No bravado, please!

He spent almost six years in New Delhi. He saw the rise of Narendra Modi so as the Hindutva. He also had the firsthand account of deteriorating Indo-Pak ties. He reached out to a cross section of society in India and made friends there. He is now back in Pakistan and has quietly started working on his new government assignment. The experience and knowledge he gained while being on one of the difficult diplomatic jobs could be handy for our foreign policymakers on India. In developed democracies, there has been institutional mechanism to get input from people who served on key diplomatic assignments. Ironically, he was neither asked nor approached by any government institution, including the Foreign Office, for debriefing.

The idea behind narrating the story of this civil servant, whose identity is being withheld to avoid putting his job at risk, is just to reflect upon how our state and its institutions have been functioning.

His story is important in the context of our current foreign policy challenges thrust upon us by US President Donald Trump’s new strategy for Afghanistan and South Asia. The government, military and other stakeholders have been working on a war footing to prepare a comprehensive response to the new US plan, since Trump’s August 21^st policy speech. Every day we hear statements from the government ministers to Foreign Office officials and from the military to opposition leaders on the subject as if this is the only problem we are left with. There have been civil-military huddles. There have been brainstorming sessions at the foreign ministry. The National Assembly and the Senate have swung into action too, realising they have a role in determining the direction of the country’s foreign policy.

But where was this urgency when even a layman with little knowledge of international politics could easily preempt Trump’s Afghan plan?

Months before the new plan became public knowledge, a series of developments in Washington clearly suggested that there won’t be business as usual with Pakistan under the new US administration. Yet, our policymakers probably were hoping against hope or were under the illusion that given Pakistan’s pivotal role, even people like Trump, despite being erratic and unpredictable, could not get tough with us.

Unfortunately, our policies whether internal or external have always been reactive rather than being proactive. It would have been a different situation alltogether had the government, the military establishment and Parliament discussed the US’s possible plan on Afghanistan before it was announced. Had that been the case we would not have seen being acting on a war footing as we are right now.

Why do we always first wait for the tragedy to occur and then look for damage control? Also our discussions and debates have primarily focused on criticising Donald Trump and his policy but little attention is being paid to our internal shortcomings.

Identifying the root cause is always the first step towards finding a solution to any problem. The root cause of our problems is certainly not Trump, Modi or Ghani. They are doing everything in the best interest of their respective countries.

Our core issue is that we run this country on adhoc basis. And the foreign policy is not immune either to this virus. Secondly, we often link everything, including foreign policy, with our national pride. And our so-called pride gets hurt so easily. Foreign policy is not a business to be run on emotions and knee-jerk reactions. It requires an institutional mechanism and a well-defined system that cannot only absorb shocks but also come up with robust response.

We are also overwhelmed with the instant support extended by our strategic partner China and our new ‘friend’ Russia. There is no harm in taking solace from these positive developments given the issues we are confronted with on foreign policy fronts. But their support aside, ultimately we have to find solutions to our problems from within.

We need to be realistic and pragmatic: China and Russia have extended support to us not out of any favour but because of their own national interests. Historically, we have often allowed ourselves to be used by the powerful countries, including the United States, to further their interests. But we were left high and dry once we lost our utility because we never looked to formulate our policies keeping the long-term implications.

As the government is in the process to formulate its strategy on Trump’s plan, there has been talk of exercising hard options. This could be judged from the statement of Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif, who said Pakistan had temporarily suspended talks with the United States as a protest over its new Afghan plan. Such statements certainly make catchy headlines and give a false sense of national pride. But statecraft is too delicate a process to be pronounced through lofty claims. More than this bravado, we need urgent and sustained institutional reforms that address loopholes in our system so that apart from streamlining our foreign policy goals, the civil servant — whose story has been told at the start — and like many others could effectively contribute for the benefit of the state.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 7^th, 2017.

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