The Sustainable Economic & Foreign Policy Direction

This article is quite important under the current political situation in Pakistan and foreign currency crisis we are facing due to shortage of dollar reserves and hiking inflation after the announcement of the federal budget. The major political parties appear to be playing a Blame Game pointing to each other but not handling the situation properly; there is concern that Pakistan could be the next Sri Lanka if foreign aid doesn’t show up in form of IMF package, friendly countries concessionary loans and bailouts. In my view, the situation can be fixed but it needs patriotic will and not political victimization or vicious political gains. If a planner starts thinking how to correct the situation and the economic direction of Pakistan, the end result will be the same after going around in circles; this is lack of education, lack of discipline, lack of effective execution, inability of proper implementation and accountability. This is very much visible amongst the rank and files of our society.

Let me start with some success stories before building further on the subject. First, when Pakistan needed to be a nuclear power, all stake holders including the military and all political parties were on same page that Pakistan should become a nuclear nation by hook or by crook. ZA Bhutto started the nuclear program, late General Zia developed it further with some key achievements, Benazir and Nawaz Sharif continued it without any obstacles. The end result was that the nuclear program was completed and now it is progressing. Second, when we needed to be effectively organized, the idea of NADRA took birth and the entire national database was completed in few years successfully causing huge benefits. In this scenario all major stake holders agreed on this idea. Third, when Pakistan decided to act against the TTP in SWAT and FATA, because of agreement of all stake holders and being on same page, the militancy was crushed successfully. In all the above example, we achieved success due to clear will of the leadership, effective planning, and implementation alongwith the nation being on the same page. This is the key to success.

We must understand that the current and future alliances are and will be on economic interests. Despite being a population of modest size, we are not able to reap all the benefits. One problem is that when we attach ourselves with someone, the attachment is emotional rather than on economic interest. For example, we expect the Gulf countries to help us being Muslim brothers, but we see just the opposite since these countries have a huge Indian workforce and some Gulf countries are not even bothered by whatever we say, e.g. on Kashmir and about Muslim ethnic cleansing in India. Why? Simply because India is a huge consumer market and also a cheap labor market. It is time that we rise above this ‘brotherhood’ mantra and focus on economic ground realities.

China is a 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, excellent educational institutions, high literacy rate, etc. After achieving certain milestones, China is now expanding its military power dramatically. China did not commit such systematic mistakes as has been done by Russian communism. A social justice system has been developed and it is so effective and powerful that the corrupt are executed with capital punishments. No country can join the world power status without punishing its corrupt elites and enforce a social justice system.

In the Muslim world, Turkey is the prime example of an impressive blend of eastern and western cultures. Turkey enjoys a brilliant history and legacy of the Ottoman Empire. Just a few decades ago, Turkey suffered from 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 strength and has clear intentions of expansion to maintain its historical legacy. Turkey has quit the idea to be a European nation at all and is rather focusing on its Muslim heritage as well as 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’s power corridors. For Pakistan, the country must settle the overall national narrative as to what sort of state Pakistan will be and would like to be in the forthcoming future. Although the Objectives Resolution of 1949 set the path of a national narrative to be an Islamic welfare state, some people still debate it. Such debates confuse the people and let others discuss about Pakistan’s national narrative in a conflicting manner. All above mentioned world powers have settled their national narratives before launching their ambitious plans for domination. The geography, manpower, location, and strategic importance of Pakistan strongly demands 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 along with impressive infrastructure and economic development model. This narrative cannot be developed without removing the hurdles and punishing the powerful elites. It is these elites and the current system that is not allowing all benefits to reach the common people of Pakistan. Moreover, an equal opportunity based social justice system must be developed since no country can raise its stature without it amongst the comity of nations. For Pakistan, it is essential to develop a strong economic model. I don’t think anyone in the past has paid attention to this aspect. Mostly Pakistan’s economy was managed and maneuvered by international events such as the CENTO Treaty in the 50s and 60s to restrict the Red Revolution, USSR intervention in Afghanistan during 70’s and tragic incidence of 9/11 in 2001. Each of those events brought a huge flux of dollars into Pakistan due to which 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, 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 word’s landscape.

Pakistani policy makers must focus on a multi-pronged approach in order to boost our economy and currency. Since Pakistan is mainly an agricultural country, the importance of land reforms can’t be ignored. A food and water self-sufficient Pakistan will be speedily able to focus on other ingredients for exploring other milestones. With improvement in agriculture and the 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. We must not allow our agricultural lands to be diminished and residential societies occupy this huge potential and a proper legislation is needed to stop such uncontrolled spread.

Another possible economy-boosting model would be developing the 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 fees for goods passing through Pakistan 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 port of Singapore. A strong economic model is the fundamental pre- requisite for laying out an effective foreign policy. Pakistan has many levers to play around with for an effective economic model like military hardware development, tourism, CPEC passage tax and infrastructure, agriculture exports, sports-based sector and development of skilled manpower.

All these levers can be well managed and certainly will give positive results if an educated and honest leadership emerges at all levels amongst our society. Pakistan can also share many experiences, lessons learnt on the war against terrorism which can be a good image-building tool for Pakistan. The fundamental point here is that Pakistan can’t build a successful economic model unless developments in the human sector like education and healthcare are done. Basic healthcare and education are 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 regional connectivity. CPEC is just one example.

Another example is the 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 somehow could be upgraded, then another corridor could be made available that will 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.

Such bold economic steps cannot be executed without a strong leadership having strong will. Nations with weak and unimaginative leadership are either dominated by others or are usually be on mercy of others, always asking for help; history tells everything about such leaders. Many examples can be given like US, UK, China, Singapore, Turkey, Malaysia etc. where the leadership turned the table 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 due to our corrupt political system and policies thus leaving behind a huge gap that eventually has to be filled by mediocre and low-educated work force. The level of corrupt practices is so deep that many patriotic Pakistanis tried to come back to their country but being so disappointed by the corrupt system, they lost hope. This corrupt system must be changed and the corrupt elites must be punished. This is the absolute and total cure for advancement towards a healthy society and creating a sustainable economic model that would eventually help build an effective foreign policy.

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 amongst our missions around the globe who have strong inter-personal skills, knowledge of worlds politics and what is in Pakistan’s best interest and they work hard for achieving this goal. The diplomats from western nations and powerful countries normally have a 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 nation states. Our diplomats must trust the power of our military, successes gained in the anti-terrorism field and the strength of 220 million strong Pakistan. All respected nations always follow reciprocity rule, this simply means the same tit for tat approach as faced by our diplomats in other countries. How others deal with our diplomats, we should do the same, and it even may apply for social and diplomatic functions. Bottom line is that an apologetic diplomacy cannot work in this challenging world especially when we have an unstable Afghanistan with a new Taliban government in the west and the traditional enemy, India in the east, along with other challenges we are facing from other western capitals.

To summarize, Pakistan must build a strong narrative to be a powerful Islamic welfare state since this is already defined in the Objectives Resolution. This Islamic national narrative is supposed to be our strength rather than weakness. The greater objective of such narrative should be to lead the Islamic world from every aspect. Another important paradigm that impacts the foreign policy is the economic model and removal of hurdles that restrict economic wellbeing of the nation for which education and healthcare reforms are a must along with the formation of prestigious educational and healthcare institutions. Basic system reforms need to be done in the field of taxation, land reforms, social justice and above all punishing the corrupt elites that eat away at the very fabric of this nation. Pakistan must develop a blend of economic models 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 an effective nuclear deterrence, so we must pay attention to other ingredients for laying out an effective foreign policy. Reciprocity, tit for tat and show off muscle are all essential parts of the global diplomatic games. A big lesson from the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict is that a weak nation cannot sustain long enough and also no one comes to help in tough times if country is weak in multi-dimensional domains. It is important to fill above mentioned gaps if Pakistan wants to play a key role in global political arena.

At the and I will emphasize and humbly request all political stake holders to sit together and agree on an economic agenda. We have seen above that once all stake holders were on same page, we saw success. So, for shaking Pakistan’s economy, it is utmost important to develop an agreed economic agenda and execute it without any thought of political gains. In the foreign policy domain, it is critical to adopt such an approach to reap benefits of both blocs via a balanced policy and not tilting unnecessarily keeping in mind economic and strategic interests.