FORMER Finance Minister in the 1992 Cheddi Jagan presidency rightly argues that Guyana needs American military assistance to deter the insane aggression of President Maduro of Venezuela. I think 100 per cent of the Guyanese nation, in and out of Guyana, embraces the perspective that Guyana needs an enduring closeness with the US because of Maduro.

Those whose field is international relations would be inclined to lecture Ali in the study of international relations theories, because in his letter of October 29, 2025, in the Stabroek News. Ali displayed some misplaced notions about the history of world politics that come close to dangerous ignorance.

I pen this column in the hope of stopping younger minds from being influenced by some of the positions Mr Ali took regarding the sweeping remarks he made about dictators versus democrats. Before I do so, just a brief, valuable note to all Guyanese to reflect on.

No politician in Venezuela has denounced the illegal Venezuelan claim on Guyana and that includes the current opposition leader. What Guyanese need to think hard about is what happens in the future if a Venezuelan president comes to power and becomes a strategic ally of the US and continues Venezuelan aggression against Guyana. Can one safely predict what the US position will be?

Let’s return to some unacceptable misconceptions of Ali. For a man who was once close to one of the world’s leading protectors of the Third World, Cheddi Jagan, Mr Ali proves that he may have learnt nothing about the relations between small, poor states and big imperialist powers.

First, the Russian invasion of Ukraine is not an action that has simple interpretations, as Ali puts it. Countries that Ali thinks have “democratic” governments played a huge part in what occurred in Ukraine. Space would not allow me to educate Ali on that global item.

Next, Ali finds time to eulogise “democratic” countries for their role in supporting Ukraine, but strangely enough his pen failed him when he chose not to mention how those very countries continue to send military hardware to a country whose government is one of the most brutal in history and whose prime minister is more terrible that Adolph Hitler and has created one of history’s most sadistic examples of genocide. I am referring to Israel, Netanyahu and Gaza.

Next, let’s quote Ali: “Small states simply cannot go it alone in an anarchic international system.”  Scholarly research on the history of the pulverisation of small states in an anarchic international system by bigger powers would reveal that such pulverisation came more from big powers that had democratically elected leaders. I hope Ali remembers what happened to a man in the early 1970s, who Ali considers his hero – Cheddi Jagan.

Let’s educate Ali despite his long years in public service in Jamaica and Guyana. The concepts used to study international relations are not the same when it comes to domestic politics. The paradigms, perspectives and methodologies are different.  Theorists of international relations based their findings on the behaviour of states in the international system.

The behaviour of states in international politics has nothing (absolutely) to do with their domestic political system. Someone needs to tell Ali that more small states have had their sovereignty violated by leaders of large countries who were democratically elected. Just to remind Ali that the longest war in the past 200 years, in which an invading army stayed in the invaded country, was the US in Afghanistan. President Biden pulled out of Afghanistan, saying that the US will not fight a forever war. The US presence lasted 20 years.

Next, Ali wrote that South Korea and Taiwan are threatened by dictators in the region. Obviously, he is referring to China. My reading of world politics does not inform me that South Korea is threatened by China. Most countries in the world have not granted recognition of sovereignty to Taiwan.

But let us focus on who is a dictator and who supports whom in the world. Why did Ali mention China and not the European Union countries that support genocide in Israel? For countries that are threatened, South Korea and Taiwan live very happily and are top economies. No dictator has invaded them. But look at Gaza today; the entire place is demolished.

What I would like to know is, if Ali is telling small nations which country has a dictatorship and which has a democracy and they should line up with the democratic ones, even though they do not provide aid and investment.

Should small, developing countries care about which countries have dictators and which have democrats? Is that the business of small states? Or is their business to secure aid, trade and investments from countries that offer them such?  I hope so.

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.