Grand Strategy: Holding on to dated rhetoric hampers strategic flexibility

Foreign policy rhetoric has an instrumental purpose. It's important to remember that state’s interests evolve and rhetoric often outlives its policy usefulness.

Slogans, rhetoric, and narratives are powerful tools in foreign policy. They persuade international audiences, rally domestic support for specific policy measures, and help create a sense of purpose within governments. Trouble starts when policymakers and strategic elites start believing their own rhetoric and slogans, even after their usefulness has long passed or their underlying objectives no longer exist.

External affairs minister S Jaishankar (right) hands over five ambulances as a goodwill gesture to Afghanistan's foreign minister Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi, in New Delhi. (ANI File)

Let’s take a step back. In foreign policy, rhetoric refers to the narratives, slogans, and statements that states use to evocatively communicate their interests. Rhetoric is driven by a state’s interests at a given point of time. They design catchy, evocative phrases and rhetoric to persuade external audiences (other states, international community) as well as their own citizens to their cause (national interests).

In other words, foreign policy rhetoric has an instrumental purpose. What is equally important to remember is that state’s interests evolve, and rhetoric often outlives its policy usefulness.

While the core concept of national interest itself remains constant, what constitutes that interest in specific circumstances evolves over time based on current and changing needs. If the rhetoric, created to serve those interests, does not adapt to changes, such rhetoric can become counterproductive.

It is not uncommon to see that rhetoric and slogans in India persist even after the interests they aimed to support have dramatically changed. Strategic communities in India (as is the case in other countries too) tend to essentialise past slogans, making it difficult for them to shed old narratives and adapt to new realities.

Governments, which coin such slogans and rhetorical arguments are usually quicker to move away from them depending on the perceived national interests of the day, while the strategic community tends to cling to old narratives longer, often considering them as ideological positions. This difference in which practitioners/policy makers quickly adapt/revise their rhetoric while ‘true believers’ outside the government are reluctant to move on, is particularly characteristic of India’s foreign policy.

One reason for this is the limited interaction that exists between the policy community within the government and the strategic community outside the government in India. The greater the distance between policy making circles and the strategic community, the more entrenched past rhetoric tends to become outside of the government.

All states and their strategic communities engage in mythmaking, indulge in rhetoric and promote narratives, so do we. Let’s look at some examples.

Having advanced significantly in its nuclear weapon journey over the past 27 years and given the external environment of structural insecurity and instability, it is difficult to believe that India is genuinely committed to nuclear disarmament even when it makes occasional references to it. Unsurprisingly, therefore, more members of the Indian strategic community refer to, with some even swearing by, nuclear disarmament than those in the government.

A contrasting example is how both the Indian government and the strategic elite were able to move past the rhetoric of “nuclear apartheid.” While this was a strong rhetoric in Delhi in the 1980s and 1990s, it has virtually disappeared from the Indian vocabulary after it tested its nuclear devices and called itself a nuclear weapon power in 1998. “Hindi-Chini bhai bhai” took a severe beating in the wake of 1962, but it occasionally resurfaces, particularly within pacifist sections of the Indian strategic community.

In some cases, like with nuclear apartheid, we don’t always fully mean what we say. Take India’s consistent demand for democratic international organisations. India seeks reform of the UNSC and a permanent seat for itself in it. It also demands more stakes in the World Bank and WTO. But does India truly want a global order where all states, regardless of size or power, have equal roles and influence? I doubt it.

Asking for more democracy in the international order is an indirect way of saying India must be given more importance in it. In some ways, the same logic also applies to our solidarity with the global South. I am unconvinced that India can realistically become a true leader of the global South, nor that it is genuinely committed to solidarity with the global South countries. For what purpose? How does India genuinely benefit, apart from gaining the goodwill of a group of countries that might (a big if) support its regional and global aspirations? And yet, global South rhetoric continues to capture the imagination of the Indian strategic community. I guess there is more realism within the government on this.

Then there are catchy rhetoric and sophisticated narratives whose usefulness and policy implications are deeply uncertain today. Multi-alignment is one such catchphrase. While multi-alignment is an ambitious vision, we must ask ourselves whether it can truly help us navigate a rapidly changing world. Is it possible for India to effectively pursue a policy of multi-alignment in a complex international order? Notwithstanding the practical difficulties of multi-alignment, this has become a major slogan in India’s foreign policy circles.

Then there are slogans which are philosophically rich and culturally evocative with limited practical utility. ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’, for instance, beautifully captures India’s ideal of a united world in a fractured global landscape. However, it offers little direct policy utility.

Despite this, the idea which attracted significant attention during the G20 continues to resonate culturally and diplomatically. Sometimes policymakers employ certain rhetoric purely for rhetorical purposes, but commentators and analysts mistake them for actual policies. This confusion allows such rhetoric to become deeply entrenched in our collective psyche, which eventually creates hurdles for the government when it seeks to change the course of policy.

Let’s take another example to illustrate how rhetoric can hinder innovative policy making within the government. Indian governments, including the BJP, have historically argued that there is no such thing as “good Taliban,” strongly dismissing any suggestions about the differences between “good” and “bad” Taliban as superfluous. This became the common sense wisdom within the Indian strategic community. As a result, when the Indian government invited the Taliban’s foreign minister for an official visit in Delhi a few weeks ago, there was fierce pushback within the strategic community.

To be clear, the narrative that “there is no good Taliban” suited an earlier geopolitical context, and engaging with the Taliban now could suit the current strategic environment. However, the old rhetoric about the Taliban within the strategic community policy innovation within the government.

In a world where geopolitical certainties are shifting rapidly, clinging to old slogans, unwilling to abandon dated rhetoric, and failing to recognise the limited utility of foreign policy rhetoric only hampers strategic flexibility and agile decision-making.

Happymon Jacob is distinguished visiting professor of Shiv Nadar University, the founder-director of Council for Strategic and Defense Research, and editor, INDIA’S WORLD magazine. The views expressed are personal.