South-South Defence
“South-South Cooperation” is a term that historians have used for decades to refer to mutual reliance among developing countries primarily located in the Global South. It usually manifests in the form of trade - silk being sold to Ghana from Vietnam, rubber from Indonesia being sold to Peru, or rice from Pakistan being sold to Somalia. It’s successful enough that, in many ways, it has actually surpassed the size of North-North trade.
In fact, it has become so successful that it’s moving beyond trade and politics - and moving into international security.
Kenyan forces are leading the coalition to stabilise Haiti. Source: Al Jazeera
When Haiti collapsed earlier this year - February, to be exact - it consisted of gangs seizing control of the country and its infrastructure in a sort of anarchist coup d’etat that began with 4500 prisoners being freed in assaults on prisons. In addition to considerable loss of human life from gang violence, over 350,000 people are displaced because of natural disasters and 5 million people - roughly half of the national population - is facing extreme hunger.
One country is taking the lead to tackle the humanitarian catastrophe, and it’s one that most people would have never guessed: Kenya.
To be clear, Kenyan forces are leading a UN project to stabilise the situation, as opposed to Kenya acting on its own. It’s not the first time Kenya has sent forces outside of its borders either - their forces are currently within UN troops in the DR Congo, fought against the Al Shabaab terror group in Somalia, and even battled the Japanese in Burma during WWII.
Kenya also stands to gain from stabilising Haiti. It serves as a form of diplomatic capital, and trains Kenyan police and military assets. The same is true of countries joining Kenya - namely, Jamaica, the Bahamas, Antigua and Barbuda, Benin, Chad, and Bangladesh. Many more are helping financially, and several African countries are even offering settlement opportunities for Haitians wishing to move there.
As with everything, however, the mission is not without critics. Kenya’s coalition forces will not be able to build a restored political scene in Haiti, and a funding crisis means that the mission may be taken over by the UN directly.
But the willingness for the Global South to solve its own problems is a huge landmark for international politics - because if there are countries in the Global South capable of standing on their own to help each other, then international development and political systems are working. It wasn’t long ago that a phenomenon like this was unthinkable.
TAI Score: Degree 1. As long as affairs are properly handled, South-South defence assistance is no bad thing, particularly if done with the blessing of the UN. But care needs to be taken to ensure that the situation is not worsened during or after these overseas operations, or the optics of foreign intervention may yet again be challenged.
