This article is being outlined when the FIFA World Cup in going on in Qatar and this reminded me and actually forced me to write about the great leadership of the Qatar Government and the will of the ruling Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani. I can recall those days when Qatar was bidding for the 2022 world cup a decade ago and now, we can see such a magnificent event becoming reality with all Islamic laws being implemented, enforced and actually respected from across-the-board global communities participating in the FIFA world cup (notwithstanding the allegations of malpractices and corruption by Qatar tainting this event). Taking place in Qatar from 20 November to 18 December 2022, the 22nd FIFA World Cup is the first World Cup to be held in the Arab world, and the second World Cup held entirely in Asia after the 2002 tournament in South Korea and Japan.
Qatar has spent over an estimated 220 billion dollars for this event, it is currently the most expensive World Cup ever held. Qatar is a small size country in terms of geography yet offers the world’s richest life style for its citizens and residents. On the other hand, Pakistan is handsomely bigger in terms of population and geography and yet is struggling for a couple of billion-dollar bailout packages from Gulf and other friendly countries. Where are we going and what is our destiny? Have we seriously set a path forward? Where are our think tanks and policy makers?
To be honest and straight forward, we have to analyze various factors along with historic perspective about the potential we have and what can be done moving forward, regardless of whatever happened in the past in terms of corrupt political mafias, allegations of looting and last but not least, the long tenures of the military establishment. 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. Qatar has played well in terms of foreign policy and economic domains, from the Hamas recognition to Afghan Taliban – US negotiations, thus successfully demonstrating that delicate table talks can be reliable.
With recent change of command in the Pakistan army, I am quite hopeful that Pakistan will set its right direction and political parties will be left alone to maneuver for diplomacy, economics and foreign policy.
With the current global economic and diplomatic scenario, it is a huge challenge for Pakistan to re-establish its worth and status in the comity of nations. The world is watching carefully on happenings on Pakistan and unfortunately, we are demonstrating that Pakistani political parties are not able to play well in foreign policy and economic domains.
Elaborating some background, the foreign policy subject is tough, enormously challenging, and sometimes risky business when it comes to addressing the interstate relations and play around in the very thin area of maneuverability. Usually, world powers have the luxury to enjoy playing around and maneuvering because they have many tools and means to enforce their terms as compared to moderate and 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 to that level, there are some criteria that must be fulfilled in order to create space for an ambitious nation to enter 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 has to go through many ups and downs for many centuries such as the war of independence, civil war within north and southern states, internal struggle in order to develop an effective social justice system and building up prestigious educational institutions like Harvard and Stanford, etc. Similarly, the UK and other European nations who colonized many parts of the world also had to develop almost the same system of social justice for their nations.
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 they make advancements in all areas stated above.
For an ambitious nation, the next question that comes to mind is, what is the narrative of that particular country as a whole. For example, the 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 blend of military and economic strength. The famous book by John Perkins “Confessions of an Economic Hitman” a clear example how corporatocracy culture works in dominating the entire world, especially developing nations.
The next example is Russia where all basic ingredients were fulfilled for becoming a world power. Russia’s communist ideology had basic flaws and gaps along with direct ruthless military interventions in neighboring countries for expansion of the communist ideology. The system collapsed due to internal problems in late 80’s but since all basic grounds rules were already implemented that kept Russia still in the row of one of the world powers.
China is a recently developed socialist economy and trying to raise its stature as one of the world’s dominant powers. Just look 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 was done by Russian communism. Social justice system has been developed and is so effective that powerful and corrupt people are executed with capital punishments. No country can join the world power stature without punishing the corrupt elites and enforcing social justice system. The remaining ingredients are required as usual as mentioned above.
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 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 strength and has clear intentions of expansion to maintain the historical legacy. Turkey has quit the idea of being an European nation as a whole and 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 corridors of the world power.
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 till now and are having issues with a humongous population living way below the line of poverty. India is blindly spending on its military and trying to improve economics, however, there are other important elements that are critical like 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 its 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 its extreme cheap labor and availability of graduates from street level institutions. There are fundamental flaws in Indian policy making and in handling of its enormous population, majority which is poor.
Now let us come to Pakistan. The country must settle the overall national narrative about what sort of state Pakistan will be and would like to be in the forthcoming future. Although the Objective Resolution 1949 set the path of national narrative to be an Islamic welfare state, still some people debate about it. Such debates confuse the people and let others 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 impressive infrastructure and economic development model. This narrative can’t 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 amongst the comity of nations. The good thing is that accountability has been started under Supreme Court supervision recently and it should be above board and punish everyone 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.
The Economic Model
Each world power has learnt over the 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, US economic model in 18th century was focusing on industrial development and manufacturing. Later on, this model 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 while the US had taken its place as 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.
As far as Russia/former USSR 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 but I don’t think anyone in the past 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 the Red Revolution, USSR intervention in Afghanistan during 70s & 80s and tragic incident of 9/11 in 2001. Each of those events brought huge flux of dollars to Pakistan due to which the country was able to sustain its economy but on an artificial basis. Very little attention was given to industrialization and manufacturing. Pakistan had reached 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 multi-pronged approach in order to boost its 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 backbone 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 for developing the military hardware-based economy. I don’t need to mention much here since many defence related organizations are working to boost this domain.
Other possible economy boosting models would be developing tourism sector. Many countries solely depend upon tourism for sustaining their economies. On the top of that Pakistan is building the mega 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. A 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 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 Pakistan cannot build a successful economic model unless developments in human sector like education and health take place. Basic health 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 the regional connectivity. CPEC is just one example. Another example is the Turkey-Iran-Pakistan Economic Corridor (TIPEC). An highway already exists between Pakistan, Iran and Turkey by the name of RCD Highway and if this highway could somehow be upgraded, then another corridor could be made available that will connect Caucasus countries from 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 all the way up to Western China.
Honest and Courageous Leadership
Nations with weak leadership are either dominated by others or are always on the mercy of others, asking for help since history is full of such nations. Many examples can be given like US, UK, China, Singapore, Turkey, Malaysia etc where the leadership turned the table around. The recent most example is Russia’s Vladimir Putin who managed to isolate Ukraine from any foreign help and invaded the country to prevent its borders from NATO influence, right or wrong did not matter. Pakistan needs a strong 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 gets filled by mediocre and low educated work force. The level of corrupt practices is so deep that many patriotic Pakistanis who tried to return were so disappointed by the corrupt system, the and lost hope and went back. This corrupt system must be changed, and corrupt elites must be sacked. This is the absolute and whole cure for advancement towards a healthy society and thus creating a sustainable economic model that would eventually help building 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 best 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 who must have 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 anti-terrorism field and the strength of 220 million strong Pakistanis. All respected 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 or apologetic diplomacy cannot work in this challenging world especially when we have an unstable Afghanistan even with a new Taliban government in the west and our traditional enemy, India in the east along with other challenges we are facing from other western capitals.
Military Power Presence & Demonstration
Pakistan is a nuclear power, so we must show our muscle wherever and whenever required. We must adopt a little bossy attitude and if the situation warrants we must forget an apologetic attitude. Many countries have defence or semi-defence pacts with Pakistan, so 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. We should use this platform for selling military equipment, firming up bilateral relations for trade, visa arrangements on arrival agreements, military training and other economic deals. Pakistan must work aggressively for getting military access to the 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 (EEZ) is the prime factor in our naval domain. Although Pakistan is enforcing all international regulations within its EEZ, yet effective presence is important in order 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 become a powerful Islamic welfare state since this is already defined in its Objective Resolution. This Islamic national narrative is supposed to be our strength not its weakness. The greater objective of such a narrative should be to lead the Islamic world from every aspect. Other 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 health reforms are must along with 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 mixed blend of economic model that covers sale of military hardware, 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 display of muscles (if required) are all essential ingredients of global diplomatic games. A big lesson from the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict is that a weak nation cannot sustain for very long and more importantly, that no one comes to help out directly. It is important to fill up the above mentioned gaps if Pakistan wants to paly a key role in the global political arena. I would like to again emphasize and humbly request all political stake holders to sit together and agree on an economic agenda. We have seen success when all stake holders were on same page. In order to improve Pakistan’s economy, it is of utmost importance to develop and agree on an economic agenda and execute it without thinking of any political gains. In the foreign policy domain it is critical to adopt such an approach to reap benefits for all via a balanced policy keeping in mind economic and strategic interests. I am hoping earnestly for political harmony in Pakistan because this is the only way forward alongwith agreement on a Minimum Agenda and that must involve a greater consensus on improving Pakistan’s economy. If we as a Pakistani nation, could develop and execute such an economic and foreign policy paradigm vision, we can progress like Qatar has done, and become the leader of the Islamic world.
