For millennia, tiny nations and islands have posed massive problems for major countries. In this century superpowers were drawn to the brink of all-out war over disputes involving relatively minuscule nations. Witness the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. The United States and the former U.S.S.R. found themselves on the edge of a nuclear exchange before finally finding a way out of the crisis.

Britain and Argentina fought a brief war over the Falklands in 1982. A year later the U.S. liberation of Grenada spawned a significant diplomatic dispute with Britain. After all, the Queen is head of state of this small Caribbean island. More recently the Gulf War was fought partially to liberate a relatively small Arab state, Kuwait.

Summing up the problem, a British House of Commons report stated in 1984: "As the world has so often learned in the past, and at such great cost, wars break out and alliances fall apart, not so often as the result of deliberate decisions by the major powers, but as a result of the inability of the great power system and the alliances which support it, to cope with the problems of small countries in faraway parts of the globe" (Small Is Dangerous: Micro States in a Macro World, edited by Sheila Harden, Frances Pinter [publishers], London, 1985).

In the early 1970s U.S. president Richard Nixon, in his support of one of the smallest of nations, Israel, felt forced to restrain Russian Middle Eastern intentions. American forces temporarily had to be put on full alert.

So the words of former Commonwealth secretary-general Shridath "Sunny" Ramphal ring true: "The truth probably is that the world community has not yet thought its way through the phenomenon of very small states in the world that is emerging in the end years of the twentieth century" ("Small Is Beautiful but Vulnerable," speech in London, July 18, 1984).

Israel is not alone in its plight. Although some of its problems may be unusual, others—like territorial integrity—are all too common to many tiny nations.

Mr. Ramphal perceptively concluded: "Sometimes it seems as if small states were like small boats, pushed out into the turbulent sea, free in one sense to traverse it; but, without oars or provisions, without compass or sails, free also to perish. Or, perhaps, to be rescued and taken on board a larger vessel."

Many small states have had to rely on the umbrella of larger nations just to survive. Others, however, have had a good try at economic independence. Consider Eritrea in Africa as an example. Independent on Sunday feature writer Neal Ascherson visited this tiny nation of 3.5 million people. He was surprised to find "a stable country full of hope and economic energy" (Dec. 22, 1996).

Mr. Ascherson visited with and interviewed Iseyas Afewerki, the president of Eritrea. This leader of a small and still-poor nation stated that "dependency is what we fear . . . Dependency, especially for food aid, can be disabling, dehumanising and very restrictive; it does not motivate human beings to be active."

Writer Ascherson concluded his article: "What the Eritreans are saying is that poor nations must and can save themselves . . . Eritrea then is good news." However, this would not excuse wealthy nations from generous help—especially in emergency situations. GN