How to win freedom and be independent

The following article appeared in Daily Times on February, 21, 2012. (http://bit.ly/xe2utd) 

We need to tax our rich and middle classes effectively and stop giving them extravagant concessions. We also need a military that is singularly focused on its professional duties — protecting our geographical borders.

Everybody in Pakistan wants an ‘independent’ foreign policy but nobody really knows what that entails. Usually an independent foreign policy is qualified by a singular objective: say no to American influence in Pakistan. Under this banner, any and everything done by the Americans — from drone strikes to defence aid to aid dollars — must be rejected. Therefore, the only obstacle to an independent foreign policy is our obsequious government — or so goes the popular narrative. As with most stories in life, this isn't so simple either. The complexity arises because of two issues: first, the business of defence aid is a serious one. Second, the (naïve) notion that independence in foreign policy can be achieved by cutting ties with the Americans. Let us address the second issue first.

Country wise, the biggest market for our exports is not China, Saudi Arabia, or the United Arab Emirates (UAE) but our ‘enemy number one — the United States of America’. Region wise, our biggest export market is the European Union (EU), our ‘enemy number one’s’ best friend. For our imports we rely essentially on five countries/regions: the US, China, UAE, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and EU. All these countries have good ties with each other. KSA is an important ally of our ‘enemy’ and so is the UAE. China has a mutually beneficial relationship with both the US and EU, which means that they all have to continuously scratch each other’s backs to keep doing business. Why is this important? Countries need to trade, and they need to do so for a simple reason: countries need foreign exchange so that they can buy goods from other countries. For example, we get most of our oil from Saudi Arabia and the UAE but need foreign exchange (dollars) to buy it. We get our foreign exchange essentially from two sources: exports and remittances. We sell goods to other countries to earn dollars and Pakistanis living and working abroad remit their hard-earned money to their motherland. By doing all this we get just enough to meet our imports. A foreign policy realist will look at this situation and advise you not to antagonise the US. But the mullah/nationalist mindset says ‘no’ and wants to cut ties regardless. I am not a foreign policy realist but I still have plenty to say to my mullah/nationalist friends. And this brings me to the first issue mentioned above — the business of military aid.

We hate the US but we know all our weapons come from there. What we really want is for the US to continue giving us weapons but not tell us how to conduct our business. We all know that is not happening. Our next source for quality weapons is the EU but we know that if we antagonise the US, the EU is automatically out of the equation. That leaves us with our all-weather friend, China. We really like our Chinese brothers and do not mind buying weapons from them but we know those weapons are not quality stuff and not good to maintain parity with our ‘enemy number two — India’. This is a fact that our military realises fully well. We can stuff our Air Force with JS-17s but we still need F-16s! During the 1990s, when we actually lived under the Pressler sanctions and received no military (and economic) assistance from the US, we got most of our weapons from the tertiary markets, a fact that did not make our military happy. This was true even when we had possessed a nuclear device. In the military’s calculations it is important that parity in conventional weapons must also be maintained with India. This is why F-16s, P-3C Orions, early warning radar systems, etc, are important (P-3C Orion is the same plane that was burnt by our ‘friend number one’, the Taliban, in May 2011 during the Mehran base attack). Trade is important for this as well — we need foreign exchange to buy these weapons. Since we do not raise enough revenue internally, we use our hard-earned foreign exchange on buying fancy weapons and borrow money for development projects (or vice versa). So, now we are stuck in a vicious circle where we hate our ‘enemy number one’ but still need it to beat our ‘enemy number two’. What does an independent foreign policy entail in this context?

First, we make peace with our neighbours, which means we tell India that we neither have the desire to go to war with it nor engage it in Kashmir. We can start discussing the Kashmir issue seriously with India without at the same time poking them in the eye. It may take us another 20 years to solve the issue but let us do that because maintaining a huge military does not allow us to have an independent foreign policy. The other neighbour that we need to engage with is Afghanistan. We tell the Afghans that we are no longer interested in colonising them for strategic depth because we are befriending our ‘enemy number two’. We also suggest that we will sit down with all the political forces in Afghanistan to sincerely negotiate a settlement where they all agree to disarm and choose a political order for themselves. This will allow us to chuck out enemy number one from the region. By taking these (not so simple) actions, we have achieved two things. We no longer need to buy fancy and expensive weapons from the US and the EU (or even China!) because we have decided to live peacefully with our neighbours. This would free up our resources and the next time the US asks us to do something because we receive aid from them, we can politely say no. To achieve further independence in our foreign policy we would be required to tell KSA not to fund any religious organisation in our country because by befriending India and Afghanistan we can achieve another objective: no longer needing jihadi militias to conduct our foreign policy in Kashmir and Afghanistan. So, we can stop supporting and arming them. This may just help us deflate (significantly) the balloon of religious fanaticism in the country.

Second, we need to take internal reforms seriously if we want an independent foreign policy. This means we need to tax our rich and middle classes effectively and stop giving them extravagant concessions. We also need a military that is singularly focused on its professional duties — protecting our geographical borders. Independence requires sacrifices and I think the khakis — serving and retired — would love to chip in. So, we take the military’s business empire away from its control, which means no more DHAs, real estate, golf clubs, welfare trusts, or Fauji Foundations. You survive on what is doled out to you because the rest of the resources are required to give our independence sound foundations.

Now imagine the possibilities within our grasp. We can build roads, construct schools and improve the existing ones, reform our syllabi, equip our hospitals, fund our universities, and give every citizen an opportunity to excel regardless of caste, creed or religion. An independent foreign policy can truly usher in the much awaited ‘Jinnah’s Pakistan’. I say go for it!