When Pakistan came into being the world was divided into two blocks: the western block led by the United States of America and the eastern block led by the USSR. Pakistan was a young child and it could not grow alone because its sovereignty was in danger. Therefore, it was the need of the hour to join any of the two blocks to protect its sovereignty. The tilt of the leadership was toward the western block mainly because of three reasons:
a) the leadership of Pakistan had learned in the west, therefore, they were pro-west
b) Pakistan emerged as a democratic state and the USSR was a communist state
c) communist USSR leadership was highly nationalist and they were not ready to engage other states while western leadership was well coming and were happy to engage democratic states.
In this way, Pakistan forged a pro-western foreign policy to meet its three needs: Economic stability, strategic security, and Islamic ideology. Thus Pakistan joined the USA in the cold war and in response USA and its other alloy including Saudi Arabia provided economic Aid to Pakistan. Furthermore, Pakistan started the weapons import from the USA and thus Pakistan tried to secure its need, but it was the misunderstanding of Pakistan that the USA would maintain strategic relations with Pakistan as the USA maintained with India. This misunderstanding kept Pakistan away from development and Pakistan suffered a lot. After fighting two wars with the USA in 1979 and 2001-2021 against the USSR and Terrorism respectively, Pakistan realized that it has got nothing and fighting a war for other nations was a historic blunder, therefore, it has shifted its foreign policy from 2010 onward.
A major shift in the foreign policy of Pakistan was a policy shift from Washington-centric to Beijing-centric, from socio-strategic to geo-economic diplomacy, from nationalism to internationalism, from realism to liberalism, from isolationism to global agenda center, from dependent foreign policy toward independent foreign policy, and from client state to mediator. The aim behind this policy shift is to fill the gap lifted by successive governments. Under this policy shift, Pakistan tries to reduce its economic dependency on foreign aid, to engage other states of the world especially the Russian Federation, the People’s Republic of China, central Asian republics, African countries, and many others, to adopt liberal ideas, to come out from isolation and focuses at global agenda center, and to play the role of a mediator in international disputes and not to play the role of a client state. Can Pakistan afford this policy shift? Is Pakistan free to build relations according to its own sweet will? Is Pakistan economically independent? Is Pakistan ready to build an independent foreign policy? To answer these questions one must know the current position of Pakistan.
The economic position of Pakistan is highly vulnerable; Pakistan’s budget deficit recorded a record high (Rs: 3.5 trillion) in the fiscal year 2022-23. Similarly, according to the economic survey of Pakistan 2021-22, the trade deficit grew by 49.6 percent to US$ 32.9 billion which is historically high. Moreover, the inflation rate was recorded at 11.3 percent during the period of July-May 2022. Furthermore, circular debt recorded Rs 2.327 trillion in 2021. Moreover, the Pakistani rupee devalued at a record high (248 against one dollar) in August 2022. So Pakistan faces deep-rooted economic challenges and to address such challenges Pakistan is dependent on Foreign aid and loans, especially on the US and its alloy, IMF, World Bank, and many other institutions which are under the influence of the USA. So these are the major economic challenges faced by policymakers.
Furthermore, Pakistan faces multiple geo-strategic challenges; since the emergence of Pakistan, India acts as a Damocles’ sword hanging over Pakistan and its growing influence in Indo pacific and Kashmir, consistent instability in Afghanistan, big powers (USA and CHINA) rivalry in Indo pacific, KSA-IRAN rivalry, Israel Palestine conflict, and US-IRAN mistrust have posed serious strategic challenges to Pakistan. Moreover, CPEC, a flagship project of Pakistan is under threat due to Indo-Pak rivalry and Sino-US rivalry; Pakistan is moving toward water scarcity due to India’s violation of the Indus treaty, and terrorism and extremism are rapidly increasing in Pakistan due to consistent instability in Afghanistan, Sunni Shia conflict is provoking in Pakistan due to KSA-IRAN rivalry and Muslim unity is in question due to Israel-Palestine conflict. So these are the major Strategic challenges faced by policymakers now a day.
Now moving toward international relations, the USA, on one hand, demands Pakistan to establish Hyphenated relations with the US which means cutting off the tie with China but on the other hand, the US maintains normal relations with both India and Pakistan. Interestingly the US does not agree to maintain strategic ties with Pakistan, US always prefers India over Pakistan but it expects from Pakistan hyphenated relations. Similarly, KSA asks Pakistan to maintain deep relations only with her and not to engage Iran and Iran asks Pakistan if it would prefer KSA over Iran then Iran has to prefer India over Pakistan. Next, Pakistan tries to balance its relations with the Russian Federation and Central Asian Republics but the USA and European nations do not want to, they strongly condemn Russia for invading Ukraine and they force every state including Pakistan to condemn Russia.
Hence these are the major diplomatic challenges faced by Pakistan now a day.
In front of the above challenges, Pakistan cannot antagonize the USA because of its Economic and diplomatic dependency, but at the same time, Pakistan ought to keep sustainable relations with China and have to maintain a balance between US and Russian Federation. Similarly, Pakistan must have to keep a balance between KSA and IRAN. Furthermore, stability in Afghanistan is the way forward to a stable Pakistan, therefore, Pakistan ought to engage the international community to stabilize Afghanistan. And more importantly, an independent foreign policy can only be forged when Pakistan becomes economically independent, and for economic independence, it’s mandatory to formulate long terms plan to increase productivity. Moreover, political stability is a prerequisite to independent foreign policy therefore the need of the hour is to make a politically stable Pakistan.
The writer is an Advocate.
