Diplomacy is the art of conducting negotiations between countries or state representatives regarding issues like peace-making in a conflict zone, mutual trade, war, economics, culture, environment, human rights, international treaties, etc. Informally, diplomacy means effective employment of tactics to achieve strategic advantages or to find mutually acceptable solutions to a common challenge.
This article will discuss where Pakistan stands as a nation in terms of effective international diplomacy, what we have achieved and what can be done for security the best results in the greater national interest.
Since the creation of Pakistan was at a time when the world was divided into capitalist and socialist blocks, we were faced with tremendous challenges as a newly born state (financially, economically and militarily), it was a huge challenge to adopt a balanced diplomacy while keeping our national stance on the Kashmir problem. We had a traditional enemy, India in the east and a hostile Afghanistan in the west that voted against Pakistan at the UN, both countries were in the Socialist blocks and we had to manage this triangle. Close diplomatic ties with the West did provide some benefits on a partial basis but the main objectives that we achieved are the commissioning of our nuclear program, mobilizing OIC on Soviet invasion in Afghanistan and keeping the Kashmir issue alive alongwith our military self reliance efforts.
The threat from the east is very well managed by keeping a minimum level of deterrence, but India is using Afghanistan as a base camp to launch terror attacks in Pakistan. So it is diplomatically challenging how to keep Afghanistan neutralized and not hostile. It is important to analyze the Afghan population racially and see what how to best convert it into a friendly nation, if possible. Eastern Afghanistan is Pashtun and it is well in line with our pashtun population, but we need to pay attention to the other races living in Afghanistan like Tajiks, Uzbeks, Turkmans and Kyrghyzs. Their native nations Tajekistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, etc. should have some influence on them so we must engage with Central Asian States in order to get their support to neutralize 40% of non-Pashtun Afghans. This is the huge diplomatic challenge we have to overcome.
Pakistan should encourage its business community to invest in Afghanistan by building highways and infrastructure, this will also enable some influence to keep the Afghan people on its side. We must work with the Afghan government to change the negative perception about Pakistan, we can manage the land-locked status of Afghanistan to bring about benefits for both countries and avoid further hostility.
To illustrate how the basics of diplomacy play an important role, imagine you are an executive at a multinational with a reputation of being a gentleman and an honest and hardworking individual, you execute your responsibilities in a professionalism manner and everyone would like to get to know you as your voice is given weightage within your organization. The same applies to diplomacy. Effective diplomacy can be done only by employing professional diplomats in our missions across the globe who have strong inter personal skills, knowledge of worlds politics, have Pakistan’s best interests at heart and work hard for achieving this goal. A very high level of commitment and hard work would be required from diplomats.
It is important to elaborate how others see Pakistan as a country, what image we have as a nation, what is our people’s attitude and behavior, what is our educational level, economic condition, military and strategic strength/power, etc. Some key areas are given below where we can help the world and other areas where we need to put more focus to get better results alongwith adopting an aggressive and meaningful diplomacy.
• Supporting other countries to overcome terrorism, leveraging Zarb-e-Azb results and selling defense equipment
• Production of military hardware to friendly countries.
• Development and elaboration of tourism industry to the world using our diplomatic missions with the aim of national image building and revenue generation.
• Improving economic condition and decreasing inflation rates, this is a must to increase currency value; we can look at Turkey’s example as a model.
• Strictly control NADRA issued cards and passports so that no one can use these to give us our country a bad image or for reasons that will impact Pakistan’s image. People living outside Pakistan must be coached to be on best behavior while living abroad, our diplomatic missions can play a key role here.
• Increase education level on priority basis and target some Pakistani universities to be among the best in world ranking so that others could come to Pakistan for education. This would be a key challenge for our missions abroad.
• Build our image as a nation. We have done our best to overcome terrorism and have given immense sacrifices during the war on terror. Our successes must be lauded by the media, local and international, where our diplomats must elaborate this success proactively.
• Pakistan is a nuclear power, we must not be apologetic and whenever required we must be ready to show our strength. How the Pakistani High Commission in New Delhi dealt with Indian Foreign Office recently on false border crossing allegation is a case in point.
• Pakistan respect UN Resolutions and abides by them more than anyone else in the world, we need to adopt a proactive approach on issues where we have strong legal and moral stance like Kashmir. Only diplomats who are sharp and effective should be appointed at the UN level who can handle such challenges.
• We can actively participate in the 34 nation Saudi- led coalition and use this platform to sell military equipment, use bilateral relations for trade, visa on arrival agreements, military training, etc. Our embassies in these countries can do a lot of good work and we must be proactive in using this platform diplomatically. This platform can also be used to initiate an initial Islamic naval alliance that can be led by Pakistan to ensure that key choke points like Strait of Hormoz, Bab al-mandab and Red Sea Suez Canal remain accessible. I have already written an article in the Feb 2006 issue of Defence Journal regarding such a naval alliance. Our diplomats in these 34 countries must be proactive in order to get strategic and critical gains.
• CPEC is going ahead well and it is a great achievement in terms of our diplomacy, we must take it to next level and involve Central Asia and Russia in this project for reaching out to the warmer waters. We can approach all countries in the world and elaborate that CPEC can be used by them since trading with China is in the interest of whole world. If the rest of the world from western side trades through CPEC with China, it will be an enormous economic change for Pakistan. Just imagine how busy CPEC will become in terms of economic activities that will change Pakistan on all fronts. This is where our missions can help in countries where they are located Pakistan for gaining bigger objectives. We cannot afford any mistakes for explaining the benefits of CPEC throughout the world; this is our life line and future of Pakistan. Our diplomatic missions should start working without any delay for informing about the excellent outcome CPEC will bring to the region and to the world. Our diplomats should start interacting with their hosts (Central Asia, Russia, and China) for facilitation during execution of this project. Furthermore, stretching CPEC to Iran, Turkey and Russia will increase its importance in all terms. The Iranian port of Chahbahar can be linekd to CPEC allowing Iranian trade access to China; this way we might be able to decrease Indian influence. Turkey has also shown interest in CPEC so this can be stretched to the Bosphorus. Two groups of countries can benefit from CPEC – One group that may be interested in gaining access to China’s market via an easy land route and the other group that may be those wanting easy access to the Arabian Sea. CPEC provides an excellent solution in both cases, however this would require complex and tricky diplomacy.
The point that should be noted is that diplomacy can be really effective only if our image as a nation is bright and positive. It is thus equally important to focus on some neglected areas as follows:
⁃ Appoint capable and professional immigrant officers at each entry point. It is worth noting that a country’s image building starts from its entry points and how professional the immigration system is. Inefficient or unprofessional immigration personnel will leave a bad and negative image on our entry points, this must be managed properly.
⁃ Education, health and traffic system in that order are key factors for nation building. These areas need urgent attention.
⁃ Strengthen Nadra as an institution; create effective passport control policy along with strict visa regulations.
⁃ Appoint capable and aggressive diplomats, especially for pursuing our legal stance on Kashmir, economic and trade interests, elaborating CPEC benefits to the world along with image building measures, etc. We can persuade Pakistani expatriates to divert their foreign exposure to national building measures.
⁃ Work out measures to ensure our green passports are treated with more respect internationally. Try and convince more countries for a visa-free entry arrangement on Pakistan passports, at least the educated among us should get visa-free entry to more countries, this could be worked out with Russia, China, Turkey, EU and many Arab and ASEAN nations. We may offer military, trade, tourism, and other services in return with benefits along with any diplomatic support.
⁃ Adopt a tit-for-tat policy. On the basis on how other countries deal with our diplomats, we should do the same, this may even apply for social and diplomatic functions. The interior minister has taken some good initiatives by employing regulations for foreign airliners and visa entry system.
⁃ Remove/resolve our weaknesses that are noticed by other countries for effective bilateral relations. For, restoring our cricket grounds to former glory by inviting other countries to Pakistan and we will provide for their safety and protection. This can be achieved if our diplomatic missions abroad play a facilitation role along with our cricket board. This would also apply to our tourism industry that has been badly affected by. However we must not compromise on our national stance and interests on any issue.
The bottom line is that a weak diplomacy cannot work in this challenging world, especially when we have an unstable Afghanistan in the west in addition to NATO presence and our traditional enemy India in the east who is openly investing in resources to disrupt CPEC. Afghanistan was one country that did not accept Pakistan on its independence and voted against it at the UN while India dreams of an Akhand Bharat. We can deal with Afghanistan by engaging the Central Asian States, the economic leverage being a land locked country, sending parliamentary delegations (male and female members) to interact with and establish strong diplomatic relations and investing in Afghanistan for infrastructure building. India on the other hand deserves a bit of gunboat diplomacy.
