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The problem is going to get worse long before it gets better. More new non-nations are waiting impatiently in the wings; Bechuanaland, Basutoland, British Guiana and Mauritius are all due to become independent this year, and Swaziland and South Arabia will follow soon afterward. Britain's Lord Caradon recently reported to the United Nations General Assembly that 50 colonial territories still remained to be freed around the world—31 in the British Empire alone. Since, in general, the weakest and least viable colonies are the last to be turned loose, the prospect is staggering. All of them, of course, soon apply for membership in the United Nations, where their equal voting power with such big nations as the U.S. and Russia has caused a whole new set of problems. This incongruous situation has moved Secretary-General U Thant to suggest that perhaps the U.N. might want to reconsider its criteria for admission in view of what he tactfully called "the recent phenomenon of the emergence of exceptionally small new states." Former U.N. official and Columbia University Dean Andrew Cordier puts it much more bluntly: "The concept of nationhood will be extended to absurdity," he says, if what he calls the "microstates" become full-fledged nations.
What constitutes a nation? Among political scientists, definitions differ. Johns Hopkins' Dr. Vernon McKay says that "a nation is a group of people who have a feeling of nationhood, based on common historical tradition, common cultural interests and, usually, common language." Rutgers Professor Neil McDonald suggests that the measure of a nation is "its capacity to maintain some kind of autonomy—political and economic—against its environment." The most sensible test of a nation's viability would seem to be economic sufficiency: the ability to support its people without massive outside aid. Such is not the case nowadays. Many statesmen and political scientists believe, in fact, that the whole idea of a "viable nation" is a 19th century concept that is no longer applicable. "Logic and nationalism rarely commingle," says University of Chicago's William Polk. "Nations don't go out of business in the 20th century just because of their apparent logical absurdity." The great postwar proliferation of such international agencies as the U.N. and the international development banks, the competition for loyalties in the cold war and, above all, the staying power of foreign aid practically ensure survival for any nation that wins independence, however great its problems. Anyone with half a chance gets a whole chance, as evidenced by the nearly $7 billion doled out to the new nations from the industrialized West and $500 million each year from the Communist bloc.