A strong foreign policy can be pursued if a country is militarily strong and is run by civilian people with mutually trusting relationship with military. Irrespective of military strength, BD military and civilian politicians do not trust each other. Hasina does not want a situation whereby military comes to the fore.
In 2008, General Moeen sent naval ships to the Sea where MM was digging for oil/gas. MM navy broke the drilling rigs and went back within a few days. Now, why MM can send millions of refugees to BD? It is because it has correctly read the pulse of Hasina and gong. This gong does not want the military to come to the fore and takes credit. It is rather willing to shame the country only to sit in power in Dhaka.
No amount of big weapons will change the kowtowing nature of our BAL political group. Begum Zia did not care for military to come in a 2001 Naaf Dariya confrontation with MM because she belongs to a military family. On the contrary, Hasina's family members were killed by the military and so she does not trust the military.
Now, we can see another Mir Zafar Ali Khan clad in Sari and Hijab!!
I agree that the current AL government has a somewhat "docile" foreign and defence policy but cannot agree on the extent that this is due to the mistrust between AL and the military.
If we look back to the late 1990s when the AL was last in power, they tried and failed to order(as USA refused to sell to BD) 27 F-16s and then put in an order for 16 Mig-29s with an option for 16 more. In that time they also ordered the single Ulsan class frigate which to this day is still the most advanced and powerful warship in the BN.
When BNP came into power in 2001, not only did they cancel the options for 16 extra Mig-29 but refused to take the 8 Mig-29s that were still to be delivered by Russia. BNP also wanted to sell the 8 Mig-29s that had already been delivered but I think luckily they could not find any buyers.
They also mothballed the Ulsan class frigate as they felt it was also not required.
So saying that the AL are anti-military and BNP pro-military is not wholly accurate.
As has been seen in another thread, BD defence spending has gone up by 81% in real terms over the last decade and this is the highest in the world just next to China. There is no reason to think that over this decade BD defence spending will not follow a similar trend.
My impression is that the AL government has made a pact with the military to be allowed to stay in power as long as the military gets the toys that it wants within BD financial capability. What they do with the money given seems to be up to the competency and the whims of those running those branches.
The BAF has been given every chance to build itself up like the BA and BN has been but it seems to have an extremely incompetent and/or corrupt people at the top.
From all the information I have read it seems that instead of using the funds available to it to complete the Mig-29 squadron by buying an extra 8 Mig-29s and upgrading the current planes to SMT standards(new radar and R-77 AAMs), it foolishly chose to spend that money on 16 F-7BGIs and far too many trainers for it's fleet of front line fighters.
Now imagine a BAF with 16 modern Mig-29s with modern radars and R-77s against 30 MAF Mig-29s with 1980s era radars and the pretty obsolete R-27 AAM back in August 2017.
Kind of changes the whole military calculus doesn't it?
My opinion is that BD government and military rightly did not take a military posture against Myanmar in 2017 simply as BAF was not up to the job against Myanmar.
I know there is a lot of "filling in gaps" with educated guesses here but I do not think it is simple as BNP = pro military and AL = anti-military.