The Qatar crisis raises two issues in the field of international relations today. The first is to disprove the mainstream Cold War-era view that small states cannot play a significant role in global affairs. The second is that big powers always use hard means to take control of ambitious, small states in order to preserve the status quo.

Realists in international relations theory argue that politics is regulated by those who have power, and it is this multidimensional power of states that defines what is right and what is wrong. To put it simply, it is the power that defines both the truth and the perspectives to look into the truth.

For realists, small states have a between the “bandwagon” or “balancing” approach. In international politics, hegemony is perceived as a threat to other nations, which makes these states group together politically, economically and militarily in order to check the concentration of power of one particular country. This is popularly known as the balancing approach. In the bandwagoning approach, small states realize that the cost of opposing an adversary is more than cooperating with them and, therefore, smaller countries tend to take a risky decision to join the bigger power.

This perspective resembles Cold War literature of international relations theory, which assumes that the survival of a small state depends on the security its neighbors provide. Many geostrategic thinkers during that time stressed the importance of a country’s defense and strong foreign policy in order to protect its sovereignty and independence. Realist literature written after World War II also asserts that the sovereignty of a small state would be threatened if a great power saw a strategic and violating that nation’s territorial rights.

This perspective changed after the Cold War ended. With the erosion of merely superpower politics, small states adopted a diplomatic practice that not only became limited with the realist choices of bandwagoning and balancing, but also the one that influenced regional and international politics. With the heyday of globalization, small states can be economic and political hubs as trade liberalization and foreign direct investment have provided them opportunities for speedy growth. The anarchic self-help system of international politics forces any state to defend itself instead of relying on others. Tommy Koh, a Singaporean diplomat, also argues that a small nation state must develop . Even though many such states are improving their position in international politics, they are still far behind the leading pack.

THE QATAR CRISIS

Indeed, international politics is still led by the same traditional powers that pursue their own national interests and foreign policy objectives, which sometimes results in security crises for smaller nations and the violation of international law. This is the situation with the Qatar crisis.

Since June, Qatar has faced an unexpected crisis as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt and Yemen severed diplomatic and economic relations with it. Just like in international relations theory where states contest to sustain their favorable status quo, the Saudi-led coalition expressed its concern over Qatar’s ambitious foreign policy and tried to preserve the status quo, which has been unshakably led by Saudi Arabia. For Riyadh and Co., it is they who decide whether Qatar’s soft power and its economic success can challenge the status quo in the Middle East and beyond.

Following the , Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani — unlike his father who kept Qatari foreign policy in check according to Saudi interests —built an ambitious and ranging from stiff improvement through economic reforms, universal suffrage and the political reforms that helped develop Qatar’s soft power in global affairs. Fast forward to today and the current emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, has continued with his father’s ambitious foreign policy goals.

Beyond Qatar, the Gulf crisis is a strong message to Iran and its allies in the region. Saudi Arabia and Iran, as the two elephants in the room, have repeatedly clashed as the leading Muslim nations of Sunni and Shia Islam. Both nations have an abundance of oil reserves and have engaged in proxy wars in the Middle East. This Gulf split over Iran has isolated Qatar, and this has led to Doha building on its diplomatic relations with Iran and Turkey.

In 2014, following another diplomatic fallout in the Gulf, Qatar signed the Riyadh agreement and vowed to end all to non-state actors such as the Muslim Brotherhood, but Doha failed to implement the policy change. This made Saudi Arabia and other regional powers question whether Qatar was challenging the status quo of the Gulf.

The end result to the whole saga has led to one of the worst diplomatic crises the region has ever seen.

MEANWHILE, IN NEPAL…

Nepal has a similar story of being trapped between competing regional powers. The country is a key example of how small, landlocked states struggle to maintain their territorial sovereignty and independence.

In 1962, Nepal suffered when two of its neighboring nuclear giants, China and India, experienced a diplomatic fallout. A border clash between India and China resulted in Nepal losing Kalapani when the Indian army set up a base on Nepalese land. Despite many high-level talks, India has failed to relinquish control of the territory.

Similarly, after the promulgation of the constitution in 2015, Nepal faced an “unofficial” by India that resulted in a humanitarian crisis in the country. The fact that the Nepalese constitution did not suit New Delhi saw India take the sledgehammer diplomatic approach.

These are not the only during diplomatic crises that Nepal has suffered. In 2015, New Delhi and Beijing released a to expand their trans-border cooperation through the Lipulekh Pass during Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to China. Despite being a tri-junction point between all three states, Nepal was not part of the India-China talks.

The realist school of international relations assumes that state interest is the determining factor of bilateral and multilateral communications. This means that all states, irrespective of their size and power, are rational actors that seek to defend their interests similarly. This is why many small countries become a ground of competition for these bigger countries. Nepal, for example, is squeezed between the geostrategic rivals of China and India, meaning that Kathmandu struggles to build an independent bilateral relationship with its neighbors. Nepal, therefore, has become a ground for these two giants to show their presence and to peruse their strategic interests.

Power politics not only shows the real color of international relations, but it also questions the recognition of international laws and the notion of sovereignty. The examples of Qatar and Nepal show a true reflection of the struggle between small countries and big powers. Small states strive to be heard in international politics, while big powers aim to maintain their dominant position in global affairs.

Article 2 of the UN Charter preaches the “principle of sovereign equality of all its members.” Yet these two cases show how nation states have a tendency to ignore the UN when their national interests are at stake. This poses a serious question of when and whether the international system functions by the rules of the game — the rule that nation states made for themselves to regulate international relations.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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Afghanistan’s history is marked with the persistent struggle faced by the ethnic communities due to the country’s geostrategic significance and multi-ethnic divisions. Every historic change — from the expansion of Islam into Persia, the Soviet invasion or the Afghan Civil War, followed by the era of Taliban rule — has involved the use of this split, leading to acute sectarian segregation and further subjugation of the less powerful ethnicities.

defines structural violence as the difference between the potential and the actual realization that is built into the structure and emerges as unequal power and, consequently, as unequal life chances. It can be referred to as systematic exclusion of a particular sector of a nation from the state apparatus and developmental projects.

As a major ethnic group, the the power structures for decades. This political, economic and military dominance of one ethnic group has been a major source of structural violence against other ethnicities. For instance, all the presidents have come from the Pashtun ethnic group except for the mujahedeen government headed by a member of the Tajik community; no Hazara or Uzbek has ever been president. At the second tier, officials are mostly dominated by the Tajiks and the Pashtuns — the posts of , minister of foreign affairs, home ministers and heads of intelligence services have never been occupied by members of the Hazara, Uzbeks or Imaq communities.

Post-2001, with the US-led involvement in Afghanistan, many of the disadvantaged communities aspired for justifiable power-sharing in government and state institutions. However, many impediments blocked these aspirations. From the 1890s to 1980s — almost an entire century — no Hazara has held any significant position in the Afghan government. Only during the communist rule did the state recruit and . The so-called well-grounded racial hierarchy, which keeps these communities in third, fourth and fifth place respectively in terms of population after Pashtuns and the Tajiks, is one of the many causes for this less representation of these ethnic communities.

National Disunity Government

In the 2014 elections, Abdullah Abdullah — a member of Tajik community — ran against Ashraf Ghani — a Pashtun — for a place in the presidential palace. The elections ended without any concrete result, leading to the signing of the National Unity Government (NUG) agreement brokered by then-US Secretary of State John Kerry. This latest attempt by the Tajiks to put a non-Pashtun president at the Arg office failed.

But the Tajiks now hold the (CEO) — a newly-created post that is headed by Abdullah Abdullah — and also security ministries and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Uzbeks replaced the Tajiks in the last election and — a member of Uzbek community — became the first vice president. So far, no representative of the Hazaras, Uzbeks or Imaqs has held any of the three security ministry positions. In other words, none of the three security ministers have been appointed from these communities in an attempt by the dominant ethnic groups to keep the high politics of the country out of the reach of these communities. This hierarchy was enhanced through Western involvement, based on the idea that the only way to stabilize Afghanistan is to perpetuate the existing structural hierarchy.

Those born into different ethnicities have different aspirations in Afghanistan. Opportunity is not equally distributed among all citizens. Afghanistan does not have a civil service entry exam and bureaucrats are selected along personal preferences of the president and CEO. According to , Afghan officials only elect members of their own ethnicity into the government body.

On the development front, areas inhabited by ethnic minorities are the least advanced: The lowest amount of  has been spent in those areas.

Structural Inequalities

Among the less privileged ethnic communities, the Hazaras are facing both direct and structural violence because of their ethnic differences and their belief in Shia strand of Islam in a country dominated by a Sunni majority. The 2016 attack on a  and the are only a few examples. Not only does this violence take its toll, but it also brings with it the consequent psychological violence and trauma so prevalent in Afghanistan.

The repeated attacks on the Hazaras by terrorist groups like the Taliban and Islamic State have accelerated their marginalization from government. Structural violence coupled with direct violence from extremists has made the Hazaras politically disadvantaged. Despite being Sunni, Uzbeks and Imaqs are neither seen as politically relevant nor economically adjusted in Afghan society due to their minority status.

Furthermore, Afghan society neither acknowledges the role of women in making of the nation state nor grants women any major role other than the household chores. Around . However, their presence does not translate into power. Just four of the 28 ministries are headed by women: education, women’s affairs, labor and counter-narcotics.

The mandated wearing of the burqa and social stigmatization for those who do not cover their face is part of the domestic and psychological violence that women face on everyday basis. Over-concentration on security issues have kept the Afghan state from addressing women’s rights issues, which has resulted to the continuation of male chauvinism in Afghan society.

Another deeply rooted cause of structural violence is related to the drugs production and supply. The government’s incapability to provide any profitable alternative to poppy cultivation has led to the estimation that 11% of the population being . Poppy is cultivated in the Pashtun dominated areas where the government has little or no control and  against the government. Furthermore, the government has channelled a big part of state and international aid into buying loyalties of locals in these regions — a policy that failed badly. This results in

The recent  embodied in shows that the empowered Hazaras and Uzbeks can no longer cope with the current status quo, opting for more representation in the political system. Afghanistan’s future stability lies not only in rooting out terrorism but equally in renegotiating the interethnic status quo — a factor that is neglected by the United States as well as the Afghan government.

It is the time for Afghanistan’s political parties, the bureaucracy and most importantly the government to diversify their insistence on realpolitik and divide power more equally to include the Hazaras and the Uzbeks. Poverty reduction through sustainable development and countering structural divisions through de-ethnicization of public institutions is a constructive way for long-term peace in Afghanistan.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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