Most Pakistanis believe that their country has just one ‘true friend’ — China. This belief has been ingrained in our collective psyche from the mid-1960s onwards. Indeed, China has been a close ally of the country, but mainly because of the fact that it has strategic economic and military interests in Pakistan.

But this article is not about this. It’s about certain variables in international relations that remain static. The more static they are, the more problematic they become. If foreign policy is chalked pragmatically, as it should be, then not only does it keep a country open to new economic possibilities, the country also remains a player in the global economic arena.

Some states push themselves into a tight corner which can impede a country’s economic potential and retard its relations with other nations. This is often the result of a ‘siege mentality’. Or when members of a society believe that their country is surrounded by hostile neighbours, and by a world that has hostile intentions towards it.

This mentality can trigger paranoia, lack of trust in the world outside, and an urge to isolate. It can also nourish a widespread culture of conspiracy theories that reinforce the besieged mindset.

A ‘siege mentality’ can trigger paranoia, lack of trust in the world outside, and an urge to isolate. It can also nourish a widespread culture of conspiracy theories…

Siege mentality is largely formulated by the state and then proliferated through political rhetoric, cultural products and the national curriculum. On most occasions, the state assumes that the siege mentality is required to maintain faith in state institutions, especially when the state feels vulnerable.

Nazi Germany instilled a siege mentality in a society feeling vulnerable after losing a war and facing serious economic problems. Hitler presented himself as a saviour of a troubled people who had ‘superior’ intellects and bodies but were being suppressed by ‘inferior’ powers.

In 1966, the founder of communist China, Mao Zedong, moved to isolate his country from a world that, apparently, was trying to undo China’s communist revolution. The Islamist regime in Iran continues to justify its various harsh measures by reinforcing a siege mentality, according to which Iran’s theocracy — that supposedly ‘defeated secular capitalism and atheistic communism’ in 1979 — was being conspired against by Western powers and the West’s ‘slavish’ Arab allies.

There are more examples. But they all end up shutting the world out, forcibly enforce a socio-political conformity, and produce a static, retrogressive society.

Siege mentality is mostly found in deteriorating states and societies. But there are exceptions. According to the political psychologist Daniel Bar-Tal, Israeli society maintains a siege mentality as well. Israel is not a failing state. Israel’s siege mentality is rooted in the belief that Jews have been persecuted for over 2,000 years. The brutal manner in which Nazi Germany treated the Jews reinforced this belief. Arab-Israel tensions in the 20th century further enhanced it.

The siege mentality that it produced is continually fortified by the Israeli state. It has become a mainstay of Israeli nationalism. But although it hasn’t resulted in a moribund society, it can hamper initiatives to establish ties with Arab/Muslim countries.

In Pakistan, a siege mentality was formulated by the state after the country lost its eastern wing in 1971, during a civil war, and a war against India. The state felt vulnerable. Gradually, after 1971, the state’s defeat in the erstwhile East Pakistan began to be explained as an international conspiracy against Pakistan.

A new curriculum and nationalist narrative started developing, which saw Pakistan surrounded by hostile neighbours — except China — and international powers that were using Pakistan’s ‘enemies within’ to completely dismantle the country. Just why they would do this was never explained.

Interestingly, while China had taken Pakistan’s side during its war against India in 1971, it did not enter the war to bolster Pakistan’s position. There was talk of the US sending arms to Pakistani forces, but they never arrived. Yet, even though China’s pro-Pakistan rhetoric was remembered and, in fact, romanticised, the rhetoric of US President Richard Nixon was entirely forgotten. The fact is, Nixon’s rhetoric was actually more hostile towards India.

The US sent a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to the Bay of Bengal. In his book Whitehouse Years, Nixon’s powerful Secretary of State Henry Kissinger writes, “It was sent to protect West Pakistan. We had to deter India from attacking West Pakistan.” But, of course, there was no place for a ‘neo-imperialist’ superpower in Pakistan’s new nationalist narrative, nor any place for the Soviet Union that was a staunch ally of India.

Pakistan furthered its ties with oil-rich Arab countries that, in the new narrative, became ‘brother countries’. Then, finally, a reason was provided by PM Bhutto for America’s 1971 (imagined) ‘betrayal’. Even though there was still no trace of Pakistan working to build a nuclear device in 1971, six years later, in 1977, when Gen Zia toppled Bhutto in a military coup, Bhutto accused the US of orchestrating his ouster because he had started work on building a nuclear weapon. If so, then why did US President Jimmy Carter slap economic sanctions on the new military regime of Gen Zia after he toppled Bhutto?

Initially, Zia continued with the siege mentality narrative, even though, by then, it was now Islam that was ‘in danger’. But once the US agreed to restore military and financial aid from 1981 onwards (because of the Soviet takeover of Afghanistan) the villainous status of the US in the narrative was quietly watered down. Now the infidel Soviet Union became the force out to dismantle Pakistan.

In the 1990s, after US aid dried out with the collapse of the Soviet Union, America became a conspiring enemy once again. The recently ousted PM of Pakistan Imran Khan blamed the US for planning his ouster because he wanted to do business with Russia. But which international relations logic was in place here?

What’s even more bizarre is the fact that, because of some populist fantasy in his head, he degraded relations with Saudi Arabia, the UAE and, to a certain extent, China, in a bid to create an imaginary ‘Muslim bloc’.

Now he is out on the streets instilling updated versions of the siege mentality whose roots still lie in the 1970s. The results are disastrous: Isolation, paranoia, Westphobia, and a confused attitude towards Saudi Arabia, Europe and the US. Incidentally, the last two are also the country’s top two trading partners.

But to Khan’s cultish followers (including those residing in Europe and US) these two are out to dismantle their beautiful bastion of Islam and its equally pretty nuclear arsenal.

Published in Dawn, EOS, July 10th, 2022