The Meridia Aid Offers: Does Taking Aid End Non-Alignment?
Consider a hypothetical scenario drawn from the early 1960s. The Republic of Meridia became independent in 1962 with a per-capita income of 70 dollars, an army of 9,000 and no domestic arms industry. Within eighteen months it receives two offers. The United States offers 60 million dollars in food and development aid, a pledge to train its officers, and a 'friendship' base for a naval communications station, arguing that the station is purely defensive. The Soviet Union offers 45 million dollars at 2.5 per cent interest, a steel plant, and officer training, on condition that Meridia signs a declaration that it will never join any 'aggressive military bloc' and will support Soviet positions at the United Nations on colonial questions. Meridia's parliament is split: the ruling party's left wing favours the Soviet offer, the business wing the American one, and 40 per cent of the current budget comes from foreign aid. Meridia has signed the Bandung declarations and is applying to join the Non-Aligned Movement.
1. Meridia's foreign minister argues that accepting either offer destroys non-alignment. Evaluate this claim.
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Judgement: the claim is half right. The political conditions, not the money, are what threaten non-alignment.
- Non-alignment is a policy of independence of judgement in world affairs, not a prohibition on trade or aid with either bloc. From Bandung (1955) onward, non-aligned states routinely received development assistance from both sides, and several accepted military equipment from one while buying civilian goods from the other.
- The usable test is therefore not who is paying but what decision is being transferred. A blanket promise to support Soviet positions at the UN on colonial questions pre-commits Meridia's vote before it has even examined the merits of a resolution. That is a surrender of judgement.
- The base fails the same test in a different way. A facility whose use Meridia cannot veto makes its territory part of another state's war plan, invites a counter-base or retaliation, and is very hard to reverse once built.
- Equidistance would not rescue the minister's position either. Abstaining on everything is neutrality, not non-alignment, and it throws away the bargaining power that comes from being courted by both sides.
Conclusion: refuse the conditions, not the offers. Meridia can accept aid, renegotiate away the political clauses, and require every agreement to be placed before parliament, which is the most reliable domestic guarantee of autonomy.
2. Two years later Meridia signs a mutual security pact with one bloc and its foreign minister says it must now resign from the Non-Aligned Movement. Assess this argument.
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Judgement: the pact creates a credibility problem, but it does not automatically require resignation, and leaving would probably cost Meridia more than staying.
- Non-alignment has never been defined by the absence of treaties. Members of the movement have signed defence agreements, hosted foreign advisers and voted with one bloc on particular issues without being expelled, because the movement has no binding rule on the subject.
- What matters is behaviour across the range of issues, not a single document. A state that consistently votes with one bloc, abstains from criticising it and refuses the other side's diplomats has stopped being non-aligned in substance even if it keeps the label.
- The costs of leaving are concrete: loss of a standing channel to the other side, loss of access to a forum where small states aggregate votes, and a signal of permanent bandwagoning that reduces Meridia's future price to any patron.
- The costs of staying are reputational. Other members may treat Meridia's signature on movement declarations as worthless.
Recommendation: stay, but be candid. Declare the pact openly, state the limits of the commitment (no automatic participation in the patron's wars), and continue to vote independently on questions outside the pact's scope. A movement that excludes every state with a treaty would have very few members left.