Pakistan’s foreign policy predicaments

‘Domestic policy can only defeat us; foreign policy can kill us’

The concept of nation states stems from the Peace of Westphalia, 1648 – the convention which came into effect after the thirty-year war among the Central European powers, and introduced territoriality, sovereignty and autonomy. However, the etiology of international diplomacy, world politics and foreign policy dates back to the time of Thucydides – the famous Athenian historian and general of 5th century BC.
The world then saw the Greek City States ascend to the forefront. In particular, the Peloponnesian wars between Athens and Sparta were glaring examples of state interaction and foreign policy – an atmosphere of animosity, contempt and savagery was rampant. The Roman (Large territorial holdings around Mediterranean Sea in Europe, Asia, and Africa) and the Byzantine (Continuation of the former) empires followed suit. 570 AD saw the rise of the Islamic empire. All these societal manifestations interacted with the outer world in one way or the other.
As the world moved from the dark ages to the middle ones the concept of foreign relations developed in sophistication and became the hallmark of world politics. During the modern age, the two World Wars along with the Cold War between 1900 and 1990, and the dynamic alignments, emboldened the concept further. In a nutshell, the importance of foreign interaction cannot be ignored anymore.
Besides a robust and efficacious foreign policy, wise diplomatic maneuvers are the cornerstones of a nation’s success in today’s world community. Apart from enabling states in achieving national interests, a well-directed, well-built foreign policy is the precursor to survival. Today, states are subjected to international sanctions – both economic and military. Hence, their subsistence becomes dependent on imports. Seclusion no more remains a viable option. The states of North Korea, Cuba, Syria, Iran and Burma, remain largely on the brink of impoverishment because of the heavy sanctions imposed – a result of their failed foreign policies.
Even world powers like the USSR bear the brunt of world politics, crumbling on their own structural weights of inwardly, and protected economies. ‘Perestroika and Glasnost’ were desperate, yet failed efforts by Gorbachev to save the USSR. Seclusion is a curse. The importance of a swift foreign policy cannot be stressed further. As the American figurehead John F. Kennedy once opined: “Domestic policy can only defeat us; foreign policy can kill us.”
The case of Pakistan’s foreign policy is a peculiar one. The country practices a more than independent foreign policy when it comes to nuclear issues – formation of nuclear reactors, foreign military purchases and development of warfare. However, particularly after 1977, it has plunged into a farce foreign policy when it comes to economic independence – Pakistan remains dependent on aid from foreign donors, and the resulting austerity. As of today, it has become a client state.
Historically, Pakistan’s foreign policy has been a confusing mix of alignments with the West yet with hints of entanglements with the East. Not only is it a major non-NATO ally of the United States (US lawmakers have recently moved to remove the tag) but also an all-weather friend of The People’s Republic of China – USA’s bitter foe in the race to world hegemony. It is the only nuclear power in the Islamic world, yet remains unable to take the lead between the KSA-Iran feuds. It remained a part of SEATO, CENTO, while most of the nations from its region were part of NAM. Having said that, the space designated to me, makes it impossible to focus on the historical blunders of Pakistan’s foreign policy, so I will try to focus on the current scenario.
With India:
Pakistan’s relations with India have been hampered by the three wars, an ever resilient water feud, the Kashmir paradigm, secretive nuclear arms race and terrorism proxies. An ever-present, mutual distrust and animosity have dinted the relations. The modus operandi and means to realise the national interests keep changing according to the demands of national and international situation, the perception of national leaders, the long and short term goals and the nature of the crisis faced by a country. However, in India’s case, our foreign policy seems to be dormant.
The recent spate in indigenous self-determination movements, in Kashmir, after the death of Burhan Wani in July 2016, and the Indian state’s counter measures – which have resulted in the blinding of thousands by pallets and the killings of hundreds – have worsened the situation. With no immediate solution to the issue, and the world powers turning their faces away (Like always) from the real issues, Kashmir remains a flashpoint, with the potential of becoming the centre of a full-fledged nuclear war. New Delhi will keep fostering its narrative of ‘dhood mango gey kheer dengay Kashmir mango gey cheer denge’ and Islamabad will keep chanting ‘Kashmir Pakistan ki shah rag hai.’ If Pakistan is to win Kashmir, it can only be through flawless diplomacy and a smart foreign policy.
Modi, while addressing world leaders during the BRICS summit, Goa, called Pakistan the ‘mothership of all terrorism’ – the Uri base camp attack, September 2016, was once again blamed on Pakistan. Fast forward to June, 2017, and the Modi-Trump joint statement from Washington, took Pakistan to task, voicing Indian concerns on the CPEC – the flagship of One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative.
Meetings took place in Washington this month to discuss the ever-lingering water feud between India and Pakistan. Though the World Bank has its hopes up, the issue of illegal Indian dams does not seem to go away.
Furthermore, the recent LoC debacle remains persistent, where both military and para-military personnel lose their lives every other day in incidents of shelling and inordinate firing.
In April, Pakistan sentenced Kulbushan Jadhav, the Indian spy to death, bringing in scores of protests from Sushma Swaraj – the Indian FM. India has moved the ICJ which has asked Pakistan to halt the capital punishment – another diplomatic failure on our side.
Last but not the least, the everyday visa issues do not seem to end. Recently, India has put the visas of Pakistani citizens seeking medical help in India, on a hold, and has made them contingent on a visa for Jadhav’s mother.
If these are not foreign policy failures, one can’t think of what are.
With Afghanistan:
Pakistan’s relations with Afghanistan have remained chequered. The 1979 Soviet invasion and Pakistan’s resistance kicked off the bumpy ride. The relations are still cold and do not seem to elude the cold war emblem.
President Ghani and the northern alliance-led government has openly accused Pakistan of backing the Kabul bombings of last month. Afghanistan blames Pakistan of providing safe havens to Hekmatyar’s Hizb-e-Islami, Jallaludin’s Haqqani network and Mullah Muhammad Omar’s Taliban. A failing state blames a nuclear power, yet no sufficient response is triggered among the foreign policy heads residing in Islamabad.
The landlocked Afghanistan has always been ungovernable, given its rugged terrain and inherited wars. The Afghan intelligence and armed forces seem to be helpless against insurgents, especially after the recent NATO pull-out.

History still haunts Pakistan – the aimed strategic depth in a ‘no man’s land’ has only given strategic headaches.

New Delhi’s proxies within Kabul, against Islamabad, are also a case to ponder. Just last year, Modi gifted a new parliament building to Afghanistan, and this year he started air trade with Afghanistan, bypassing the forbidden Pakistani territory.
Pakistan’s obsession of installing a pro-government in Afghanistan is not unknown. As Hillary Clinton once remarked: “Snakes in your backyard won’t bite only your neighbours.” The case is again of failed diplomacy and fissured foreign policy. Thanks to the flawed policy, even a mismanaged, misgoverned country like Afghanistan has been shaming Pakistan in the world community.
With USA:
The most perplexing case is of Pakistan’s relations with the USA. The US sees Pakistan through an Afghan Prism – the term Af-Pak, coined in 2009 by US foreign policy circles, still irks many Pakistani leaders and public alike.
However, the heads of USA’s foreign policy remain unfazed in deploying a carrot and stick policy when it comes to Pakistan. Recently, a bill was moved within Senate to curtail the already curtailed aid to Pakistan. In USA’s war against terrorism, Pakistan has faced a loss of 108 billion USD, however the reparation from USA was not even one-third. On the top of it, the ubiquitous demand ‘do more’ never halts.
Moreover, the USA sees CPEC with eyes of contempt as the project envisages China’s rise in the region and the world.
The protectors of Pakistan’s foreign policy have failed abysmally, to gain leverage, even at the helms of incidents like Raymond Davis’ arrest and Salala Airbase attack.
The case of American drones hovering over Pakistani territory and hitting the ‘so-called’ terrorists is particularly startling. The former Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar openly condemned the drone attacks, while the then President Asif Zardari openly acquiesced to the attacks and labelled the casualties ‘collateral damage.’ These are not the only examples, the Pakistani top hierarchy is still not able to provide a unified stance on drone attacks.
On the other hand, India has gained momentum with the USA. The 2008 Indo-US civil nuclear agreement has backed IAEA standards, but has preferred India for an NSG membership as opposed to Pakistan’s appeal.
This shows the double standard on the part of USA and diplomatic incompetence on the part of Pakistan. As a matter of fact, Obama visited the south Asian region many a times during his 8-year tenure, which included multiple visits to both India and Afghanistan, but he completely neglected even the idea of a visit to Pakistan.
With China:
Since 1961, when Pakistan signed a territorial agreement with China, the bilateral relations between the two countries have remained warm. China is considered as Pakistan’s all-weather friend.
Though we champion CPEC, it has its predicaments. China knows, and has recently urged the politicians to overcome their political altercations and put heads rolling to ensure the speedy completion of CPEC projects. However, the politicians do not learn their lesson.
Moreover, there is an ever-going tussle between the government officials and OGRA regarding the tariff of electricity being produced by the early-harvest energy projects of CPEC. Adding to that, there is the muddle of security issues. Chinese personnel have recently been murdered, kidnapped or tortured across areas of Pakistan.
Although Pak-China relations have moved on to a strategic paradigm as well as an economic one, these issues if not solved, may dint the relations somehow.
With KSA, Iran:
Through a joint parliament sitting, it was ruled that Pakistan will not be a part of the Saudi-led coalition against Yemen, however it became a part of the ‘so called’ 39-nation military alliance (Which is spearheaded by the KSA and GCC, but does not comprise of Iran – the other regional power) in its fight against terrorism. Albeit the announcement of neutrality, KSA has many a times insisted and sometimes included Pakistan in the list of its notorious West-savvy allies. This replicates the extent to which our foreign policy, rather naively, favors KSA, sometimes over Iran.

The recent stint of Raheel Sharif, to head the alliance, has further nudged Tehran’s fears over Pakistan’s dwindling neutrality.

Incidents with Iran have also surfaced: In May 2017, Pakistan claimed that Iranian mortar fire killed its civilians: the recent firing down of Iranian spy drone ‘deep inside’ Balochistan is also not unknown.
Pakistan is confused of whether to align itself with its neighbour, or with the Middle Eastern Kingpin KSA, in which it has its more than 1.5 million expatriates (Those who have faced their own issues of food shortage, and deportation, and have never seen their state diplomats come to their rescue).
There is a third option: of remaining neutral. However, the question of how to achieve the neutrality eludes our policy makers.
With Russia:
Moscow is a world player, and its importance for Asia cannot be neglected. The joining of SCO, the successfully conducted Druzhba 2016 (even after India asked Russia – its longtime friend – to abstain from the military exercise, in view of the Uri base camp incident), the Aman exercises of January 2017, and the mi-35 helicopter deal, has warmed up the bilateral relations among Pakistan and Russia.
However, the recent India-Russia summit has again reinforced the old friendship between the two at the expense of relations with Islamabad. Why can’t there be a Russo-Pak summit? Where is our effective, active foreign policy?
What caused such failures?
Islamabad’s foreign policy successes are outnumbered by its failures. The reasons of the failures are several: the civil-military tussle, the abysmal state of lobbying, the leadership void, dependence on West, and India centrism, to name a few.
Who controls Islamabad’s foreign policy?
Shortly after 0100 hours on May 2, 2011, when Osama bin Laden was killed during a US operation in Abbottabad, the US president neither called his counterpart Asif Zardari, nor the country’s Premier Yusuf Raza Gillani, rather a call was made to General Ashfaq Pervaiz Kayani, the then COAS.
This shows the sorry state of affairs at Islamabad’s FO. It is also evident how the Pak army and the intelligence has fiddled with the political history of the 70-year old country. The frequent military coups still haunt the country’s progress.
When it comes to Pakistan’s external relations, the army has always sought to severe trade ties with India and have ensured a favorable attitude toward the Taliban-led insurgents in Afghan. The recent Dawn Leaks also brought into the limelight, the civil-military scuffle, which becomes apparent in foreign policy prerogatives.
The ex-PM Nawaz Sharif may be blamed for not appointing a full-time foreign minister, but never has anyone wondered why it was so. What was Nawaz’s obsession with heading the portfolio himself? Did he feel threatened at the foreign policy front by the military?
The way forward:
There are many avenues Islamabad could undertake to emerge successful, and out of the crossroads. Smart diplomacy is one of those – Pakistan should develop a dynamic foreign policy, especially with regards to India and Afghanistan, the historical, ideological shackles of monotony must be broken.

Secondly, there is a dire need for the institutions (army, intelligence) to take a back seat – let the ‘civies’ do their job. The ‘separation of powers’ must not only be the notion limited to the constitution, it must be applied in spirit.

Thirdly, Pakistan’s diplomatic clout must hire lobbying groups to pursue the country’s interests more vividly. Track-two diplomacy must sometimes take the lead in pursuance of national interest.

Moreover, Pakistan needs a leader. In my view, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was one, who was taken away. The American foreign policy saw Wilson, Monroe and the Roosevelts, shape the course of things. They always led from the front. Likewise, Pakistan needs a full-time pioneer, an iconoclast with a vision to reshape foreign policy.
Last but not the least, Pakistan needs a stable internal political dynamic. A house is as strong as its weakest brick. A strong foreign policy can only be borne out of a favorable culture of sovereignty and democracy. A house in order seems to be the most apposite, pertinent way out.