Co-partnering with the US

Understanding a bit of political psychology might help Islamabad to engage constructively with Washington to stop drone strikes in the tribal areas of Pakistan. Until and unless foreign policymakers and defence managers in Islamabad fully comprehend the political behaviour of the entire American political establishment inclusive of the White House, State Department and Pentagon, their attempts to bring Washington to the negotiation table to cease drone strikes will fail. If this happens, political turbulence all over Pakistan will intensify. Stopping drone attacks in the tribal areas is the first and foremost step towards bringing peace, and a major challenge to the newly-elected democratic government to effectively deal with terrorism, in Pakistan. Islamabad must prevail on the US administration to stop carrying out aerial warfare against this country.
The Pakistani leadership needs an intensive analytical application of political psychology to help understand the political behaviour of the US political-military establishment and then deal effectively with the Obama Administration. Political psychology can help “to understand.......contexts (global-political events) that are influenced by beliefs, motivations, perception, cognition.......and attitude formation” of a player in a political relationship. Successive Pakistani administrations over a period of several decades have completely failed to understand the beliefs, motivations, perceptions and attitude formations of its American ally and, consequently, have failed in developing a US-Pakistan relationship based on equality of nations and mutual interests. Let us put some facts on the table:
i    The US is a superpower that sees its political-economic interests paramount in the conduct of its global political strategy. It has always supported complacent political leaderships all over the Third World, which help realise the American global policy objectives with more intensity than their own national interests, notwithstanding the empty rhetoric of democratic ideals and sloganistic speeches for propaganda purposes and public consumption. It has unmatched media-cum-psychological manipulative superiority in this context.
i    The traditional diplomacy of “balance of power” among nations is a dead concept now. In the present-day world, it is the “power” of military technology that dictates interstate relations. America and its Western-European allies are great advocates of this global political system. In the immediate past, the drone warfare technology has greatly enhanced USA’s “power” of its global political-military expansion. No wonder then, since the start of the 21st century (dubbed as the “American Century”), the US military-political interventions in the Islamic World have increased on a monumental scale (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya, Somalia, Central Asia, etc and now in Syria, to name a few). It seems that these consequential and arbitrary interceding in the affairs of other nations will continue unabated.
i    Let us be realistic: drones are not going to go away - they add tremendously to the military “power” to wage electronic warfare from remote-controlled locations far away - safe from an adversary’s military response. No wonder then only the other day, the US-Western allies called for the development of European drone programmes.
i    In addition, Washington has been equipped for decades with the political determination, financial resources and the knowledge that leadership in the Third World can be easily persuaded (with some exceptions) into complacent roles. This important factor adds to the US “power” to organise a global political system in accordance with its exclusive agendas.
i    The US has tremendous leverage on nearly all international institutions (UN, IMF, World Bank, etc) to carry out its unilateral political will with impunity.
So, the important questions are: What can political psychology tell us about the Obama Administration’s mindset on global issues and, most specifically, its drone strike strategy against Pakistan? How can Islamabad constructively engage with Washington to manage a shift in its policy of drone attacks on Pakistan’s territory?
The application of political psychology analysis will illustrate to us that the White House, State Department and Pentagon are all on the same page: it is perceived in the ruling circles that the US has the “power” of military technology to impose itself on world events, and above all, it has the right to do so. Its political-military establishment also perceives that “power” is the only arbitrator to conduct international affairs - and the US has unprecedented “power” at its disposal to morally justify its use. Such is the cognitive development, perceptual belief system, motivations and attitude formation in the corridors of power in Washington (as well as in London, Paris, Bonn and Rome). President Barack Obama is not a bad guy, but Islamabad has to remember that he is a product of the same cognitive system that makes America so awesomely apathetic to the people and nations, which refuse to tow its line. So how does Islamabad engage in a co-partnership with Washington to end drone attacks on Pakistan?
First, Islamabad must recognise the fact that traditional diplomacy is dead. For example, summoning the US diplomats to Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry to protest against a drone strike (as it recently did)  is a meaningless diplomatic ritual in the context of this conflict.
Second, Pakistani diplomats and foreign policy officers (retired and present) should not be the government functionaries formulating foreign policy vis-à-vis the US. They have complacent views by the nature of their training. They are more inclined towards procedures, rather than process. They lack the perceptual vision to deal with conflict resolution from "outside the box" solutions. Hence, such diplomats should be kept away from giving their input in dealing with the US.
Third, it is the political leadership in Islamabad that has to take a fresh initiative to engage directly with the US leadership to resolve the drone issue.
Fourth, Islamabad will have to amass massive public demonstrative support for its anti-drone initiative to impress on Washington that democratic Pakistan can no longer afford a dual government policy on this issue (as has been done in the past decade).
Finally, Islamabad will have to create a “threat perception” for US interests for next year’s withdrawal of its forces from Afghanistan.
A co-partnership is a process in which all parties have equal stakes. Islamabad must be categorically unambiguous in communicating to Washington that Pakistan will do its part to ensure the safety of American troops as long as they remove the main impediment to the said conflict immediately: stop drone strikes in its tribal belt. The Pakistani nation has had enough of it. Let us be co-partners in its resolution.

The writer is UAE-based academic, policy analyst, conflict resolution expert and author of several books on Pakistan and foreign policy issues. He holds a doctorate and a masters degree from Columbia University in New York.

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