Diplomacy by other means

DURING the cold month of February, 2014, the Russian army is alleged to have sent troops into the Crimean peninsula, then part of Ukraine. Soon after the peninsula was annexed by Russia and the world was stunned to find that the inviolability of borders, virtually unquestioned since the end of World War II, was suddenly up for debate. If the Russians could figure out a way to claim territory, might this prove a blueprint for aggression around the World?

Fast forward one year and having finally discovered oil, Guyana faced once more an aggressive Venezuelan declaration that the Essequibo region was rightfully theirs. Where there had been little serious belief Venezuela might be able to retake the region, Russian success in Crimea now made the issue much more nuanced. I will attempt to frame the seriousness of the threat by comparing it to that the Ukrainians faced, and relate how this has shaped and continues to shape national policy toward ExxonMobil.

Firstly, it is important to note that many of Guyana’s national security policy decisions stretch across administrations, so any criticisms of them primarily indicate the need for a broad national conversation about the way we approach defence. Currently, our approach is primarily diplomatic, and this has proven effective since independence, but that does not mean there aren’t military elements which shore up this defence.

That Russian military strength is overwhelming when compared to that of the Ukrainians needs little elaboration, and analogously Guyana’s military pales in comparison to that of Venezuela. While we have an estimated 3-4,000 active servicemen, Venezuela has over 100,000. Even further, they have about 400,000 militiamen in reserve, while the total sum of Guyanese with any level of military training residing locally cannot realistically be expected to number more than 50,000.

These critical numbers mean that the only way Guyana can expect to repel Venezuelan aggression on its own is through a massive, nationwide draft. Of course that our neighbours would let such an aggression pass is highly unlikely, and Colombia as an example has longstanding territorial disputes it would worry about if Venezuela seized Essequibo. Even further, as recently as this past week Brazil’s defence minister, Raul Jungmann, reaffirmed his country’s position that territorial borders remain constant on the continent. So this is not to alarm, but to make it clear we cannot take national defence for granted, as I suspect the general public often has.

But a Crimea-style action is something totally new, and throws much traditional thinking into disarray. As an example, it is alleged the Russians did not wear any Russian army signs on their uniforms when they took the peninsula. This disguised an invasion as civil unrest, and thus sidestepped traditional responses like declaring war on the aggressing country. “What aggressor?” the World asked. “Who knows if those troops are Russian soldiers or not?”

Further, whereas Saddam Hussein claimed the Iraqi army invaded Kuwait to restore order after a coup, which probably no one believed, the Russians were far more savvy. They claimed the Crimeans had decided to secede, forming a totally new country. A referendum was held to legitimize this, and a pro-Russian leader took control of the new Republic of Crimea. Afterward, he just asked Russia to annex the territory, formally making it part of that country, and the Russians were only too happy to oblige. Could something like this happen in Guyana?

Our primary defence against something so duplicitous is the simple fact that no meaningful population of Venezuelans has ever lived here, so if a chunk of Region One were to secede, it’s hard to imagine Guyanese voting for independence and then annexation into Venezuela. This was not at all the case on the peninsula, with a majority having Russian backgrounds of one type or another and strong pro-Russian sentiments.

What remains a worry, however, is that because there was such a mismatch between Russian and Ukrainian power, there was little the Ukrainians could do to disrupt this process before it got so out of control. Enter Exxon and the perpetual debate over the oil contract’s merits. It has been related by the major parties that Exxon is important for national security but that relationship and how it has influenced our oil contract is often not clear.

While our laws do state Exxon should not normally hold more than 60 blocks  versus their current allocation of 600, former President Bharrat Jagdeo has related former President Janet Jagan originally allowed such an allocation for national security reasons, per lawful additional provisions. What this did, firstly, is to ensure Exxon’s interests, and by extension those of the United States, were bound to Essequibo remaining Guyanese territory.

This serves as the type of counter-balance that was lacking in Ukraine, stabilizing the situation.
On the other hand, however, such a large allocation going to Exxon has reduced Guyana’s bargaining power because we were unable to make Exxon compete with other prominent oil companies for a contract, which can only have yielded better returns. And so this is the compromise we have come to, due to the rising threat we face in Essequibo, and really equates to the hard choice of either mass conscription and massive military spending or maintaining strong ties with the United States.

The President’s laudable efforts to promote a diplomatic resolution to the dispute, the latest being that this has been referred to the International Court of Justice, are an attempt to further legally support our position. This should help reduce our reliance on the United States’ power, but as with the Crimean peninsula, diplomacy is just not always an effective substitute for a strong military deterrent. After all, to paraphrase German military writer Carl Von Clausewitz, war is merely the continuation of diplomacy by other means.

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