By Arshad Mahmood Awan

Foreign policy is a broad set of objectives that guide the activities and relationships of one state in its interactions with other states. Foreign policy development is influenced by domestic considerations, the policies or behaviour of other states, or plans to advance specific geopolitical designs. Earlier, it emphasized the significance of geography and external threats in shaping foreign policy, but later, writers underscored domestic factors, ideologies and economic considerations. Diplomacy is the mechanism of foreign policy, and war, alliances, and international trade may all be parts of the relations shaping foreign policies.

Pakistan’s foreign policy often depends upon three stimulants: normative, statist, and structural. First, the normative stimulant is a constitutive element of the Pakistani nation-state project, including ideological and self-definitional tropes such as culture, values, religion, and history based on its religious identity. The critical question is to what extent Pakistan’s Islamic identity provides explanations for its foreign policy when international relations literature considers the national interest a more trustworthy predictor of foreign policy than identity or ideology. It has been a complex ideological situation for Pakistan. Pakistan and Israel are the two countries which were established through religious movements. Thus, shifting the whole paradigm from religious ideology to national interest is difficult. How can a state abandon the doctrine of its creation? Then, the constitution of Pakistan under the chapter Principles of policy makes it clear that the Islamic way of life and unique relations with the Islamic world shall be adopted as a priority principle. Second, the statist strand in Pakistan’s foreign policy displays a path-dependent fixation on a traditional security paradigm as a defence against external threats. These regional threat perceptions originate from two of its immediate neighbours: Afghanistan, via the Durand Line conflict, from India, over Kashmir, its core security problem. These are the geographical issues of the state that pertains to the existence of the state. Therefore, the state psyche and operators comprehend it as the primary concern in shaping internal and external policies. Third, the structural stimulant indicates policy inputs from the international system and great powers over which Pakistan exercises little control. For instance, the growing strategic rivalry between the United States and China directly impacts Pakistan’s foreign policy as Pakistan attempts to navigate between the two powers without endangering its relations with either of them. These three compulsions provide insight into Pakistan’s two critical foreign policy goals: achieving economic redemption and regulating conventional security.https://republicpolicy.com/national-power-determines-the-foreign-domestic-policy/

Does Islam as a normative ideal deliver a solid explanation for Pakistan’s foreign policy since independence, or does the foreign policy have to do more with attaining national interest pursuits? The Islamic identity is constantly invoked as a key element in the first Prime Minister of Pakistan, Liaquat Ali Khan’s side-stepping of an official invitation from the Soviet Union in 1949 and, instead, visiting the United States in May 1950 because the “godless” communist ideology of the Soviet Union meddled with Pakistan’s religious sensitivities. As the state had already enacted Objectives Resolutions 1949 to make Islam the state religion, it was impossible to ally with those different from the concepts of religion or even Islam. This ideological issue remained aloof regarding China, the countervailing communist power. It vindicates the state had its dimensions of religious interpretations or that the operatives spin it differently and accordingly. Pakistan recognized Communist China as early as 1950 and initiated bilateral relations with the Chinese state despite engagement in military defence alliances with the United States. Critics attribute the decision to the geographical proximity and the clashes between China and India.

Inconsistency of Islamic identity and national interests is also evident in Pakistan’s outreach to the Muslim world. This outreach was obstructive initially as Pakistan’s national interest dictated a pro-Western foreign policy and a less enthusiastic response to Arab nationalism. In 1956, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Husain Shaheed Suhrawardy, lamenting the state of the Muslim world, reiterated, “zero plus zero plus zero plus zero is, after all, equal to that, zero.”

National interest driving foreign policy choices is a theme for Pakistan and the Muslim states. Religious affinity has always been secondary, and it has been the pattern till now. Pakistan invoked all its allies after India revoked Article 370, vesting Jammu and Kashmir the semi-autonomous status in August 2019. Accordingly, the then-Pakistani Foreign Minister blamed Saudi Arabia for its lack of support for convening a special session of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation on Kashmir, which came after it reduced its aid for Pakistan. It is a little example of how normative idealism—solidarity, as a Muslim-majority country, with Pakistan in its stance on Muslim-majority Kashmir—matters increasingly less in foreign policymaking. It, combined with the Muslim countries’ pursuit of peace with Israel, indicates changing strategic realities that Pakistan’s foreign policy must contend with in the future.

While threats persist, the critical question is whether Pakistan can move beyond these to build more favourable engagements with its neighbouring states, specifically India and Afghanistan. Modern nation-states are more prone to economic well-being than ideologies. All sentiments work together; however, financial considerations are the primary reason to formulate foreign policies, followed only by defence considerations.

Pakistan’s search for security assurances has been the fundamental prerequisite in shaping its foreign policy. Comprehending it in the classical realist sense concerns the politics of national survival, territorial integrity, military empowerment, and a disproportionate, if not exclusive, concern with security hazards. In the immediate aftermath of freedom, secessionist fears in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly North West Frontier Province) and Balochistan, where the princely state of Kalat proclaimed its independence in August 1947, intensified security threat dynamics. The working sentiment of the freedom movement was religion, and with Pakistan’s accomplishments, it subsided. Then, other ideas of federation became the driving force. Then, the state needed help to unite the parts on national affiliations. Within Pakistan’s strategic establishment, these threats justify and contribute to an internalized militarized security stance that informs its approach to regional security. Pakistan and Iran have Baloch populations, like Afghanistan and Pakistan have Pushtuon people. As all the countries are Muslims, religious sentiment is subsided, though with Iran, there is a sectarian sentiment. Hence, Pakistan has been facing the threats of Pushton and Baloch nationalism.https://republicpolicy.com/does-foreign-aid-boost-economy/ 

Pakistan-India relations have been an expression of conflicts and opportunities. For example, the last phase of goodwill between the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif, and the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, was in 2014 and 2015, when the two leaders demonstrated promise, potential, and vision for a South Asia connected through trade and business. This initial goodwill gesture failed when the Pathankot air force base was attacked only two weeks after Modi’s surprise visit to Lahore. India-Pakistan relations have not recovered since and have deteriorated to the point where recovery seems elusive, especially in light of India’s unilateral actions in Kashmir. Kashmir is the core issue between India and Pakistan. The partition of India was carried out on religion irrespective of the merit of separation; therefore, the people of Kashmir should have provided a choice based on religion, as people enjoyed it in 1947. Hence, it is an unfinished agenda of the partition of 1947. Conventional security dynamics will likely persist in Pakistan’s foreign policy, with incumbent governments facing tribulation justifying trade and cooperative engagement with India unless the latter reverses its abrogation of Article 370 and settles the Kashmir disputes.

The relationship between Pakistan with Afghanistan has been complex and intricate. Pakistan has faced two types of Afghanistan; one is afghan nationalist, and the other is Islamic Afghanistan of Taliban. The Afghan nationalists do not maintain the Durand Line as the international border and insist that all Pushton areas of Pakistan are their part. It is the reason that Pakistan always treats them through the eyes of security. Taliban are a religious government, and Pakistan is still finding it hard to manage better relations with them. Afghanistan is the most significant country that impacts the state and society of Pakistan. The ties with Afghanistan are critical for shaping our foreign policy as it involves several international countries and is the hotbed of the complex international power game. 

Structural imperatives stemming from an international system over which Pakistan has little control have impacted Pakistan’s foreign policy, mainly after the 1979 and 2001 invasions of Afghanistan, respectively. At both junctures, Pakistan couldn’t resist the developing security situation on its Western border. While Pakistan remained the United States’ most steadfast ally during both episodes, it retained its close ties with China. Most recently, Pakistan finds itself uneasily positioned between the United States and China as the distribution of capabilities in the international system accentuates China as a global strategic rival and competitor to the United States. It is evident in the United States’ sharp criticism of Pakistan’s participation in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which makes it difficult for Pakistan to lean on one side without courting the other’s displeasure.

Most recently, Pakistan finds itself uneasily positioned between the United States and China as the distribution of capabilities in the international system accentuates China as a global strategic rival and competitor to the United States.

The regime change in Pakistan has also created an international perspective of foreign policy. During the era of former Prime Minister Imran khan, the U.S. had a frozen shoulder to Pakistan. But, now the relationships are improving. Does it also show how powers maintain their relations? They retain their ties according to their wish and desire. Then, Pakistan depends on Saudi Arabia and UAE for economic aid, which is the only reason the former countries influence the foreign policies of  Pakistan. Where does this leave Pakistan and its foreign policy? Pakistan’s foreign policy has been concerned primarily between security and ideological domains. The economic factor has not been the primary factor in shaping Pakistan’s foreign policy. Hence, it manifests that national power and orientation determine the contours of foreign policy.https://republicpolicy.com/the-plight-of-pakistan/

Hence, Pakistan must re-align its principles of foreign policy. It must prioritize the economic interests of the nation. Then, the objectives of the foreign policy shall only be attained once Pakistan develops progressively and stands on its feet. Pakistan must realize that the health of foreign policy depends upon a country’s national power. Instead, it is directly proportional to the national power. Foreign policy requires economic independence and technological advancement of weapons. Pakistan faces fundamental existential issues. Therefore, national power is the essential part. A dependent Pakistan shall never have a healthy foreign policy. The role of diplomacy becomes irrelevant when countries still need to possess national power.