I don’t remember from recent and past memory that any Pakistani leader has such a clear and decisive answer to any foreign based media outlet when asked about Pakistan’s cooperation post-US and NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan. The interview clip got viral catching attention throughout from the world media and the world leaders. This was a clear message to all NATO based countries that Islamabad is moving towards a strategic paradigm shift as far as the foreign policy and strategic alignment is concerned. The Biden administration is also exploring options in Central Asia to maintain intelligence on potential rogue networks inside Afghanistan, but that is quite complicated for the reason that those countries are in Vladimir Putin’s sphere of influence.
In the complicated world of diplomacy, each country has its own priorities with regard to foreign policy and the diplomatic domain of influence since the creation of nation states after World War II. The foreign policy, diplomatic approach and the tone adopted by world powers is totally based upon transactional hypothesis where friendship means nothing, rather only national interest stays as top priority. As it is well known, the foreign policy subject is tough, enormously challenging, and sometimes risky business when it comes to addressing the interstate relations and playing 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. The said tone was very much visible by the TV anchor during HBO interview with Prime Minister Imran Khan. The current response and bold narrative adopted by Pakistan is the beginning of the next level challenges that might occur in the coming months specifically in the domain of regional and global geo strategic and geo economic arena.
Certainly, Pakistan will have to do a lot in order to handle the aftermath of such bold narrative both internally and externally.
Internally, Pakistan must fill the big gaps in all spheres starting from nation building to a welfare state. The overall narrative of Pakistan should be strong enough so that world sees Pakistan as a powerful modern Islamic welfare state with impressive infrastructure and economic development model. This narrative can’t be developed without removing hurdles and punishing the powerful elites. These elites and the current system are 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 amongst the comity of nations. The good thing is that accountability has been started under supervision of the Supreme Court recently and it should go above the 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 reaching the common people and this will be the starting point towards building a powerful nation.
Each world power has learnt over a period of time about the sort of economic model they would 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, the 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. A similar model, more or less, was followed by other European powers although they lost much influence after World War II and gave up most of the colonies due to which the US became the new capitalist world leader. US has 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.
For Pakistan, it is essential to develop a strong economic model. I don’t think anyone in the past paid such attention to this aspect. Mostly Pakistan’s economy was managed and maneuvered by international events such as the CENTO Treaty in 50’s & 60’s to restrict red revolution, USSR intervention in Afghanistan during 70’s & 80s and the tragic incident of 9/11 in 2001. Each of those events brought huge flux of dollars in Pakistan due to which the country was able to sustain its economy albeit on an artificial basis. Very little attention was given to industrialization and manufacturing. Pakistan had covered many milestones like becoming a nuclear power, became independent and self reliant in development of military hardware, etc. yet many ingredients as mentioned above still needs to be fulfilled for becoming a truly effective economy on word’s landscape.
Pakistani policy makers must focus on a multi-pronged approach in order to boost economy and currency. Since Pakistan is mainly an agricultural country, the importance of land reforms can never be ignored. A food and water self sufficient Pakistan will be able to focus on other ingredients for exploring other milestones. With improvement in the 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 is good in military hardware, so focus must be on developing a military hardware-based economy. One does not to mention much here since many defence related organization s are working to boost this domain.
Other possible economy boosting model would be the developing of tourism sector. Many countries in the world solely depend upon tourism for sustaining their economies. On 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 an 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. All these levers can be managed and certainly will give positive results if educated and honest leadership emerges at all levels amongst our society. Pakistan can also share experiences and lessons learnt on war against terrorism and it can be a good image building tool for Pakistan. The fundamental point here is Pakistan cannot build a successful economic model unless developments take place in the human sector like education and health. Basic health and education are the key for building a healthy society that eventually will help to 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). There is already a highway between Pakistan, Iran and Turkey by the name of RCD Highway. If this RCD highway could be upgraded somehow, then another corridor could be made available that could connect the 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.
Nations with weak leadership are either dominated by others or are always on the mercy of others asking for help, history is replete about them. Many examples can be given like US, UK, China, Singapore, Turkey, Malaysia, etc. where the leadership turned the table around. Pakistan needs strong motivational leadership at all levels and from every sector of our society. Unfortunately, the best brain goes out of the country due to a corrupt political system and policies leaving behind a huge gap that eventually have to be filled by mediocre and lowly educated work force. The level of corrupt practices is so deep that many patriotic Pakistanis tried to come back but were finally disappointed by corrupt system and lost hope. The corrupt system must be changed, and corrupt elites must be punished. This is the absolute and total cure for advancement towards a healthy society and thus creating a sustainable economic model that would eventually help building an effective foreign policy.
The need of the time for Pakistan under the current bold narrative is to reform the foreign policy and diplomacy approach. This bold narrative elaborated by PM Imran Khan cannot be moved forward without an effective diplomatic task force. Effective diplomacy can be done only by employing professional diplomats amongst our missions around the globe who have strong inter personal skills, knowledge of world politics and what is in Pakistan’s interest and work hard for achieving this goal. The diplomats from western nations and other 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 a clear and aggressive stance where needed. There is no room for weak diplomacy when it comes to dealing with nation states. Our diplomats must trust the power of our military, successes gained in anti terrorism field and strength of 220 million strong Pakistanis. Nations which are respected always follow the reciprocity rule, it 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 may even 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 traditional enemy India in the east along with countless challenges we face from other western capitals.
Pakistan is a nuclear power, so we must show muscle wherever and whenever required and adopt a little bit domineering attitude if a situation so warrants, we must do away with an apologetic attitude. Many countries have defence or semi defence pacts with Pakistan, so we can leverage these opportunities for boosting many sectors. For example, Pakistan is taking active part in 34-nations Saudi led military Alliance. We can use this platform for selling military equipment, further bilateral relations for trade, visa on arrival agreements, military training and other giant economic deals. Pakistan must work aggressively for getting military access to Indian Ocean Region (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 for our naval domain. Although Pakistan is enforcing all international regulations within its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), yet effective presence is utmost important in order to let enemies know about 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 above thoughts and specifically after the strong narrative on the subject by PM Imran Khan, Pakistan must build a strong path forward to become a powerful Islamic welfare state since this is already defined in Objective Resolution. This Islamic national narrative is supposed to be our strength not weakness. The greater objective of such narrative should be to lead Islamic world from every aspect.
Other important paradigm that impacts foreign policy is the economic model and removal of hurdles that restrict economic wellbeing of the nation for which education and health reforms are must along with formation of prestigious educational and health institutions. Basic system reforms need to be done in field of taxation, land reforms, social justice and above all punishing the corrupt elites. Pakistan must develop a mix blend of economic model that covers military hardware sale, tourism, agriculture and regional connectivity projects for revenue generation.
Even with military power 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 attention to other ingredients for laying out an effective foreign policy. Reciprocity, tit for tat and show of muscles (when required) are all essential parts of the global diplomatic games.
