The world through a quarter century
Shahid Alam has reason to reflect on some essays
25 Years of BIIS: An Anthology is a salutation to the first quarter of a century of the institution's existence. Out of some five hundred articles that have been published over the years since 1980 (BIISS was formed in 1978) in various issues of BIISS Journal, just thirteen were selected for inclusion in the book under review. In justifying their choice, the editors reveal the basis on which it was done: consideration of important themes like national security of Bangladesh, security and regional cooperation in South Asia, regional and international strategic environment in the post-Cold War era, and Indo-Bangladesh relations. The selected pieces are fairly well spread out across the years, with one from 1986, seven from 1990 to 1994, and the remaining five from 1999 to 2001. Their quality is distinctly uneven, a little too glaring even in view of the generally expected asymmetry in an anthology, with Md. Nuruzzaman's "National Security of Bangladesh: Challenges and Options" (No.1), Abdur Rob Khan's "Interfacing Traditional and Non-Traditional Security in South Asia" (No.6), A.K.H. Morshed's "Cooperation in the Maritime Zones Among and Between the SAARC Countries" (No.9), Shireen M. Mazari's "South Asia: The Security Route to Cooperation" (No.10), and Mahendra P. Lama's "SAARC: Shallow Regionalism, Political Abstinence and Economic Advocacy" (No. 11) generally standing out from the rest. Not surprisingly, given the weakness in the military strength (both in personnel and sophisticated weaponry) of most of the South Asian countries relative to the major global and regional powers, including India and Pakistan, most of the authors opt on concentrating on security issues that could be subsumed under the rubric of "low politics". Nuruzzaman lays down the framework in this regard: "The new emphasis on security through development highlights the actual security needs in the developing countries." He, along with other authors like M. Abdul Hafiz in "New Challenges to Security Studies" (No.2), cites former World Bank president Robert McNamara in espousing the cause of security through development: "Security is development, and without development there can be no security." How ironic! After all, as defense secretary in President John F. Kennedy's cabinet, he was the architect in leading the US into the disastrous Vietnam War. Then he was an exponent of high politics, which, among other options, looks at security from a military standpoint. In Nuruzzaman's words, this approach is "based on the assumption that the principal threat to security comes from other nations. The Western literature on national security is basically dominated by this assumption." So, McNamara had a change of heart, but, for all their concerns about non-traditional security, the Western nations remain firmly rooted in the primacy of military security. The author gives a realistic assessment of Bangladesh's geo-strategic significance, and, as a logical corollary, why it should concentrate heavily on security in terms of low politics: "...except her 'nuisance value' to India, Bangladesh is strategically almost a non-influential actor both in regional and extra-regional politics." The areas of security that Bangladesh (and other South Asian nations) should be emphasizing on, as several authors espouse, should include strengthening political institutions and making them function efficiently, economic development, reduction of social inequalities between the rich and the poor, threat to the environment, inflow of drugs and small arms, human security issues, insurgency problems, piracy, and other such matters. Shireen Mazari, clearly arguing from a platform of high politics, focuses on the traditional security dimension in her paper. She is also very realistic in her arguments. She provides a partial, but most appropriate, answer to a question not posed to her regarding the distinctly insipid performance of SAARC in bringing about regional cooperation. Mahendra P. Lama, upset and frustrated at its below-par achievement, frames this rhetorical question about the organization in 2000: "How can this shallow regionalism of 15 years be made more robust and resilient in terms of functions, outreach and acceptability? Does it imply and involve a paradigm shift in the mindset of India as a pivotal partner and in other six members to shed their small nation syndrome and misplaced apprehension of homogenization?" Writing six years earlier, Mazari had come up with the explanation that should come as no surprise to anyone conversant with political realism and the history of South Asia: "...successful regional cooperation cannot take place unless there is an underlying politico-strategic commonality of interests." Specifically, "The member states of SAARC have primarily inward-oriented regional threat perceptions --- with India being the exception in that it sees its threat perception in terms of China as well. Rooted primarily in the historical legacy of the colonial and post-colonial era, and based upon territorial and ethnic disputes... (t)he Pakistan-India conflictual relationship...serves as an interesting case study in order to understand the continuing disunity of this region --- especially since this relationship is, in a number of ways, one of the root causes of this disunity, despite global and regional structural changes over the decades." How true! The first great analyst of the Westphalian system, Leo Gross, had once perspicaciously remarked: "If states do not act together they will increasingly act unilaterally" (A Collection of The Wit and Wisdom of Leo Gross, N.C. Livingstone and Farrokh P. Jhabvala, eds., 1976). And, so, unless the key political issues between India and Pakistan are satisfactorily resolved, SAARC might well remain a forum for blowing a lot of hot air, or, in Lama's words, "an exclusive club of political leaders and bureaucrats...." Lama points out an inherent problem that undermines the organization from becoming potent: "Ironically, though Article X (General Provisions) mentions that "bilateral and contentious issues shall be excluded from the deliberations", it has been the political issues which have never allowed SAARC to take off.... More than that, it has been primarily India-Pakistan bilateral issues which have always taken the driving seat pushing the remaining five member states to the backstage." High politics, after all, casts its long shadow over a region where security issues of low politics should be preponderant! Except that "should" necessarily has to take a back seat in the face of the reality of power politics played by the two major players in the region, more often than not with the other countries in tow. Abdur Rob Khan tries to "develop an interface between traditional and non-traditional security concerns in the context of South Asia", but succeeds more in satisfactorily conceptualizing non-traditional security: territorial threats (mostly in the sense of sovereign incursions by population groups, resource extractions, fishing, diversion of waters), economic threats (demographic issues, intellectual property rights, marginalization of the geographically disadvantaged countries, financial criminals), political threats (corruption, agitation and street violence, illegal narcotics and small arms), and environmental threats (global warming, trans-boundary pollution, depleted natural resources). Surely, notwithstanding the perceived and real need for traditional security, these non-traditional security issues merit high priority for the individual countries of the region, irrespective of the status of SAARC.
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