Of Hawks and Doves

Being surrounded by non-friendly nations makes us more vulnerable to being dependent on the US and the West to counter the China-Pakistan axis. What we need is robust foreign policy and long-term strategic planning

- Tanvir Aeijaz

INTERNATIONAL politics, inescapably, is also the story of 'hawks' and 'doves'. Those on the side of 'war hawks'— individuals, leaders, and nation-states—are prone to encourage armed, internecine conflicts or even escalate ongoing ones, and advocate what is called 'predatory foreign policy', with the usage of heavy military force to solve conflicts. Their domination-impulse is high and they gleefully glorify war. For them, the liberal doctrine that promotes the harmony of interests and peace fails to capture the real conflicts present in global conflicts, and, therefore, they stress on war as real for the 'final solution'. Hawks either are or are seen as cozying up with militarist, authoritarian, autocratic and anti-democratic regimes.

Conversely, doves are those who are pacifists, focused on prioritising peaceful resolutions, diplomacy and cooperation over war and military conflict. They rely quite heavily on the assumption of an underlying 'harmony of real interests'.

The surprise ceasefire between India and Pakistan, supposedly pushed by US President Donald Trump, which he claims and has mentioned several times by now, has given the 'doves' a big sigh of relief. The conflict was on the brink of a very dangerous turn but, thanks, to the ceasefire, the nations moved forward towards peace. Politics has this uncanny inclination towards war, and peace is then expected to be the logical endgame, either in the short or long run.