National Interest of Pakistan | Definition of National Interest (Part-II)
Within this context what should be the role of our foreign policy? Since foreign policy has to serve the national interest it is not supposed to have an independent agenda of its own, independent, that is, of the national interest. It will of course have a very detailed agenda of its own. But it must flow from the agreed priorities of the national agenda. The national interests are many and varied. The standard list of what constitutes the national list is available from the Objectives Resolution and the Principles of Policy of the Constitution of Pakistan as well as any text book on politics and international relations. However, the essence of our national interest lies in the transformation of a pre-modern underdeveloped country in which the vast majority of the population is kept poor, uneducated, exploited and without hope by a narrowly based coalition of elite groups into a modern, economically developed and politically participatory democracy comprising educated, free and empowered citizens. If it is not this, it is nothing.