By: Sardar Jahanzaib Ghalib
Traditions of the United States as a society were based on classical liberalism which has its roots way back to its foundation. The United States had taken its part more than any other country in the promotion of a more democratic and liberal world by providing each and every strain of liberal traditions. The most foundational liberal traditions are freedom of speech, religion, the difference between politics and matter of the church, and equality before the law. The liberal traditions laid their foundation back in the 18th and 19th century.US promotes this liberalism in their both societal and state level. This started with the eradication of limitations of the vote from white people only to black people as well.
Then after world war I liberals critique that in order to promote peaceful co-existence liberalism should prevail to achieve peace and harmony among nations, So on this notion founding fathers of the liberal’s school of thought formulated the League of Nations with the hope that this will stop the war. But again in 1930, the great economic depression resulted in World War II which put a huge question on liberalism and on the formulation of the League of Nations as well. This was the very choke point in history that actually started a cross-debate between liberalism and realism and this debate of isolationism and multilateralism is showing colors on different spans of governments of the United States. This encouraged a huge gap between US Liberal internationalism and US Realist internationalists as far as their foreign policy formulation is concerned. This basic clash has been existing in US politics till now. The basic approach of liberalism is multilateralism is currently being focused on by US current President Joe Biden. This approach was being targeted by President Donald Trump because of his “America First” dilemma whereas President Joe Biden is offering a more cooperative approach for the world and is likely to observe more liberal traditions as compared to the previous government. Multilateralism is the alliance of different states with having a common objective with a main focus to promote peace in the world order. As far as impacts of liberal traditions with the perspective of relations between the US and Pakistan are concerned besides multilateralism for the very first time in the span of history Pakistan is not included in the foreign policy priority list of United States. For many years Pakistan has been in the eye of the United States because of the war on terror but that security element no longer pushes US foreign policy though the US has acknowledged services of Pakistan in this drastic war on terror Their traditional approach was very much focused on counter-terrorism but now this realist approach is being replaced by other liberal aspects such as focusing on elements of climate change, covid-19 and other economic challenges in countering great power rivalries. These liberal approaches have affected the ranking of Pakistan in the US policy priority list.
This new phase brings up the significant issue of how the US should consider its relationship with Pakistan. Pakistan is situated at the front of the Persian Gulf and lines with Iran, India, and China as far as its geography is concerned and is a significant access way into central Asia. These realities alone contend for the significance of Pakistan to more extensive US interests in the economy and security of West and South Asia. As the Biden organization carries out its public safety liberal traditions, it should put another Pakistan strategy inside its more extensive vital interests in West Asia. It started relations with Islamabad that formed roads of mutual interests on geopolitical and economical fronts. For more than 20 years War on terror built up U-S relations with Pakistan but those areas were actually different from liberal traditions however Pakistan’s loyal approach towards the US can give a way forward to Biden’s administration in developing new ties of political and economical interests between the two countries. Biden Knows the Geo-strategically important aspects of Pakistan especially in achieving its interest in countering China and this interest will force the United States to build more and better ties in the South Asian region, especially with India and Pakistan. As Trump builds more economical ties with India in order to counter China’s role in the region, Biden will take a little tilt in this shift as in his first address he stated that he will try to work with China on mutual economic fronts and on fighting the battle against covid’19. On other hand, this will give an opportunity to Islamabad as Biden will definitely try to balance out its relations with India and Pakistan in order to gain mutual benefits from the region.
Though the United States can not counter the role and influence of China in Pakistan it can affect the decision-making and fore-coming steps in their geopolitical and Geo-economic ventures. The liberal tradition of Pakistan’s current government is mainly focused on climate change as well which is a mutual aspiration for both governments other than that both countries want to gain economic benefits. Also, Pakistan is in a serious debt crisis due to their poor economic conditions even though they are improving much but still, this is considered for the United States to achieve its interests and under these circumstances, Pakistan will be more open to compromise on their objectives. If the United States continues to tether the stability of the region to Pakistan, then it must make far more significant investments in the country beyond security interests. Currently, governmental liberal ties will put a focus on Pakistan’s hope for renewing bilateral ties with the US with a direct influence on the economy and prosperity. This new phase of relations will be focused on economical bases rather than military, they will look forward from other Afghanistan’s lens, generation of economic alliances, and co-operation in priority areas. As both countries have seen war for a long time in their territories which will now help them in entering a new phase of peace and prosperity and this is a direct reflection of Michael W. Doyle’s idea of liberalism.
The writer hails from Azad Kashmir. Currently an M Phil student at Quaid-I-Azam University Islamabad Pakistan. He tweets at @sardar_jahaan
The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the ‘The Dayspring’