REGIONAL GROUPINGS: ISLANDS OF HOPE

THE sovereign nation-state remains the world's strongest force, its basic political, economic and military unit. Yet the institution can be fatally inadequate today, even among large and wealthy nations, let alone small and under-developed countries. On the Other hand, the dream of global union among all nations is as remote and Utopian as ever. But between the two concepts--the individual nation and the "federation of the world"--an important middle ground is emerging. It is the regional grouping.

The idea is scarcely spectacular or novel; it is as old as the combinations of Greek city-states, or the Hanseatic and other trading leagues of the late Middle Ages. However, after centuries of rampant nationalism, it has acquired new force. In some parts of the world, its potential is downright revolutionary.

What University of California Political Scientist Ernst Haas calls "ever-expanding islands of cooperation" have grown markedly in the past two decades. The military associations--NATO, CENTO and SEATO--stemmed from the threat of Communist aggression. Partly because of their success, they are now somewhat in disarray, looking for new, mainly diplomatic functions. The political groupings, from the Council of Europe to the creaky Arab League, are mere debating societies. By far the most important and promising groupings are economic, and the model that inspires all of them is the Common Market. By bringing down tariff barriers within a vast community of 180 million people, the Market rejuvenated Europe, demonstrated the power of modified free enterprise in the face of socialist theory, and changed the balance of forces in the world.

One measure of this success is the fact that Prime Minister Harold Wilson, long opposed to joining the European Six, seems converted to the cause. Last week he stumped the Continent to gain support for British membership. If Charles de Gaulle ever withdraws his veto and lets Britain in, there will be other prompt applications for Common Market membership; most of the seven members of the European Free Trade Association, which has achieved a success of its own, want to join.

Mainstay of Policy

What Europe has accomplished cannot be simply duplicated. A developed industrial base, good lines of communication, a common purpose--these were some of Europe's indispensable assets in developing regional organization. They are lacking elsewhere. The very countries that need economic integration most are least ready for it, which helps explain regionalism's often disappointing record.

The idea is anathema to some scholars, who charge that it turns nations "inward." Yet, as President Johnson made clear in his State of the Union speech, the encouragement of regional groupings has become a mainstay of U.S. foreign policy. Apart from the obvious economic advantages-- larger markets, more trade, greater efficiency--it is psychologically easier for small countries to deal with big ones as a sizable group rather than as individuals. Old, emotional, "anti-imperialist" slogans tend to fade as little nations develop pride in their own mutual programs. Cambodia's Prince Norodom Sihanouk angrily threw American AID officials out of his country, but he gladly accepts U.S. help as part of the international development program for the Mekong River. Says White House Adviser Walt Rostow: "We have realized that the poor are also proud, that they wish to have more dignified, less dependent relations with the big powers, and they are beginning to come together."

The most hopeful event in Asia today, Washington believes, is the sudden blooming of regional cooperation among countries that for centuries were divided by animosity. Japan, long passive, last year sponsored a regional Southeast Asia economic conference before which Prime Minister Eisaku Sato declared: "Blood is thicker than water. We are all brothers, born and raised in Asia." Dozens of new organizations have sprung to life, ranging from APO (Asian Productivity Organization) to SEAMES (Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Secretariat). Many of the ideas have been spawned by the U.N.'s energetic regional branch, called ECAFE (Economic Commission for the Far East), which has sponsored conferences on every subject from city planning to child welfare. The Colombo Plan mixes assistance from six donor nations (Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the U.S.) with mutual help from 18 largely recipient countries in a loose system of cooperation; it thus encourages recipients themselves to give to their own needier neighbors.

Still in the fragile and formative stages, the Association of Southeast Asia (ASA) has brought Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines together for a series of meetings on economic and social cooperation. The experts are talking about selective tariff reductions and a possible joint shipping line.

Nine Far Eastern nations have begun work on the larger Asian and Pacific Council (ASPAC), established in Seoul last June. ASPAC's goals are also modest: economic, social and cultural coordination, a technicians' pool, and a commodity and fertilizer bank. Its membership--the three ASA countries, plus Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, South Viet Nam, Australia and New Zealand--is particularly interesting. For one thing, it underlines the new willingness of both Japan and Australia to play important roles in Asian affairs. Both nations are also leading figures in the new 32-member Asian Development Bank, which opened its doors last month with an initial planned capitalization of $1 billion.

A New Model

The nature of things in the next decade is certain to push Japan southward into the rich markets and swirling politics of its Asian neighbors. Australia, just as certainly, is being driven northward to meet responsibilities it has shrugged off for generations. The two old foes of two decades ago already share some surprising ties. In twelve years, Australia's exports to Japan quadrupled, and the Japanese are the second largest customers for Australian wool. Australia's Prime Minister Harold Holt admits that his concept of relations with Asia has undergone great change, and frankly credits it to "the marriage of our own raw material and primary production to Japan's enormous industrial potential."

There would be economic sense in further Asian groupings. A revival of Sukarno's Maphilindo (Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia), which fell apart because of his own anti-Malaysia campaign, would furnish markets for Indonesia's untapped riches. If some military and political stability can ever be achieved, a logical common market would be the Southeast Asia peninsula, including Burma, with its interlaced river network providing needed transportation. And, except for Japanese-Korean animosity, Japan could reduce its production costs by farming out some industries to South Korea, where people need the jobs, and aim for Taiwan as a market.

Says Kukrit Pramoji, a leading Thai journalist: "The prime desire for most Asians in this region is to write 'Yankee Go Home' on every wall. It's in their subconscious, even though they realize the Americans mean well and we need their protection. Now we're trying to build a substitute for the United States--a United States of Asia. That's the dream now." It is only a paper dream, when measured against the near chaos that prevails in much of Asia. Still, it is significant that Asian countries no longer look to Communist China as the model for economic development, are willing to submerge at least some old feuds in a common desire for selfhelp.

Though the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) has atrophied, it has left behind a taste for joint effort among its regional members: Turkey, Iran and Pakistan. The three have formed a loose union called Regional Cooperation for Development (RCD). A joint shipping line is already in operation, and there is talk of merging the three national airlines. Elsewhere in the Near and Middle East, endemic Arab disunity has stalled virtually all joint efforts, which, theoretically, could have great potential. Arab-owned oil pipelines and tanker fleets would make economic sense, as would joint development of petrochemicals and regional coordination of agricultural production and marketing. And, of course, given the millennium and peace between Israel and the Arabs, all sorts of opportunities would open up for the lands of the Fertile Crescent, including a kind of TVA for the Jordan River. Africa in general is bursting with newly independent countries that are nations in name only, neither economically nor politically viable; often their borders arbitrarily cut across trade or tribal lines. Regional groups would be an eminently sensible solution, but most black African countries are too new, too sensitive about their precious sovereignty to cooperate. Besides, their economies are often too backward, the raw materials they produce too similar, for successful integration.

Jealousy & Pride

Still, there do exist many organizations, from the Desert Locust Control Organization to the Addis Ababa-based 38-country Organization of African Unity. The OAU has managed to cool off a couple of nasty local frontier conflicts, but on matters of major, continent-wide significance, it has failed to find a consensus. The organization has long been split into two feuding camps, with the dozen-odd former French colonies (once called the "Brazzaville group") aligned against the radical plans of the so-called "Casablanca crowd." At present, the radicals are not doing very well, while the Brazzaville group formed the Organisation Commune Africaine et Malgache (OCAM), which has economic and social ties as well as a strong anti-Communist political purpose. In East Africa, the British bequeathed to Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda the smooth-running machinery for the East African Common Services Organization (EACSO) under which the three countries shared a common currency, post and telegraph, customs and immigration systems. But jealousy and pride have eroded the association.

Logic suggests additional regional groups in Africa. Now that copper-rich Zambia's feud with Rhodesia threatens its southward rail routes to the sea, Zambia is switching its exports and imports eastward to Tanzania's Indian Ocean port. Zambia will also be buying more East African goods, one reason why it joined six other nations in a provisional East African economic pact. But progress is bound to be excruciatingly slow. The pace may be faster on the continent's south- ern tip, where the late Hendrik Verwoerd hoped for a common market between his highly industrialized South Africa, Rhodesia, and the Portuguese colonies in the area.

Glimmer in Latin America

The Organization of American States (OAS) traces its lineage back to Simon Bolivar's dream of a continental community, but it is inhibited by vacillation, suspicion, pride, and the constant worry of Latins about others' intervention in their domestic affairs. Latin sensitivities have pretty well killed the idea of a permanent inter-American peace-keeping force. Things look slightly brighter on the economic side. By far the best hope for regional cooperation in Latin America is the Central American Common Market (CACM), which includes Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. Though its members are beset by poor organization, poor income distribution and too much emphasis on prestige items, it has achieved a startling increase of commerce within its area: from $33 million worth in 1961 to about $157 million last year. A corps of senior officials accustomed to thinking in terms of the whole region is growing up in each national civil service.

But the remarkable rate of increase in intraregional trade cannot go on forever, and eventually there will be a need for wider markets. An ideal solution would be an agreement between the Central Americans and the larger Latin American Free Trade Association, a ten-member group (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela) that has achieved far less than the smaller bloc to the north.

The U.N.'s Raul Prebisch, architect of LAFTA and leading lobbyist for the underdeveloped nations, believes that regional integration is an absolute must, but deplores lack of "bold decisions." The typical attitude of the Latin American businessman is protectionist, welcoming tariff cuts only if they affect the other fellow.

Such shortsightedness has hampered the progress of regional development everywhere, and so has a weakness for too lofty goals. Columbia University Sociologist Amitai Etzioni states a basic principle in the design of such groupings: "The higher the aim, the lower the score." Yet given realistic expectations, the regional community spirit gives considerable cause for hope. Its achievements so far are only small bricks in the "big pieces of architecture," which Washington's Walt Rostow sees necessary for successful groupings. Small they may be, but they are real.

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