There are nearly 200 nations in this world, of which the vast majority of these countries are relatively small and thus not in a very good position relative to the most dominant nations and institutions in this world. Indeed, there are mega corporations that have more in revenue than many smaller nations do, which is indicative of the difference in size and power between small sovereign nations as compared to the biggest and most powerful nations in the world, in conjunction with their powerful banking institutions, as well as their corporate players. In short, we find that those who have the size and the money have the opportunity to have an undue influence upon small nations when it comes to their “development.”
When it comes to investment of just about any type, those who have the money are in a prime position to stipulate the rules, in which we find that small nations are susceptible to making deals that are not very beneficial to the country, at large, and especially to their citizens. Nevertheless, these deals are still agreed to, mainly because those that are doing the investing are quite adept at influencing the highest echelons of the governance of these small nations, of the benefit, that will ensue, which often seems in actuality to be one of personal enrichment for the elite of these small nations, which signifies that the deal so going down is not going to be truly in the best interests of that nation.
Undeniably, whenever all the biggest and most important decisions that places a small nation in debt to a much more powerful one is agreed to, what often occurs, is that these sovereign small nations have essentially ceded control of what that country will or will not do in the sense of national economic development as well as other pertinent things and, in essence, places such in the hands of outside interests, who pretty much dictate what the overall national budget will be for that small nation and where the monies so budgeted will first be allocated, which typically means paying back those that have lent their money, first, over and above what that country owes its own citizens.
Therefore, what we find to a very large extent, is though it might not be described as colonization by any of the parties, it essentially is colonization, because the control of the biggest decisions so made by that small nation isn’t really in their domain anymore, but rather they must march to the beat of what those that have invested and thereby are developing on behalf of that small nation, have agreed to. In short, the small nation, in a lot of these cases, is going to get the short end of the stick, which isn’t good for the people of that nation, nor for its stability, either, and pretty much indicates, mineral wealth or not, strategic position or not, that at the end of the day, the biggest beneficiary of what has transpired, is going to be the entity that has the money and the power, and that is the type of construct which isn’t going to change, anytime soon, if ever.