HerachioBlo
August 18th, 2011, 05:33 PM
How Not to Formulate Foreign Policy
Late last year, the National Economic Council (NEC) reportedly resolved that going forward, Nigeria would no longer play 'big brother' to countries in trouble without getting anything in return. It also proposed that the nation's foreign interventions and assistance would henceforth be guided by 'national interest'.
At a seminar to 'review Nigeria's foreign policy' organised by the Presidential Advisory Council on International Relations (PAC-IR) in collaboration with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at Abuja from August 1- 4 2011, this point was re-emphasised. In an address at the seminar, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Olugbenga Ashiru reportedly said that Nigerians must benefit maximally from the nation's foreign policy. In his speech while declaring the seminar open, President Jonathan reportedly noted that 'although the country had played a leading role in the emancipation of the African continent from colonialism and racial discrimination, there is need to now focus on new priorities....' (Daily Trust August 11, 2011). The President's position re-echoes the sentiments expressed by Governor Babangida Aliyu of Niger State after the NEC meeting late last year when he was quoted as saying that "...we are going to shed that belief that we are big brother where we go to help other people and we never get something in return...So, wherever we go or whoever we relate with, must be because it will help us develop, rather than, as we normally say, that we have gone to help these or that people without getting anything in return." Foreign Minister Ashiru is reportedly a big supporter of a trade-driven foreign policy.
While it is true that national interest is at the heart of foreign policy, (in fact the French word 'raison d'état', - which means 'reason of the State' -vividly captures this), rarely is a country so rude as to stick it to the face of other international actors that its primary concern in its relations with them is the advancement of its 'national interest'. For instance though the colonisation of Africa was in the main undertaken because of the interest of the colonists to find raw materials, it was couched on the morally acceptable ideology of the 'need to civilise the natives'. In the same vein, former US President George W Bush justified the Iraq war on the moralistic need to find Saddam Hussein's Weapons of Mass Destruction - even though many people believed it was a camouflage for other interests. Even the Opium Wars (1839-1842, 1856-1860), one of the most mercantilist projections of 'national interest' in history was still given a morally acceptable justification. Though the wars were caused by the smuggling of opium by merchants from British India into China in defiance of Chinese prohibition laws, Britain's formal justification for the war was a need to stem China's balance of payment deficits. Those calling for a more explicit embedment of immediate economic gratification in our foreign policy are therefore not only throwing diplomatese to the winds but also advertising the country's weakness to the world. As Wole Soyinka would tell us, 'a tiger does not need to proclaim its tigeritude.'
I am also very uncomfortable with the idea of announcing to the whole world that there is a review of our foreign policy. Not only does this re-echo policy reversals and instabilities for which we have become infamous, my personal opinion is that you don't really need to have a Presidential Committee on Review of Nigeria's Foreign Policy to do this. How many times have we read about the US, Britain or Germany announcing a panel to review its foreign policy? My personal opinion is that this is the day job of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and think-tanks such as the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs and other institutions that organise seminars and workshops on international affairs. Given the dynamic nature of international relations, a country through its Ministry of Foreign affairs, independent think-tanks and consultants is constantly reviewing its relations with different countries and institutions depending on changes in power configurations that create new opportunities or threaten its national interest. I have a feeling that people who grandstand about trade and economic-driven diplomacy or immediate financial gratification from any international engagement are mixing up the role of the economic/trade missions found in the country's various embassies with foreign policy.
I also feel that there is a little confusion about the meaning of 'national interest' - the totality of a country's goals and ambitions whether economic, cultural, military or otherwise. Contrary to the impression that 'national interest' is projected only when financial gains are expressly and immediately extracted from an interaction with other state and non-state actors, sometimes states invest in enhancing its influence in a country or region because of the leverage such influence could give it in the future (such as being allowed to station a military base in the country/region in the future or to avoid the influx of refugees that could overwhelm its social services). This too is projecting 'national interest'. I believe that contrary to popular belief, we have actually benefitted from the countries we helped in the past - South Africa, Liberia, Sierra Leone etc. I believe that we derived the intangible benefit of our international prestige rising as we 'helped' them. If we were not able to leverage on such intangible assets, it was more because of the failure of leadership, not foreign policy. Usually forgotten in the discussion of how 'ungrateful' countries we have helped in the past have become is that we often 'unleash' our human capital on them after 'helping' them. It certainly seems that the population of Nigerians in countries we 'helped' increased astronomically after our 'help'. It seems that the role of such Nigerians in the remittance economy is overlooked. It is therefore misleading to assume that playing 'big brother' to other African countries means that the country's 'national interest' is not being projected. This is the whole notion of 'soft power' - winning over the minds of the people in the countries we play 'big brother' to. Converting this soft power to economic benefits will depend on the character of the country's political leadership.
Related to this is that a nation's respectability in international relations is not wholly contingent upon its past benevolence but often more on the current leverages it can bring to the table. Even in domestic politics, past benevolence seems to count for little as we have seen in the face-offs between political god-fathers and almost all the Governors that they installed in office. The bottom line therefore is that if Nigeria wants to command influence and respect, it must improve on its ability to bring leverages to the table. This is obviously where the interplay between domestic politics and foreign policy comes into play. As the Igbo would say, the goat follows the person who carries the palm fronds.
I am miffed at suggestions that Africa would no longer be the centre- piece of our foreign policy. My personal opinion is that Africa being the centre piece of our foreign policy does not mean that we would always take Afrocentric position on issues - but that we should strive to be a leader in the continent. It is not unusual for a country to once in a while have a more compelling national interest which would require taking positions that is contrary to the position of most of its immediate allies. For instance during the Thirty Years' War in Europe (1618-1648) - a largely religious conflict between Protestants and Catholics - France chose to intervene on the side of the Protestants despite its overwhelming Catholicism because the regime was apparently more interested at that time in blocking the growing power of the Holy Roman Emperor than in protecting its religious faith. Similarly though Europe could be called the centre-piece of British foreign policy, Britain sometimes disagrees with other European countries (such as during the Iraq War) but would often return to rebuild burnt bridges after such disagreements in other not to undermine its leadership role in the continent.
I am not suggesting that all is well with our foreign policies. But the problem, as I see it, is not in trying to find one sexy phrase to encapsulate our foreign policies - Africa as the centrepiece of our foreign policy, the notion of concentric circle, citizen diplomacy etc. My personal opinion is that the problems in our foreign policy are largely symptomatic of the crisis of underdevelopment weighing down the country and which in turn feeds on our stalled nation-building project.
http://allafrica.com/stories/201108180586.html
Late last year, the National Economic Council (NEC) reportedly resolved that going forward, Nigeria would no longer play 'big brother' to countries in trouble without getting anything in return. It also proposed that the nation's foreign interventions and assistance would henceforth be guided by 'national interest'.
At a seminar to 'review Nigeria's foreign policy' organised by the Presidential Advisory Council on International Relations (PAC-IR) in collaboration with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at Abuja from August 1- 4 2011, this point was re-emphasised. In an address at the seminar, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Olugbenga Ashiru reportedly said that Nigerians must benefit maximally from the nation's foreign policy. In his speech while declaring the seminar open, President Jonathan reportedly noted that 'although the country had played a leading role in the emancipation of the African continent from colonialism and racial discrimination, there is need to now focus on new priorities....' (Daily Trust August 11, 2011). The President's position re-echoes the sentiments expressed by Governor Babangida Aliyu of Niger State after the NEC meeting late last year when he was quoted as saying that "...we are going to shed that belief that we are big brother where we go to help other people and we never get something in return...So, wherever we go or whoever we relate with, must be because it will help us develop, rather than, as we normally say, that we have gone to help these or that people without getting anything in return." Foreign Minister Ashiru is reportedly a big supporter of a trade-driven foreign policy.
While it is true that national interest is at the heart of foreign policy, (in fact the French word 'raison d'état', - which means 'reason of the State' -vividly captures this), rarely is a country so rude as to stick it to the face of other international actors that its primary concern in its relations with them is the advancement of its 'national interest'. For instance though the colonisation of Africa was in the main undertaken because of the interest of the colonists to find raw materials, it was couched on the morally acceptable ideology of the 'need to civilise the natives'. In the same vein, former US President George W Bush justified the Iraq war on the moralistic need to find Saddam Hussein's Weapons of Mass Destruction - even though many people believed it was a camouflage for other interests. Even the Opium Wars (1839-1842, 1856-1860), one of the most mercantilist projections of 'national interest' in history was still given a morally acceptable justification. Though the wars were caused by the smuggling of opium by merchants from British India into China in defiance of Chinese prohibition laws, Britain's formal justification for the war was a need to stem China's balance of payment deficits. Those calling for a more explicit embedment of immediate economic gratification in our foreign policy are therefore not only throwing diplomatese to the winds but also advertising the country's weakness to the world. As Wole Soyinka would tell us, 'a tiger does not need to proclaim its tigeritude.'
I am also very uncomfortable with the idea of announcing to the whole world that there is a review of our foreign policy. Not only does this re-echo policy reversals and instabilities for which we have become infamous, my personal opinion is that you don't really need to have a Presidential Committee on Review of Nigeria's Foreign Policy to do this. How many times have we read about the US, Britain or Germany announcing a panel to review its foreign policy? My personal opinion is that this is the day job of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and think-tanks such as the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs and other institutions that organise seminars and workshops on international affairs. Given the dynamic nature of international relations, a country through its Ministry of Foreign affairs, independent think-tanks and consultants is constantly reviewing its relations with different countries and institutions depending on changes in power configurations that create new opportunities or threaten its national interest. I have a feeling that people who grandstand about trade and economic-driven diplomacy or immediate financial gratification from any international engagement are mixing up the role of the economic/trade missions found in the country's various embassies with foreign policy.
I also feel that there is a little confusion about the meaning of 'national interest' - the totality of a country's goals and ambitions whether economic, cultural, military or otherwise. Contrary to the impression that 'national interest' is projected only when financial gains are expressly and immediately extracted from an interaction with other state and non-state actors, sometimes states invest in enhancing its influence in a country or region because of the leverage such influence could give it in the future (such as being allowed to station a military base in the country/region in the future or to avoid the influx of refugees that could overwhelm its social services). This too is projecting 'national interest'. I believe that contrary to popular belief, we have actually benefitted from the countries we helped in the past - South Africa, Liberia, Sierra Leone etc. I believe that we derived the intangible benefit of our international prestige rising as we 'helped' them. If we were not able to leverage on such intangible assets, it was more because of the failure of leadership, not foreign policy. Usually forgotten in the discussion of how 'ungrateful' countries we have helped in the past have become is that we often 'unleash' our human capital on them after 'helping' them. It certainly seems that the population of Nigerians in countries we 'helped' increased astronomically after our 'help'. It seems that the role of such Nigerians in the remittance economy is overlooked. It is therefore misleading to assume that playing 'big brother' to other African countries means that the country's 'national interest' is not being projected. This is the whole notion of 'soft power' - winning over the minds of the people in the countries we play 'big brother' to. Converting this soft power to economic benefits will depend on the character of the country's political leadership.
Related to this is that a nation's respectability in international relations is not wholly contingent upon its past benevolence but often more on the current leverages it can bring to the table. Even in domestic politics, past benevolence seems to count for little as we have seen in the face-offs between political god-fathers and almost all the Governors that they installed in office. The bottom line therefore is that if Nigeria wants to command influence and respect, it must improve on its ability to bring leverages to the table. This is obviously where the interplay between domestic politics and foreign policy comes into play. As the Igbo would say, the goat follows the person who carries the palm fronds.
I am miffed at suggestions that Africa would no longer be the centre- piece of our foreign policy. My personal opinion is that Africa being the centre piece of our foreign policy does not mean that we would always take Afrocentric position on issues - but that we should strive to be a leader in the continent. It is not unusual for a country to once in a while have a more compelling national interest which would require taking positions that is contrary to the position of most of its immediate allies. For instance during the Thirty Years' War in Europe (1618-1648) - a largely religious conflict between Protestants and Catholics - France chose to intervene on the side of the Protestants despite its overwhelming Catholicism because the regime was apparently more interested at that time in blocking the growing power of the Holy Roman Emperor than in protecting its religious faith. Similarly though Europe could be called the centre-piece of British foreign policy, Britain sometimes disagrees with other European countries (such as during the Iraq War) but would often return to rebuild burnt bridges after such disagreements in other not to undermine its leadership role in the continent.
I am not suggesting that all is well with our foreign policies. But the problem, as I see it, is not in trying to find one sexy phrase to encapsulate our foreign policies - Africa as the centrepiece of our foreign policy, the notion of concentric circle, citizen diplomacy etc. My personal opinion is that the problems in our foreign policy are largely symptomatic of the crisis of underdevelopment weighing down the country and which in turn feeds on our stalled nation-building project.
http://allafrica.com/stories/201108180586.html