The national security state, according to Nelson Pellmeyer’s definition, features the military component of the state dominating the economic and political landscape – justified through the ubiquity of external security threats. In the contemporary world, Israel and North Korea are classic national security states, with some commentators ascribing to the United States also a few features of the national security state. Reinhold Niebuhr described the USA as a security state in the 1950s. There, 75% of government purchases between 1959 and 1975 were for defence purposes that had worked to the advantage of contractors as well as workers associated with the defence industry.
How does a security state transform into a development state – as desired by our freshly minted NSP? It is indeed a most weighty question.
Does Pakistan need to follow the USA of the 1950s by forging a symbiotic relationship with a security-centered economy and employment spinoffs, or states like North Korea and Israel? A separate example could be of China and Turkey, where a balance between human and traditional security ensured a wholesome national development and security.
But the declassified version of the NSP document does not seem to call for the reprioritising of defence and development spending in percentage of GDP, so as to allow a transition of the country from a national security to development state. For laymen and analysts, therefore, there are important questions and angles that need to be tackled by national policy planning and executing agencies for a fulfillment of the NSP vision.
Does the new focus on economic security and human development indicate a reprioritisation of national resources away from traditional security towards human security? How would the economic pie be enhanced?
To be sure, there is the mention of a growth-oriented strategy in the economic security part of the NSP. But the details of how that growth is to be achieved are not given. Perhaps those details have been left for the economic planning and finance ministries. But a strategic direction needed to be indicated – es especially one that would allow us to avoid debt-accumulating growth in favour of a productivity-driven approach. We know that growth alone is not a sufficient condition for sustainable economic security. Hence the guidelines for ministries should have included clear strategic directions for reshaping industrial policy. There was also a need for guidelines for lowering the input costs for industrial products. Similarly, a clear direction for IT export enhancement and agricultural productivity through concrete policy changes should have been indicated.
It should have addressed the question of how to manage hostilities, both at regional and international level, so as to create space for a geoeconomic advantage. Should this entail placing existing disputes with India on the backburner to prise open the gates of trade? That is a question that should have been answered in unambiguous terms in the policy paper
Connectivity emerges as the important glue that binds the disparate elements of national economic potential in a wholesome geoeconomic vision. The geoeconomics, unfortunately, are so intertwined with geopolitics that any attempts to use Pakistan’s geographical location as a bridge between South and Central Asia becomes impractical, unless India plays ball with Pakistan. The strategic confluence of an East-West Economic Corridor (EWEC) linking the SAARC nations with Central and West Asia and the North-South oriented CPEC would be a pie in sky unless India is convinced to bury the hatchet and be part of the combined bonanza of two strategic economic corridors. India has consistently spurned all peace overtures from Pakistan, unless the latter conceded on what it sees as its vital national interests, such as the Kashmir dispute and water management issues. Since most of the river flow and glaciated lifelines of Pakistan are situated in geopolitically contested zones, how would their security be ensured without resolving the geopolitical issues?
To answer above questions, the national security policy should have focused on the prevailing geopolitical environment, highlighting clearly the current threats from the neighborhood – which include a hostile India, a sanctioned Iran and a destabilised Afghanistan. It should have addressed the question of how to manage hostilities, both at regional and international level, so as to create space for a geoeconomic advantage. Should this entail placing existing disputes with India on the backburner to prise open the gates of trade? That is a question that should have been answered in unambiguous terms in the policy paper. After all, China and India have an annual trade volume of $100 billion despite their border tensions, while the trade volume between China and the USA stands $615 billion despite their geopolitical rivalry. What strategic direction is being given to the foreign office to craft a policy that purports to create a balance between the China and USA for Pakistan is also not very clear – at least from the declassified portion.
By clearly defining the environment needed to promote a common understanding amongst all subordinate government ministries, the national security policy could give clear directions to manipulate the environment to Pakistan’s geopolitical or geoeconomic advantage. This is missing in the current document.
Above all, a national security document must actually list down the vital national interests and broad strategic guidelines, for their attainment. Take, for instance, climate security. It has a clear geopolitical angle in the form of transboundary issues of water management, evidenced by conflicting interpretations of the Indus Water Treaty by India and Pakistan. No less a person than Shyam Saran, former Foreign Secretary and Chairman of National Security Advisory Board of India, reminds us that the resolution of the Siachen issue was scuttled due to political reasons – a euphemism for the Indian Army’s opposition – both in 1992 and 2006. How, then, would climate threats emanating out of geopolitically contested areas be resolved? That is the sort of question worth answering in the NSP guidelines.
Independent observers commenting on the declassified version of the NSP highlight the lack of clarity on trade, commerce and economic revival. These commentators point towards the recently introduced Strategic Trade Policy Framework that showcases the same old prescriptions of import substitution. The strategic guidelines of the NSP need to give clear directions about lowering the old barriers to trade and commerce to enable the subordinate ministries to reorient policies in accordance with some new vision. In the absence of clarity about the tariff policy and opening of borders for trade with estranged neighbours, the subordinate ministries would continue to follow strategies that are out of sync with the geoeconomics-centered vision of the new NSP.
On a human security front, there is a need to clarify how much increase in resource allocation would be proposed in tangible terms – e.g. enhancement of per capita health expenditure from the present $ 45 per person to the minimum recommended international standard of $ 271 per person.
Even if the NSP were to contain information that addresses the above opacity, the real challenge lies in implementation of strategies by subordinate ministries that, in the absence of requisite clarity, might lead to a policy dissonance.