Volume 25, Number 12 · July 20, 1978
For a New 'Internationale'
By Jacques Julliard, Translated by Tamar Jacoby
Does the Third World still exist? In its poverty and underdevelopment more than ever; in its 'nonalignment' less and less. Most of Asia has already been divided into Soviet, American, and Chinese spheres of influence. The end of the war in Vietnam seems, at least temporarily, to have stabilized ideological frontiers and reinforced within each satellite country the power of the national party leaders. The war, sometimes open and sometimes covert, between Vietnamese and Cambodians is to a considerable extent a bloody translation of the Soviet-Chinese rivalry for domination of Southeast Asia. The great powers have largely abandoned even the pretense of morally justifying their actions: now anything goes that advances their interests at their rivals' expense. And in this game, any regime, no matter how monstrous, can find a protector. China has its Cambodia, the USSR its Uganda, the United States its Chile. In these conditions Carter's rather vain and timid efforts to limit the barbarity of the nations in his camp may strike us as a kind of unconscious diplomacy. But they deserve to be encouraged rather than scorned or mocked.
Feature, 1180 words
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