It is always said that table diplomacy is the effective art for avoiding wars and conflicts. If table diplomacy fails then the decision will always be made in battle grounds. In this scenario, each country has its own priorities in regards to foreign policy and diplomacy influenced domain since the creation of nation states after world war II. The foreign policy subject is tough, enormously challenging and sometimes risky business when it comes to address the interstate relations and play around in the very thin area of maneuvering. Usually world powers have the luxury to enjoy playing in the broader area of maneuvering because they have many tools and means to enforce their terms as compared to moderate and even weak nations. These tools most likely are the military strength, economic superiority, manufacturing power, research and development etc. Moreover, almost all world powers had to struggle hard reaching up to a level where they can dictate their terms more effectively.
Before reaching up to that level, there are some criterions that must be fulfilled in order to create space for an ambitious nation into world power corridors. That particular country has to develop a system for social justice, higher educational levels with prestigious institutions, impressive local body systems, impressive infrastructure, effective Taxation and land reforms systems, etc. in addition to military and economic strength. For example, the United States had to go through many ups and downs for many centuries like the war of independence, civil war within north and southern states and internal struggle in order to develop an effective social justice system, building up prestigious educational institutions like Harvard and Stanford etc. Similarly, the UK and other European nations who colonized many parts of the world but had to develop almost the same system of social justice for their nations before going out.
In recent history, China is developing its infrastructure, higher educational levels with prestigious institutions, manufacturing power, military strength and economic well being. No nation in the world can join those prestigious power corridors until and unless not doing advancements in all areas stated above.
Overall National Narrative
For an ambitious nation, the next question to come to mind is, what is the narrative of that particular country as a whole. For example, United States and European nations developed their systems following the ideology of capitalism since economy was in the hands of bankers that paved the path for creation of power full multinational corporations, thus created the culture of corporatocracy. The general idea of such mindset was to dominate the world through multinational corporations, international financial institutions, and international treaties along with a blend of military and economic strength. The famous book by John Perkins “Confessions of an Economic Hitman” is a clear example how corporatocracy culture works for dominating the entire world, especially developing nations.
Next example is Russia where all basic ingredients were fulfilled for becoming a world power. The communist ideology followed by Russians had basic flaws and gaps along with direct ruthless military interventions in neighboring countries for communist ideology expansion. The system collapsed due to internal problems in late 80’s but since all basic grounds rules were already implemented, it kept Russia still in the row of one of the world powers.
China recently developed socialist economy and is trying to raise its stature as one of the world’s dominant powers. Just look at the manufacturing power of China, impressive infrastructure, high educational institutions, high literacy rate, etc. After achieving certain milestones, now China is expanding its military power dramatically. China didn’t commit such systematic mistakes as done by Russian communism. Social justice system has been developed and is so effective that powerful that corrupt people are executed with capital punishments. No country can join the world power stature without punishing the corrupt elites and enforce social justice system. The other ingredients required are as usual and as mentioned above.
In the Muslim world, Turkey is the prime example of an impressive blend of eastern and western cultures. Turkey enjoys the brilliant history and legacy of the Ottoman Empire. Just a few decades ago, Turkey had all kinds of problems like poor infrastructure, corruption, etc. but the current Turkish leadership elevated the level systematically from developing the infrastructure to manufacturing strength and recently paying attention to focus on military strengths and has clear intentions of expansion to maintain the historical legacy. Turkey has quit the idea of being a European nation as a whole, it is rather focusing on its Muslim heritage as well along with blending eastern and western cultures like a new type of model. When all the required ingredients will be fulfilled, Turkey will definitely have the potential to join the world power corridors.
India, on the other hand, is trying to build up on same foot prints as US, China and other world powers. But the dilemma with India is that she would never be able to fulfill those ingredients that are the essential pre-requisites to join the world powers club. The reason is that India is a country of many castes, religions that do not harmonize with each other even today and have issues with humongous population that is living way below the line of poverty. India is blindly spending on military and trying to improve economics, however, there are other important elements that are critical, such as effective social justice system and religious tolerance that are equally important, and India is heavily lacking in this domain. India’s national narrative is short sighted with Akhand Bharat slogan and focusing on enforcing hegemony on its neighbors with military numbers. Currently India’s economic model suits the western world due to extremely cheap India labor and availability of graduates from street level institutions. There are fundamental flaws in Indian policy making and handling the humongous poor population.
Finally let’s come to Pakistan. The country must settle the overall national narrative that what sort of state Pakistan will be and would like to be in the forth coming future. The objective resolution 1949 although set the path of national narrative to be an Islamic welfare state, still some people debate about it. Such debates confuse the people and allows others to discuss about Pakistan’s national narrative in a conflicting manner. All the above mentioned world powers have settled their national narratives before launching the ambitious plans for domination. The geography, manpower, location and strategic importance of Pakistan strongly demand it to be a strong and powerful nation from economic to military standpoints.
The overall narrative of Pakistan should be strong enough so that the world sees Pakistan as a powerful modern Islamic welfare state with an impressive infrastructure and economic development model. This narrative cannot be developed without removing hurdles and punishing the powerful elites. These elites and current system is not allowing all benefits to reach the common people of Pakistan. Moreover, an equal opportunity based social justice must be developed since no country can raise its stature without it. The good thing is that accountability has been started recently under Supreme Court‘s supervision and it be above board and punish all regardless of whom he or she belongs to or which institution. When all hurdles will be removed, then enormous benefits will start filtering down to the common people and this will be the starting point towards building a powerful nation.
The Economic Model
Each world power has learnt over the period of time what sort of economic model would they follow in order to build giant economies. The model can be changed also based upon needs and requirements but initially a strong model is imperative to be developed. For example, US economic model in the 18th century was focusing on industrial development and manufacturing. Later on this model was modified with additional blend of military equipment manufacturing, sales and military presence worldwide through treaties along with powerful financial institutions and corporatocracy. Similar model more or less was followed by other European powers although they have lost much influence after World War II and gave up most of the colonies and US had taken its place as new capitalist world leader. US have managed to maneuver well within all its above-mentioned parameters and tools involving its economic model that still keeps US as a dominant power in the world’s horizon.
As far as Russia is concerned, its economic model was mainly based upon communist and socialist ideology but collapsed due to huge corruption and elite’s monopoly within this system. Russia is focusing on its economic reforms in order to fill this gap. Please note that successful economic model also requires an increase in military influence and domains or at least in some form of international defence treaties.
For Pakistan, it is essential to develop a strong economic model. I do not think anyone in the past have paid much attention to this aspect. Mostly Pakistan’s economy was managed and maneuvered by international events such as CENTO treaty in 50’s & 60’s to restrict red revolution, USSR intervention in Afghanistan during 70’s & 80s and tragic incidence of 9/11 in 2001. Each of those events brought huge flux of dollars into Pakistan due to which the country was able to sustain its economy on an artificial basis. Very little attention was given to industrialization and manufacturing. Pakistan had covered many milestones like becoming a nuclear power, it got independence and self reliance in development of military hardware, etc., yet many ingredients as mentioned above still needs to be fulfilled for becoming an effective economy on the word’s landscape.
Pakistani policy makers must focus on a multi-pronged approach in order to boost the economy and currency. Since Pakistan is mainly an agricultural country, the importance of land reforms cannot be ignored. A food and water self sufficient Pakistan will be able to focus on other ingredients for exploring other milestones. With improvement in agriculture system and availability of water resources, Pakistan’s agriculture sector will be the back bone of the country’s economy and will contribute heavily towards achieving national and diplomatic objectives. Pakistan has experience of military hardware, so focus must be for developing the military hardware based economy. I do not need to mention much here since many defence related organization are working to boost this domain.
Other possible economy boosting models would be developing the tourism sector. Many countries in the world solely depend upon tourism for sustaining their economies. On the top of that Pakistan is building the CPEC project with China, so getting passage tax To and From will be a big additional element upon which the economic model can be built. If Gwadar Port gets fully functional, many ports around the world will be affected like the port of Singapore. Strong economic model is the fundamental pre-requisite for laying out an effective foreign policy. Pakistan has many levers to play around for an effective economic model like military hardware development, Tourism, CPEC passage Tax and infrastructure, agriculture exports, sports based sector and development of skilled man power. These all levers can be well managed and certainly will give positive results if educated and honest leadership emerges at all levels amongst our society. Pakistan can also share experiences & lessons learnt on war against terrorism and it can be a good image building tool for Pakistan. The fundamental point here is that Pakistan cannot build a successful economic model unless developments in human sector like education and health take place. Basic health and education is the key for building a healthy society that eventually will help build a strong economy. An educated and healthy society will effectively contribute towards building all spheres of economic domains that can be raised up for economic model development.
Another area that may be developed is the regional connectivity. CPEC is just one example. Another example is Turkey-Iran-Pakistan Economic Corridor (TIPEC). A highway already exists between Pakistan, Iran and Turkey by the name of RCD Highway, if this highway could be somehow upgraded then another corridor could be made available that will connect Caucasus countries from the Caspian Sea to CPEC highways. This will be an additional revenue generation project for Pakistan having unique diplomatic and financial benefits. This TIPEC corridor will additionally connect most of the SCO member countries with further linkage to CPEC and Gwadar port to all the way up to Western China.
Honest and courageous leadership
Nations with weak leadership are either dominated by others or are always on mercy of others, asking for help, history recounts numerous instances of such nations. Many examples can be given like US, UK, China, Singapore, Turkey, Malaysia, etc. where the leadership turned the tables around. Pakistan needs a strong leadership at all levels and from every sector of our society. Unfortunately, the best brains prefer to go out of the country because of the corrupt political system and policies, they thus leave behind a huge gap that eventually is filled by mediocre and low educated work force. The corrupt system must be changed and all corrupt elites must be punished. This is the absolute cure for advancement towards a healthy society creating a sustainable economic model that would eventually help build an effective foreign policy.
Aggressive Diplomatic Approach
Diplomacy is the art of conducting effective negotiations between country or state representatives regarding issues like peace-making in a conflict zone, mutual trade, war, economics, culture, environment, human rights and international treaties, etc. Informally, diplomacy means effective employment of tactics to achieve strategic advantages or to find mutually acceptable solutions to a common challenge. Effective diplomacy can be done only by employing professional diplomats in our missions around the globe who have strong inter personal skills, knowledge of worlds politics and what is in Pakistan’s interest and work hard for achieving this goal. The diplomats from western nations and powerful countries normally have very aggressive tone reflecting the level of confidence upon their respective powerful structure. The same approach must be adopted by Pakistani diplomats with clear and aggressive stance. There is no room for weak diplomacy when it comes to dealing with other nation states. Our diplomats must trust the power of our military, successes gained in anti-terrorism field and strength of 220 million strong Pakistanis. All nations always follow the reciprocity rule this simply means a tit-for-tat approach as faced by our diplomats in other countries. How others deal with our diplomats, we should do same and it even may apply for social and diplomatic functions. The bottom line is that weak and apologetic diplomacy cannot work in this challenging world especially when we have unstable Afghanistan in the west in addition to NATO presence and our traditional enemy India in the east along with other challenges we face from other western capitals.
Military Power Presence & Demonstration
Pakistan is a nuclear power so we must be prepared to show our muscle wherever and whenever required. We must adopt a bit of ‘bossy‘ attitude if a situation arises, we must forget a feeble and apologetic attitude. Many countries have defence or semi-defence pacts with Pakistan, we can leverage these opportunities for boosting many sectors for betterment. For example, Pakistan is taking active part in the 34-nations Saudi led military Alliance. Use this platform for selling military equipment, bilateral relations for trade, visa on arrival agreements, military training and other giant economic deals. Pakistan must work aggressively for getting military access to IOR and North Arabian Sea Islands from Yemen, Somalia, Maldives, Oman, Sri Lanka and Brunei. A lot needs to be done in this domain.
Defending our exclusive economic zone is the prime factor in our naval domain. Although Pakistan is enforcing all international regulations within its EEZ, yet an effective presence is of utmost importance to let enemies know about our level of seriousness when it comes to defending our huge EEZ. Joint military and naval drills with friendly countries can be beneficial in this regard.
Concluding Remarks
To summarize, Pakistan must build a strong narrative to be a powerful Islamic welfare state since this is already defined in our objective resolution, this Islamic national narrative is supposed to be our strength not weakness. The greater objective of such a narrative should be to lead the Islamic world from every aspect.
Other important paradigm that impacts foreign policy is the economic model and removal of hurdles that restrict economic well being of the nation for which education and health reforms are a must alongwith formation of prestigious educational and health institutions. Basic system reforms need to be done in the field of taxation, land reforms, social justice and above all punishing corrupt elites. Pakistan must develop a mix of economic model that covers military hardware sale, tourism, agriculture and regional connectivity projects for revenue generation.
Even if military power ingredient is available, no nation in the world can formulate an effective foreign policy with poor infrastructure, bad social justice system, lack of education and health, absence of research and development. Pakistan has a strong military establishment and solid defence related infrastructure along with effective nuclear deterrence, so we must pay more attention to other ingredients for laying out an effective foreign policy. Reciprocity, tit for tat and a show of muscle are all essential parts of the global diplomatic games.
