The Regional Influentials: Perception and Reality

THE REGIONAL INFLUENTIALS: PERCEPTION AND REALITY Thomas Perry Thornton O, 'n September 23, 1977, the White House announced that President Jimmy Carter would undertake a major global tour. The countries to be visited included Venezuela, Brazil, Nigeria, Iran, and India. (The tour would end with three stops in Europe.) This itinerary would have been improbable for Carter's immediate predecessors and even more so for his successors , but in terms ofthe Carter presidency it made eminent sense. Carter was about to visit the "regional influentials" among the nations ofthe Third World, those countries who were expected to play key roles in leading the other hundred or so Third World nations to a fuller, more just, and more cooperative membership in the much-discussed interdependent world. The Roots of the Concept The idea of seeking to further U.S. policy interests with and through the major nations of the Third World was not unique to Carter. In terms ofimmediate ancestry, Richard Nixon had enunciated a doctrine at Guam onJuly 25, 1969, which looked to nations of the Third World to assume fuller responsibility for their own futures.1 First and foremost, this was 1. For the classic statement of the Nixon Doctrine see U.S. Foreign Policyfor the 1970s: Buildingfor Peace, A Repon to the Congress by Richard M. Nixon, President of the United States (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1971), 10-21. Thomas Perry Thornton was in charge of North-South affairs on the staffof the National Security Council during the Carter administration; prior to this, he had been a senior member of the State Department Policy Planning Staff. Presently, he is adjunct professor of Asian Studies and American Foreign Policy at SAIS. 247 248 SAIS REVIEW a message directed at the Saigon government, but it was extended to mean that the United States hoped to work through Third World nations— usually referred to as "proxies" at the time—in order to further mutual security interests. Although aimed at Vietnam, the most striking application of this Nixon Doctrine turned out to be in the Persian Gulf, where Washington relied heavily on Iran and Saudi Arabia to fill whatever vacuum had been left by the British withdrawal. Soon the United States took other steps to identify and work with leading nations of the Third World. The 1973 oil crisis and ensuing oil price increases brought a new level of attention and grudging respect to at least some Third World countries—the oil producers who were now accumulating not only power over oil production but also new international economic importance as their coffers filled with oil money. As a parallel strategy, Kissinger sought to coopt some of the major Third World oil importers, who were the worst hit by the oil price rise, as a way of bringing pressure on the oil cartel. He succeeded neither in coopting nor in bringing pressure, and the 1975 Conference on International Economic Cooperation (CIEC) ended inconclusively. It is noteworthy, however, that CIEC involved representative Third World countries, most of them nations that would later be considered regional influentials.2 Also on a bilateral level, Kissinger had in the years following 1973 undertaken a series of trips to major Third World countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, bestowing the favor of his presence and tickling the egos of interlocutors with the idea that they, too, were important enough to engage the attention of the world's great celebritystatesman . In order to cement the gains that these visits were presumed to have made, Kissinger proposed the establishment of a series of joint commissions which would meet, generally on an annual basis, so that the respective foreign ministers could review bilateral relations, discuss weighty global matters, and have their pictures taken. The idea, ofcourse, met with great favor and several such joint commissions were established. Ultimately it dawned on Kissinger that he was committed to attend each of these annual meetings and that this commitment would represent a substantial drain on his schedule. Thus on his Latin American junket he avoided personal commitments by proposing instead periodic joint 2. The OPEC members attending were Algeria, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia , and Venezuela. The consumers chosen...