after the collapse of the socialist bloc, it was promptly substituted by the warmongering policy of “unilateralism.” The Five Principles include: 1) Mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty; 2) Non-aggression; 3) Non-interference in each other’s internal affairs; 4) Equality and mutual benefit; and, 5) Peaceful coexistence. It was the attending leaders of the non-aligned nations, principally of China’s foremost statesman Zhou Enlai who came out with that novel idea.
Peaceful coexistence was most relevant despite the frosty relationship between the two contending superpowers. As one pretends to wage war in the name of “democracy” and “freedom,” the other supported the “people’s war” for national liberation. Nonetheless, the Soviets and the Americans inhibited themselves from any direct confrontation that could easily escalate into an all-out war, although limited or proxy wars continued to rage in Africa, Latin America and Asia. In that context, the proxy wars remained an internal conflict that need to be settled by the people in that war-torn state pursuant to the principle of peaceful coexistence.
Even as countries in the Third World were subjected to the rigors of subversion and destabilization, on the whole, they were able to resolve their internal conflict. The two superpowers by the compulsive realism of the balance of terror had to respect that peace agreement, thus effectively putting forward limitations to interference. More so, if it would partake of an act of aggression against a member-state of the military alliance set up by the US and the Soviet Union.
Today, weak states cherish the invaluable positive legacies of the Cold War. There is no doubt it elicited obedience to international law; and for all the acrimonious debate at the UN General Assembly, respect for the international body was maintained. It is for this why they could not comprehend why Russia and China had to unilaterally forego the Cold War after they shifted their economic system to capitalism. They could not in fact see the logical connection. It was considered tragic for it constricted their strategic influence even endangered their territorial integrity and survival.
Some say that had it not for their old arsenal of nuclear weapons left over by the arms race, criminal states like the US and its confederates in NATO could have easily completed in erasing them from the map by the simple expedient of fanning the flames of separatist rebellion. In fact, no sooner after it metamorphosed to Russia, it found itself surrounded by a string of US military bases stationed in the erstwhile Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan Uzbekistan, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania and Georgia.
It even has to fight a bloody internal rebellion in Chechnya. As if to consummate the move to isolate it, the US enticed the former members of the Warsaw Pact to join the expanded umbrella of NATO, and humiliating it by threatening to install an anti-ballistic missile system, virtually at its doorstep, in Poland, Hungary and Romania.
China, too, experienced its own bloody upheavals beginning with the infamous agitation for “democracy” by disoriented students at Tiananmen Square in 1989 who clamored for the selling of their country to imperialism. Later, agitations spread deep into Lhasa in Tibet and Urumqi in Xingjian province. All these happened after the end of the Cold War.
The absence of any power to check the onslaught of US and NATO aggression eroded much the stature of the United Nations to a point that it has almost been reduced it as the mouthpiece of the US State Department. In that sense, international law reverted as a mere idealism of Hugo Grotius. Jingoism which was once restrained by the balance of terror regained prominence. All these were amplified by the US and NATO forays in Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya shamelessly carrying the banner of the UN and even requesting lackey states to contribute to the peacekeeping force to internationalize their war of aggression.
In the unfortunate case of Libya, even if the US and NATO had the permission of the UN Security Council because of the favorable vote cast by China and Russia to impose a “no-fly-zone”, the scope of that UN resolution was limited to preventing Qaddafi’s forces from using their aircraft to strafe and bomb rebel positions or to use them to transport troops. In military parlance, the “no-fly-zone” was strictly confined to grounding the Libyan air force. But as events unfurled, the resolution became their license to savagely carry out gangsterism against Libya. In that the UN became a fait accompli to commit aggression against an independent state. It is for this why many are saying it could not have happened had Russia and China not capitulated to ending the Cold War.
(rodkap@yahoo.com.ph)
