Are the days of holistic bilateral relationships among nations less observed today than ever before? Are the terms, ‘Friendly nation’ and ‘Hostile nation’ being less evident today? The tough compulsions facing nations today make it extremely difficult to pursue a holistic approach with each other. The world is changing at a rapid pace, in an already shrinking world. It is confronting not just changes in social, political, economic domains, but also a creeping of new factors within these domains or across domains, which demand focus and action by individual nations. In this information age, an idea, demand, anger, happiness, or sorrow spread across borders into the corridors of policy making more quickly than ever before. Making things more complex is the fact that there could even be more than one viewpoint on a given issue. Impact of a nation’s association with another nation itself could have a bearing on the interests of a third nation, or the stand which a nation takes in a multilateral arrangement could also have an impact.
An important emerging aspect of contemporary international relations is the significance of domestic compulsions in shaping them, which is also unprecedented. The competitive world has made politics and the fight for power in any nation, a cut-throat struggle that gets tougher and tougher by the passing day. Other nations could intrude into this openly or discreetly and take sides. In this fight for power, any help from beyond borders is always welcome and considered an advantage. However, the objective of those nations is that when these parties win, they could be at an advantage. For instance, in the 2016 US elections, Russia is believed to have helped Trump win. When Trump won, US policy on Syria changed to be in line with that of Russia, not insisting Bashar al-Assad to step down.
This is also evident in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s direct appeal to American Jews in 2015 asking them to oppose the Iran deal by Obama in an unprecedented conference call and webcast heard by more than 10,000 people. “The best way to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapon is not change,” Netanyahu said. “Increase the sanctions, increase the pressure. Don’t prematurely give away best leverage you have.” An invitation to address Congress extended by House Speaker John Boehner, a Republican, triggered a political furor in the United States. More than four dozen House and Senate Democrats said in advance they would not attend the event, a highly unusual move given historically close ties between the two allies. The relationship between Obama and Netanyahu was tense and White House avoided a meeting of the two leaders citing election ethics. “As a matter of long-standing practice and principle, we do not see heads of state or candidates in close proximity to their elections, so as to avoid the appearance of influencing a democratic election in a foreign country,” National Security Council Spokesperson Bernadette Meehan had said in a statement. However there were too many precedents to the contrary.
Meddling with a nation’s internal politics and associating with a section of the politicians was also evident in the just concluded Gujarat election in India. The media had reported that the ex-vice-president Hamid Ansari and ex-prime minister Manmohan Singh met with the Pakistan High Commissioner and a Pak former foreign minister. The agenda of the meeting, held at a former Congress minister Mani Shankar’s house was that Gujarat got a chief minister of Pak liking. The outcome of such actions will thus be reflected in the subsequent foreign policies.
All these have a complex effect on the kind of relationship a nation require to pursue with another, making it difficult to pursue an holistic and definable relationship. Nations have now moved away from a defined relationship to an indescribable relationship, reflected by a multitude of policies on a case by case basis. The days of agenda or issue based policies have come. Nations can henceforth be only expected to walk a path broadly together, not perfectly. This emerging inability of nations to have a describable holistic relationship with another nation, makes it an unprecedented challenge for nations and its leaders. Nations will have lesser opportunities to call themselves as ‘natural friends’ or ‘friendly nations’ and even if they do, demonstrate it with time. Gone are the era of symbolic personal relationships lie Churchill-Roosevelt and Blair-Clinton. The need for a multi-dimensional approach is gradually being induced into the foreign policies.
Take for example India and Pakistan sporting ties; India has normal ties with Pakistan except that it doesn’t want any bilateral cricketing ties. However assume that Pakistan would like to promote Yoga in the country and seeks India’s help; then India would be willing to invest even more than that country’s total sports budget, towards Pakistan Yoga. This is the new irreversible, agenda-based foreign policy that nations must contend to. Nations must now be prepared to bargain hard on some agenda, even cease talks on some agenda, instantly accept some agenda, make offers, or turn down offers. Leaders and negotiators must be versatile in switching between the agendas and they have the luxury of compromising on one agenda to leverage on another, or to include social and political factors too in trade policies. However there is a need to ensure that no agenda causes a derailment of the remaining.
Although the evolving world is moving away from armed conflicts, it has nonetheless started moving away from the era of friendly ties and holistic bilateral relations. Never before in the history of man has such unpredictable and changing circumstances influenced a nation’s foreign policy like today. Alas the evolving tough world has brought about a change in about everything we do and think and thus in how we relate as a nation with another nation.
