Realism emphasizes assumes that all nation-states are motivated by national interests, or, at best, national interests disguised as moral concerns. Realism seeks to preserve political autonomy and territorial integrity of nation-states.
Jeromy Bentham was the first person to use the word “international”, in the later 18th century, with regards to defining the relations between nation-states. A restricted definition of International Relations confines its focus to official relations and excludes relations other than the official from the purview of international relations.
From a broader view, International Relations may refer to all forms of interactions between members of separate societies, whether government sponsored or not.
The study of International Relations includes analysis of foreign policies or political processes between nations, and also focuses on international trade and civil society interaction.
[mks_button size=”large” title=”By: Iram Naseer Ahmad” style=”squared” url=”” target=”_self” bg_color=”#000000″ txt_color=”#ff0000″ icon=”” icon_type=”” nofollow=”1″]
One of my preferred objects about International Relations (IR) is its vibrant landscape. The World around us modifies persistently which holds policies in a state of fluctuation. Therefore, the most vital responsibility of a policymaker in Pakistan’s foreign office should be to perceive, feel, comprehend and counter to the vicissitudes that are taking place across the World. The alteration itself ensues to be the most imperative part of the dilemma. Because transformation adjusts previous philosophies, it makes new supermen and villains; it retains fresh and adversative dynamisms in action and finally modification may transform intimidations into prospects and new chances into dangers. As IR have been advancing since the Treaty of Westphalia (1648), the behaviour, approaches and possibility of foreign policy have also been shifting. In the age of globalisation, more and more areas of global and regional connections today decrease within the realm of foreign policy. Expressions like cultural diplomacy, defence diplomacy, digital diplomacy and economic diplomacy are currently measured as part and parcel of foreign policy.
Furthermore, in the existing period countries belief on numerous approaches such as hard power, soft power and smart power to attain foreign policy aims. Eventually, the drive and job of a state’s foreign policy is to proficiently employ its collective asset to achieve desired ends and avert succeeding pressures and to adjust in the inter-connected world, As the British independent policy advisor Simon Anholt stated, “the central fact of the age we live in is that every country, every market, every medium of communication, every natural resource is connected”.
So, in what way is our world varying or has transformed over the past epoch? The world has improved beyond our imagination. The origin of this variation lies in technology, its stomach in policies with the mind in economics. Historically, from the wreckages of the Cold War and the socialism of Mao Tse Tung, has surfaced a China, whose economic growth has occupied the world by surprise and a model for developing states. A China directed by the thoughts of Deng Xiaoping has outstripped Japan and Germany economically, stands at number two today, and is expected to exceed the United States in the forthcoming decade or so. Against this backdrop, in any argument on foreign policy, it needs to be considered that all states — as realism proposes — are rational not emotional players. Two more points need to be distinguished. Firstly, foreign policy is the replication of a country’s internal setting and secondly, states foreign policy vestiges neither immobile nor inelastic. As the eminent American realist policymaker Robert D Kaplan proclaims, “countries neither having perpetual associates nor everlasting foes” goes by, the triumph of foreign policy, therefore, varies on sagacity and in its close conformity with the grand stratagem, security policy and domestic policy of a country. Consequently, foreign policy, exclusively piloted by a country’s national interest, is recycled as an instrument by a given nation for dealing with the outside world in innumerable parts such as security, economy, culture and technology.
In this framework, the search for international harmony continued a foundation of Pakistan’s foreign policy as marked from the concept of Quaid and in the Article 40 of the Constitution of Pakistan, whose objectives are very coherent. Like, firstly, the state shall attempt to sanctuary and reinforce amicable relationships among Muslim republics grounded on Islamic concord. Secondly, to provision the mutual benefits of the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America, thirdly, to promote international peace and security, fourthly, promote friendliness relations among all countries, lastly, to inspire the settlement of international disputes by peaceful means and non-aggression. In this context, Pakistan has always been an important associate of the global community when it appears to the advancement and reinforcement of global amity. Pakistan has performed an important role as a forefront state in ending the hazard of terrorism and extremism which has materialised as the most disparaging risk to international peace in the current era. But the disastrous terrorist episode of 9/11 was a serious brink in the foreign policy of Pakistan. In fact, “9/11 came as a shockwave”. As former President Pervez Musharraf himself revealed, the event brought with it unparalleled challenges for Pakistan, which insisted to “absorb external pressure.”
But on the flip side, there is good news to share, that the world around Pakistan has changed much, in fact, is still fluctuating. With more players in the game, although the environment around us is much more complex on the one side, but competitive on the other side. I do believe in modern period the foreign policy of Islamabad should be objective, Pakistani policy makers should opt a new approach to avoid the past challenges and absorb the new opportunities with fresh outlook. Now the World is demanding to contribute positively from Pakistan as a state rather than to behave like a permanent liability on Superpower’s shoulders. Consequently, it should be a gigantic job for foreign policy makers in Pakistan particularly after the recent elections held on 25 July 2018, where electorate and international community have a lot of hope from Pakistan that the slogan of “Change” should be the actual change to operate in such a challenging international milieu. No doubt, in the literature of IR, foreign policy of developing countries is the upshot of limitations and openings and it rejoins differently as linked to the great powers. By contrast, political, economic and military liabilities of feeble countries are anticipated to play a rationale role in the planning of foreign policy because they cannot afford the pressure of great power in any critical situations. In the changing settings, Pakistan should divorce its cost oriented realist foreign policy and should adopt the idealist policy with a view of avoiding confrontation with her neighbors, emerging states and the United States. Pakistan should try to make friends than enemies in this age of connectivity. Pakistan should realise that an inflexible posture will deliver a foundation for the whole structure of global compression which might affect to smash the country’s national concern. This precludes the option of mature relationship with the outside World in which Pakistan can safeguard its national values and national security respecting the core principles of our foreign policy mentioned in the article 40 of the constitution.
I conclude my words, recommending to current diplomats and foreign policy makers that they should approach to opt soft policy but without any compromise on state sovereignty, would not only significantly reduce the external pressure but also covered Pakistan’s desperate economic needs by circumventing the country to become a potential prey of international loneliness. As the pendulum of power is shifting from West to East, now is a golden opportunity for statesmen of Pakistan to get maximum advantage from new international structure but domestic settlement is the key to get foreign policy objectives in the 21st Century.
The writer is PhD in History from University of the Punjab and expertise on Pakistan-China Relations, Foreign Policy of Pakistan and International Relations.
Originally published in: Daily Nation
[mks_button size=”medium” title=”Eric Randolph” style=”squared” url=”#” target=”_self” bg_color=”#1e73be” txt_color=”#FFFFFF” icon=”” icon_type=”” nofollow=”0″]
Having staked everything on a now-crumbling nuclear deal, Iran`s President Hassan Rouhani has little to show for his five years in power and is seeing his support evaporate.
The fifth anniversary of Rouhani`s first inauguration fell on Friday, but with the economy in crisis and US sanctions set to return just four days later, there were no celebrations.
Rouhani was supposed to be the centrist who could heal Iran`s divisions and build a China-like development model in which economic growth would head off demands for major political reform.
In one sentence, the just-concluded Helsinki summit can best be described as “Russia first”. This is all what Donald did in those five hours of discussions and one-on-one meeting with Vladimir Putin. In the post-summit press conference, both failed to tell the world about a single concrete point that would have a positive impact on global peace and stability. This agenda-less meeting was destined to be a diplomatic fiasco for Trump – but it is a success for Putin who has been able to weaken Trump in his home ground. Prior to the meeting, during the session and after the summit, President Donald Trump did nothing but defending the Russians and Putin and blaming his predecessors and the American establishment for all the troubles between Moscow and Washington.
“Our relationship with Russia has NEVER been worse thanks to many years of U.S. foolishness and stupidity, and now the Rigged Witch Hunt!!” is how Donald Trump tweeted just a couple of hours before the start of his much-touted summit with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki. But Vladimir Putin “reciprocated” this welcome tweet by arriving at the meeting room 35 minutes late, while maintaining his long tradition of arriving late at international summits and keeping his counterparts to wait for him. But interestingly, contrary to his extremely egoistic nature, President Donald Trump completely ignored this and remained silent on this deliberate delay. Just imagine, if any of the European leaders had kept Donald Trump waiting like this, then Trump would have made a big issue out of it and walked out of the meeting in rage. But Donald Trump devoured this “mild diplomatic offence” without any hitch and did his best to maintain a jolly mode throughout the marathon sessions with Putin and his team.
JUST one day after his stunning comments in Helsinki, President Donald Trump attempted to backtrack. In the Finnish capital, standing next to Russian President Vladimir Putin during a news conference, he had cast doubt on the conclusions of US intelligence agencies that Russia interfered in the 2016 election.
Back in the White House on Tuesday, however, Trump argued that he had simply misspoken; he read out a statement saying that he did, in fact, accept that Moscow attempted to sway the vote. At least for a moment.
`Could be other people also,` he added in the very next sentence. `A lot of people out there.
Not many people in Washington were convinced by Trump`s about-face. Since taking office, Trump has repeatedly called into question his own government`s investigations into Kremlin interference and dismissed the growing body of evidence linking that intrusion to his election win including a comment from Putin himself . Since the remarks in Helsinki, moreover, he had been interviewed by Fox News and made no mention of misspeaking. Even his attempted clarification on Tuesday was apparently self-edited into something more defiant.
Nor did Trump say anything about Russia`s 2014 annexation of Crimea or its role in buttressing the violent excesses of the Syrian regime.
That timidity stood in contrast to his sweeping criticism of America`s Nato allies in Brussels last week. To many Trump critics, his performances in both cities capped a year and a half of both tacit and overt attacks on the transatlantic alliance.
Trump`s behaviour was that `of a man who wants the alliance to fail`, wrote New York Times columnist David Brooks.
`His embrace of Putin was a victory dance on the Euro-American tomb.
`The Russian President was effectively given a free pass by a sitting US President to continue his hybrid war against the West,`wrote Guy Verhofstadt, a former Belgian prime minister. He called on European liberals to rally against Trumpism and its proxies, pointing to a former Trump adviser`s efforts to boost far-right populists on the continent. `The battle is now on to defeat Steve Bannon`s sick dream of a right wing populist revolution in Europe and a retreat to the murderous nationalism of Europe`s past,` he wrote.
It`s worth asking, even now, whom Trump sees as his enemy. His political campaign was couched in nativist rhetoric against `globalism`, a euphemism for a world of multicultural liberals and business and political elites who he claimed did not have America`s interests at heart.
Since taking power, he has focused such attacks on real institutions the Democratic Party and civil servants he dubs `the deep state` at home, and multilateral blocs such as Nato and the European Union overseas.
More broadly, he has shown consistent apathy for the American-built world order that guaranteed US supremacy for decades.
`In the post-war world, US policy had four attractive features: it had appealing core values; it was loyal to allies who shared those values; it believed in open and competitive markets; and it underpinned those markets with institutionalised rules,` wrote Martin Wolf of Financial Times. `This system was always incomplete and imperfect. But it was a highly original and attractive approach to the business of running the world.
Wolf suggests Trump is bent on rejecting that system, which is often what weare invoking when we refer now to the `West`: `For those who believe humanity must transcend its petty differences, these principles were a start. Yet today the US president appears hostile to core American values of democracy, freedom and the rule of law; he feels no loyalty to allies; he rejects open markets; and he despises international institutions. He believes that might makes right.
Trump may have diminished US leadership in the world,` Russian analyst Maxim Suchkov said to Today`s World View in Moscow last week, `but he still wants domination.
This worldview leads many analysts to suggest that Trump has more in common with autocrats like Putin than with the elected leaders of Europe`s major democracies. For critics of American hegemony, who have long argued that its stated values have little to do with its geopolitical actions, Trump has confirmed their beliefs.
`That reduces the US from being the leader of the free world to being just another grasping great power,` Daniel Fried, a former US diplomat and fellow at the Atlantic Council, said to my Washington Post colleagues David Nakamura and Carol Morello. It `undoes 100 years of America`s grand strategy, he added, `which worked out well for us.
It won the Cold War, because people behind the Iron Curtain were inspired by our ideas and ideals.
Instead, Trump champions another vision. Trump`s conception of the West is cultural, not political. It`s anchored in blood-and-soil rhetoric and anger against immigration. Just last week, he argued in Brussels that new migrant arrivals are `very bad for Europe` because they are `changing the culture`.
A host of mainstream European politicians would disagree, as would the majority of their populations. A new Pew survey of eight Western European countries, published this month, found that 66 per cent of those polled believe immigrants make their societies stronger.
But Trump sees this openness as a weakness. Here again, he makes himself a kindred spirit with Putin, another outsider standing sceptically at the door of the liberal West.
`Until 2014, Russia used to see itself as the easternmost bus stop of the Western world,` Dmitri Trenin, the director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, said to The Wall Street Journal. `Since then, there has been a fundamental shift and Russia has turned inward. The Russian elite and its leader, Putin, have come to the conclusion that attempting to become part of the West won`t lead to desired results.
This involves an attempt to turn east and cultivate deeper ties with Asia. But it has also seen the Kremlin build links with the same European far-right populists that Trump has celebrated.
Matteo Salvini, Italy`s interior minister and far-right leader, is pushing for the end of EU sanctions on Russia. Putin, meanwhile,has cultivated a global image as a preeminent Christian nationalist leader and is cheered by white supremacists in the United States.
The governments Putin and Trump lead may be at odds, but the two men themselves, argued journalist Leonid Ragozin, are on `the same side of the divide`. They represent `the same strain of a rising global culture: that of viciously xenophobic tabloids, politically biased infotainment TV, tacky showbiz, irresponsible populism, rabid nativism, and oligarchic kleptocracy,` he wrote for BuzzFeed News.
And their bewildered adversaries, now led by a hobbled Europe, are struggling to cope.
-By arrangement with The Washington Post
Courtesy: Daily Dawn
[mks_button size=”large” title=”By: Joe Macaron” style=”squared” url=”#” target=”_self” bg_color=”#1e73be” txt_color=”#FFFFFF” icon=”” icon_type=”” nofollow=”0″]
On July 16, US President Donald Trump will meet in the Finnish capital Helsinki a triumphant Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has just secured another victory in the Syrian war and obtained the international recognition he wanted from hosting the World Cup.
The Russian president will seek to exploit the growing rift between the United States and the European Union and the intensifying Iranian-Israeli rivalry to achieve his two main goals: Break Russia out of international isolation and become the sole kingmaker in Syria.
But in pursuing a deal with Trump, Putin poses the biggest threat to the legitimacy of his US counterpart domestically and internationally. The US establishment and intelligence community largely believe that the Kremlin favoured him in the 2016 US presidential race and an investigation into alleged Russian interference is still ongoing.
At the same time, Trump is confronted with an increasingly disgruntled group of allies who are wary of Russia’s aggressive posturing. That he will be meeting Putin right after attending the NATO summit in Brussels and visiting the UK (which has just had a major diplomatic crisis with Moscow), will not please any of them.
The choice of Helsinki as the venue of the summit is not coincidental. The Finnish capital has hosted leaders of the two superpowers for important talks on two other major occasions.
In September 1990, a month after Iraq invaded Kuwait, US President George H W Bush met with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in Helsinki to discuss the crisis in the Gulf.
Preoccupied with the dissolution of the Eastern bloc after the fall of the Berlin Wall and with a Soviet Union on the verge of collapse, Gorbachev was negotiating from a position of weakness. Bush wanted his commitment to implementing sanctions on Saddam Hussein’s regime and he got it, in exchange for support for his counterpart’s reform plans. In March 1997, US President Bill Clinton met Russian President Boris Yeltsin to discuss a range of security and economic issues, including nuclear disarmament. At that summit, the Russian president had no trump cards to play.
The economic situation in Russia had been persistently deteriorating while the government was waging a highly unpopular war in Chechnya. Badly needing US financial support and backing, Yeltsin decided to concede to the expansion of NATO into Eastern Europe in return for Russia’s integration in the global economy with US help. For that disastrous decision, he was labelled a “US puppet” by his opponents.
On July 16, President Trump will meet President Putin, but this time around, it seems, the roles have been reversed. The US president is facing a growing legitimacy crisis at home, where he is perceived as “a Russian puppet”, while his Russian counterpart has been dealt a powerful hand.
This will be the fourth meeting between the two leaders since Trump took office in January 2017. They met twice during the July 2017 G20 summit in Germany and once on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit (APEC) summit in Vietnam last November.
Since they last met, Trump succumbed to domestic pressure and took a number of anti-Russian measures, including approving lethal weapons sales to Ukraine in December, expelling Russian diplomats from the US in March, striking the Syrian regime and imposing additional sanctions on Russian officials in April.
Putin, too, upped the ante by giving a provocative speech on March 1, issuing unveiled threats of an arms race with the US. Then, after his re-election, he took advantage of the simmering US-EU trade war and the Iran nuclear deal crisis to re-engage with France and Germany, while also negotiating with Israel on key points of concern regarding the Syrian war.
Trump will give up Syria to Putin the way Gorbachev left Iraq to Bush in 1990.
Putin’s actions left Trump with no choice but to move up the meeting and send his national security adviser John Bolton to Moscow to set it up.
The US president plans to meet alone with his Russian counterpart and his translator, triggering concerns in the US and Europe regarding what he might concede if left alone in the room.
But despite these fears, no real breakthrough in US-Russian relations should be expected until Special Counsel Robert Mueller finalises his investigation. Lifting US sanctions on Russia, recognising its annexation of Crimea, and pulling US troops out of Eastern Europe are all off the table for the Helsinki summit; Trump’s hands are tied by US domestic politics. The only issue on which he can concede to lure in the Russian president is the Syrian war. Trump will give up Syria to Putin the way Gorbachev left Iraq to Bush in 1990.
The prerequisites for this deal are already in place. Trump’s closest ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is scheduled to meet Putin on July 11, just five days before the Helsinki summit; this will be their third meeting this year.
Russia is engaging the Israeli prime minister, aiming to repeat the Deraa scenario in Quneitra province near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Trump seems fine with the idea of ultimately removing US troops from the al-Tanf area on the Jordanian-Iraqi-Syrian border in return for keeping Iranian forces and their proxies away from southwest Syria. Trump’s endgame is not Syria. What he ultimately wants is for Putin to remain neutral in the US diplomatic offensive on Iran. The White House hopes Russia will follow through on the initial agreement with Saudi Arabia and OPEC and increase its oil output to compensate for the drop in Iranian oil exports caused by the reimposition of US sanctions. This move would diminish the effect of the US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal on international markets and minimise a potential negative impact on the US economy ahead of mid-term elections in November. Moreover, Trump is also attempting to outmanoeuvre the Europeans in their rapprochement with Moscow by offering Putin to rejoin the G7.
And it already seems that the agreement between the two leaders is solidified even before they met. Russia is passively watching as the EU states scramble to save the nuclear deal with Iran, while the US has done nothing to help the Syrian opposition factions it once supported against the Russian and Syrian regime operation in Deraa. Apart from that, the aftermath of the summit will also give an indication of how relations between Washington and Moscow will develop in the near future. Will a direct line of communication be re-established, most notably on arms control negotiations? Will the Russian ambassador in Washington have more access to US officials moving forward? Will the US establishment become more receptive to engaging Moscow without tangible shift in Russian policy post-Helsinky summit? If there is a change on one or more of these fronts, it could bring more dynamism into US-Russian relations.–AL JAZEERA
Printed in: Daily The Nation
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Will Afghanistan savour peace? The three-day truce between the insurgents and the Afghan security agencies, on the occasion of Eid, has been celebrated as proof that the estrangement between the Afghans has the potential to meltdown. However easy the meltdown of estrangement may seem, the reality is that for the Taliban, and all those fighting for an Afghanistan free from the clutches of the foreign force, the road to peace passes through tough terrain. A passage the US and its partner, both within and outside Afghanistan, are loath to travel. In retrospect, Afghanistan has been made a difficult country not only because the war against terrorism was a wrong attempt to ouster the Taliban, but also because the US policies after the invasion went terribly wrong. The US has pursued its vested interest rather than the interest of Afghanistan or the region. Below is the brief anatomy of what went wrong in Afghanistan and how.
The US invaded Afghanistan on the assumption that it posed an existential threat to International security. The offshoot of this assumption was that if the west did not intervene the mad mullah would get hold of the nukes in Pakistan and destroy the world. None of the assumptions were true, and we saw that, as soon as, the Al-Qaeda was pushed out and the Taliban government was toppled Afghanistan became just one of those 20 countries that should have concerned the west. It so happened because the US neither had the power nor the knowledge or legitimacy to transform Afghanistan. The least the US could have done to justify its presence in the region was to maintain a light military presence and generous developmental projects. The matter was made worse when the Iraq war was started, and Afghanistan was left with the CIA that drowned the country in money to produce more thugs.
Despite mutual optimism, analysts on both sides are of the view that it is too early to call it a win-win summit
[mks_button size=”medium” title=”By: Beenish Altaf” style=”squared” url=”#” target=”_self” bg_color=”#0066bf” txt_color=”#FFFFFF” icon=”icon-user-female” icon_type=”sl” nofollow=”0″]
A country that was once strongly frowned upon, that was reason for the heightened global concern for nuclear buildup, is now being appreciated for its diplomatic panache to the extent that the US decided to change its decisions favouring that state. President Donald Trump, just a day ago, reversed its decision of military exercises with South Korea by calling it a “waste of money”.
This is in the backdrop of a Summit held on June 12, 2018 between the US and North Korea in Singapore. Since the Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Hsien Loong welcomed the meeting open-heartedly, the role of the country, is fairly vital in carrying out parlays among both the leaders, that is, Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump. It is believed to be the first remarkable deal in many years among both the countries. Regarding its agenda, largely denuclearisation has been on the top most priority list in the summit; however, its outcomes could not be assessed before time. Some are anticipating the hopeful outcome seeing it as a good step for building favorable relationship between the US and North Korea, while others are apprehensive of it. Paradoxically, the country habitual of military solutions i.e. the US, is evidently foreseeing a “good feeling” for North Korea this time; with reference to the June’s summit.
By: Eric Randolph, Anais Llobet
Russia’s recent call for foreign forces to leave Syria was seen as a possible turning-point in its tricky alliance with Iran, though analysts say their partnership still has a long way to run.
“With the start of the political process in its most active phase, foreign armed forces will withdraw from Syrian territory,” President Vladimir Putin vowed after meeting his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad in Sochi .