EXPATT MAGAZINE E DITOR ’ S N OTE
Dear Reader, Welcome to ExPatt Magazine’s first-ever special edition – Power & Progress: India’s Balancing Act – celebrating the opportunity for the Patterson School to gain insight from and interact with the esteemed guests attending the Patterson School Fall 2015 Conference on India. This edition briefly addresses and analyzes various themes regarding Indian domestic and foreign policy and their global implications. As a Patterson School organization, ExPatt Magazine strives to represent the same standard of academic rigor, respect, and camaraderie that the School upholds through its interdisciplinary scholarship in international diplomacy, commerce, development, intelligence, and security. I hope you enjoy our take on India in the Asian century. Kathryn Wallace Editor-in-Chief
T ABLE OF C ONTENTS A “Special Relationship” for the 21st Century Ryan Kuhns
2
Prevailing Against Polio Anonymous Submission
3
Pursuing the Fruit Within the Promise Jocelyn Bell
4
Breaking Boundaries Travis Cady
6
A “SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP”
RYAN KUHNS
FOR THE 21ST CENTURY
OPTIONS FOR US-INDIA RELATIONS
The past 20 years have seen a great deal of progress in the US-India relationship. The non-aligned status of the Indian Government during the Cold War, and the US’s relationship with Pakistan, precluded a close partnership between the two countries, even if they shared similar political systems. The end of the Cold War brought new opportunities for the two democratic giants, as India liberalized its economic and trade policies and US presidents, starting with Bill Clinton, began to court the mercurial Asian power. President George W. Bush continued to develop the relationship by widening trade ties, making exceptions for India’s nuclear program through a more understanding interpretation of India’s place in American non-proliferation policy, and through an increase in defense ties that is beginning to truly bear fruit. The Obama Administration has continued to encourage strong diplomatic ties with the Indian state through its open and functional support of Indian efforts to secure a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council and highly publicized bilateral initiatives and state visits. The relationship has continued to thrive amidst diplomatic impasses, economic stagnation, and political uncertainty. While the US-India relationship continues to develop on all fronts, the changing dynamics of global and regional relative power have increasingly highlighted the importance of India to the US’s foreign policy in Asia. With the new Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, comes an opening for progress and innovation in US-Indian relations, in which an increase in economic and defense ties could act as a safeguard for the maintenance of the current regional order in Asia and, by extension, the global order implemented after the Second World War. In pursuit of a much closer relationship with India, the United States can approach the opportunity through many different long-term strategies, but questions concerning the formality of the relationship will consistently color the debate. Before the US and India can continue to develop ties, there must be a general framework that informs the nature of the relationship and the logic of its political and legal elements. In order to move forward in this vein, current and subsequent American presidential administrations must decide whether they want an informal partnership with India built on shared political values and regional interests, a relationship based on the codified aspects of bilateral and multilateral institutions and treaties, or a hybrid model, combining both legalistic and informal connections.
A FLEXIBLE RELATIONSHIP Here, the United States could continue to expand its de facto defense and economic ties with the Indian government and
encourage a melding of the two countries’ private sectors by actively lobbying for the removal of bi-lateral trade barriers. The US-India relationship has many inherent qualities that foster increased development of national connections without the formality of treaties and institutional overlays. In terms of informal defense ties, arms sales and limited technology transfers would feature heavily in the US-India security relationship. Sales of US weapons to India grew from $237 million in 2009 to $2 Billion in 2013, surpassing Russia’s arms trade with India for the first time. In addition to arms sales, the Indian military conducts more military exercises with the United States than any other country. While these developments illustrate strengthening security ties between the two nations, they do not explicitly bind American foreign policy to that of India’s in the case of a regional conflict. Although, it does send a clear message to potential aggressors that the United States includes the South Asian giant in the calculations of its AsianPacific interests. US defense ties to India also, in their current state, illustrate that American support of Indian security interests goes beyond rhetoric, but is not set in stone, thus providing the US government the opportunity to conduct a flexible national security policy. In keeping with this policy, arms sales and stipulated technology transfers should take precedence over formal ties like the Defense Framework Agreement, renewed this summer for an additional 10 years. Economic relations should also maintain an informal quality, given the fact that Indian domestic interests don’t always suit the objectives of the American business community and are, at times, seemingly downright hostile to US efforts to encourage development. For example, the 2005 civil nuclear agreement has been stuck in somewhat of a holding pattern since the introduction of more stringent Indian liability laws. American companies are unwilling to invest and the economic opportunity afforded to the Indian state by the US deviation from its nuclear non-proliferation policies has been heretofore squandered. This is, of course, illustrative of the types of issues that come up in the relations of two democratic nations with complex domestic political systems that can often prove to make the alignment of priorities difficult, especially when the perceived welfare of their respective citizenry is involved. Nurturing an informal economic relationship, outside of trade treaties and multilateral trade agreements, gives the US options in how it approaches its economic relationship with India – which has been quite fruitful as a whole for US corporations – while giving both parties the ability to modify it in ways they deem fit.
FULL COMMITMENT In this case, the US would actively pursue a formalization of all aspects of the U.S.-Indian relationship, across security and economic ties. This would allow for the
2
most expedient and meticulous promotion of a binding relationship between the two nations, and begin to codify an affiliation that could transform the geopolitical and economic direction of Asia in the 21st century. The consummation of this relationship lies in bilateral and multilateral agreements and treaties that would improve the strategic standing of both countries through increased cooperation in the areas of defense and trade. In formalizing the defense ties between India and the U.S., the first order of business has already been carried out, the renewal of the Defense Framework Agreement, which has been partially responsible for the enormous increase in US arms sales to India, and an impetus for the discussion of increased defense technology transfer and joint development. This agreement will include stepping up military-to-military contact at senior levels, collaboration on the orientation of joint communications and logistics, and joint strategic planning. While US-Indian cooperative statements on issues like terrorism and the South China Sea are productive and send a message about the stance of the two nations on important contemporary security issues, the provision of a legal status to the US-Indian defense relationship creates opportunities for projecting their respective national security interests into the future. It will not only provide an environment for the long-term strategy and operational planning of both the US and Indian national security establishments, but may also provide a solid context within which potential systemic usurpers may consider the increased costs of upsetting the international order. Formal security relationships make economic integration necessary, not just because of the implications for the efficiency of future activations of those security agreements, but also through fostering the long-term economic growth and cultural exchanges that accompany intensive trade relationships. These connections, outside of being lucrative in the absolute sense, then strengthen the agreements themselves through shared experience and mutual benefit. With this in mind, the US should work with the Indian government to conclude the bilateral investment treaty that has been on hold for over 10 years and look towards overcoming the obstacles to a bilateral free trade agreement.
MIX AND MATCH The US could consider a combination of the two policies mentioned above, mixing and matching the formal and informal trade and security relationship with India as it deems fit for the national security and economic interests of the country. An informal trade policy with formal security ties to India will allow for a united Asian front to form without sacrificing additional diplomatic and political capital. The lack of formal economic ties will also spare both the US and Indian markets from unforeseen problems that could harm economic growth or good relations in general. Of course, formal allies that are economically linked might be better prepared for the complex resource sharing and coordinated production that makes a combined war effort easier to prosecute. In considering heterogeneous policy combinations, the pairing of formal trade links with an informal security partnership might make the most sense of the two combinations. This would create the opportunity for a melding of economic and political interests between the U.S. and India, while maintain strategic flexibility for both nations.
SHAPING FUTURE ENDEAVORS
The formal model would best suit the future geopolitical and economic interests of the United States and India. Formal trade and security links between the US and India will begin a process that has been made necessary by an increasingly complex international environment. A strong and legalistic US-Indian relationship will leave no doubt about the orientation of regional and global forces when it comes to the maintenance of the current order. It will manufacture the types of red-lines that send important signals to those who might test the structural integrity of that system. A codified security relationship, without sufficient economic ties, would be functionally weak. While there is a much stronger case to be made for the opposite configuration, the lack of a security element would preclude preparations to defend the mutual economic interests which would form in such a trade relationship between the US and India. A serious military threat to one country in this scenario would probably bring in the other nation anyways, given their closely associated economies
Author wishes to remain anonymous In 1980, Polio had 4.5 million cases globally. By 2009, that number had fallen to just below 1,500, concentrated in just four countries: Nigeria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and India. India, in particular, had hit a wall in eradicating the disease. Nearly half of the world’s cases at the time (741) were in India, particularly in the Northern and Eastern regions of the country. In just 2 years, India completed a feat which beforehand had seemed impossible. Given the resistance to vaccination from some sectors in society, poor sanitation, and dense population (particularly in areas where Polio was endemic) many thought polio would survive much longer than it did. But through a holistic approach, developing national infrastructure development plans and concentrated community development initiatives, India’s government attempted to eradicate the obstinate illness. India targeted development efforts in vulnerable areas to eradicate the disease, rather than sending out vaccinators to strictly administer the polio inoculation. For the eight years prior, UNICEF had asked localities to submit micro-plans for tackling the disease.
Though these plans helped in overcoming some barriers and determining specific needs for specific communities, their utilization did not lead to unequivocal success. There were many remaining complications to eradication, including the fact that diarrhea lowered its efficacy. In areas where poor sanitation frequently led to diarrhea and polio was prevalent, many folks did not believe the vaccine was effective.
A HOLISTIC APPROACH The government of India, the World Health Organization, and Rotary International initiated a multi-faceted plan to tackle the many barriers to eradication. In areas most-affected by polio, immunization mobilizers began to implement Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) programs: teaching best practices for hygiene, like hand washing with soap. Immunizers also encouraged women to exclusively breastfeed children for six months as a means of preventing gastroenteritis in the short term and building a stronger immune system in the longer term. In order to manage issues associated with diarrhea’s prevalence, mobilizers were given Oral Rehydration Salts and Zinc to treat the ailment, both strengthening the efficacy of the vaccine and building trust within communities with a show of tangible improvements in health. At a national level, India’s government implemented mass WASH infrastructure improvements in areas with polio. This included water treatment facilities in larger population areas as well as bore holes rural, sparsely populated areas. The government also initiated a campaign to convince
Muslim clerics to encourage vaccination. This holistic approach to eradicating the disease reduced the number of cases from 741 in 2009 to the final case being report Jan 17 of 2011.
FUTURE ERADICATION PROGRAMS The government of India and its global partners’ impressive efforts to eradicate polio have shown that narrow approaches to addressing public health needs are not sufficient. Instead, multilevel initiatives, focusing on particularly vulnerable areas while simultaneously pursuing national-level infrastructure campaigns, are the most effective. If the world expects to eradicate Malaria, for example, it will require more than bed nets and case management. As in India’s anti-polio efforts, future disease eradication will have to entail a combination of general community development and infrastructure improvements. Another key lesson is to address the Sisyphean problem facing many disease eradication programs: with success, funding reductions follow. Successful elimination of 80% of cases does not mean that funding should be reduced. Even after polio was eliminated in 2011, India vaccinated 172 million children in 2015. This sustained effort is important in order to prevent potential importation of the disease from Pakistan. Just because a locality or nation has eliminated a disease, funding for sensitive disease surveillance and rapid responses to potential outbreaks remains vital to remaining free of it, even after elimination is reached. India’s successful polio-elimination efforts illuminate possible ways of addressing the next epidemic.
Pursuing the fruit within the promise Exploring India’s implementation of UN Global Goals Jocelyn Bell Narendra Modi was elected as the 15th Prime Minister of India in 2014, vowing “sab ka saath, sab ka vikas” (development with all and for all). This promise comes as the Indian government submitted its progress report on one set of global goals and considers the adoption of another. In December 2015, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – a set of eight global goals and 18 targets – will expire and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – 17 goals and 169 targets – will be launched. Incorporated into the stated objectives of both the MDGs and the SDGs is gender equality as a fundamental facet of international development. In the past four years, increasinglyvisible cases of sexual violence in India have put gender equality on an even plane with economic growth in national and international discussions of Indian development. However, there is danger that discussion will be all that emerges from these events, making successful use of tools like the MDGs and SDGs particularly important. They allow India and the international community to monitor and evaluate the state’s efforts and outcomes in addressing globally-recognized development needs. How India chose to address Goal 3 of the MDGs (promote gender equality and empower women) and how it will choose to
address Goal 5 of the SDGs (achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls), will be quite different due to the very nature of the MDGs versus the SDGs. Let us first look at how the MDGs were created, the objective of Goal 3, and how India performed on the target’s indicators. Then we will contrast the formulation of the SDGs, discuss what the change in the targets for Goal 5 will mean for future implementation, and explore the suggested approach to future challenges to meeting the proposed SDGs.
THE MDGS: WOMEN’S DEVELOPMENT & GENDER EQUALITY MDG 3: Promote gender equality and empower women MDG 3 Target: Eliminate gender disparity in primary, secondary education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education, no later than 2015 The year 2000 marked the start of the MDGs initiative. The MDGs were originally the International Development Goals created by the OECD. Critics have noted that there was “a clear shift…in [favor] of a narrower frame [focusing] essentially on 4 absolute poverty and deprivation, and away from a
broader, more essentialist rights-based approach.” This, along with the understandable drive to simplify the goals for easier implementation, led to a very narrow set of indicators for each of the small number of goals. In the case of MDG 3, the four indicators of gender equality and women’s empowerment were the ratio of girls to boys in primary, secondary, and tertiary education; the ratio of literate women to men, 15-24 years old; the share of women in wage employment in the non-agricultural sector; and the proportion of seats held by women in national parliament. India released a country report on their MDG progress. Overall, it stated that India has made significant advancements while at the same time falling behind on some targets. For example, although they cut poverty rates by more than half, India has fallen short of improving access to sanitation. And while about 87% of households have access to improved sources of drinking water, they are still behind on reducing the proportion of people who suffer from hunger. In the particular case of MDG 3, the report noted that the goal is on track for fulfillment. India partially met one indicator (ratio of girls to boys in primary education is 1.03; secondary education is 1; tertiary education is 0.89), nearly met another (ratio of female to male literacy is 0.91), and fell short of two others (19.3% share of women in wage employment of non-agricultural sector; 12.24% proportion of seats in the National Parliament are held by women). Although the MDGs’ gender equality goal addressed some educational, economic, and political concerns relating to women, its creators failed to significantly address societal factors. The MDGs, being goals for human development, should have reflected the pressing human development issues that nations face, like the root causes and the manifestations of women’s rights violation. These concerns should have warranted indicators; measuring education was a decent beginning to this but does not touch on the societal attitudes that allow, for example, violence against women. The need for such indicators is evidenced by the domestic violence leading to the formation of the Gulabi Gang and similar groups, widespread outrage sparked by the initial ruling on the homicide case of Jessica Lal, and national protests following the 2012 gang rape. These occurrences put violence against Indian women and their pursuit of justice on the international stage. They led to a discussion of the societal attitudes that have fostered gross disregard for women’s rights in the first place. “Women in India remain severely deprived, compared to other developing countries including several of India’s [neighbors], and this is one of the crucial constraints to India’s future development.” The Gender Inequality Index ranks India as 127 of 187 (maternal mortality ratio, adolescent birth rate, share of seats in parliament, female percentage of population with at least some secondary education, percentage of females aged 15 and older in the labor force) and the Gender Development Index places them at 132 of 187 (life expectancy at birth, mean years of schooling, expected years of schooling, estimated GNI per capita). Pursuing the SDGs, with their rights-focused targets that promise to encourage more fruitful achievements for women’s rights, will address gaps left by the MDGs.
GOAL 5: THE SDG’S WOMEN’S RIGHTS APPROACH TO DEVELOPMENT As opposed to the exclusive group of nations and international organizations that created the MDGs, several UN member states as well as many non-state stakeholders, including civil society groups, formulated the SDGs. The new goals reach into issues of human rights that face every nation and encourage an approach to development that fosters rights-based processes.
The long list of goals and their respective targets are critiqued for being too unruly and unrealistic. As can be seen in the list of targets above for SDG 5, the scope is indeed wider than the MDGs. It expands on not only the economic, political, and educational aspects of women’s empowerment, it also draws attention to matters of health (combining MDG 5 of maternal health with MDG 3), discrimination, and violence. “[If] development is to be inclusive and just, and leave no one behind, it must be rooted strongly in
SDG 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls SDG 5 Targets: o End all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere o Eliminate all forms of violence against all women and girls in the public and private spheres, including trafficking and sexual and other types of exploitation o Eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation o Recognize and value unpaid care and domestic work through the provision of public services, infrastructure and social protection policies and the promotion of shared responsibility within the household and the family as nationally appropriate o Ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life o Ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights as agreed in accordance with the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development and the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome documents of their review conferences o Undertake reforms to give women equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to ownership and control over land and other forms of property, financial services, inheritance and natural resources, in accordance with national laws o Enhance the use of enabling technology, in particular information and communications technology, to promote the empowerment of women o Adopt and strengthen sound policies and enforceable legislation for the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls at all levels
human rights principles and standards. The MDGs and much mainstream development policy has failed to give adequate priority to challenging systemic patterns of discrimination and disadvantage – violations of rights – that keep many people in poverty.” The SDG gender equality targets open pathways for India’s government to address the societal attitudes that allow for the marginalization of Indian women. They also provide the opportunity for civil society engagement. The government needs to entrust civil society (grassroots organizations in particular) with a great deal of responsibility in fulfilling this new set of global goals. Because it is in the best position to inform the success of the SDGs, civil society will be able to address those targets that require monitoring which the public may not trust the government to adequately do, for instance. This is exemplified by the Jessica Lal trial. People took to the streets in protest after Manu Sharma, who went several years before going to trial in part because he came from a wealth family, was acquitted. There was outcry against the faulty law system of India and the miscarriage of justice. It was the actions of civil society that encouraged the police to file a petition for the High Court to review the case. This resulted in a new ruling of guilty.
CONFRONTING THE CHALLENGES OF IMPLEMENTATION There are many issues that India will have in reaching the SDGs between now and 2030. In particular, they will face three key challenges in fulfilling SDG 5, and the broader SDG framework:
Accessing reliable data: In their report on the MDGs, the Government of India indicated that reliable statistics are difficult to
come by when tracking the global goals. Without proper data, the government will not be able to adequately measure how much effort needs to be dedicated to each indicator, leading to inefficiency. In order to address this, there needs to be an increase in incentives (monetary and otherwise) from the federal and/or state governments for statistical offices to increase the periodicity of surveys and regulate the methodology. Funding the SDGs: There is always a question of how the global goals will be funded. The Modi government focuses on economic growth by cutting social welfare spending and redirecting it toward an infrastructure stimulus plan meant to push supply-side growth. With the Government of India already cutting social welfare spending, there is an increased need for funding from non-state actors to supplement government budgets for human development goals like SDG 5. Integrating SDGs into actionable plans: The federal government already includes social development into the Five-YearPlans (FYPs), the latest one being for 2012-2017. These FYPs are intricate, strategic action plans on which the Indian government already expends effort. Folding the SDGs into future FYPs will help focus the implementation process over the course of the 15 years of the SDG lifespan. Incorporating the input from civil society to these broad, federal government plans and encouraging their inclusion in the creation and implementation of plans from state governments will allow relevant understanding of the people to shape effective, actionable steps. The SDGs hold promise for stimulating new processes in pursuing women’s rights in India. It will take a joint effort between the government, civil society, and other non-state stakeholders in order for the promise to manifest fruit. If India does not let this opportunity pass it by, it will be able to draw even closer to the goal of gender equality.
BREAKING BOUNDARIES The Timely Demise of the Third-Order Enclave
Travis Cady This summer, the governments of India and Bangladesh implemented a historic land swap. On August 1st the two states took a major step forward in resolving what has proved to be one of the more complex border situations in the world – the massive amount of Indian and Bangladeshi enclaves speckled within each other’s territory. The situation has been described as an archipelago of landlocked islands, and the relative isolation of islands has been an appropriate way to look at life for thousands of people enclosed within these territories. Under the new deal, ratified by the prime ministers of both nations, 162 enclaves, 111 within Bangladesh and 51 within India were formally dissolved into the two countries. This is a great relief not only for geography students, but also for over 50,000 people
whose freedoms of movement and access to public services and resources have been blocked by the convoluted border network for the past 68 years.
ENCLAVES WITHIN ENCLAVES An enclave is a country’s territory separated from the mainland and isolated within the boundaries of a separate country. Think of the hole inside of a donut. In the India-Bangladesh situation, over 106 separate Indian territories were enclosed within Bangladesh, and 92 Bangladeshi territories were encased by India. Until the dissolution of many these enclaves through the August land swap the area in question, a long strip that includes part of West Bengal in India and the Northwestern border of Bangladesh, contained over 80% of the world’s enclaves. To make matters more complicated, the area housed 24 second-order enclaves, or 6 enclaves within enclaves. For instance, there were many
Indian enclaves within Bangladeshi territory, which was itself an enclave surrounded by the wider India. The advent of the land swap also heralded the demise of a true oddity – the world’s only third-order enclave. The Indian Dahala Khagrabari territory, encapsulated within a Bangladeshi enclave, in turn wrapped in an Indian enclave, is no more. For those who value geographical eccentricities the loss of this one-of-a-kind entity might seem tragic, but for those living inside the complex web of international barriers, and for those diplomats who have spent decades seeking a resolution, the extinction of the third-order enclave is a welcome relief.
the framework for the eventual 2015 deal and sought to begin an enclave swap despite a net loss of land for India. However, the deal met resistance and remained in limbo for nearly 40 years. Finally progress was made in 1992 when India leased the Tin Bingha Corridor to Bangladesh. The corridor, less than 600 feet wide at its narrowest point, separated the Bangladeshi Dahagram-Angarpota enclaves from the mainland. Its long-term lease allowed for a de facto reunion between the Bangladesh and its long-separated enclave. Despite this progress, serious challenges remained for those living within the enclaves. Residents were often cut off from basic amenities – including water and electricity. Civil services such as schools, hospitals, and legal recourse were limited. The closedborder situation also prevented residents from relocating to avoid these hardships. Chhit dwellers often relied on family ties and crossborder trade for money and sustenance, a testament to how the ethnic and historical identities of the people were not nearly as well defined as the borders that divided them.
BREAKING THE BOUNDARIES
THE HISTORY AND CONSEQUENCE OF THE ENCLAVE ARCHIPELAGO While the precise origins of these enclaves, locally known as chhits (roughly translating to “specks” in Bengali), are debated, they stretch back at least to the 1500s when the Mughals invaded Rangpur. After the partition of India in 1947 the southern Rangpur district joined East Pakistan, while its neighboring Cooch Behar district remained with India, creating the speckled boundary that would last for nearly 70 years. While attempts were made to “deenclave” the region as early as 1958, legal challenges and the deteriorating relationship between India and Pakistan prevented progress. Negotiations were halted until the separation of Bangladesh from Pakistan in 1971 after the Bangladesh Liberation War. Even with a newfound desire to resolve the issue little headway was made. The 1974 Indira-Mujib Land Boundary Agreement set
The historic deal struck just a few months ago finally made headway by dissolving many enclaves and bringing the formally isolated territories under the responsibilities of their geographical homelands. The hope is that at long last the dissolution of bureaucratic roadblocks to the development of these areas will lead to an improvement of life for the tens of thousands of former enclave residents, as well as an improvement in diplomatic relations between India and Bangladesh. Despite the optimism, the resolution of such a long-standing issue is not as simple as merely erasing lines on a map. The former chhit residents had to decide whether they would accept Indian or Bangladeshi nationalities and to relocate depending on the choice. It is not surprising that all of the former residents of the Bangladeshi enclaves decided to remain in India, the wealthier of the two countries. However, out of the approximately 37,000 Indian enclave residents, only 1,000 decided to relocate to India, indicating the reliance of these populations on the local economy and their inability to simply pick up and move. Bringing these new nationals into the framework of existing civil and economic networks will take time, but it should mean a boost to the standard of living of thousands who were previously isolated inside the enclaves. The deal is set to improve more than the living situation of formerly isolated peoples. It is also expected to boost diplomatic relations between India and Bangladesh by decreasing tension over border regions and treatment of enclave residents. A more stable border should also strengthen cooperation between the two states on the issue of smuggling and other cross-border issues. Finally, the long forestalled land-swap could signal that India is a positive actor in the region and is able to engage in progressive dealings with its neighbors. All in all, the dissolution of the enclaves is a refreshing and long overdue success in foreign relations. The realization that long-standing border disputes do little to favor either side, but instead foster distrust and harsh consequences for those living within, is a positive development that should be taken as an example of how to overcome long-standing disputes and resolve similar issues in other parts of the world.
expattmag@gmail.com
@expattmagazine
facebook.com/expattmag
expattmagazine.wordpress.com