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Probably the most sensible way in which the new nations can improve their lot is by forming federations: getting together to face common problems and opportunities while maintaining a healthy measure of separate identity. Economic federation is certainly the most promising form at the moment, despite some early failures. What English Economist Barbara Ward calls "technocratic federations" are likely to sprout in the future—and the young nations should begin planning how and when they can form and join them. This would happily preserve their proud national prerogatives while offering the benefits of a large economic mass and a sharing of modern technology. The Central American Common Market has demonstrated what economic association can do for underdeveloped countries: in five years it has more than trebled the trade of its five members and set their economies to humming. LAFTA—the Latin American Free Trade Area—is finally beginning to move, and Britain is pushing its West Indian territories toward an economic federation as the price of freedom. The Central African Republic, Chad and Cameroun have formed a small common market.
Farther down the road is the prospect of political federation. So far, it has proved an unsuccessful experiment, torpedoed in several instances by prickly national and even tribal sensitivities and by the fear of bureaucrats that cooperation would eliminate duplication of ministries—and hence their jobs. Though it is a geographical entity, for example, Africa suffers from such deep and profound differences as to make it seem like a collection of different worlds. More over, there, are no African, Asian or Latin American countries today that show much interest in revising their borders or totally merging with other nations. Still, given the number and the weaknesses of new nations, the possibility of future political federations is a real one. In the long view of history, after the passion of nationalism has cooled, after the adolescence of the underdeveloped countries succumbs to maturity, some form of union may be the answer to many of the problems of today's young nations. Some day there could even be something like a United States of Africa. The new nations—powerless, bothersome and somewhat bizarre as many of them seem—will continue to proliferate for a long time. It seems inevitable that, at some point, the flow will have to be reversed, bringing to federations of small nations the stature in world affairs to which at present they can only vainly aspire.