ONE would have thought that with so many retired diplomats now offering their unsolicited advice to the government through newspaper columns, our foreign policy would be a little more creative.

As New Yorkers say, “Fugedaboutit!” The foreign office continues to react to events in its old, predictable fashion. Take the current flurry of diplomatic activity over the proposed expansion of the UN Security Council as an example of knee-jerk reaction.

Just because India is one of the four states currently lobbying for inclusion as a permanent member of the Council, Pakistan is doing everything in its power to block the change. Its diplomats are begging the governments of the countries they are accredited to not to support the proposal. We have no objections to Brazil, Japan or Germany joining the club, but India’s entry is anathema to us.

And why is this? Because despite recent peace moves, we are locked in a zero-sum game with our neighbour in which any gain for India translates into an equivalent loss for us. This puerile, no-win situation extends from sports to defence to diplomacy.

Let us examine what would happen to our interests if India were to join the Security Council. Precisely nothing. The Security Council resolutions on Kashmir would remain on the books, for whatever that’s worth. And since the SC has been unable to enforce these resolutions in over five decades, India’s presence is hardly likely to damage our claim. The Kashmir problem will still have to be resolved bilaterally.

If anything, India might have a stronger incentive to sort out the problem because it might find a local conflict embarrassing in its capacity as a permanent member. Not that this is a sure thing: Chechnya doesn’t seem to embarrass Russia, just as the war in Iraq has hardly caused any blushes in Washington.

My point is that the foreign office has worked itself into a frenzy for no good reason. All India’s admission to the Security Council would do is to confirm its position as a major power. We may not like it, but by any standard, our neighbour is in the big league. If its economy continues to grow at the current rate, it is expected to be the third biggest after the United States and China by the middle of this century. Its nuclear status and its conventional military power certainly put it ahead of Japan, Brazil and Germany as a contender for a permanent Council seat. And with well over a billion people, it is now the second most populous country in the world.

None of this is to suggest that India has no problems. Far from it. Its population continues to grow at a pace which will see it overtake China soon. Huge numbers of its people are below the poverty line. Its slow, creaking bureaucracy continues to hold the economy back. And its social and political problems are enormously difficult to overcome. Nevertheless, its claim to permanent membership in the Security Council cannot be ignored.

For the Pakistani establishment, these are unpalatable facts, but we need to face reality, unpleasant though it may be. For far too long, Pakistan has insisted on being treated at par with India. But with India now poised at an economic take-off while we still grapple unsuccessfully with problems of religious extremism and intolerance, our economy dependent on foreign aid, other countries take a more pragmatic view.

There is a school of thought which holds the view that since the United Nations has been unable to stop wars, it is therefore irrelevant. But just think how much worse things would have been without its existence. For every armed conflict that has broken out, at least one has been prevented. Even if the UN is no more than a debating society, it is better to talk a disagreement to death than fight over it.

At the end of the day, the UN is what its members have fashioned it to be, no more and no less. The permanent members of the Security Council obviously have more clout than others, but its coercive powers are very limited. The fear in Pakistan is that India would use its position to undermine us in some way. But this apprehension is not supported by our experience of the international body thus far.

So what should we do if we do not oppose India’s admission? How about supporting it? There has been much talk of confidence building measures (CBMs) between the two rivals. If we were to discuss the quid pro quo for our support behind the scenes, our gesture would help promote goodwill that could be expended to help resolve the Kashmir problem.

I agree that actually supporting the Indian bid would be difficult to sell to our hawks. The next option would be neither to oppose nor support it. After all, other states are already against the expansion proposal. China is against Japan’s inclusion, just as Italy is against Germany’s. Our joining this ‘coffee club’ as the opponents of expansion are known to be irrelevant. If expansion does take place, our opposition simply leaves us with an egg on our face.

And if it doesn’t, we will not be able to take any credit. The fact that Bush has linked expansion with UN reforms probably puts the proposal on hold for the time being. Thus, we did not have to run around like a headless chicken in the first place.

As it is, the whole world is so sick of the Indo-Pakistan dispute over Kashmir that our lobbying is pretty ineffective. Nobody wants to offend India just to please Pakistan. Over the years, we have seen support for our Kashmir policy seep away. Now even China advises us to sort it out with India bilaterally.

At the core of this zero-sum game is our psychological inability to face facts where our neighbour is concerned. Our insistence on being treated as India’s equal at international forums is now wearing thin with the rest of the world. Then there is the contradiction inherent in wishing to improve relations with India while actively trying to block its bid.

We would be far better off if we tried to solve our own problems rather than dabbling in matters we have no control over. In fact, if we focused on cleaning up the mess within Pakistan rather than getting bogged down in global issues, we might one day have greater credibility. After all, who needs advice from a country with a tottering economy, a largely illiterate population, a violent society, and a dysfunctional political system?