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Culture and Conflict
No. 2, Summer 1991
"The Southern Threat ": Images and Realities
In France as in the United States, some lobbies eminating from the " security sector " are nowadays seen to accept with difficulty the end of the Cold War and the loss of their know-how for dealing with an Eastern threat. We can thus see the foundations for the creation of the general ideology of a Southern threat which, looking at its contents, is the mirror image of the ideology of a Western threat developed by islamist propaganda in the Maghreb and which is furthermore constructed on similar rhetoric structures as McCarthyism. The author analyses the conditions for the emergence of such an ideology, the autonomisation of the discourse from reality, and which are the groups having interest in or believing that the " Southern threat " is adequate to describe the new dangers faced by Western democracies. Could the real danger appear to be the creation of a self-fulfilling prophecy ?
The end of the East/West confrontation gave hope for the arrival of a new age in international relations distinguished by the search for co-operation and peace. The Gulf War has disrupted such an expectation and has been a clear reminder that, during the eighties, the gap between " North " and " South " grew deeper. All matters in dispute are now made worse, questioning the stability of a World Order, of which the " North ", mainly the Western world, is the first to profit from. The diffuse temptation of resorting to war seems the ultimate attempt to oversimplify and solve problems which have no military solution.
In a first section, the authors draw a geopolitical sketch of world armaments : if some countries (in sub-Saharan Africa) are almost defenceless, others do have weapons but with a low ability to use them ; they also point out the emergence of a few poles of military power such as India, China, Iran, Iraq and Brazil. This unstable equilibrium and its effects are studied in a second section : difficulties and perverse effects of supervising the arms trade, high costs for intervention in the South (the Gulf War). A situation which leads to two kinds of risks : on one side terrorism, uncontrolled migrations or narco-traffics, on the other, a risk of proliferation of high technology weapons and the growth of conventional military machineries. In such a case, only a new type of co-operation might help to make clear that having recourse to arms is the worst way to settle the disagreements between North and South. for the emergence of such an ideo
Concerning the nuclear, ballistic and chemical key-fields, Western countries have become progressively aware of the risk of proliferation induced by any international transfers of technology, specially towards a fair number of developing countries. At a time when the Gulf conflict has revived these proliferation fears and provoked related initiatives, one has to admit that the " non-proliferation " concept, in comparison with the usual issues of controlling arms sales, as with Cocom's restrictions on sales of dual-use industrial goods, has both a political and a technical specificity. Northern industrialised powers (including the USSR) seem longing for a non-proliferation policy both new and global in its means and principles. A North-South technological " straight line of conduct " could thus be settled.
The real character of a threat from the " South " cannot be denied or affirmed a priori. A precondition should be that a " South " exists. It is obvious that during the Gulf War, no active solidarity for Iraq, apart from local opinion movements, arose in the " presumed South ". Then, it is of little importance that real grievances exist and, moreover, that some states of the " South " have a relative nuisance ability. If any real " threat from the South " were to exist, an international system based on the " Northern supremacy " would still have, for a long time and to the prejudice of Law, the means to prevent and avert it.
The Gulf War made obvious the opposing interests confronting the North to the Maghreb's masses. Facing the integration of thousands of North African immigrants, the North fears the consequences of a continuing crisis in the Maghreb. The author tries to evaluate the objective reality behind these threats : if the danger of a massive South/North migration is not unfounded, its scale will depend much upon the success or eventual failure of a codevelopment programme. As for the risk of a direct and extended armed conflict, it remains highly hypothetical if we consider the disproportion between the opposing military forces. However, the outcomes in the North of the present uncertainty in Maghreb must not be ignored. To make an inference, the author analyses conditions for the creation of a new security pact organised to prevent the occurrence of new crises around a possible new common judicial sphere.
Possible threats emanating from South Asia are no longer embedded in the challenge posed by the growing might of an India championing the South or by the risk of a regional war that could degenerate into a global one. In light of the recent socio-political developments - before and during the Gulf War - it seems that the main threat lies in the possible disruptions of international order stemming from internal law and order problems (related to increasing smuggling of arms and drugs, due to cross-boundary terrorism or simply derived from fiercer political competition between social communities). Though suggesting that changes in Pakistan's foreign policy are under way and proving that India is not ready for a reversal of its own approach to North-South problems, events that unfolded during the Gulf War mainly proved that drifts are induced by overbidding between weak parties. Thus, mounting fundamentalism and regionalism, nurtured by rising and unfulfilled expectations, menace regional and global stability more directly than the risk of pursuing conscious policies of military challenge to the Northern supremacy.
Viewed from Austral Africa, particularly Mozambique, the Gulf War cannot be appraised solely by its heavy consequences on African states needing international care to achieve fragile peace processes. Either on financial or on political levels, consequences are tremendous. The fight against apartheid has been dismissed to the backstage of the international scene. Politically and economically forgotten, Mozambique, as all the other peripheral States, are the great losers of the war. If nobody really approves of Saddam Hussein in a part of Africa where the leading regional power, South Africa, has never stopped transgressing its neighbour's borders, local support for Iraq deepens its roots in the refusal of a tutelage by the Rich of the Poor.
Close to the USA, but nevertheless an important member of OPEC, Venezuela was particularly affected by the Gulf crisis. Discussions concerned petrol and the use to be made of additional profits gained through the rising price of the barrel, the correlative amplitude of corruption and the selfishness of Washington's policy, not hesitating to sell its strategic reserves on the international market. At the same time, Saddam Hussein found supporters among Venezuelan people, an attitude dictated by the anti-imperialist feeling still prevalent in Latin America.
If the East can be considered a duplicate of the West and their rivalry a mirror game, the conflict with the " South " questions the " North's " self-identity and sends it back to its internal contradictions. For the " South ", as a candidate for work, is reflecting the " North's " past. Thus, the " Southern threat " traps the " North " and confines it in its own distresses.