In regards to geostrategic risks, you may wonder, how will N’Djamena deal with a changing Africa, an unstable Central African Republic (CAR), an unstable Libya and Boko Haram insurgency in the Lake Chad Basin region? Meanwhile, Chad faces daunting political, economic, and social pressures at home, which in turn affect the country's security and foreign policies. The challenges and opportunities facing the country in the international level on key global issues such as poverty, inclusiveness, environmental sustainability, international cooperation, security and global development demand different solutions - what worked a year ago with foreign policy makers or a minister of foreign affairs might now be not the best approach.
The situation today
Chad’s diplomatic and foreign policy has undergone a shift with the rise of Boko Haram and its geopolitical and security implications in the region. Thanks to its military interventionism, Chad has acquired a new regional and international status in the diplomatic arena. However, and as domestic politics is typically an important part of the explanation for states' foreign policy; power remains concentrated within president Idriss Déby’s ethnic group – even though the regime has been able to co-opt elites from different regional and ethnic backgrounds, but, such domestic policies will absolutely have a negative long-term impact on foreign policies, because it only produces incompetent bureaucrats and gives counter cyclical stabilization policies.
Despite the Chadian Foreign Affairs Ministry’s engagement in intensive and complicated regional and international diplomatic activities; however, if we generate—collectively—a clear picture of the outputs, outcomes and impacts of these activities on the international arena, I am afraid that there seems to be a misunderstanding of exactly what we are here for. The absence of a clear body for foreign policy to planning and coordination has been important in the confusion that has arisen in its administration, not only, but the absence of a specialized foreign policy makers, regarding the selection of diplomatic figures, the least important sites, and reliance only on the bureaucratic method of choice. Due to its geostrategic importance, Chad is supposed to be a location of considerable peace road construction for Africa and the entire world.
In addition to the academic and diplomatic qualifications that raised a problem within the Chadian ministry of foreign affairs which I did not expect in a long-standing institution; have proved to me that the decisions taken by U.S. government to include the country on its travel ban list last year; is a clear example of weakness of the outcomes of such intensive foreign activities. It illustrates the superficial relations with executive states which have a chapter in this regard. Moreover, it’s not just the academic and economic landscape that has changed in Chad; the security one has, too. After a decade of relative peace, at least compared with previous generations, the past couple of years have seen cross-border aggression in Africa, tensions between regional and international powers, and an increased Islamic terror threat in the Lake Chad basin.
Building trust
Due to Chad's geo-strategic importance in the Sahel, I think it is important to talk about strategic ally as long as economic, military and political alliance is required in our modern world. Chad is officially non-aligned country, but has close relations with France, the former colonial power - the country has generally looked to France as its main ally in international affairs, it has enjoyed a close relationship with each other for decades, but relations with neighboring countries like Libya, and Sudan vary periodically.
As trust is so central to maintaining a healthy alliance; the pursuit of an ally doesn’t mean to surrender or showing weakness, however, having alliances is a prominent history – if we look at Chad’s relations with its African neighbors, it has been markedly different. The country has lost a historic opportunity to penetrate into the depths of Africa - In fact, Chad's current foreign policy predicament is not the result of today's developments - it is an old disease that rooted in its domestic politics, at least in the last three decades, it has been accompanied by a saving covenant since its birth, which began as a revolutionary ideology with ethnic and religious slogans and practices beyond the norm in the world of international relations without a significant balance of power. It is difficult to imagine an effective foreign policy that has a servant effect for national interest without a deep consideration of domestic politics for security, stability and peace. It is obvious that this was a direct reason for Chad to find itself weak in its domestic and regional environment, internal problems won’t be resolved only by external will.
It is easy to believe that Chad is still vulnerable to national and regional threats; there is much to be said about the deep and chronic imbalances of the Chadian foreign policy. But on the other side, there is a high likelihood that Chad’s role within Africa as well as internationally will become even more important than today in the coming years. Given the rapidly changing international context, the country will most likely take on more responsibility in global stability and security under increasingly difficult circumstances in the continent. The next Chadian generation will confront a particularly complex constellation of challenges. It is obvious that the current regional and international context is changing rapidly. New security risks not only blur the lines between national and foreign policies; but they also raise questions about ability of the regional regimes in general to provide their populations with security. Not only, but, the rise of nationalist sentiment in politics around the developed world is one of the biggest challenges that Chadian foreign policy makers face today and tomorrow, and what opportunities could it offer?
Therefore, Chadian foreign policy seems to have many manifestations in highlighting the multiplicity of relations and keenness on unilateral involvement and sought a role to fill in the continent where the UN could not - which are very ineffective on the ground in achieving national interests and serving geostrategic interests, however, perhaps the deteriorating economic situation of Chad at this time is only a sign of non-reflection of these intimate external relations imagined - it is true that the current economic crisis hitting Chad is a result of an internal deficit. But what is the meaning of foreign relations and engagement in regional conflicts and alliances that doesn’t test the meaning of "friend in need is a friend indeed"?
A security bulwark for the region
Despite the important security role that the country continues to play today in Mali, Niger, Nigeria and Cameroon; Chad's relations with the international community are still plagued by a number of pitfalls, although they are somewhat better than ever before. Still, it is easy to believe that the nature of the next phase requires more to adopt an appropriate foreign policy that the country should adopt in order to protect its self and other neighboring countries according to a certain strategic vision, as experts believe that the development of foreign policies on new bases and substantial changes is necessary for the benefit of Chad and its economic conditions.
Chad’s efforts seem to suggest that the country has been positioning itself as a new dynamic regional player in the Sahel and CEMAC region, which maintains friendly ties with opposing powers. This new role has been part of its national security strategy. However, the features of dynamics of the region have shown that N'Djamena is unable to drive a regional agenda, in a diplomatic and political manner. There are always a million reasons to believe that Chad cannot afford to antagonize the region diplomatically and economically with the current foreign policymakers – by saying this; I do not only mean the Chadian foreign affairs minister, as there are many people and groups involving in the process of making and shaping the Chadian foreign policy; including the president, cabinet departments, intelligence agencies, local governments and military institutions.
Keeping the process on track
It is clear that the foreign affairs strategy under the fourth republic is based on the principles of good neighborliness and friendship, documenting and cementing the nudity of relations with neighboring countries and seeking good relations with the international community which are the principles of the Chadian foreign policy. Accordingly, Chad’s current foreign policies shapers need at this stage to adopt several factors, and develop a comprehensive constitution that takes into account diversity and sustainability in a changing world.
As a result of the above mentioned, there is a problem in implementing strategic plans in many fields, which led to the need of formulating a new foreign policy approach, with stronger elements in terms of planning, implementation, necessitating the reform of the country's foreign policy under the fourth Republic. It is easy to believe that very little will change in today’s foreign policy of Chad unless the government undertakes wide-ranging economic and political reforms. Currently, few international investors would be attracted to Chad even though there were no restrictions on doing business, because the economy is in dire straits, corruption is rampant, conflict continues in northern parts of the country and the Lake Chad basin, in addition to the unstable financial and domestic political conditions.
Based on these facts, any political analyst can understand the deep causes that have led to the trends of the Chadian foreign policy in recent years. Thus when diplomats with no known foreign policy experience thrust into the great office of the foreign affairs ministry; the question now is what will he do with it? Perhaps his greatest advantage as a Chadian diplomat is that he is trusted by the president. There is no doubt that there are other reasons to add to the abyss of the aforementioned reasons. In the forefront is the inability of Chad to achieve an innovative economic, theoretical and practical political thought has a real impact on the mood of citizens.
Moreover, the failure of building national institutions that implement soft power strategies locally and outside national borders has negatively affected the Chadian foreign policy, which has entrenched the rigidities of its diplomatic institutions and prevented it from seriously contributing to the development of a sophisticated architecture of the network of material and symbolic relations at the regional and international theater levels. Thus, it is true that the main reason for the weakness of Chad's foreign policy is not just the weakness of the people involved in planning of the Chadian foreign policy, but also the absence of a Chadian strategic policy which has its own uniqueness, cultural, educational and technological appeal. Therefore, it is clear that the current strategic plans of Chad's foreign policy in terms of preparation were not deficient in relation to the scientific approach customary in the strategic planning, implementation and follow-up, the country may have smart foreign policy plans, but the failure was in the process of the implementation of these plans and the means by which implementation of the strategic plans which necessitates reform in the Chadian foreign policy.
Rebuilding Chad’s foreign policy
In the future vision of the Chadian foreign affairs policy, the development of a new strategic vision with new leadership requires a consolidation of external political discourse in Chad – any foreign policy making process must emanate from the bottom-up culture, geographical and political history of the Chadian people, which requires a good reading of the ethnic and country’s diversity and its tendency towards democracy, freedom and consultation. Further, as these diverse interpretations indicate, the future of liberal internationalism in Chad’s foreign policy is uncertain. However, the ministry of foreign affairs should play its desired role by restructuring it in a way that keeps abreast of the changes. In today’s Chad, the country’s foreign policy has to be reconsidered, the establishment of a Supreme Council for Chadian Foreign Policy and a National Foreign Service Training Institute is the most reasonable and appropriate way to avoid the temperamental acts that occur in the Chadian diplomatic environment, as well as to re-breathe the spirit in popular diplomacy, which has become a source of pressure and an important influence in the decisions of many states.
It is clear that there is a need to formulate an effective strategy to reform Chad's foreign policy under the new constitution that brought out the birth of the Fourth Republic. This strategy must be agreed upon by international relations professionals. In formulating such strategy; it is necessary to attract some important principles that control foreign policy. First, foreign policy works to serve the common interests of the country. These interests may be political, economic, security or cultural, which means the need to improve diplomatic relations with neighboring countries and all countries of the world, including Qatar and Israel - diplomatic relations that depend on mutual respect and collaboration.
As successful public diplomacy requires assigned structure, defined interests, roles, and effective means of communication, therefore, it is necessary to address clearly the real domestic policy of the county - structuring a good SWOT analysis - which is the main determinant of its foreign affairs policy. National challenges that affect the implementation of foreign policy must be addressed independently in a unique framework in order to have a full understanding and comparing the politics of different departments which are highlighted by the problem of rebuilding the country and achieving national political integration.
Even though Chad generally enjoys good relations with most of its neighboring states, it has been playing a major role in the political and military landscape of the African continent, however, the country has been marginalized when it comes to effective media in foreign relations, which means that the Chadian foreign affairs ministry should train media professionals and diplomats to gain knowledge and experience in the art of media influence in different social environments, and provide the necessary tools and communication devices.
Meanwhile, Chad needs to adopt an open foreign policy, relying mostly on soft power tools such as media, economy, diplomacy and humanitarian works. The country’s new strategy should maintain good relations with all of its neighbors, regardless of their contradictory policies towards each other, notably CAR and Sudan – the country should open its southern border with the strife-wracked Central African Republic. In addition, Chad is in need to form alliances with major powers such as the United States, China, Russia and the European Union, and medium powers including KSA, Israel, Qatar and Turkey, while working on creating its own unique African brand.
By Idriss Zackaria
