SEVERAL Pakistani commentators have concluded that Pakistan
is isolated because its relations with three of its four immediate
neighbours are hostile. Some have ascribed this ‘failure’ exclusively to
the absence of a fulltime foreign minister and the hydra-headed
leadership at the Foreign Office.
Pakistan is far from
isolated. It enjoys a very close strategic relationship with its largest
neighbour China, the emerging superpower. Relations with Iran are
complex, but not hostile, and can become cooperative. Relations with
regional neighbours Saudi Arabia, the GCC and Turkey remain friendly,
with considerable potential for collaboration. Pakistan enjoys influence
within the wider international community due to its size, strategic
location, military strength and economic potential.
That
Pakistan’s relations with India are tense should come as no surprise.
This is almost a historical norm. The hostility of a Hindu supremacist
BJP government was anticipated by most Pakistanis, except the purblind.
But Modi’s arrogance and belligerence towards Pakistan have outstripped
anticipation, partly because of the perceived weakness in Islamabad, but
mostly due to the shift in the global and regional strategic
environment and India’s growing alignment with the US in the context of
its rising rivalry with China.
This emerging US-Indian
alliance has not only encouraged New Delhi’s belligerence, it has
exacerbated Pakistan’s security challenges, reflected in American
support for India’s massive arms build-up; wide-ranging US attempts to
contain and neutralise Pakistan’s nuclear and missile deterrence
capabilities; and growing US pressure on Pakistan to act against
‘terrorists’.
Our diplomacy has displayed several missteps which illustrate an absence of strategic direction.
The strategic evolution has also complicated Pakistan’s
relationship with the ‘unity’ government in Afghanistan. The Obama
administration has accepted the Pentagon’s proposal for an indefinite US
military presence in Afghanistan. Assured that American and Nato forces
will stay indefinitely and prevent its collapse, Kabul has shifted from
seeking reconciliation with the Afghan Taliban to demanding that
Pakistan join in crushing them militarily. Fighting, rather than
reconciling with the Taliban, has always been India’s preferred option.
Pakistan,
with China’s cooperation, can meet India’s security challenge and
maintain credible deterrence, nuclear and conventional. Pakistan has no
compulsion to press for a dialogue so long as New Delhi refuses to
address the fundamental issues of Kashmir and peace and security.
What
Pakistan does need to reverse at present is, first, India’s
long-standing attempts to sow domestic discord and destabilise Pakistan,
including in Balochistan, rural Sindh and Karachi; and, second, the
attacks against Pakistan’s civilians and security forces conducted by
the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan militants and the Balochistan Liberation
Army insurgents from the territory of Afghanistan, with the sponsorship
of Indian and Afghan intelligence.
Pakistan could respond
effectively to these Indo-Afghan sponsored interventions. Kashmir
remains India’s Achilles’ heel, as recent events illustrate. Pakistan
also has the capability to eliminate TTP safe havens in Afghanistan.
However, Pakistan is prevented from recourse to such robust responses by
the political and security ‘umbrella’ extended by the US to Kabul and
New Delhi. While extending limited help to counter the TTP’s safe havens
in Afghanistan, the US is exerting pressure on Islamabad to fight the
Afghan Taliban and clamp down on the pro-Kashmiri militants now outlawed
as ‘terrorists’ at India’s instance.
Thus, in order to
respond to India’s mischief and Kabul’s renewed hostility, Pakistan has
to address, primarily, America’s alignment with these two neighbours.
Pakistan will have to evolve policies which can neutralise those US
positions which are antithetical to Pakistan’s vital interests, while
preserving its vital strategic partnership with China. This is the major
foreign policy challenge confronting Islamabad. This challenge is
likely to become more daunting if, as anticipated, Sino-US rivalry and
tensions escalate further.
Confronted by these regional
and global strategic developments, Pakistan must formulate and execute
its external policies with clarity and imagination. As Einstein said
“You cannot solve problems at the same level of thinking where they were
created.”
Unfortunately, Pakistan’s diplomacy has
displayed several missteps which illustrate an absence of strategic
coherence and direction. These include: the prime minister’s
participation in Modi’s inauguration and inability to meet Kashmiri
leaders; the Ufa declaration, emphasising terrorism and ignoring
Kashmir; unwarranted confidence about bringing the Afghan Taliban to the
negotiating table; uninvited admission of the presence of insurgent
leaders in Pakistan; the fumbling response to the Saudi request for
military support; the tepid reaction to Afghan and US assertions
regarding Pakistan’s role in Afghanistan and the US’ unilateral drone
strike in Balochistan.
Almost all of these missteps have
been the consequence of shortsighted and often naive political
intervention in the foreign policy process. The formulation and
execution of foreign policy, like military policy, must be left to the
professionals. The foreign service should be enabled and encouraged to
provide objective and independent advice to the political leadership,
rather than be whimsically directed from above. According to the
government’s Rules of Business, the foreign secretary’s policy
recommendations can be overruled by the political leadership, but they
cannot be dictated to him.
Obviously, the organisational
mess at the Foreign Office needs to be cleared. The government should
have a fulltime foreign minister, not only for protocol reasons, but
also to serve as a single, credible conduit for the expression and
execution of foreign policy. There is an important role for the prime
minister’s special assistant: to reconcile external policy with the
government’s political priorities. But this role should be exercised,
not from the foreign ministry, but the Prime Minister’s Office, where a
foreign service official is, exceptionally, absent.
The
security dimensions of foreign policy should be integrated through
established institutional mechanisms, particularly the high-level
National Security Command. If these mechanisms are not utilised, the
‘security establishment’ will find ‘informal’ ways of influencing
policies.
Likewise, external economic policy cannot be
formulated or conducted without the foreign ministry’s participation.
The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is an example of the nexus between
diplomatic, economic and security policies. Unfortunately, at present,
development, trade and investment policies are formulated and
implemented largely without the benefit of the foreign policy dimension.
A
modern state cannot function without competent institutions of
governance. For Pakistan, which is compelled to conduct a
multi-directional external policy in a strategically challenging
environment, a competent, empowered and motivated foreign service is as
indispensable as Pakistan’s security forces.
The writer is a former Pakistan ambassador to the UN.
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