Western Security Policy Towards the Third World

Abstract

Much of the debate on Third World security issues within NATO states and the councils of the Alliance itself tends to be backward-looking. Considerable attention is focused on direct military in­tervention, both Soviet and Western, and on the sharing of the resulting burdens within the Alliance Not so much heed is paid to the basic causes of insecurity in developing countries and the role that the West not infrequently plays, albeit inadvertently, in complicating the tasks of Third World governments in building security. Hence this chapter focuses more on these issues, and the role that the West can play in helping to build security in developing countries than on discussion of the old familiar problems.