Emotion-driven foreign policy in a shambles

[illusion8]

From various threads from the last few days it can be seen that people get highly emotional on issues related to US-Pakistan relations, Drone strikes, Salala incident and NATO supply route blockage. As the below mentioned article suggests Pk's Foreign policy is street emotions driven though it's real and considers people's emotions but it cannot be forced on other nations. Global powers and the US are not concerned of what Pakistan's people think and want. They are clear what they want Pakistan to do so shouldn't Pakistan be clear as well. Foreign policy needs to be alienated from domestic issues and concerns to a major degree and must deal more with Geo politics and a nation's overall locus standi based on sound principles which is not at all visible. What does Pakistan really want should be the concern rather than what does Pakistani's want. What do other countries want from Pakistan should be the concern and not what Pakistani people think about the wants. Foreign policy should be left to the experts not to the people and the politicians. India voted against Sri Lanka on the human rights issue because of coalition pressure though it didn't want to, thats succumbing to local pressure which hampered India's overall goals vis a vis Sri Lanka. In Pakistan hatred is driving Foreign policy not pragmatism.

Farrukh Saleem
Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Islamabad

The most critical component of our foreign policy — the US-Pak relationship — is currently in shambles because of two blunders: one, the Parliamentary Committee on National Security (PCNS) and two, the Difa-e-Pakistan Council (DPC). The PCNS politicised our foreign policy, while the DPC emotionalised it.

To be certain, foreign policy the world over lies in the executive domain, not with Parliament. Ideally, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with its foreign policy strategists along with its diplomatic corps, ought to formulate the policy itself with approval lying in the Parliamentary domain. In reality, for the past six decades, the US-Pak component of our foreign policy has actually been in the GHQ’s domain. Six months ago, the GHQ devised a plan to use the PCNS in order to achieve its own pre-set objectives.

To begin with, Pakistan’s America policy was unnecessarily politicised at a critical juncture, and secondly, foreign policy was handed over to the PCNS that has had no experience in the field.

The GHQ’s plan has clearly backfired because politicians, especially in an election year, are prone to public opinion while a successful foreign policy cannot be based on public opinion alone.

The second blunder was the attempt to leverage Pakistani street emotions in order to extract concessions from the US foreign policy apparatus. This attempt gave birth to the Difa-e-Pakistan Council (DPC), and the Council has now begun to backfire as well because human emotions are not like machines that can be turned on or off at will.

The formulation of a successful foreign policy is not a political exercise; it’s more of a scientific undertaking that takes into account Pakistan’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (the SWOT analysis). Formulation of a successful America policy cannot be an emotional exercise; it’s more of an art that after taking into account the real world power-asymmetry between the US and Pakistan still manages to safeguard long-term strategic interests of the Pakistani state.

Economic repercussions of an emotion-driven foreign policy are the most visible: a depreciating rupee, negligible foreign direct investment and the drying up of aid inflow all resulting in higher unemployment and even higher inflationary pressures. A politicised foreign policy is the ideal recipe that is now cooking Pakistan in an isolationist soup. An emotion-driven foreign policy is leading Pakistan into a deep, dark ditch because emotions are blind and “if the blind lead the blind both shall fall into the ditch.”

America’s Pakistan policy is a consequence of selfish, emotionless calculation and is based strictly on self interest. America’s Pakistan policy is apolitical, egocentric and egoistic — a three in one. We must respond in kind.

Emotion-driven foreign policy in a shambles - thenews.com.pk

 

[muse]

Dr. Saleem is one of the best analyst I have read, however, this business about an "emotional" foreign policy is confusing - is he and many others, referring to the US foreign policy or the Pakistan foreign policy??

The Salalah incident took place over a period of more than 4 hours - in that time, US gunships targeted individual Pakistani soldiers, one by one, cold blooded? or a emotional response born of frustration? And then after a US inquiry report cited US mistakes, the US refused to apologize -- cold blooded or emotional? And in Chicago, when Mr. Obama went out of his way to snub the Pakistani delegation and Pakistani in the reconstitution and reconciliation of and Among Afghans, was that cold blooded or emotional??

The media campaigns and the political football that the Afghan war and the drone wars are, are those not emotional??


Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting the US is behaving rationally or that Pakistan is - perhaps this is a God sent, Pakistan can adjust relations with the US, if that's possible, or not, either way, Pakistan will have made some progress towards bringing sanity and balance to her relations with the US - -- and the US can have the chance to explore all her options with out Pakistan, an opportunity welcome in Washington, Islamabad and elsewhere, surely?

 

[illusion8]

Don't get me wrong either, the situation is charged up and so are you, No rational solutions come out in a charged environment. The argument in the article and mine as well is the people presently handling the FP will act based on domestic compulsions, which does not drive FP.