OPINION: National security and foreign policy not for ideologues

Last Updated on Sunday, 23 March 2025, 12:25 by Writer

By Randy Persaud, Ph.D.

A recent piece – “The PPP state and the advent of Trump: Implications for Guyana’s domestic and foreign policy,” (Demerara Waves, March 21, 2025) is exactly what should not be taken seriously when it comes to this country’s foreign policy and national security. National security and foreign policy are of vital importance to a country’s sovereignty, security, and international standing. It is serious business and, accordingly, there is no room for amateurish speculations or ideological atavisms. Let me deal with the most elementary and egregious errors in Dr Nigel Westmaas’ little excursion.

The article claims that the PPP “… appears ready to crystallize a drastic shift in Guyana’s ideological trajectory…” Let me be direct: there is no such thing as “Guyana’s ideological trajectory.” The foreign policy practices during the 1970s and 1980s were aimed at earning some legitimacy for a regime that had rigged every election in the country since 1968, and that ruled on the basis of party paramountcy. The PNC long-winded sermons on global justice and equality were not credible, because there was no justice right here.

The PNC’s “ideological trajectory” during the starvation decades of the 1970s-1980s can be summarized in the following points: (1) use the rhetoric of fighting imperialism to justify authoritarian rule in Guyana, and (2) use the ideology of Cooperative Socialism to nationalize foreign corporations and intimidate local businesses in order to centralize the economy under PNC Party leadership. This is not an ideological trajectory that Guyana should follow.

For its part, the PPP did have strong commitments to universal principles of peace and progress. Its main ‘ideological’ commitments have been as follows: (1) pursue policies that lift the working people; (2) government should be based on the will of people where this is expressed in free and fair elections, and (3) work with like-minded states to secure a more peaceful world built around what Dr. Cheddi Jagan called a New Global Human Order.

We all know that the PPP made some significant changes to its constitution at its 32nd Congress in May 2024.

The most egregious part of the article by Nigel Westmaas under consideration here, is the claim that Guyana’s stronger relations with the United States under President Donald Trump is problematic, and could even be “dangerous.” And, what is the danger, you ask? Well, for Westmaas, it is that Guyana’s foreign policy has apparently given up on the high-sounding ideological rhetoric from decades gone by. Apropos, what will apparently suffice now, is for President Ali to use extreme left-wing soundbites, combined with maudlin narratives of catastrophic oppression. Anything short of trans-historical and transcendental metaphysics, is a sell-out of our supposed ideological groundings.

The troubling thing about “The PPP state and the advent of Trump…” is how oblivious it is to the two most compelling events of national importance to this country over the past five years.

Firstly, Dr Westmaas is completely silent on the fact that it was the Trump administration that intervened in order to save democracy in Guyana in 2020. Instead of this, we get a dump of irrelevant matter on the 1980 Constitution that has been used by every administration since it came into existence. The PNC-AFC did everything in their power to steal the 2020 elections, and had some senior members of the ruling regime not been threatened with personal sanctions, the outcome of the 2020 elections might have be entirely different. I can tell Dr Westmaas that during those critical months of 2020, I was personally in contact with Michael G. Kozak, the then Deputy Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs. I haven’t forgotten what transpired.

Secondly, it is shocking that only the scantest of attention is given to the menacing Venezuelan threat to Guyana. Venezuela is mentioned just once. The American commitment to Guyana’s security is labelled simply as “beneficial.” Venezuela poses a grave danger to Guyana’s territorial sovereignty, and we are truly grateful to the United States, U.K., the Netherlands, France, and others for standing by our side.

Experts who study national security, and professionals (including the military and intelligence communities) whose task it is to protect the territorial integrity and national sovereignty of this country do not have time for nonsense about the ideology of the 1960s and 1970s. Nor are they locked forever in the “dreary sands of dead [ideological] habits.” A foreign policy that is intelligent and effective must be based on what we have before us today. Where national security is concerned, it is not only those who will talk for you that counts; it is also those who have the means, the resolve, and the declared commitment to have your back in an hour of existential need, that matters.

I recently wrote that Secretary of State Marco Rubio knows this region well, perhaps better than any other Secretary of State in living memory. That should serve Guyana and the Caribbean well. Rubio was voted in by all 99 of US Senators, a rare achievement. If the United States Senate is so forthcoming in support of Rubio, we should not worry about silly noises that emanate from within the ranks of the APNU-AFC and their intellectual locums.

Dr. Randy Persaud is Professor Emeritus at American University, Washington, D.C., and an adviser in the Guyana Office of the President.