+ Nepal’s Foreign Policy in Review?
+ Myanmar’s Perpetual Tragedy
+ Chinese Spy Balloon Over US Skies
+ Russia-Ukraine War
By Shashi P.B.B. Malla
Whether Nepal’s Foreign Policy?
Nepal’s new foreign minister has proclaimed that Nepal’s foreign policy must be reviewed. What is the sense of ‘review’?
Since she is new to the job and foreign affairs is not her field of expertise, this is indeed a very relevant question. Did she also imply ‘revise’?
Nepal’s foreign policy – like any other nation’s – comprises all activities of the Nepali state actor whereby it acts, reacts and interacts with other state and non-state actors, international government and non-governmental organizations.[vide: Graham Evans/Jeffry Newnham: Dictionary of International Relations].
Those making/deciding foreign policy [‘decision makers’] straddle two environments: an internal or domestic environment and an external or global environment.
The ‘policy makers’, ‘decision makers’ and the policy system in which they are embedded stand at these junction points and seek to mediate between the various milieu.
Needless to say, this requires considerable skill arising out of solid education and experience.
The domestic environment forms the background context against which foreign policy is made/formulated/executed.
The domestic or internal milieu is influenced by:
- Nepal’s resource base
- Its position geographically in relation to others. Until recently, Nepal was apparently cursed by geography and condemned to being a so-called ‘land-locked state’.
Now optimistic foreign policy gurus, project Nepal as a land bridge between the two Asian behemoths and rising powers China and India.
- The nature and level of development of its economy.
In spite of major structural weaknesses, not least rampant, endemic corruption, Nepal is about to cease being a least developed country and about to take off to the next level – that of a ‘developing nation’.
- Its demographic structure
- Its ideology and fundamental values.
The external or international environment is where foreign policy is actually implemented.
The domestic determinants constitute the base upon which the structure of foreign policy is actually built.
However, this is not a static act – once for all — but a dynamic process of bargaining/negotiation/communication within and between the two environments and their actors.
Foreign Minister Strives to Activate SAARC Process
For once a Nepali foreign minister has taken the initiative to revive the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).
During a visit to Sri Lanka on the occasion of that country’s 75th independence anniversary, Dr. Bimala Rai Paudyal discussed the prospects of activating SAARC with her counterparts from the region.
As Nepal is still the acting chair of the regional organization, Dr. Rai Paudyal should have gone a step forward and invited all her counterparts to a meeting in Kathmandu.
Half measures will not work if SAARC is to be resuscitated.
However, she did take the opportunity to discuss current possibilities of regional cooperation.
This means that the concerned officials in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) have done their homework and prepared her very well for the Sri Lanka visit.
As per newspaper reports, Dr. Rai Paudyal:
- Requested Sri Lankan cooperation in expanding air connectivity to the Gautam Buddha International Airport, Bhairahawa.
A direct air connection with Colombo would open up possibilities for bilateral and international tourism.
- Suggested to establish a network to raise a common voice at the upcoming International Conference on Climate Change (COP-28).
- Bilateral cooperation with Sri Lanka in the fields of agriculture, education, energy and climate change.
(The Rising Nepal, Feb.6)
This is indeed a good start , but must be followed up with further communication/talks/initiatives – with or without India, which is currently acting as a brake in further development.
For Nepal: Regional Issues More Important than Global Politics
The new Nepali foreign minister is on the right track by concentrating on regional issues.
Nepali decision-makers – like those of other countries – should approach the international environment from a regional perspective.
Nepal has to react to its neighbours in all aspects of policy and therefore this regional dimension will be crucially important.
“Geopolitics sets the parameters for this regionalism.
Myanmar’s Civil War Enters Decisive Phase
Myanmar’s detested military – known as the Tatmadaw — staged a putsch two years ago and unleashed a brutal civil war which is now raging.
In 2023, the military hopes to gain legitimacy with a sham election. Whether the junta succeeds depends on how the opposition/resistance responds (DW/Deutsche Welle, Feb. 1).
The terrible human cost of the civil war in Myanmar [previously known as Burma] accounts for thousands dead and at least 1.5 million internally displaced persons so far.
Since the military seized power on February 1, 2021, there have been repeated skirmishes, battles, attacks and kidnappings throughout the country.
The prisons are full of political prisoners who are abused, tortured and murdered by the Tatmadaw.
There are at least three conflicting parties in this civil war.
The military government or junta calls itself the State Administrative Council (SAC).
The resistance consists of the National Unity Government (NUG), the parliament in exile (Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw {CRPH}, elected in 2020 but ousted by the coup; and
The People’s Defence Forces (PDF).
Myanmar’s Undecided Power Struggle
The division of power is militarily divided.
The Tatmadaw dominates large parts of Myanmar’s heartland and large cities such as Yangon, Mandalay and the capital, Naypyidaw.
Regions populated by ethnic minorities form a horseshoe around the heartland. Here, either the National Unity Government (NUG) or the respective ethnic minorities have the upper hand.
Since the balance of raw military force continues to favour the Tatmadaw, there can be no march on the capital any time soon.
The military’s armory has been augmented by Russian arms deliveries last November. They now have Sukhoi Su-30 fighter jets at their disposal, while most citizen militias have to get by with homemade rifles.
Political scientist Michal Lubina from Krakow University opines that the armed resistance aims to pressure the military on as many fronts as possible.
This could potentially spark a counter coup, or at least a power reshuffle within the top echelons of the Tatmadaw. That would open the door for negotiations with the PDFs or NUG. However, this doesn’t seem likely any time soon.
Domestic Economic War
Through civil disobedience, attacks on infrastructure such as the power grid, and boycotts of military-owned businesses, the resistance aims to cut off the Tatmadaw from essential revenue sources.
Conversely, the military is preventing the transfer of donations from the population to the resistance, while building a favourable environment for its own economic supporters.
The internal economic war has shrunk Myanmar’s gross domestic product dramatically. According to the World Bank, in July 2022, it was 13 v% percent smaller than in the year before the coup.
The general population is suffering heavily under miserable economic conditions. Around 40 % percent of the population lives below the national poverty line.
Military’s Search for Legitimacy in 2023
While the country’s military and economic situation remains under a shadow, the military is doing everything it can to achieve a political victory and strengthen its legitimacy by announcing elections.
However, it is already clear that the elections will be neither free nor fair.
Moreover, because of the disturbed situation in fiercely contested areas, they cannot be held everywhere in the country.
They are also prone to be manipulated since the election commission consists of 15 members handpicked by the military chief.
The electoral system is also altered in such a way that strongly favours the military, for which 25 % percent of all seats in parliament are already reserved, according to the constitution.
A so-called ‘electoral law reform’ has been enacted that makes it impossible for many parties to participate in the elections.
Thus, parties must have 100,000 proven members three months after their registration in order to participate in the elections!
The whole process is not only a farce – it is hogwash!
A Façade for the Outside World
Domestically, the overwhelming majority of Myanmar’s population rejects the elections and military rule.
However, externally the Tatmadaw is using its position of power to cultivate ties abroad.
It is preserving a façade of control to make it easier, especially for Asian powers to normalize relations with Myanmar.
These countries include China, India, Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore, and the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN).
The sham election could make it more palatable for these countries and ASEAN, which have fewer reservations over military rule than democratic-oriented nations to work with Myanmar.
And Myanmar’s military also needs these partners to get the country’s economy running again.
The elections also pose a risk to the image of the resistance movement abroad.
The International Crisis Group (ICG) notes that if voting stations are attacked by citizen militias, and the elections overshadowed by excessive violence, that would make it easier for countries sitting on the fence to relativize the conflict.
Tatmadaw leader Gen. Min Aung Hlaing sees the election as a transition process “not back to democracy, not back to peace, not away from violence, but toward consolidating his control and his vision for the future of Myanmar” (ICG).
This envisages a future with Hliang as the head of a military government in civilian garb legitimized by bogus elections – a wolf in sheep’s clothing!
U.S. Downs Chinese Spy Balloon
The U.S. military on Saturday shot down a suspected spy balloon off the South Carolina’s Atlantic coast.
It had traversed sensitive military sites across the continental U.S. (AP/Associated Press, Feb. 5)
President Joe Biden had wanted the spy balloon shot down earlier, but the Pentagon determined that bringing it down over land from an altitude of 60,000 feet would pose an undue risk to people on the ground.
The balloon had entered the U.S. air defence zone north of the Aleutian Islands archipelago (part of Alaska, south of the Bering Sea) from mainland China on January 28 and moved largely over land across Alaska and then into Canadian air space in the Northwest Territories last Monday.
It crossed back into US territory over northern Idaho on Tuesday, the day Biden was first briefed on it.
The balloon was spotted Wednesday over Montana, home to Malmstrom Air Force Base, which has fields of nuclear missile silos.
The U.S. immediately cancelled Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s immanent visit to Beijing.
Chinese Reaction
China responded that it reserved the right to “take further actions” and criticized the U.S. for “an obvious over-reaction and a serious violation of international practice.”
China has claimed that the balloon was merely a weather research “airship” that had been blown of course.
It also contended that it was not being used for surveillance and had only limited navigational ability.
Opposition Republicans Attack Biden
Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee said scathingly: “Allowing a spy balloon from the Communist Party of China to travel across the entire continental United States before contesting its presence is a disastrous projection of weakness by the White House” (AP).
Senator Thom Tillis was no less unsparing: “Communist China was allowed to violate American sovereignty unimpeded for days.”
Scholars’ & Pundits’ Viewpoints
Analysts believe the incident has probably taken Xi Jinping and his closest associates by surprise.
Professor Zhao Minghao at the Institute of International Studies at Shanghai’s Fudan University said: “From the perspective of China’s top leadership, they wouldn’t have wanted to disrupt the process of easing relations with the United States because this year is a very important year for China to revive the economy.”
“There is no point in China sabotaging the process” (WaPo).
But if Xi and the top leadership were not aware of the dispatch of the balloon, it does raise some troubling questions.
Are factions within the CCP power structure trying to undermine the president?
David Ignatius of The Washington Post writes: “Intelligence analysts are considering the possibility that the Chinese military or hard-line elements within the leadership deliberately sought to sabotage the Blinken visit, the chief goal of which was to explore strategic stability measures and other guardrails that could limit the likelihood of unintended escalation over Taiwan or other issues of potential conflict.”
According to Zhu Feng, a professor of international relations at Nanjing University in eastern China, it is ironic that over 50 years ago, the ice-melting of Sino-American relations began with Ping-Pong diplomacy.
“It was a small ball that started it, and now our relations are in trouble over a big ball or balloon” (NYT, Feb.6).
Putin Compares Ukraine to WW II Stalingrad Battle
Russian President Vladimir Putin was keen to drum up support and draw unwarranted and false comparisons to the present state of affairs in Ukraine.
The Russian leader sought to rally Russians around the current war in Ukraine on the occasion of Nazi Germany’s defeat in Stalingrad [today called Volgograd] 80 years ago, at a ceremony to mark the anniversary of the Soviet victory.
“We are again being threatened by German Leopard tanks!” Putin thundered, in reference to Germany’s recent decision to supply advanced Leopard battle tanks to Kyiv (DW, Feb. 2).
The Russian leader also placed flowers on the grave of Soviet Marshal Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov responsible for defending the city and paid a visit to the main memorial complex in Volgograd, where he held a minute of silence.
[Zhukov was responsible for much of the planning of the of the Soviet Union’s campaigns in WW II. He defeated the Germans decisively at Stalingrad (1943), lifted the siege of Leningrad (1944), led the final assault on Nazi Germany and the capture of Berlin (1945), and became commander of the Soviet zone {later East Germany} in occupied Germany after the war].
Should the West Change Course in Ukraine?
Policymakers, media pundits and foreign policy gurus in Western capitals are now debating Ukraine’s desire for scores of multipurpose fighter jets, which Kyiv wants as it prepares to repulse a rumored forthcoming Russian offensive.
Ukraine wants to reclaim Russian-held territory in the country’s southeast, as well as the Crimean peninsula that Russia annexed in 2014. “give us your weapons, and we will get back what’s ours,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told the global power/economic elites in Davos last month.
This was similar to Winston Churchill’s WW II radio broadcast [aimed at the U.S.]:
“Give us the tools and we will finish the job.”
One school of thought argues that the war should (and probably can only) end diplomatically.
However, others reason that Russia is not interested in good faith negotiations; and the important task now is to arm Ukraine sufficiently so that its hand at a theoretical negotiating table is as strong as it can be (Washington Post/Today’s World View, Feb.1).
A new report by the influential Rand Corporation [a Washington-based think tank] takes issue with this position, warning that it puts the United States on the path toward open-ended conflict that could escalate even more dangerously.
RAND contends that the present trajectory could pit Russia in direct conflict with NATO and possibly see the Kremlin deploy nuclear weapons.
This argument is self-defeating at best and alarmist at worst!
For all intents and purposes, NATO is already at war – overtly and covertly – with Russia in Ukraine.
The West may deny it at their heart’s content, but that is the Russian perception.
It also ignores the moral dimensions and the implications of international law.
The RAND report does point to the obvious reality that an extended war would see more Ukrainian suffering and more economic havoc in Europe.
The logical conclusion: Ukraine must be equipped with enough defensive and offensive weapons to bring the war to a successful end!
Putin’s Nuclear Option?
If Ukraine is not afraid of Putin’s sporadic attempts at nuclear brinkmanship, why should the West be?
Ukraine’s military intelligence chief, Maj.Gen. Kyrylo Budanov dismissed the Kremlin’s threats as a “scare tactic”.
Budanov asserted: “Russia is a country that you can expect a lot from but not outright idiocy.”
Moreover, they are fully aware that “Carrying out a nuclear strike will result in not just a [precipitous] military defeat for Russia but the [unmitigated] collapse of Russia.”
Then there is the question of logistics. The nuclear fallout would not be restricted to Europe and Russia itself – it would be self-destructive and suicidal – like the Nepali proverb: ‘hitting your own feet with the axe’.
The RAND pundits also insist that “Keeping a Russia-NATO war below the nuclear threshold would be extremely difficult, particularly given the weakened state of Russia’s conventional military.”
In addition, “if the Kremlin concluded that the country’s national security was severely imperiled, it might well deliberately escalate for lack of better alternatives” (WaPo).
It is astounding that such a prestigious institution could put forward such conjecture. Its hypothesis is neither backed by empirical evidence nor historical precedent/pattern.
Putin, the bully that he is, may instead threaten/attack the very small nation of Moldavia, sandwiched between Ukraine and Romania, and part of which is already occupied by Russian collaborators/quislings [in Russian parlance: ‘peacekeepers’!] – like in Donetsk and Luhansk of Ukraine.
The writer can be reached at: shashipbmalla@hotmail.com
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