LAST December, speaking at a seminar at Harvard University on US foreign policy the former US Undersecretary of Defense turned professor, Joseph Nye, made a keen observation. “In the information age,” he said, “the winner will be the one whose story wins.”
He was discussing the extent to which the US war would suffer a moral blow from the stories of US military offenses in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Gharaib. He unequivocally condemned the crimes committed by the US Army. He believed it was morally wrong and also strategically detrimental because when the “story line” about you is negative, it doesn’t matter what the reality of your “cause” is.
Coming from Pakistan, it was easy to relate to Nye’s point about the story line. Pakistan’s many problems are often compounded by the fact that in the global marketplace of information, the media often ascribes it only a negative story line. The reasons have been numerous: The continuing regional, and to some extent global, fallout from the jointly implemented anti-Soviet Afghan policy, the rise of sectarianism within, the A.Q. Khan fiasco and finally Pakistan’s democratic deficit. Often the co-collaborators or the provokers of faulty policies went scot-free, and stark lessons confronted Pakistan. The extent to which the global system tolerates your follies is almost entirely linked to your own strength and very seldom to the strength accruing to you from a genuine alliance relationship. Such is the nature of global politics.
The Pakistani state has learned these lessons. Its policies have altered and so has the ideological orientation of the state. But it’s a complex reform and reorientation process, and it’s still a work-in-progress. Yet, often the changing ground realities of Pakistan are not necessarily reflected in the general discourse.
Interestingly even an “objective” study by the Carnegie Endowment’s Foreign Policy magazine to produce a Failed State Index showed both bias and incompetence in analyzing Pakistan. Significantly in a global ranking of weak and failing states, the magazine declared Pakistan to be the 9th most vulnerable state on the Failing State Index of the 148 that were surveyed.
It would take a major stretch of the imagination, sheer ignorance or prejudice to declare a state in the process of reforming itself, however problematically, a failing state.
The Pakistani state is extending its writ over new areas, reclaiming public space for civil society that it had decades ago itself ceded to armed groups, reviving the original vision of the Founding Father, of better managing the economy, attracting foreign investment and the billions of dollars remittances from overseas Pakistanis.
Clearly major problems remain, with the most serious being the absence of a credible democratic system, high poverty levels and extremely poor social indicators. New and renewed challenges in the tribal areas and in Baluchistan have emerged. The government has vacillated from a dialogue-led policy to a force-led policy, from a proactive one to a reactive one. Complicated problems of insurgency and militant activity require exceptional skill and patience; and require political and military means for resolution.
There are also other multiple macro-level power and resource-sharing issues involving the central government and the provinces. The Pakistani state and the political class have been in too many power contests.
So the tasks are enormous but so is the realization. The approach may often be questionable, but the state’s capacity to deal with many of these issues is being enhanced.
There are other pluses that Pakistan can boast of. In relative terms, the judiciary and the police are functioning better than before. The independent press is a great national asset. Thus a country of 165 million people, sitting in a strategic region between three key regions, is moving toward becoming a functioning state, one better able to handle its affairs.
Pakistan is the largest contributor of troops to the UN Peace Keeping Forces and is a key partner in global non-proliferation efforts and has a large number of women in its parliaments and in the local government system.
Given all these facts, to have Pakistan classified by Foreign Policy magazine as the world’s 9th most vulnerable state teetering on the verge of collapse is most unconvincing. There are obvious analytical flaws in assessing Pakistan.
For example, not to discount negatives caused by natural disasters in the overall conclusion on Pakistan shows either flawed methodology or sheer inertia. In fact, the admirable way that Pakistan handled the October earthquake should have boosted its rating. Hence handling of the earthquake should have qualified as a “pocket of efficiency” in contrast with the “pocket of problem” category created to underscore the Bush administration’s gross mishandling of the Hurricane Katrina disaster.
Also in assessing Pakistan, Foreign Policy does not hold good on its own assertion that improved functioning of the police and judiciary is one key to an efficiently run state. While the police and the judiciary have a long way to go before becoming efficient and genuinely de-linked from power centers, there are indications of some improvement.
Similarly in its commentary on Pakistan, Foreign Policy takes the position that the Pakistani Army and the religious groups have the same approach, and that in reality, the army-religious party nexus over the Taleban and Waziristan area is intact and that it will be activated during the elections. This is based on opinion and not on fact, which would incontestably establish the nature of government operations in Waziristan. The facts should have covered the number of military operations conducted in Waziristan, the number of foreign militants caught in the areas, the number of army and civilian casualties, the elaborate Pakistan-US infrastructure set-up for collaborating in these operations, and the regular intelligence sharing between Pakistan and the US Army.
Instead the Foreign Policy study appears to have relied on press commentaries concerning these operations.
Pakistan’s problems do not make Pakistan a failing state. The methodology applied to Pakistan was obviously flawed. Foreign Policy should withdraw its conclusions on Pakistan and re-think its ranking of the country.
