THE RISE OF SECOND ORDER POWERS: NEW FOCUS ON REGIONAL POLITICS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79T00889A000800080001-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 39
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 23, 2004
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: August 1, 1976
• Content Type: PAPER

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New Focus on Regional Politics
by
August 1976
NOTE: This working paper was prepared as an aid for clarifying
conceptual approaches to understanding new trends in regional
and global politics. It provides the analytical framework and
some of the tentative conclusions of a study on Cuba, Venezuela,
and Mexico as potential second order powers in the Caribbean,
which will be published by OPR later this year. This paper is
not for attribution or citation, does not represent an official
CIA view, and the judgments expressed are the author's own
responsibility. Comments are welcomed by the author, who can
STAT be reached at the Office of Political
Research, CIA, Washington, D. C. 20505.
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Page
MAJOR CONCLUSIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
I. INTRODUCTION: THE SETTING . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
II. SECOND ORDER POWERS AND REGIONAL POLITICS . . . . 11
A. What Makes a Second Order Power? . . . . . . . 13
B. Intra-regional Dynamics of Potential Second
Order Powers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
C. Extra-Regional Dynamics of Second Order
Powers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
III. IMPLICATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
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The international arena in which the US seeks to apply
its power and influence to achieve essential national goals is
characterized by growing complexity and uncertainty. One major
source of this change is the rise in influence and assertiveness,
among the developing countries, of a number of potential "second
order" powers, whose ambitions and activities seem likely in-
creasingly to complicate the efforts of the US and other "first
order" powers to cope with global and, especially, regional
issues. The purpose of this informal study is to develop a
conceptual framework for identifying potential second order
powers, for understanding how they interact in a regional
context, and for comprehending what kind of new regional power
and influence patterns may appear and how these will affect
US foreign policy alternatives.
Some tentative conclusions of this study are:
-- The international political system is
changing as new sources of influence appear
and traditional sources become more costly
to use. This diffusion of international
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power and influence has created new latitude
for the aggressive assertion of national
interests by developing countries generally, and
a variety of rApidly modernizing nations will
probably take increasing advantage of fading super-
power domination to attempt to carve out their
own regional (second order) spheres of influence.
--- The single most important characteristic of
countries approaching second order power status
is an articulated sense of national purpose and
national goals that motivates the leadership to
strive for regional dominance.
-- The potential second order power which possesses
the greatest national power may not be the most
influential country in the region. Actual influ-
ence depends primarily on the motivation of the
leadership to use national capabilities for
external as well as domestic purposes and on
how closely the influence capabilities of a
country match the needs and susceptibility
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to influence of the other countries of the
region.
Issues of regional dominance will not be
settled quickly in most areas in the next
ten years. A number of different regional
patterns of interactions may develop, each
of which will pose different opportunities
and obstacles for pursuing US foreign policy
objectives. One common (but probably transi-
tional) pattern might feature a period in
which two or more potential regional powers
are primarily focused on internal development
and only slowly build a network of both
cooperative and competitive relationships
among themselves and with the states in their
region. This pattern might evolve into an
open struggle for domination during which
relationships are highly conflictive.
In time, either one of the second order powers
may rise to dominate the region, or an implicit
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arrangement to divide the area into sub-
regional spheres of influence may be agreed
on. (Such a division is plausible among Cuba,
Mexico and Venezuela in the Caribbean.)
Whatever power patterns develop, the likelihood
is that regional politics will become more
complex, more relevant to global political
trends, and more salient to US policymaking.
US interests in every region, whether relations
there are peaceful or full of discord, will
probably come under increasingly critical
scrutiny, and even attack, as regional interests
and concerns become more sharply defined and
aggressively expressed.
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I. INTRODUCTION: THE SETTING
The image of the US as a bound giant, still possessed of
overwhelming strength but unable to use it effectively, is obviously
overdrawn. Nonetheless, the international political system and
the place of the US in it is not what it used to be five or ten
years ago: while the US seems less able to accomplish its foreign
policy purposes, a host of other countries, particularly in the
developing world, seem more capable of and aggressive in pursuing
their own individual national interests, often to the immediate
detriment of those of the US.
Two basic trends are shaping the relative change in the
freedom of action of the US and certain developing countries in
the international arena. First, the US is increasingly constrained
from using its power and influence to resolve in its favor dis-
putes with smaller states because attempting unilaterally to impose
US-preferred solutions may have a serious adverse affect on other
important relationships and problems. That is, the rapidly growing
inter-relatedness of international relationships and problems not
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only raises the costs to the US of bringing influence to bear on
any single issue but also increases the uncertainty about the
outcome because the consequences of exercising that influence will
often spill over beyond the boundaries of the specific problem to
be addressed.
In Latin America, for instance, the costs of using US military
force to prevent a feared Communist takeover of a government, as
occurred in the Dominican Republic in 1965, would probably be much
higher today. The policy of relaxing tensions with the USSR might
be adversely affected. Almost certainly, the attempt to build
cooperative, non-interventionist relations with the countries of
Latin America and to solve peacefully long standing problems such
as the future status of the Panama Canal would be jeopardized.
Such an action would also probably provide the more radical dev-
eloping countries, like Cuba and Algeria, with an issue with
which to arouse anti-American sentiments and set back US efforts to
address North-South issues at international gatherings in a coopera-
tive vein.* Finally it would probably create significantly higher
domestic discord in the US than the earlier intervention did.
STAT
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Secondly, power differentials among developing
countries are growing rapidly. At the top end of the spectrum
a few countries, such as Brazil, Venezuela, Iran, India, Turkey,
and Indonesia, seem to be developing the institutions, leadership,
and economic base that both underpin and are part of the process
that can lead to rapid and sustained modernization.* While the
political and economic fortunes of these countries are reversible
and do, in fact, fluctuate considerably, nevertheless they have
reached the stage in development where they have both the need
and ability to project their influence noticeably and persistently
into their regions and to some extent into the international arena
as well. They have the need to do so because they must increasingly
gain the markets, capital, technology, and goods from abroad that
feed the modernization process.
In turn, acquiring these factors of modernization has two
effects. It contributes to the creation of the means of projecting
*Modernization can be defined most broadly as the process of social,
economic, and political change that occurs in all but the most isolated
societies in reaction to external pressures and internal dislocations.
The politics of modernization, including the prerequisites for stimulat-
ing and managing rapid and sustained societal change, are discussed in
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national power and influence, such as a larger industrial base,
greater military strength, stronger commercial import-export capabilities,
and larger more efficient public bureaucracies and private sector elites
with international orientations and capabilities. :[n addition, the
pursuit of national influence abroad through expanded public and
private means often creates vested interests which must be protected
and which tend to develop expansionist momentum of their own.
The net effect of the growing costs of unilaterally exer-
cising US power in foreign areas and the expansion of external
interests and influence of a group of rapidly modernizing developing
nations is a significant change in the pattern of international
relations that has existed since the end of World War II. Global
political relations up through the 1950's and into the 1960's
were essentially structured into two hierarchical systems led by
the pre-eminent military powers, the US and the USSR. Actual and
would-be regional powers existed within these hierarchies, but their
ability to create their own spheres of influence, independent of or
in potential conflict with the desires of the superpowers, was highly
circumscribed. For the most part they were incapable of sustaining
significant social, political or economic initiatives that conflicted
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with the perceived interests of the superpowers, and the latter,
when they chose to, could bring strong influence to bear on the
second order powers and their hinterlands economically and politically
and, when necessary, militarily as well. To the extent that regional
geo-political systems existed, then, they functioned either as
highly subordinate parts of two global hierarchies or dealt with
local issues of little immediate concern to the superpowers and,
hence, had little relevance to world politics.
This highly structured dual hierarchical model of world
politics has become increasingly obsolescent for comprehending
current relations between the US and the developing nations and
for understanding some of the major challenges to US foreign
political and economic influence that will arise in the next five
to ten years. As issues related to military security have receded
as the primary determinants of foreign policy at the global strategic
level, a host of other issues, mainly economic in content, have
greatly increased in importance. This change in the nature and
number of issues at stake in world politics has been accompanied
by (and provided an opportunity for) a rapid expansion in the
number of nations that can yield new international or regional
political and economic influence. For example, the new salience
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of trade, monetary, and natural resource issues has rapidly in-
creased the potential influence of those nations which have the
kinds of economic strength relevant for exerting leverage in contests
over these issues.
The shift in sources of international influence is causing
changes in the shape of the world political system at two levels.
First, while clearly superior military power restricts superpower
status to only the US and the USSR, the growing economic strength
of Japan, Europe (in the framework of the Common Market), and
(emergingly) China have created three new influence centers (together
with the US and the USSR) on the first order level. These nations
increasingly exert influence on each other's decision makers and
on the decision makers in developing nations, often displacing
the influence of the US and, to a lesser degree, the USSR in the
process.
Secondly, the new relevance of global economic issues to
foreign policy is.strengthening the influence potential of those
developing nations which either control essential raw materials
or which are undergoing rapid economic growth. In some instances
these countries are beginning to achieve status as sec.ond order
powers and to develop their own regional spheres of influence.
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The overall affect of these two developments -- in short --
is to complicate considerably the international environment within
which US foreign policy choices are made. The role of regional
politics (i.e., new patterns of regional cooperation and conflict)
in creating opportunities and obstacles for pursuing US national
interests and influence abroad will be the major focus of analysis
in the remainder of this essay.
II. SECOND ORDER POWERS AND REGIONAL POLITICS
The state of flux in regional politics has different causes
in different parts of the world. Within some regions, such as
Latin America, the old sense of hierarchical subordination inside
a geo-political unit largely dominated by a single superpower is
breaking down. In others, such as South Asia, the perception of
regional political relations as essentially determined by super-
power competition within that region is disappearing.* The
*The foreign policies of Iran and India are increasingly influ-
enced by national perceptions of each other as potential regional
competitors apart from consideration of the role of US-USSR com-
petition in South Asia. This new sense of national purpose in a
regional context for India and Iran is discussed in two articles
in an issue of the Journal of International Affairs (Vol. 29,
No. 2, Fall 1975) devoted to a discussion of Power in the Third
World."
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commonality in both cases is that regional issues either not directly
involving the superpowers or which place the region as a whole in
conflict with the superpowers are gaining in importance, and leading
regional states are beginning to exercise relatively more autonomous
decision-making roles. For the most part, however, new regional
power balances have not been established; uncertainty with respect
to how regional politics will evolve exists because two or more
states are potential or actual competitors for intra-regional
superiority.
In the following sections, then, this changing environment
for US foreign decision making will be analyzed as a function
of the rapidly evolving character of regional politics. In
particular this study will examine
-- how potential second order powers can be
identified and their likely foreign policy
trends projected, and
-- what are the important patterns of inter-
actions that will increasingly characterize
relations, and how can they be detected and
measured.
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A. What Makes a Second Order Power?
One recent attempt in academic literature to draw up a list
of potential second order powers suggests that the following de-
veloping countries are in that category: Mexico, Venezuela,
Brazil, Argentina, Algeria, Nigeria, India, Iran, Turkey, Egypt,
Vietnam, and Indonesia. With the exception of Brazil, none of
these have clearly attained second order status and become the
predominant power in their region, but all have some possibilities
to do so.*
Generally, a second order power is likely to seek dominance
in its own region and to attempt regularly and deliberately to
*This list of which developing countries are potential second
order powers is taken from Saul B. Cohen, "The Emergence of a
New Second Order of Powers in the International System" in
Nuclear Proliferation and the Near Nuclear Countries, Part One,
Schulz Marwah, ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger Publishing Company,
1976). The concept of "region" in this paper, which is used in
a geo-political rather than a strictly geograhic sense, is also
derived from the Cohen article. In Cohen's terms, states are
members of a region because of their proximity to each other and
their interactions, not simply because they fall within an area
bounded by some physical feature. For this reason, geo-political
regions are most usefully perceived as not permanently fixed
since the range of a country's interactions with other geo-
graphically proximate countries can, over time, expand and
contract.
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exert limited influence over a number of specific events in other
regions. Within a global power hierarchy it can be separated
on the lower side from countries that are regionally important
but unlikely candidates for second order status by the fact that
the latter can influence events in a region but have little capability
of eventually dominating a region or of regularly affecting political,
economic or military events in other regions. On the upper side
a second order power can be distinguished from the first order
of powers by the latter's ability regularly and deliberately to
influence events and the outcomes of a wide range of issues in
many regions simultaneously (i.e., at the global level).
The following are some of the necessary attributes a nation
will have if it obtains the status of second order power:
-- an articulated sense of national purpose and
a hierarchy of national goals that motivates
the leadership to strive for regional dominance;
relatively strong and effective domestic
political and economic institutions which pro-
duce internal political stability, policy
continuity and assured implementation, and
sustained economic growth;
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sufficient military power to be perceived by
other states in the region as capable of achiev-
ing its essential national security goals;
an industrial base large enough to produce some
conventional military hardware, some intermediary
goods, and most necessary consumer goods (both
for internal consumption and for use in regional
trade);
the capacity to absorb and use advanced tech-
nology and, eventually, to produce some of its
own technology so that it does not remain
totally dependent on the advanced industrial
states in this area;
a sizeable (in comparison with other LDCs) pool
of skilled personnel for service abroad (diplo-
matic, commercial, technical, and/or military,
depending on the strategy of influence expan-
sion adopted).
sufficient economic, cultural and political
homogeneity or complementarity with the
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countries of its region that it can act as
an integrative rather than disruptive force.
Of the above factors, the first is probably the one most crucial
to distinguishing which among several potential. second order powers
in a specific region will make a serious attempt to realize that
potential. The other factors are all necessary pre-conditions,
but a country's leaders are likely to strive for second order
-status only if they have a clear strategy of national develop-
ment which is perceived to require for its success an assertive
influence role in its region. And the stronger the belief by
policy makers that the effective modernization of their nation
either depends on externally acquired benefits or could be dis-
rupted by adverse influences from the foreign environment, the
greater the effort will be to extend control over that environ-
ment.
Among the modernization strategy -- foreign environment
linkages that might lead decision-makers aggressively to seek
new influence in their geo-political region are the following:
-- An economic development strategy that depends
heavily on expanding regional export markets
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or having assured access to externally located
raw materials
-- An ideological mind-set of a dominant elite
that their power position depends importantly
on spreading their governing values to the
leaders of other (often surrounding)
countries
-- Perceived danger to the economic or physical
security of the potential second-order power
if nearby countries are controlled by hostile
political forces or subject to chronic political
instability
-- The perception that the potential second-
order power's international bargaining posi-
tion could be improved by extending its values
to other states in its region in order to
build a coalition.
Even with an apparently adequate material, geographic,
and motivational endowment, however, considerable lag time
may occur between the realization by a country's leaders (at
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least as reflected in their rhetoric) that they should seek
regional influence and a serious national effort to do so.
One common cause of this lag is the dead weight imposed by
the country's foreign policy tradition and history. A state
which has traditionally eschewed external involvement, for
example, will tend to move much more slowly and,, at least
initially, have fewer instruments through which to strive to
realize its potential as a regional leader than one which
has been at least sporadically active in attempting to exert
influence in the affairs of its neighbors.*
B. Intra-regional Dynamics of Potential Second Order Powers
In almost all developing areas two or more nations seem
to have the potential to become second order powers and to
establish significant regional spheres of influence. The
politics of these regions is becoming increasingly complex
*Thus Mexico, with its long history of foreign non-involvement,
has much greater inertia to overcome in launching effective
commercial, diplomatic, and technical aid initiatives in the
Caribbean than does Cuba, given the latter's active efforts
to aid revolutionary groups throughout Latin America in the
1960's.
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as the number, frequency and intensity of the interactions of
these potential regional powers mutiplies both among themselves
and with the smaller states of their regions.
There are three aspects of this interaction which parti-
cularly merit analysis since they will directly affect the
opportunities and obstacles facing any potential second order
power which attempts to achieve regional dominance.*
1. The configuration of influence capabilities, national
goals, and perceived national needs among the states of a region.
A state's potential capability for exerting influence depends
on how fortunate it is in its possession of the sources of
national power (e.g., size; population; geographic location;
disposable manpower, organizational and natural resources)
relative to the states it may wish to influence. Its actual
*These aspects of interaction are consolidated and adapted from
those discussed in the following three articles: Louis J. Cantori
and Steven L. Spiegel, "The International Relations of Regions,"
Michael Brecher, "International Relations and Asian Studies:
The Subordinate State System of Southern Asia," and William
Zartman, "Africa as a Subordinate State System in International
Relations." All in Regional Politics and World Order, eds.
Richard A. Falk and Saul H. Mendlovitz (San Francisco: W. H.
Freeman and Co., 1973).
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ability to influence other states, however, and the pattern
of interaction that develops between them depends additionally
on the goals and needs that the decision makers of each state
perceive their nation has. If the mix of capabilities and
goals of one state are particularly congruent with the sus-
ceptibilities of the other states, then it will have a distinct
initial advantage in attempting to expand its influence in the
area. If, to the contrary, its capabilities do not match well
the susceptibilities of the other states, then its ability to
exert influence will be more limited even if it is nominally
the most powerful state in the region.
One region where this kind of differential currently exists
and is apparently affecting patterns of interaction and influ-
ence is the area of the Caribbean. Both Venezuela and Mexico
are, by many objective measures such as GNP, level and amount
of industrial development, territorial and population size,
and available natural resource base, potentially more powerful
nations than Cuba. Yet the latter seems to be rapidly gaining
more influence in Jamaica and Guyana than are the two larger
countries. One major reason for this apparent discrepancy
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is that Cuba's existing influence capabilities match up much
more closely with the perceived needs of the leaders of Jamaica
and Guyana than do those of Mexico and Venezuela. The Prime
Ministers of both of the former nations have committed themselves
to developing their countries into socialist states led by very
strong government parties. They are also interested in improving
the productivity of a variety of domestic industries (e.g.,
fisheries, sugar cane growing and processing) and providing
expanded public benefits for their working class supporters
(e.g., low cost housing, paramedic services in rural areas).
Finally, both Prime Ministers believe they need enhanced personal
security to protect themselves from political enemies, and
they desire to begin the ideological indoctrination of their
intelligence services and armed forces to make them more responsive
to political control. Cuba is much better equipped with the
trained personnel, organizational competence, and technical
knowledge necessary to meet these needs than are Mexico or
Venezuela. Over the short run, at least, the greater potential
capability of the latter countries to supply capital. markets,
or higher technology are not as relevant to the immediate
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perceived needs of the Jamaican and Guyanese government leaders
and, hence, the spread of their influence is not as rapid.
2. The nature of inter-state relations within the region.
This aspect refers to the kind, quantity, and intensity of
interactions among the members of a region. The types of
data sought might include exchanges of diplomatic, technical,
military and commercial personnel, tourist and immigration
flows, subregional trading and investment patterns, and channels
and types of communications (e.g., mail, mass media, transporta-
tion links). Analysis of this data should reveal the range,
frequency, number, and importance (in terms of results produced
as related to essential national concerns) of the entire network
of transactions between and among the countries of a region.
From this kind of analysis it should then be possible to draw
empirically based conclusions about what patterns of influence
actually exist, what the preferred means are of each country
for attempting to exert influence, and whether the means used
by two countries in a third country tend to put the two in
competition with each other or, in fact, tend not to overlap.
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3. The rules and structures of regional interaction.
States which interact with each other will, over time, usually
develop a consensus about acceptable modes of behavior towards
each other, both in terms of hierarchies of agreed on goals and
limits on permissible means for achieving those goals. These
"rules" usually function as guidelines for policy decisions
and are reinforced to the extent that decisions are made in
conformity with them or changed if decisions regularly break
them. Occasionally, some of these rules of intra-regional
behavior are codified in security pacts (NATO, SEATO) or eco-
nomic unions (European Common Market, Andean Pact), but, more
often, they remain at the level of implicit understandings.
One analyst, for example, has enumerated four systemic rules
which he believes influences the behavior of African states
towards each other. They range from a consensus that inter-
nally generated regional solutions are to be preferred over
externally imposed solutions to African problems, to a general
agreement that wars of conquest are not acceptable policy
alternatives for resolving disputes among the states of the
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region.* Similar kinds of guidelines to policy choices, in
addition to ones unique to a particular regional environment,
can probably be found among any grouping of states with enough
cohesion to be considered a region. Understanding these implicit
rules can shed useful light on what some of the openings or
barriers may be for the pursuit of influence by a potential
second order power.
To one degree or another the three aspects of regional
politics described above are in a state of flux in all the devel-
oping areas of the. world. In order to attempt to understand
how political relations may evolve in any particular region,
and especially which countries are moving most rapidly and
certainly towards regional power status, a set of criteria
for measuring change must be sought. In part these criteria
*Zartman, op. cit., pp, 393-395. The partial functioning
of the first "rul le"may help account for the stand off that
developed at the Organization of African Unity summit meeting
as January 1976 which considered the question of whether or
not to recognize the Soviet and Cuban backed Popular Movement
as the legal government of Angola. The draft resolution sub-
mitted by the Anti-Popular Movement Group (22 of the repre-
sented countries) denounced all foreign intervention and called
on the three warring Angolan groups to agree on a government
of national unity.
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will involve assessing internal economic and political develop-
ment within each potential second order power since each incre-
ment of additional economic strength, internal political unity,
and/or governing efficiency enhances national power, and, there-
fore, a country's putative ability to influence or coerce the
other countries in its region.
Of probably greater importance, however, in terms of
whether and how relations within a region are actually changing
are criteria for determining if and in what fashion a country
is converting its potential power into an actual reach for
new influence. Some of the indicators that might be watched
are the following:
-- Restructuring of military forces to enhance
regional deployment and sea control capabilities.
-- Substantial new commitment of national manpower
resources to regional diplomatic, commercial,
technical training or military activities.
-- Changes in immigration policies and tourist flows
which have the effect of noticeably increasing
the movement of people between the potential
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second order power and the countries of its
region.
-- Efforts to increase transportation and communi-
cation ties with the region (e.g., expansion and
redirection of national shipping and airlines
capabilities to other states in the area; extension
of road or railroad networks, or electrical power
grids into adjoining states).
-- Significant new trade or investment initiatives,
especially efforts to supply goods or capital
vital to another regional state's own moderniza-
tion plans.
-- A drive to expand social contacts, especially
with rising young leaders from other regional
states through such means as increased educa-
tional exchanges or offers to host regional
organizations.
In sum, an analyst of regional power hierarchies should look
for these kinds of indicators of change and examine them against
an outline of, first, how the internal dynamics of potential
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second order powers in the area affect their drive for regional
influence and, secondly, how and to what degree the region is
susceptible to influence expansion. Such an analysis should
reveal:
-- Which potential second order powers have the
best internal and external conditions for
realizing their regional ambitions
-- The degree of potential or actual compat-
bility or conflict among the strategies and
areas of expansion of the putative regional
powers, and
-- The eventual patterns of relations and struc-
tures of power that might develop if politics
in the region evolved autonomously.
C. Extra-Regional Dynamics of Second Order Powers
Obviously, regional politics will not evolve independ-
ently of external influences. One set of influences are global
trends, such as world-wide economic upturns and downturns or
major wars fought outside the region, over which second-order
powers have virtually no influence and the impact of which
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on regional political developments would be very difficult to
predict. Another set of influences, however, are more directly
tied to decisions that second-order powers make and, hence,
more susceptible to analysis. Two of the most important of
these factors are the degree to which a regional power can
successfully manipulate its relationships with one or more
major (first order) powers, and the nature and extent of the
links a second order power can develop with other, extra-
regional, second order powers.*
1. Relations with Major Powers: Most second order
powers are involved in ambiguous relations with one or more
major powers. Although trade and other relations among second
order powers are expanding, the primary inputs for their rapid
development in the way of markets, capital, and technology
will continue to come, for the foreseeable future, from the
major industrial powers. At the same time, one of the marks
of a second order power is that it has the ability to increase
its autonomy of action in certain spheres, often at an apparent
* Cohen, op. cit., pp. 28-29.
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cost to the interests of the major power upon which it has been
traditionally dependent. As potential second order powers
compete for dominance in a region, therefore, one important
element of success will be the degree to which each state can
resolve the ambiguity in its favor. The strongest competitor
will generally be the one which can obtain the most benefits
from its major power relationships at the least cost to its
ability to act independently. For example, a developing state
which can diversify its commerce so that it is less dependent
on trading with a single partner can thereby gain important
advantages when policy conflicts arise with that partner.
In this fashion Brazil achieved sufficient freedom of action
to negotiate successfully with West Germany for the uranium
enrichment and reprocessing technology and facilities that the
US refused to sell but, at the same time, did not lose the
essential benefits it already receives from access to US
markets, technology and private investment.
2. Links with Other Second Order Powers: In order to
gain recognition of its elevated (in comparison with other
developing countries) power status and to gain leverage in
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world affairs that directly affect its well-being, a second
order power needs to establish on-going relationships with
second order powers outside its own region. The strength of
these relationships and the benefits derivable from them will
affect the political and economic influence of a state within
its region just as the regional solidarity it can create for
its own policies will directly contribute to its attractive-
ness as an ally of other, extra-regional second order powers.
Thus, Venezuela's influence in Latin America is strengthened
by its alliance, through OPEC, with other extra-regional powers,
while its position in OPEC is enhanced by the support it can
create for OPEC policies in its own region.
III. IMPLICATIONS
The central argument of this study is that considerable
uncertainty exists with respect to how newly evolving intra-
regional power and influence relationships will work out and
that this state of flux in regional politics will have a major
impact on the maintenance and pursuit of US political, economic,
and military interests in the developing world over the next
five to ten years. That is, the increased capability of some
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developing nations to assert their own national interests either
bilaterally with the US or in multilateral forums by forming
coalitions with other developing nations both inside and out-
side their own regions appears to be a significant new development
in international politics. But the power differential between
the developed and the developing world (and particularly between
the US and any potential competitors among the developing nations)
remains so vast that phenomenon itself of the rise of second
order powers either alone or in loose coalitions will probably
not prove an unmanageable obstacle for realizing essential US
policy preferences, at least over the short to medium term.
Of considerable greater moment to US policy making over this
term, however, will be the unstable environment likely to be
created in most of the geo-political regions of the developing
world by the quest for new influence by the leading nations in
each of these regions. For one thing, as the number of actors
who can affect US regional interests increases and as the com-
petition for power and influence among the actors grows, deciding
which actors to support on which issues will become much more
complicated. More generally, both the struggle for dominance
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and uncertainty as to the outcome are likely to bring about
turmoil in which US interests, to the extent they are best
served by maintenance of the status quo or very slow and
orderly evolution, will often suffer.
Within this broad trend, a variety of types of regional
power and influence alignments may appear, each of which will
pose different opportunities and challenges to US relations
with the countries in that area. Major powers, such as the
US, will have some ability to affect whatever regional patterns
that do evolve. But it is likely that the primary influence
that shapes regional trends will be developments within the
region itself: both the rapidity and direction of development
exhibited by the strongest countries of each region and the
way in which intra-regional relations work out among those
countries. Eventually, in some regions it is possible that
a single dominant power will emerge. In that circumstance
US relations with the region as a whole will probably be de-
termined largely by the state of bilateral relations with
that second order power and, as a corollary, the US will be
able increasingly to devote most of its attention in that
region to that single relationship.
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It is much more likely, however, that issues of regional
dominance will not be settled so neatly in most regions of the
the world in the next ten years. Three other patterns, each
one depending on a different evolution of combinations of
conflict and cooperation among potential second order powers
in a single region, are more probable. Each pattern poses
somewhat different policy problems and opportunities for the US.
One pattern that might develop is a relatively coopera-
tive but narrow set of relations between two potential regional
powers. While this arrangement is probably the least likely
of the three to persist for a long period because it is in-
herently unstable if both countries intend to become dominant
in their region, it exists at least as a transitory condition
in some regions today and could develop in other regions over
the next five to ten years.* One condition bringing about
*This is the kind of relationship that exists today between
Mexico and Venezuela. Their two Presidents have a strong
affinity for each other, and they have cooperated in establish-
ing a new regional organization, the Latin American Economic
System (SELA). SELA excludes the US and is dedicated to
advancing broad Latin American interests. While the two coun-
tries have worked together closely to set up SELA, to date
other organizational, political, economic and cultural ties
between them are not particularly numerous or intense.
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this pattern would be the continued uneven movement by two
countries towards second order status in the same region in
which one country moves rapidly to establish regional influence
while the other (with the potential power but without much
motivation) moves more slowly. Another condition under which
cooperative but only moderately active relations could exist
would be if their drives for regional influence began in rela-
tively non-competitive areas. Thus, for example, there need
not be any immediate conflict between a state attempting to
develop strong military or cultural relations with the countries
in its region and one attempting to create strong commercial
relations in the same area.
As long as the initial drive-to regional influence by
one country was not perceived as directly threatening or
limiting by the other, they could, for some period of time,
cooperate on some regional and global issues, sometimes to
the possible detriment of the US. This cooperation could
involve, for example, closely tied positions on an issue of
overriding economic importance, such as a common oil policy
towards the US by two oil producers in the same. region (e.g.,
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Mexico and Venezuela), or on political issues of common concern
(e.g., race among the Black-dominated states of southern Africa).
The major policy problem for the US in dealing with this
kind of pattern is that the level of uncertainty about how
the situation will evolve is usually quite high. It is difficult
to know what the long term consequences will be of a policy
choice to support one country against another or to attempt
to negotiate solutions that will apply to the region at large.
Success and failure are difficult to predict since regional
relationships are often changing, or soon likely to change,
rapidly. The opposite side of this coin is that, simply because
regional relationships are unstable, opportunities for exerting
influence from outside may be greater and may have more impact
now than when regional patterns are more firmly established.
Another possible pattern would feature a persistent high
level of conflict between two competitors for regional domination.
Policy options for the US in this case might range from neutrality
(if no major US interest were threatened), to attempting to mediate
or moderate the conflict (particularly, for example, if the oppo-
nents possessed crude nuclear capabilities and the conflict was
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verging on open warfare), to intercession on the side of a pre-
ferred candidate for control of the region. Two regions where
this kind of pattern might develop are South America (between
Brazil and Argentina should the latter recover economically)
and South Asia (between Iran and India).
A third pattern that might develop is an implicit balance-
of-power arrangement in which two (or possibly three) potential
regional powers agreed on the division of the area into sub-
regional spheres of influence. This might occur in the Carib-
bean, for example, if Mexico became the dominant influence in
Central America, Cuba among the Caribbean island states, and
Venezuela turned its attention primarily toward the west coast
of South America (the Andean Pact countries). In this situa-
tion the three second order powers could choose to cooperate
with each other on an issue-by-issue basis, leaving the US to
deal with them bilaterally on problems involving their sub-
regional spheres of influence and multi-laterally (either
negotiating a regional settlement or attempting to divide
them) on regional issues or global issues on which they have
attempted to reach a regional position.
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Whatever power patterns develop in individual regions the
likelihood is that, over the next five to ten years, regional
politics in general will become more complex, more relevant
to the shape of the global political system, and of greater
salience to US policy making. In a few areas, making policy
choices may become relatively simpler if a single second order
power develops which will take on some responsibility for eco-
nomic growth and political stability in the area and with which
the US can deal as a spokesman for the entire region. In most
others, however, regional politics may complicate international
relations generally and create difficult policy choices for the
US, especially if competition for dominance in a region escalates
to open conflict. Finally, it is highly probable that US interests
in every region, whether political relations within the region
are peaceful or full of discord, will come under increasingly
critical scrutiny, and even attack, as regional interests and
concerns become more sharply defined and aggressively expressed.
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