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Showing posts with the label Assumptions on foreign policy issues.

Assumptions on foreign policy issues.

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Monday 01 August 2022       Security guards were posted outside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Islamabad. - AFP Pakistan has good diplomats but diplomacy is underperforming. And the reasons are many. Where is the real fault? Not necessarily with diplomats because they don't make policy. Politicians do. And the political leadership aligns the interests of the ruling establishment with the national interest, not only in Pakistan but across the world. Thus the foreign policy that emerges, for better or for worse, has more to do with the rape of a country's diplomats. This problem is more serious in Pakistan because the leadership is not only interested in its own interests but also in Pakistan's economic weaknesses and its external dependence. And it forces Pakistan to limit its foreign policy options, partly out of desperation and partly out of nostalgia and wishful thinking, to Pakistan's traditional alliances and the 'halcyon' days of its foreign policy. I.