Going Deeper
Some pointers for Bangladesh diplomacy
IT is commonly believed that "foreign policy is that area of politics which bridges the all important boundary between the nation state and its international environment," and though politics may stop at the water's edge, foreign policy is the projection of the capacity of a country's interests that it considers important to be implemented in its international relations.
The Bush administration considers its doctrine of pre-emption as an essential part of its foreign policy and as an integral part of ensuring the security of the American people. Whether the global community agrees with the doctrine is irrelevant to the Bush administration, and if one goes by the philosophies propagated by the likes of Robert Kagan or other conservatives who would like subordination of international laws and norms to the US laws, then military might takes precedence over foreign policy. It would, therefore, appear that a country's foreign policy is generally in step with its political weight in the international arena and the economic and military might that it possesses.
It is reported that Bangladesh aims to strengthen a balanced relationship with all regional and neighbouring countries, including those within Saarc and Bimstec, and develop linkages with Asean, EU, and the Commonwealth. Bangladesh also aims to cultivate relations with key powers like the US, the Russian Federation, UK, Japan, and China.
The aims appear to be commendable at first glance. Though multilaterally Saarc and Bimstec are important, it is not readily understood how Bangladesh can have similar relationship with India, which surrounds us on three sides, as with Maldives, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan that are thousands of miles away from our shores. One has to remember that the days of Cold War politics of playing one power against the other are long gone and almost all countries direct their foreign policy to serve their economic and trade interests in a peaceful international environment.
Since, barring Iraq and Afghanistan, physical occupation of a country by another has become a matter of the past, consequently economic diplomacy has gained importance in the conduct of foreign policy. There is no reason to believe that Bangladesh should be an exception to this rule. Besides, the definition of security has undergone sea change from traditional territorial security against foreign invaders, and now includes food security, human security, environmental security, etc.
While setting up Nato, John Foster Dulles felt the necessity to protect Western values and religion from possible onslaught by communist menace, and Canadian Lester Pearson felt that the then menacing state of affairs could not be resolved by the United Nations. Now, fifty years later, the demise of the Soviet Union and communism resulted in the demolition of Warsaw Pact despite Russian discomfiture over Nato's backtracking of its promise of not to deploy nuclear weapons in the new member states of Nato who are all countries of former eastern Europe.
But American nuclear primacy has made conventional security threat irrelevant. The world is more likely to be threatened by non-traditional security threats (NTS) like climate change, as we have seen through cyclone Sidr in Bangladesh. Repeated degradation of the quality of life and large-scale displacement of people could have the distinct possibility of forced migration of people to neighbouring countries where they may not be welcome.
Non-traditional security threats "are mainly non-military in nature, transnational in scope -- neither domestic nor purely interstate, come with very short notice, and are transmitted very rapidly due to globalisation and communication revolution" (The Stanley Foundation, June 2007).
Professor Dr. Eric Uslaner has interrogated the premise as to whether economic reform should precede political reform, basing his arguments on the premises that democratic institutions are not the source of clean government and elections can breed corruption and that the simple adoption of democratic institutions without bringing the people out of inequality trap (both economic and unfair legal system) would not bring about democracy, for which preparations are being made in Bangladesh in right earnest.
If Dr. Uslaner's prescription of emphasis on economic development is accepted, then, logically, we have to improve our relations with countries with whom we have substantial trade relations or are dependant on for supply of essential commodities, the prices of which have sky-rocketed in recent days.
Bangladesh also has to develop relations with countries who can be significant foreign investors, not in areas of natural resources only, where we can develop our own expertise, or in areas that in future will reduce our competitive advantage, but in fields that would enrich our human resources. Unfortunately, till now foreign investment has mostly come to service and energy sectors.
While it is to be accepted that corollary effects of economic growth, without being accompanied by what Nobel laureates Joseph Stiglitz would call "moral growth" and Amartya Sen would call development as a fundamental right, are invariable growth of unplanned urbanisation or slums and increase in criminalising of society and unequal distribution of wealth.
While no one will contradict the idea that Bangladesh should play a more active role internationally, one has to be pragmatic in the sense that no one can be bigger than the country he or she represents. Immanuel Wallerstein, the major articulator of the World System Theory, once wrote: "Man's ability to participate intelligently in the evolution of his own system is dependant on his own ability to perceive the whole."
In the UN we should continue to uphold the reputation we have acquired as UN peacekeepers and try to enlarge our participation. As a spokesperson of LDCs, our efforts have to be better than what has been in the past. We expect greater competence to Geneva and furtherance of our interests in the WTO negotiations.
It is doubtful whether tabling a bill in the US House of Representatives will result in Bangladesh getting duty free access to RMG export to the US unless we seek help of other countries (India has the second largest lobby in the US Congress after Israel) to push our case.
In short, foreign policy should be apolitical so that successive governments can follow up the diplomatic efforts of the preceding governments. Unless we can forge this unity mainly in our decision making process without ascribing individual credit, both our foreign policy and diplomacy will remain wanting.
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