1981 will probably be a year of global food shortage

Stepping ambivalently into 1981, the planet finds its present uneasy and its future probably more tense. A year is but a benchmark in the continuum of time; it is born with the footprints of the past and it transposes those and its own footprints to the year it must yield to. Thus 1981, then, becomes a projection of 1980. However, some of the tensions and conflicts which lurked on the horizon of 1980 are bound to come to the centre of world affairs in 1981. For instance, the direct, face-to-face confrontation between the two superpowers that has been building since 1979 march a climactic peak in 1981 in the Persian Gulf or in Eastern Europe, or in both regions at the same time. The global arms race that was set off in 1979 will acquire serious proportions in 1981, consuming too much of the earth's resources and leaving too little for human welfare. Liberalism as a political force will suffer a major setback on a global scale.Striking Polish workers celebrating mass and (right) Afghan rebles: Major threats to Soviet powerIt will be a more hawkish world, a world more tightly in the grip of inflation and recession, with many millions out of jobs in the advanced capitalist countries, with the socialist economies feeling the crunch as never before since the advent of detente. The 10 per cent price hike of petroleum by the OPEC in December is only the first economic fall-out of the wasting war between Iraq and Iran. As both nations pay the wages of war in 1981, the price of oil will go up further, creating unbearable problems for the poor nations of the world.And, to crown it all, 1981 will probably be a year of global food shortage, creating hunger and famine in several lands. Like oil, this will become a naked weapon for the countries that constitute the earth's granary with which to frame foreign policies in a crises ridden world. The present international crisis is unlike the many crises that have been mankind's constant companion since World War II. Firstly, the gravity of great power conflicts has shifted decisively to the arc of crisis extending from the Persian Gulf to the Horn of Africa. Secondly, the conflict has brought the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, for the first time, face-to-face in the Third World. America was involved in the pasting several "local conflicts" in the Third World. But, each time it worked from behind the shielding screen provided by a colonial power of Western Europe. Even in Vietnam, the United States did not engage the Soviet Union, but the North Vietnamese were aided by Moscow and Beijing. Indeed, both Presidents Johnson and Nixon sought and received Soviet help in negotiating with Hanoi. In Angola, too, the Soviets and the Americans fought a shadow battle obviously at safe physical distance from one another. But this norm has not been followed in the case of the Persian Gulf and Afghanistan.1981 then, could well witness a perilous meshing of Europe and its southern flank, the Persian Gulf, into a single zone of conflict, blurring the frontiers between the First, Second and Third Worlds.Leadership Grab: The peculiar character of this confrontation is that the former colonial powers of Europe are reluctant to share the American burden; are in fact, anxious to restrain an aroused United States. The confrontation assumes aspects of an apocalypse because both the superpowers are new nations, easily inflamed by ideologies and passions; both cling to then-respective manifest destinies Americans perceive the Soviets as determined to snatch away what has been for all these years their exclusive preserve - world leadership. In 1979-80, Americans world leadership suffered a pale setback in Iran. The issues and conflicts of 1981 will determine to a large extent whether Uncle Sam is going to retrieve its leading role or lose it for ever.What makes 1981 a more dangerous year than 1980 is the threat building up to the stability of the Soviet bloc in Eastern Europe. The crisis in Poland is very unlike the crises in Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Polish communism has had a rather tenuous social base; the bid to bring about rapid industrialisation, with an overdose of credits readily supplied by the West, has destabilised the communist political system in a way it could not have happened in Czechoslovakia and Hungary simply because the times were different. (From left) Reagan, Deng and Brezhnev: Poker for high stakesThe Soviet leaders have fully realised the grave implications of military-intervention to save the communist regime in Poland. It would almost certainly kill detente even in Europe for at least several years and compel the West Europeans to line up behind the US policy of confrontation. At the same time, Moscow is almost reluctant to let Poland cut loose from the socialist bloc, and will move in with its military might if all other options are closed. The year 1981, then, could well witness a perilous meshing of Europe and its southern Hank, the Persian Gulf, into a single one of conflict, blurring the frontiers between the First, Second and Third Worlds. The two world wars of this century both originated in or over the Balkans. The Balkans alone cannot probably trigger the third world war. But a conflict engaging NATO and Warsaw Pact powers and meshing with a major clash in the Gulf could well ignite a Third World war, especially in view of the fact that America is getting noisily ready to fight and win a "limited" nuclear war, and counter-preparations are proceeding quietly in the Soviet Union too.If Reagan does not play ball with China, 1981 may deliver the shock of the decade in the form of a rapprochement between Moscow and Beijing. In Strategic Survey 1979, the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies correctly predicted that "Third World crises would increasingly affect international security in the '80s." It noted an important difference between security challenges in the Third World and East-West security. The survey states: "In the traditional sphere of East-West security, the problems affecting the maintenance of deterrance can be solved, if not through arms control, then, through arms. The security challenges in the Third World will be less clear-cut both in their origin and in the responses they require. The clear limitation of military force for promoting influence and stability in the Third World generally favour those with other instruments at their disposal. The Soviet Union's reliance on military means (in Afghanistan) was a reflection not so much of the utility of military power as of a lack of alternative instruments.There will be little sense therefore in the West following the Soviet example."Increasing Budget: The United States, however, used the Soviet application of military power in Afghanistan in 1980 to effect an unprecedented militarisation of the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. The arms race that was set off by the US in 1980 will engulf most of the planet in 1981 and the coming years, In November, the US Senate approved, with 73 "yeahs" and a single "no", the largest defence budget in history - $161 billion (Rs 1,28,800 crore) that is, $3.5 billion (Rs2,800crore) more than the House of Representatives had allowed for, and $6.2 billion (Rs 4,900 crore) more than the Carter Administration had asked for. In the fiscal year 1981, the United States will be spending on defence $40 billion (Rs 32, 000 crore) more than in fiscal year 1980. Carter projected a defence budget of $253 billion (Rs 2,02,400 crore) for fiscal year 1985-a total of over a trillion dollars for the 1980-85 period.Zia: A troubled future aheadReagan may go even further. Business Week reported in June that the US would now try to "reconstruct" the Western alliance. This would "probably also require a new attempt to obtain superiority in strategic weapons. Such a move might involve a Washington denunciation of the US-Soviet treaty of 1972 prohibiting anti-intercontinental Ballistic Missile systems." How is this greatly enhanced military might of the world's strongest power to be used?New York Timescolumnist.William Afire suggested in 1980 that the US should go in for a "naval blocade" of Iran, "neutralise" the oil-shipping Kharg island, and rescind the Helsinki agreement in order to redraw the political map of Eastern Europe. Arightwing attorney and an ardent Republican by the name of Elias N. Schwarzbart called for the completion of the MX system, for it had a "first-strike capacity" and could restore "the balance of terror."The Soviets will not stand by idly in the face of a massive US programme of rearmament. Moscow has already made it clear that if SALT-II is dead, so is the unofficial understanding to maintain the levels of strategic arms prescribed by that ill-fated treaty. According to American estimates, the Soviets are already substantially ahead of the US in both strategic and conventional arms. If that is true, the Soviets would do their best to maintain their lead. The great power arms race will swallow up most of the medium and small powers. The US is already pressing hard its European allies and Japan to step up their defence spending. The Soviets will do the same with regard to their own allies in Eastern Europe. From the two competing alliance systems, the arms race will spill over to the Third World. In fact, it has already spread to Saudi Arabia, Syria, Pakistan and India. The global arms race will be more visible in 1981.The Abadan oil refinery in flames during the Gulf war: Danger signals for SaddamMuch of what will happen in the realm of world politics in 1981 will depend upon the policies and programmes of the Reagan presidency. Reagan will take office on January 20. Normally it takes a new US president six months to one year to get a grip of world affairs and of foreign policy. Reagan got elected on a public assurance to the American people that he would keep the peace, not push the world into war and annihilation. At the same time, he married himself loudly to a policy of military strength and containment of Soviet power.The Republicans have got control of the Senate after 20 years. Most of the Senate committee chairmen will be conservative Republicans. Reagan will be under considerable pressure from conservative groups like Moral Majority and New Conservatives to adopt a militarist foreign policy. At the same time, he will also be under strong pressure from liberal elements and America's European allies to practise moderation and restraint.Sion-Soviet Relations: While conservatism will assert itself noisily in America in 1981, in China the last of the Maoists to occupy one of the highest positions in the Communist Party of China (CPC) will most probably be removed, and Deng Xiaoping, 76, strong man of the de Maofication era, will have complete sway over both the party and the Government. Non-align-ment now begs a definition, a precise role in world politics, a conceptual frame that fits in with the grammar and syntax of international relations.What this would mean for Chinese foreign policy remains at this time most uncertain. Deng warned the United States in December that any American attempt to nullify Carter's recognition of Taiwan as part of China and his abandonment of the two China theory would compel Beijing to play its Soviet card! Never before did any Chinese leader suggest that in any circumstance China could make it up with the USSR! If Reagan does not play ball with China. 1981 may deliver the greatest surprise and shock in decades in the form of a rapprochement between Moscow and Beijing. It seems far-fetched even on January 1. But several ranking American specialists on China have been expecting an improvement in Sino-Soviet relations for several years now. One of them, Alexander Dullin, of Stanford University, warned as recently as October last that the United States could push Moscow to play its own alliance with Japan and China. Now Deng has come with his own warning that China might play its Soviet card!As the poker game of power politics proceeds through 1981, the 26th congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) will reelect Leonid Brezhnev its general secretary, holding up the USSR's transition to a new leadership. With a crisis situation building up in Poland, and with Ronald Reagan to take the seat in the Oval Office in the White House, the CPSU will not wish to change the leadership of Soviet affairs. The CPSU's 26th congress in February will be followed in six to eight weeks by the 12th congress of the CPC. These two congresses will be among the biggest events of 1981; the decisions taken by them will have a profound impact on world politics for several years and also on the life of the Chinese and Soviet peoples, who constitute more than a quarter of mankind.Regime Changes: Since the '50s, hardly has a year passed without regime changes in more than one country. Change has meant diverse patterns, revolutionary or counterrevolutionary, violent or peaceful. So. 1981 must also have its own share of regime change. The countries that merit close watching are Iran, Iraq, and Pakistan-all of them close to India more than geographically.In Iran, the Ayatullah Rohulla Khomeini will be 81 this year; if he fades from the scene it would fundamentally realign political forces. Western analysts expect the religious-fundamentalist forces to be at war with the secular elements belonging to the right and the middle of the Iranian political spectrum. Soviet analysts go deeper into Iranian society. They believe that the clergy itself is split into two broad sections - nationalists and orthodox-fundamentalists. Soviet analysts expect the leftist elements in Iran and the nationalist clergy to join forces to protect the "gains of the 1979 revolution. They give Khomeini full marks for crippling the pro-American forces in Iran-in business and finance, in the military,in the bureaucracy, and among the politicians. However, Soviet analysts are as certain as their Western counterparts that a regime change in Iran will not come non-uolentk. The big question is whether the US or the USSR or both will intervene.In Iraq, strongman Saddam Hussain has tailed to give his people a quick military victory over Iran. The Gulf war has continued for more than three months, earning the dubious distinction of being the longest war between two Third World nations. Saddam's leadership of the Iraqi Baath party may not long survive the war's end. He has alienated a section of the party top brass by moving close to Saudi Arabia and the United States.Most Pakistan watchers in the United States take a dim view of the survival abiliu of the regime of Gen Zia-ul-Haq. One of the leading American specialists on Pakistan was recently in Delhi, and he was darkly pessimistic about the future of the Zia regime. And by future he did not mean 1484. He meant 1981.Large-scale internal violence in each of these three countries will immediately affect India because it is closely tied up with all of them. There will also be a worsening of India-Pakistan relations in 1981, unless both governments take particular care to arrest the drift of misunderstandings and mutual accusations.Non-alignment Crisis: More immediately challenging to India in 1981 will be the role of non-alignment in crises and conflicts in the Third World. The foreign ministers of the non-aligned nations will be meeting in New Delhi in February to the backdrop of non-alignment's failure to play a positive role either in the Afghan crisis or in the Iraq-Iran war. Non-alignment now begs a definition, a precise role in world politics, a conceptual frame that fits in with the grammar and syntax of international relations. Unless non-aligned nations can find these in 1981, the fissures within the family - too large and too defused-will run deeper by the time of the next non-aligned summit in Baghdad in 1982.The foreign ministers' meet in New Delhi will probably also address itself to the cynical use of food grains as a foreign policy-weapon by nations that constitute the granary of the world, especially the United States. It has become a major issue in view of the world grain crunch of 1980. which is expected to worsen in 1981. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has warned that before the grain harvests begin in the summer of 1981. global food stocks will be down to 14 per cent of world consumption. Said an FAO official: "This would be drastically below the 17 to 18 per cent that we estimate to be the minimum required for world food security."Of the five wheat exporting nations - the US, Canada, France, Australia and Argentina - only the first three produced large crops in 1980. Drought sharply reduced yields in the other two. But even in the United States late summer dryness cut the 1980 crop by 17 per cent. The Soviet Union could harvest only about 182 million tonnes, almost as poor as the crop of 1979, which was the worst since the disastrous weather year of 1974. In a good crop year, the Soviet Union meets the grain needs of its East European allies. In 1980, shortage of wheat was one of the reasons for the economic crisis in Poland. Warsaw has asked the US for a loan of $900 million (Rs 720 crore) to buy American grain. In 1980, President-Carter used food grains as a weapon with which to "punish" the Soviets for their intervention in Afghanistan. Will President elect Reagan do the same to aggravate the crisis in Poland? Once food grains are used against communist nations, they may well be used against non-aligned countries that refuse to toe the line of US foreign policy.Published By: AtMigration Published On: Nov 28, 2013 14:59 IST--- ENDS ---

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1981 will probably be a year of global food shortage

The global arms race that was set off in 1979 will acquire serious proportions in 1981, consuming too much of the earth's resources and leaving too little for human welfare.

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