FOREIGN policy covers interactions and relations between nation states and with international and regional institutions. The globalisation of information, projection of power, business and finance, media and communications, etc. envisages a future global order in which countries will need to formulate their foreign policies within a global perspective.

Will this order be underpinned by a global consensus or by global hegemony? The US assumes it will be the lynchpin and enforcer of ‘stability’ for any global order. Its leadership must be a given.

Others see US global policy as the seed-bed of global chaos, instability and environmental catastrophes entailing a range of threats to human survival. The current US-led world order allegedly breeds inequality and violence emanating from injustice and exclusion. It apparently serves the interests of a small minority of corporate, political and military bosses whom the Financial Times describes as the “Masters of the Universe”.

This order is largely based on manufactured and passive acceptance rather than warranted by facts, reason and equity. Its violence is embedded in the assumptions and content of its discourse, and in the functioning of its institutions including academia, media, laws, parliaments, etc. Its notions of terrorism, stability, freedom, democracy, progress and civilisation serve a similar purpose.

The government departments tasked with handling foreign relations have marginal ownership.

This corporate-generated discourse sanctions arbitrary privilege, undemocratic authority, gross exploitation and the use of state violence. Challenges to it in the name of freedom, justice, law, human dignity and peace are considered baseless as the discourse is alleged to champion these goals.

Radical resistance groups, however, see themselves as representing a necessary struggle for a divinely ordained or humanitarian Good against a prevalent political Evil represented by the establishment discourse. They see their struggle to be in response to a perverse ‘civil and political religion’, for example, blind Western support to Israel despite its criminal record, and to a similarly perverse ‘state confiscation of the nation’ ie local elites and externally dependent dictators plundering their own peoples.

Other groups, like the Islamic State, etc., appear to go beyond reason and understanding, and claim a right of nihilistic violence against state/corporate violence. This un-Islamic pathology is in part a product of wanton devastation and trauma visited upon whole regions and their peoples.

Why are none of these realities acknowledged in the discourse of the global establishment? Why are these extremist responses so difficult to alleviate, overcome and root out? One reason is the lack of objective and introspective analyses that might lead to more just rather than more ‘efficient’ policies. The range of acceptable discourse is very limited. Accordingly, a state-of-the-art think tank industry of propagandistic and self-exculpatory ‘expert assessments’ develops resonance in a revolving-door relationship with the policymaking establishment.

A corporate controlled capitalist and technological world is hurtling towards self-destruction. Climate change, the proliferation of killer viruses and pollutants, the ever-present possibilities of nuclear conflict, rampant population growth, infrastructural and resource scarcities, food and water insecurity, technology-displaced family-supporting jobs, unavailable and unaffordable education of acceptable standards, the lack of inclusive institutions for the provision of essential services, the privatisation of profits and socialisation of costs, etc. collectively define the global prospect.

The mega trends for Pakistan over the next three to four decades do not bear examination. Yet, even at this grim hour, it is stuck with leaders who simply refuse to know or do anything. Their attitude towards the people is known and condemned. The despair of the people is evident. But other than concern with regime survival, losing any sleep over the fate of the people is considered a waste of blood-sucking time.

Pakistan also remains a security state. Its national policies flow from its National Security Policy which is largely the preserve of the security establishment. This is considered a ‘non-negotiable’ reality which cannot be altered whatever the consequences for the country. ‘Leaders’ need to learn this to survive. Is there any movement to break this mould? The people’s interests are relegated by misguided security doctrines and a venal political leadership. Not surprisingly, national security itself is undermined.

How does Pakistan’s foreign policy function in a dysfunctional environment? The Foreign Office and the Foreign Service are among Pakistan’s finest institutions. But they have relatively little say in the development and direction of Pakistan’s foreign policy, other than to package and communicate it with exemplary professionalism, and to advocate policies in the formulation of which they have at best marginal ownership. Can this situation change? It has to.

This is not essentially a problem of the Foreign Office and the Foreign Service even though they need to constantly improve. Whenever illusory strategies and hare-brained misadventures are formulated and implemented without proper consultations, (1965, 1971, 1989, Kargil, etc.) their “last stage” often turns out to be an ‘external manoeuvre’ ie ‘when all else fails ask the Foreign Office to bail us out!’ Much of this continues.

The Foreign Office and the foreign minister are supposed to be the primary — not exclusive — advisors and policy input providers to the prime minister on all matters pertaining to external relations, including those relating to national security. Depending on specific external developments, technical ministries and defence must provide their specialist input, which may be more immediately relevant and urgent than that of the foreign ministry.

But to reduce the foreign ministry to a secondary advisory body with regard to strategic priorities and choices, which determine the content and direction of our most important external policies and relations, is to hijack foreign policy and undermine national policy.

This is where the concept of civil-military relations as understood by the security establishment has been particularly dubious. It assumes a ‘partnership’ between the elected and unelected segments of government in national policy formulation. Despite the general incompetence of our elected politicians, this is ultimately incompatible with a viable security and a coherent foreign policy. National policy failure, accordingly, is fed into the system. The military have political power. The people have political rights. Their representatives have no political conscience. Foreign policy remains a political orphan.

The writer is a former ambassador to the US, India and China and head of UN missions in Iraq and Sudan.

Published in Dawn, October 21st, 2014