By Dr. Nand C. Bar­douille

The long-run­ning bor­der dis­pute be­tween Guyana and Venezuela, which is cur­rent­ly be­fore the In­ter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice (ICJ), flared anew on March 1st. Venezue­lan mil­i­tary as­sets mount­ed an in­cur­sion in­to oil-rich Guyana’s ter­ri­to­r­i­al wa­ters — ma­noeu­vring with the Exxon­Mo­bil-op­er­at­ed off­shore oil field in their line of sight — prompt­ing Guyana’s Pres­i­dent Mo­hamed Ir­faan Ali to de­nounce this lat­est Venezue­lan provo­ca­tion.

The In­frac­tion Ef­fect

It has raised the spec­tre of ki­net­ic op­er­a­tions from (i.e. out­right war with) Venezuela, up­ping the rhetor­i­cal tem­per­a­ture to boot. Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties’ barbs aimed at the lead­er­ship of Guyana — a coun­try whose pop­u­la­tion of most­ly coast lan­ders falls well short of 1M — have dubbed Pres­i­dent Ali the “Caribbean Ze­len­skyy.”

Wash­ing­ton and Kyiv’s sour­ing re­la­tions have, al­beit wrong­head­ed­ly, be­come fod­der for Venezuela’s show of force di­rect­ed at its Guyanese ter­ri­to­r­i­al claims. Such a Venezue­lan nar­ra­tive is meant to dis­tort per­cep­tions of Guyana’s pos­ture as a sov­er­eign state, which Cara­cas seems in­tent on dis­mem­ber­ing. In any case, hav­ing on­ly achieved in­de­pen­dence 59 years ago, Guyana seeks to steer its course on its own terms among the fam­i­ly of na­tions.

One of two Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) mem­ber states ge­o­graph­i­cal­ly lo­cat­ed in South Amer­i­ca, Guyana is one of 14 small, pri­mar­i­ly An­glo­phone post-colo­nial states com­pris­ing this bloc. They have done well in en­hanc­ing their glob­al in­flu­ence, against a back­drop where — with the ex­cep­tion of Haiti, which de­clared its in­de­pen­dence from France in the ear­ly 1800s — these na­tions gained in­de­pen­dence from the 1960s to the 1980s.

The in­vi­o­la­bil­i­ty of na­tion­al bor­ders takes up sig­nif­i­cant re­al es­tate in their for­eign pol­i­cy think­ing on the Caribbean re­gion as a Zone of Peace. In­deed, this prin­ci­ple strikes a na­tion­al in­ter­est chord among these states.

More­over, they are heav­i­ly re­liant for their sur­vival on two core, in­ter­con­nect­ed le­gal and nor­ma­tive pre­cepts of the post-war (and, up un­til Trump 2.0), U.S.-led lib­er­al in­ter­na­tion­al or­der: sov­er­eign­ty and ter­ri­to­r­i­al in­tegri­ty. In­struc­tive­ly, these pre­cepts took cen­tre stage dur­ing the ad­vent of the Unit­ed Na­tions (UN) and they have pro­vid­ed a diplo­mat­ic life­line for small­er states.

The an­ar­chic in­ter­na­tion­al sys­tem can be an un­for­giv­ing place for such states, as ev­i­denced by the bor­der-re­lat­ed sit­u­a­tion Guyana faces. Its com­plex dy­nam­ics risk be­ing thrown out of whack by the lat­est ter­ri­to­r­i­al breach, which has made an in­deli­ble im­pres­sion on ever wors­en­ing Guyana-Venezuela re­la­tions.

In this mo­ment, CARI­COM cap­i­tals are on ten­ter­hooks. None more so than George­town, Guyana’s cap­i­tal.

As the weak­er of the two coun­tries at the cen­tre of this bor­der dis­pute, Guyana — à la Thucy­dides’ The Pelo­pon­nesian War (name­ly, its ‘Melian Di­a­logue’) — has his­tor­i­cal­ly ex­er­cised a healthy re­spect for Venezuela.

Yet even as its would-be ag­gres­sor wields its hard pow­er cud­gel, un­sheath­ing it rou­tine­ly, Guyana has lever­aged mul­ti­lat­er­al­ism and in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions to good ef­fect. As a small state look­ing to set it­self up for suc­cess in its long-stand­ing bor­der-re­lat­ed feud with Venezuela, Guyana has em­braced a clear le­gal route to re­solv­ing the is­sue. And it re­mains res­olute in the face of sabre-rat­tling by Venezuela, which — by some es­ti­mates — has the largest proved oil re­serves in the world.

Diplo­ma­cy and the Cari­com Camp

It helps im­mense­ly that the bor­der is­sue is a stand­ing item in such fo­ra as Cari­com lead­ers’ sum­mits.

It hasn’t gone un­no­ticed that re­gion­al states have en­er­gy-re­lat­ed com­mer­cial and oth­er in­ter­ests they are pur­su­ing with Venezuela, rais­ing pro­found ques­tions about stand­ing on prin­ci­ple with Guyana in its re­la­tions with the lat­ter coun­try.

The Guyanese gov­ern­ment is nonethe­less us­ing the re­al­i­ty of the March 1st in­ci­dent to high­light the im­por­tance of diplo­ma­cy in de-es­ca­lat­ing the sit­u­a­tion, even as Pres­i­dent Ali has ad­mon­ished Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties for this brazen act. The Guyanese head of state con­tends that “we will not tol­er­ate threats to our ter­ri­to­r­i­al in­tegri­ty.”

Guyana’s state and se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus is on high alert and, ac­cord­ing to him, the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties have “al­ready de­ployed air as­sets with­in our ex­clu­sive eco­nom­ic zone and with­in our ex­clu­sive wa­ters. The coast guard is al­so in the process of be­ing de­ployed.”

This star­tling, Cara­cas-fo­ment­ed turn of events came just days fol­low­ing an­oth­er cross-bor­der in­ci­dent that al­so rat­tled George­town, which is none too hap­py that Cara­cas has seem­ing­ly played down the se­ri­ous­ness of that de­vel­op­ment. From Guyana’s van­tage point, in keep­ing with in­ter­na­tion­al law, Venezuela ought to take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

The Spoil­er

As is al­ways true with Guyana-Venezuela re­la­tions — which have in­deed ex­pe­ri­enced cor­dial, trade-dri­ven mo­ments — Cara­cas has fanned the flames of hos­til­i­ty. Over the last decade, those re­la­tions have ex­pe­ri­enced sig­nif­i­cant­ly more lows than they have highs.

Since Exxon­Mo­bil an­nounced a sig­nif­i­cant oil find in off­shore Guyana a decade ago, name­ly, off Es­se­qui­bo’s coast (the dis­put­ed re­gion is Es­se­qui­bo), there have been height­ened ten­sions be­tween these two coun­tries. (In 2018, Guyana in­sti­tut­ed pro­ceed­ings with the ICJ against Venezuela’s claim to the dis­put­ed ter­ri­to­ry.) This Amer­i­can multi­na­tion­al oil and gas com­pa­ny has es­tab­lished it­self as the largest oil pro­duc­er in Guyana, which has be­come a “key con­trib­u­tor to glob­al crude oil sup­ply growth.”

Guyana is now primed to de­vel­op off­shore gas, with Exxon­Mo­bil poised to lead the way. The Guyanese state al­so has a stake in this en­deav­our, with an eye to meet­ing its rapid­ly grow­ing en­er­gy de­mands. This pet­rostate is eclips­ing a long-time Caribbean en­er­gy gi­ant — Trinidad and To­ba­go. Trinidad and To­ba­go’s en­er­gy sec­tor has been in steady de­cline for some years now, “with [as­so­ci­at­ed] re­sources mov­ing [in­stead] to­wards Guyana and Suri­name.” Last year, Trinida­di­an au­thor­i­ties an­nounced that the coun­try “has about 10 years of gas pro­duc­tion left based on less than 12 tril­lion cu­bic feet (tcf) of nat­ur­al gas re­serves.”

Guyana’s rapid trans­for­ma­tion has not gone over well with Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties, who are mind­ful of the hy­dro­car­bon-re­lat­ed stakes that ob­tain in that re­gard.

Two years ago, bor­der-re­lat­ed ten­sions were seem­ing­ly on the verge of com­ing to a head. The two sides were able to di­al back ten­sions — thanks to The Joint De­c­la­ra­tion of Ar­gyle for Di­a­logue and Peace Be­tween Guyana and Venezuela — which en­joins re­straint on the part of both par­ties.

The pow­er re­al­i­ties are such that Cara­cas’ step back from its con­fronta­tion­al pos­ture was short-lived, with its lat­est provo­ca­tion form­ing part of a resur­gent pat­tern of mil­i­tary in­tim­i­da­tion à la hy­brid war­fare.

This time around, there­fore, Pres­i­dent Ali did not hold back, stat­ing em­phat­i­cal­ly: “But, make no mis­take of it: for­ti­fied by the strong voic­es and res­olute sup­port of our in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners, Guyana will not al­low Maduro and Venezuela to threat­en or vi­o­late our sov­er­eign­ty and ter­ri­to­r­i­al in­tegri­ty.”

En­ter the ‘Gray Zone’: The In­ter­stices of Open War­fare and Peace

Cara­cas is in­creas­ing­ly cou­pling the threat of con­flict with an­oth­er key di­men­sion of its hy­brid war­fare: pro­pa­gan­da. In this re­gard, Cara­cas has tak­en to task George­town’s as­ser­tion that Guyana’s mar­itime bound­aries, which are rec­og­nized un­der in­ter­na­tion­al law, were breached. In ef­fect, it is spout­ing dis­in­for­ma­tion about Guyana’s in­ter­na­tion­al­ly rec­og­nized bor­ders and la­belling Guyana as the trou­ble­mak­er.

It is a spe­cious ar­gu­ment, in a con­text where — hav­ing re­cent­ly tak­en up a third six-year pres­i­den­tial term un­der a cloud af­ter re­port­ed elec­tion fraud and vot­er re­pres­sion ac­tiv­i­ties — the regime of Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro has fur­ther rel­e­gat­ed that coun­try to rene­gade state sta­tus. Venezuela has lost much of its stand­ing on the do­mes­tic front and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

As if to add in­sult to in­jury, Cara­cas is gin­ning up yet an­oth­er bor­der-re­lat­ed ploy. At Cara­cas’ di­rec­tion, the con­duct of elec­tions next month in the dis­put­ed Es­se­qui­bo re­gion for a gov­er­nor is ap­par­ent­ly in the off­ing. So, too, are elec­tions for a leg­isla­tive body.

The pre­vi­ous­ly ref­er­enced at­tempt to draw un­war­rant­ed par­al­lels be­tween Pres­i­dent Ali and Pres­i­dent Ze­len­skyy has al­so been de­cid­ed­ly about the nar­row in­ter­ests of the Maduro regime, which is pulling out all the stops in its bid to uni­fy a deeply di­vid­ed coun­try around his rule.

Still, this rhetor­i­cal ref­er­ence falls flat, not least be­cause Cara­cas has come up with an ap­ples and or­anges com­par­i­son that wrong­head­ed­ly takes a page from Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s for­eign pol­i­cy play­book. Cara­cas is play­ing on pre­vail­ing geopo­lit­i­cal at­mos­pher­ics — whose main act is an­i­mat­ed by Wash­ing­ton hav­ing: (1) turned on Kyiv; (2) turned its back on Amer­i­ca’s Eu­ro­pean al­lies; and (3) turned qua gen­u­flect­ed to Moscow, ul­ti­mate­ly, with the aim of turn­ing out the so-called ‘Chi­na threat’.

Tak­en to­geth­er, these shifts are con­sti­tu­tive of the wider geopo­lit­i­cal turn in con­tem­po­rary in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions — one that, a decade ago, be­gan to piv­ot away from the unipo­lar­i­ty of the erst­while post-Cold War era to the emer­gent mul­ti­po­lar or­der.

In­formed by this fram­ing, three ad­di­tion­al points fur­ther back up my square peg in a round hole con­tention.

First, while Cara­cas has de­cid­ed to up the ante in Guyana-fo­cused hy­brid war­fare, Guyana is not a the­atre of war. This is un­like Ukraine, which is grap­pling with an over three-year full-scale Russ­ian in­va­sion.

Nor is Guyana the cen­tre­piece of a geopo­lit­i­cal con­flict that risks spi­ralling in­to World War III. Pres­i­dent Ze­len­skyy is a war time leader, whose coun­try is up against a wall in the face of the Krem­lin’s war ef­fort. It is a sit­u­a­tion of di­rect con­fronta­tion be­tween the neigh­bour­ing coun­tries, and the mul­ti­plic­i­ty of chal­lenges fac­ing Pres­i­dent Ze­len­skyy’s gov­ern­ment is daunt­ing.

In short, the re­al­i­ties on the (Ukrain­ian) ground are not redo­lent of Guyana’s predica­ment, or, for that mat­ter that of its pres­i­dent.

Sec­ond, fol­low­ing last month’s now in­fa­mous Oval Of­fice dust­up, the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion deems Pres­i­dent Ze­len­skyy a spent force. This point was un­der­lined in stark terms by a promi­nent US Re­pub­li­can law­mak­er.

And fol­low­ing on the heels of a high-stakes meet­ing host­ed by Lon­don to move the nee­dle on a just and last­ing peace in Ukraine, Pres­i­dent Trump re­port­ed­ly halt­ed — with im­me­di­ate ef­fect — all US mil­i­tary aid to Ukraine. This sig­ni­fies a dra­mat­ic shift in Amer­i­ca’s Ukraine-re­lat­ed for­eign pol­i­cy, which could now be about fence-sit­ting at best, but at worst (read­ing the signs), it could be about align­ing Wash­ing­ton with the Krem­lin.

Mean­while, Eu­ro­pean Union lead­ers met on March 6, with a view to plac­ing the spot­light on Eu­ro­pean se­cu­ri­ty and de­fence. Ad­di­tion­al sup­port for Ukraine loomed large at this ex­tra­or­di­nary sum­mit, with at­ten­tion placed on se­cu­ri­ty guar­an­tees for Ukraine.

Whith­er is Pres­i­dent Trump bound? This is the burn­ing ques­tion for oth­er West­ern lead­ers at this junc­ture.

Pres­i­dent Ali, while he may not hold all the cards (ex­cuse the pun), holds his trump card: Wash­ing­ton is on side. Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio “af­firmed the Unit­ed States’ stead­fast sup­port of Guyana’s ter­ri­to­r­i­al in­tegri­ty in the face of Nicolás Maduro and his cronies’ bel­li­cose ac­tions.”

Wash­ing­ton is not at odds with George­town; far from it. The think­ing goes, Wash­ing­ton is tip­ping the scales, but not in the ag­gres­sor’s favour. Af­ter all, it has a lot to gain in do­ing so.

As re­gards Amer­i­ca’s sup­port for Pres­i­dent Ali in this par­tic­u­lar mo­ment, Trump’s State De­part­ment voiced its full-throat­ed sup­port for his stance, adding that “fur­ther provo­ca­tion will re­sult in con­se­quences for the Maduro regime;” all while call­ing out the ag­gres­sor. Yet, in diplo­mat­ic machi­na­tions at the UN, the Unit­ed States fell well short of do­ing just that rel­a­tive to the Rus­so-Ukraine war.

Cu­ri­ous­ly, and in a de­par­ture from reg­u­lar­ly call­ing Rus­sia out on its war on Ukraine as a non-per­ma­nent UN Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil mem­ber, Guyana backed Amer­i­ca’s Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil res­o­lu­tion.

In re­cent days, the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion al­so stuck it to Venezuela. No­tably, it re­voked Chevron’s Venezuela oil li­cense. Trinidad and To­ba­go is view­ing this de­vel­op­ment with con­cern, as it has a two decade-long nat­ur­al gas deal with Venezuela in the bag, and it is now com­pelled to en­gage the Unit­ed States on the mat­ter.

Fi­nal­ly, swift­ly bank­ing the sup­port of a wide cross-sec­tion of well-re­spect­ed mem­bers of the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty al­so holds the key to Pres­i­dent Ali hold­ing his own in this mo­ment. Pres­i­dent Ze­len­skyy has faced a tough time of ral­ly­ing sup­port out­side of the West, among swathes of the de­vel­op­ing world.

The un­wa­ver­ing sup­port of in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions like the Gen­er­al Sec­re­tari­at of the Or­ga­ni­za­tion of Amer­i­can States and the Com­mon­wealth Sec­re­tari­at can stand be­tween the likes of Venezuela and a coun­try like Guyana. With­out the added diplo­mat­ic pres­sure of such third par­ties re­gard­ing its diplo­mat­ic en­gage­ments with a larg­er foe, such a coun­try won’t al­ways get much in the way of co­op­er­a­tion. Af­ter all, these in­sti­tu­tions make rep­re­sen­ta­tions on be­half of their mem­ber states on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage.

Veer­ing Off-script

The po­ten­tial up­side of the pro­pa­gan­dis­tic mes­sage that has come un­der scruti­ny in this ar­ti­cle could be read thus­ly: As com­mit­ted in­ter­na­tion­al­ists, Pres­i­dent Ali and Pres­i­dent Ze­len­skyy would like­ly make com­mon cause in chal­leng­ing any no­tion of an in­ter­na­tion­al or­der in which might makes right. Keep­ing to this script gives truth the win.

_______