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Underscoring the importance of giving State Department a superior role over the
hawkish Pentagon, President Obama appointed his two special envoys for
Pakistan-Afghanistan and the Middle East. In a marked departure from the Bush
era’s national security strategy, which was characterized by the policy of
preemption, the Obama administration has come up with a new strategy. The 31-
page National Security Strategy Paper of the Bush era identified the potential areas
of threat to the US. ‘The regions where technology and fundamentalism met’ were
put on the hot spot of the US security calculus. “We cannot defend America and
our friends by hoping for the best…In the new world we have entered, the only
path to peace and security is the path of action,” said the Bush era’s NSS
document.
In order to ensure the US supremacy, the new NSS emphasizes the importance of
economy. The current fiscal deficit of $ 1.5 trillion spells a danger to the US
economy and there is a strong realization that this burgeoning fiscal deficit needs
be narrowed down. In other words, it calls for reversing the policy of ‘outreach’,
that is responsible for ever increasing public spending on wars outside the US. The
exact amount that the industrial-military complex under President managed to
spend on its Iraq and Afghanistan misadventures is simply staggering. The
situation becomes even more hostile in the wake of the global recession that hit the
US and entire Europe and from whose aftermath the world including the US has
yet to recover fully.
Another area of departure from the rotten policies of the Bush era is the
acknowledgement that militant organizations who are engaged in a fight with the
world community do not represent political Islam. The fact that no religion
including Islam sanctions violence against anyone is welcome. While defeating
and dismantling Al-Qaeda and its affiliates remains the major US goal, the report
identifies Pakistan and Afghanistan as the core of the terrorist organization. In
order to accomplish its declared objective, the incumbent US administration seeks
to diversity the ambit of its engagement with Islamabad encompassing several
areas.
The Pak-US Strategic Dialogue, whose status has been upgraded to the level of
foreign ministers, represents an effort from both sides to concretize the
relationship. While the military aspect of the relationship continues to remain
important, it is the cooperation in non-military areas that is the chief highlight and
matter of immense importance.
All in all, the new National Security Strategy Report seeks to make amends for the
policy failures of last eight years of the Bush era. However, the real challenge lies
in turning the intent into policy action. Obama’s performance during his stint in
power falls short of the needful. Other than stabilizing the US economy in the
aftermath of the global crunch, the US president does not any feather to his cap in
the realm of foreign policy. The Middle East continues to burn with Israel
choosing to violate the international law with abandon. Islamabad and New Delhi
are still locked in a position of no dialogue. Afghanistan is as volatile as it was on
Obama’s taking over of the presidency. What options Pakistan has in the fast-
changing situation after the launching of new NSS is the subject I plan to write on
in my next column.