Books

Practice and principle

George Walden

The Grenada Intervention William C. Gilmore (Mansell £5.95) Grenada Hugh O'Shaughnessy (Hamish Hamilton £12.95) Tn a democracy, foreign policy can be Iloosely defined as the implementation in distant parts of decisions taken on the basis of dubious, outdated or deliberately dis- torted information by overworked states- men under pressure from allies and adver- saries, political opponents and cabinet colleagues, diplomats, generals, finance ministers, public opinion and the media. With the best will in the world — and sometimes without it — mistakes can creep in. Whether the American intervention in Grenada was a mistake is the underlying theme of these three books. Mr Gilmore, an international lawyer, thinks it was. Mr O'Shaughnessy, an experienced observer of the area, thinks so too, and for Mr Christopher Searle anything the Amer- icans do is mistaken. All write from differ- ent standpoints, but have one thing in common: as far as I am aware, none of them has ever been involved in govern- ment — that is, in taking decisions and living with the consequences of their ac- tions or passivity. All three are essentially pure critics. This does not invalidate their criticism, but it does condition it.

The gap between doers and critics, actors and commentators, is becoming more marked in Britain than elsewhere. As our foreign policy resources decline, so do our options, leaving us more detached towards events, and more free to offer advice and discouragement to the other fellow. Another reason is that British journalists, academics, businessmen and lawyers do not move in and out of adminis- trations as frequently or as easily as, say, their counterparts do in France or the United States. Our professional structures are more hermetic and vertical (as in the trade unions). Outside criticism is there- fore mostly untainted by practical experi- ence, and the simple question, what would you do? is rarely thought to be relevant.

At a national level, these are dangerous tendencies. What more dismal fate for Britain than to become a sort of interna- tional whinger, a moralist tous azimuts, as our ability to earn or exert our influence abroad declines? The effects can already be seen in the infantile self-indulgence of

Labour's foreign policy declamations. But it matters little whether the moralising comes from left or right: peremptory post- ures and tin-drum nationalism are not much help either in the formation of practical policies. One way to avoid relaps- ing into the gratifying but impotent stance of permanent preacher is to bear in mind Aristotle's simple point that 'it is not possible to be good in the strict sense without practical wisdom, nor practically wise without moral virtue'. In less august terms, this often means putting your money where your mouth is.

At the time, there was widespread con- demnation in Britain of the American intervention in Grenada. Pure principle was against it, and the law was not for it. Yet the fact is that Grenada is turning out rather well, and there has been a sharp falling off in the disapproval ratio as time goes by. The trouble is that, unlike critics, statesmen and politicians are not supposed to wait and see how things turn out before making decisions.

This leaves those who had misgivings about intervention (such as myself) with a problem of retrospective self-justification, since we are not allowed to claim that events have caused us to change our minds. Fortunately, two of these three books Mr Gilmore's and Mr O'Shaughnessy's are some help here. Even supporters of what the Americans did have never claimed that, politically speaking, it was a smooth operation. However 'virtuous' Washington's decision, there was little evidence of practical wisdom in the execu- tion. Seen from Britain, there were two major lapses: the first was the failure to consult, or at least inform us properly; and the second to present the reasons for intervention persuasively. The practical result was to turn a large part of the House of Commons and of British public opinion, which might normally have been more understanding, into instinctive opponents of the move. Policy should never be based on pique. But it seems unlikely that the Americans' reluctance to tell us what they were up to predisposed the British Govern- ment to support them when it was told. The shifting grounds for intervention first that it was to protect US citizens, and then that the US had been invited anyway — was also disconcerting to allied opinion.

In a clear, cool and factual book, Mr Gilmore deals with legalities rather than legalisms. Not surprisingly, he can find no serious justification in international law for US and Caribbean action. Alarm at the military build-up in Grenada is not good enough: as Mr Gilmore points out, the mere possession by a state of an armed force significantly superior to its neigh- bours does not justify an 'anticipatory right of self-defence'. Since there is also no doubt that intervention to influence the internal politics of a state is illegal too, and since the internal situation in Grenada, though obviously causing concern, could not be construed as posing a clear and immediate threat to American citizens there, there is no justification under that heading either. Even Sir Paul Schoon's invitation, which seems to the layman a perfectly sufficient moral ground for in- tervention, dissolves in the acid of legal analysis, not only because it was a trifle post facto.

There is an embarrassing collision of high principle with common sense in all this. It would be wrong to shrug off Mr Gilmore's meticulous arguments and con- clusions, just as it would be wrong to disband the UN because of its ineffective- ness. But the blunt truth is that the West cannot bind itself by the letter of interna- tional law — insofar as it is unambiguous — while the Communists are not even prepared to work within its spirit. It is true, for example, that there was no evidence of imminent danger to US citizens, or any immediate threat to the security of the Caribbean states, from Grenada. But it would have been foolish to have relied on the Coard/Austin Leninist group not to develop such a threat.

Mr Gilmore ends his book on a rather despairing note, quoting the words of a fellow lawyer spoken 20 years ago, to the effect that everyone pays lip service to non-intervention as a principle of law, but 'there is no indication that these principles have much relation to the conduct of nations'. In the case of Grenada, there are other reasons for this. There is something intrinsically odd about applying very large principles to very small circumstances. If you are going to have micro-states, you Will tend to develop a micro-morality, simply because such states are more vulnerable than others to blackmail, putsches and disguised intervention. That is not a recipe for a free-for-all, but a reason for realism.

Mr O'Shaughnessy provides much needed background to all these events. The personalities of Bishop and Coard are well filled out and contrasted. The author admits that the intervention was met with 'relief and loudly expressed joy', and quotes an imprisoned journalist who in- sisted that it was not an invasion at all, but a rescue mission — which poses another problem for Mr Gilmore. The trouble with Mr O'Shaughnessy's book is that its whole thrust points to the desirability and indeed inevitability of intervention, while the last chapter claims that it was a mistake. The author argues that the killing of Bishop and the US invasion have sucked the Common- wealth Caribbean into a superpower con- frontation, and that, left to themselves, the Grenadans would have swept away Coard's 'Revolutionary Military Commit- tee' in good time. But is this a risk the

Americans could reasonably have been expected to take? Mr O'Shaughnessy claims that Coard would not have been helped by the Russians because the Cubans were against him. But both Moscow and Havana might easily have seen advantages in coming to terms with Bishop's successor and are unlikely to have had many moral inhibitions about doing so. Had this hap- pened, the very 'superpower confronta- tion' of which Mr O'Shaughnessy speaks could have come to pass. Surely what has in fact happened is that Grenada has been effectively removed from the East/West matrix?

All these are arguable 'ifs', and the book's other virtues outweigh its dubious conclusions. One of these is that it encour- ages a sense of proportion. Gairy's misrule was appalling, but what replaced it was undoubtedly worse. Bishop was only beaten up by Gairy; he was murdered by his own revolutionary friends. An ineffi- cient, oppressive leader who believes in flying saucers is surely to be preferred to equally inefficient, but also murderous amateur Lenins? The ideal — a Bishop financing education and health with Amer- ican loans, and then retiring to contem- plate UFOs — was probably not available. Micro-states breed micro-apologists too. Russia had the Webbs, China had Norman Bethune, and Grenada has got Mr Christ- opher Searle, a teacher from East London who went to Grenada and became infatu- ated with Bishop. His book is interesting less for what he tells us about Grenada than about himself and Britain, raising, as it does, the whole question of the quality of dissent. Mr O'Shaughnessy gives one some sympathy for the island and islanders. Surely the Grenadans deserve a better champion than Mr Searle. This book is supposed to be about language and revolution. Gairy's language, We are told, 'dealt in verbosity and obscur- antism, and was expressed in sheer affecta- tion. As such it was a macabre, but logical, outgrowth of the colonial legacy. It was a language in chains, but the chains had been painted with a plastic gloss.' A foreword says that the book 'treats language as a totality of people's experience', and that the people of Grenada will seize back the tools of their self-definition'.

Some of the agitprop poetry is in colour- ful dialect, and some has interesting imp- lications of which the author might not approve: Deh tri to stitch me mom Deh tri to tie me hans behind me back Deh tri to tief me head But I overs dem Yes I small islander Mak history Mak big Revolution in am small country.

Deh tri to rob me of me name Deh tri to alienate me from me culture School me in college of Drakes and King Henery Whitewash me brains me Europeanism But I today Yes I . . . liberate meself From dem prison. Today I mak Caribbean culture Stee ban Kaiso Rockers I dubbing me message.

It might be far more instructive to discuss these matters with Grenadans themselves than with the author, whose own language is portentous when it is not puerile. His glossary renders 'Massa day' as 'era of slavery and colonialism' — not quite the spirit of the original, I suspect.

Like Sidney and Beatrice Webb, Mr Searle has been rather caught out by events. The Webbs' glowing book on Russia coincided with the 1937 trials, a little difficulty which they overcame by adding a final chapter of dismal intellectual dishonesty. Mr Searle has added a dedica- tion to Maurice Bishop, 'who died serving with One Love the struggling people of Grenada, the Caribbean and the World' which hardly deals with the problem. This book is itself a form of 'cultural imperial- ism' at its lowest ebb. It re-exports plastic political clichés from some dingy revolu- tionary entrepot in the East End. Gairy, Bishop and Coard were bad enough, but to be patronised by Mr Searle is really a little hard on a long-suffering people.

Where would Grenada be today without intervention? Would it have reverted to democracy, through some self-correcting mechanism? Or would it be tied more firmly to the Soviet bloc by Messrs Coard and Austin? But to 'ask the question is to evade the moral dilemma. States have to act on a basis of the here and now, not muse on the maybes or the might-have- beens. Which is not to say that intervention alone has not created new problems, in the Caribbean or in Europe. I was struck by the reaction of a number of my Conserva- tive constituents to these events. Many approved of the invasion on the common- sense grounds that the Grenadans seemed grateful for it. But the same people some- times drew the conclusion that it reinforced the case for dual key-control over cruise missiles.