Micro-Dependency: The Cuban Factor in Southern Africa

We accept the proposition that the worst kind of dependency lies in North-South interaction. But emphasizing this dimension should not go to the extent of ignoring other dimensions. It is simply not true that all forms of international dependency concern interactions between the Northern Hemisphere and the South, or between industrialism and sources of raw materials. There are important forms of dependency among industrialized nations themselves. Increasingly, there are also forms of dependency between one country in the Third World and another; or between one region of the Third World and another. Dependency is a form of political castration. For the purposes of this essay, dependency between one country in the Northern Hemisphere and another or between one industrialized state and another, is categorized as macro-dependency. This involves variations in power within the upper stratum of the world system. Macro-dependency is thus upper-horizontal, involving variations in affluence among the affluent, or degree of might among the mighty. Micro-dependency for our purposes here concerns variations of technical development among the under-developed, or relative influence among the weak, or degrees of power among those that are basically exploited. The dependency of some West African countries upon Nigeria, or of some of the Gulf States upon Iran or Saudi Arabia, are cases of micro-dependency. We shall return to this level more fully later, but let us first begin with the phenomenon of macro-dependency.