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| Tuesday, 4 November 2003 |
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The "development dimension" in US security policy Asia watch by Lynn Ockersz While the military interventions by the US and its allies in Iraq and Afghanistan continue to dominate international news coverages, along with their distressing human, political and economic consequences, a recent statement by US Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of South Asia, Department of State, Christina B. Rocca, helps to shed some light on vital but hitherto less-recognized dimensions of US security policy in the Third World. Recently testifying before a US House of Representatives body on these issues Rocca was quoted saying in reference to Nepal that, "The US Government is helping address the Maoist threat by focusing our assistance programs on the root causes of the insurgency - poverty, corruption and government inattention - and on strengthening the ability of the government to respond." The same dimension of assistance won mention when Rocca came to comment on the conflict in Sri Lanka: "As in Nepal, the US is working to alleviate some of the precursors of this conflict - poverty and inequality..." The statement could be considered revelatory in view of the socio-economic dimension in Third World security conflicts, which thus comes to be emphasized. Poverty, corruption and misgovernance are among the key causative factors of Third World intra-state conflicts, wars and insurgencies and Washington is fully aware of this. However, somehow, the non-military programs said to be launched by the US Government to address these immediate socio-economic causes for Third World conflicts, do not come to be emphasized by the world media, for instance, as much as their military initiatives in the Third World. Is this attributable to failures in communication strategies adopted by the US Government in particularly this part of the world? This issue would need to be addressed closely by the US authorities. In the days ahead, Washington is likely to discover the usefulness of addressing the more pressing socio-economic causes for Third World conflicts through development programs. It is likely to learn that this is a more cost-effective approach to helping resolve intra-state conflicts in the Third World, than the adoption of military initiatives or the use of military assistance programs of various kinds. US help for poverty alleviation programs, for instance, is likely to blunt the appeal of armed insurrection among the more impressionable sections of the Nepalese public. After all, want and the lack of equal opportunity breed rebellions in the Third World. Besides, the mounting US death toll in Iraq should set Washington thinking. True, circumstances may be forcing the US to follow a multi-pronged security policy in the Third World, but what is hoped would come to be greatly emphasized in the days ahead would be its reported keenness to eliminate the "precursors" of conflict - "poverty and inequality." Military conflicts make up "hot news" for the transnational Western news agencies and most of them are unlikely to consider US development programs in the Third World as particularly newsworthy. However, if the US is sincerely committed to the development aspect of its security policy in this part of the world, it would find ways and means of bringing this to the notice of the world's publics. If not Washington's military failures in Iraq would continue to be the daily diet of the news hungry public. |
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