| International relations seldom affords small states a worthy mention,as these entities predominantly lack the capabilities to pursue their interests and preoccupied with their survival than are the great powers.In post-colonization era,there have been a number of small states which have taken advantage of their environment to garner influence previously considered unattainable given their size.In the 1990's,the introduction of the liberal international economic order,provided a number of avenues for numerous small states make good use of the reduction in international trade barriers and investment.The possession of strategic resources allowed the bearer to achieve strategic goals and in so doing develop an attribute or combination of attributes that allows it to outdo its competitors(also referred to as sustainable competitive advantage in the business).This dissertation attempts to examine why some small states pursue an active foreign policy or punch above their weight by arguing that a high level of foreign policy is linked to significant internal stability and external ambiguity.The cases study employed follow Lesotho's outsized water resource foreign policy,and Brunei's active petroleum and liquefied natural gas resources(LNG)driven foreign policy.The foreign policy of small states has the primary objectives of ensuring survival and consolidating the power and locus of the state in the international environment.Large states have similar objectives but the small state is often faced with problems of viability in terms of economics and politics and vulnerability of a political,economic aid military nature from its larger neighbors.In these respects wealth may matter little if larger neighbors have greater military capabilities,though perhaps wealth may encourage support from other sources.Brunei has only a small military and without external assistance could not resist invasion from its more powerful neighbors.Its size and small population also make it a relatively easy target and its oil wealth an obvious attraction to an avaricious invader.Strategic maneuvering requires the small state to be at all times pro-active,attentive and highly attuned to its external environment.That a small state may consciously prefer to keep a high international profile is opposite to the opinion ubiquitous in the theoretical literature,which argues that small states situated on the margin of the international system are in a much better position to survive than those sandwiched between great powers.In essence,strategic maneuvering envisages apartial accommodation of great-power interests without a formal alliance with any of them.However,a firm alignment with the benevolent strong power,accompanied by an implicit understanding that diplomatic and military support would be forthcoming in case of aggression from the hostile state,is a desired outcome of this strategy.At the same time,an important criterion for the assessment of the ultimate success of this strategy is the small state's ability to use diplomacy to prevent tensions with the hostile great power from escalating into military conflict.All interaction between state entities and international governmental organization(IGO)over trans-boundary freshwater resources such as lake,river,and aquifer basins.Water Diplomacy is a division of diplomacy,pragmatically employed to bilateral and multilateral negotiations on water matters among and between states.Water diplomacy pertains to discourse,cooperation,compromise and reconciling interests conflicting among riparian states.It involves the institutional aptitude and power politics of state.Although the collected works offers a number of definitions of water diplomacy,there is general agreement around three fundamental and interrelated characteristics: The need to integrate multiple perspectives.Water diplomacy argues that resolving problems over shared water resources requires hydrologists,engineers,politicians,economists,sociologists and all stakeholders to work together to develop an immensely detailed and unified understanding of the complex and multi-layered nature of water stresses and difference of opinion.It is however advantageous that such competing interests are looked at,discussed and acted upon in joint cooperation with other parties as the lack of collaboration is possible to result in not as good a situation to all parties.Likewise,water resources ought not be seen exclusively as security of one's own advantages,yet as a capacity and readiness to comprehend and suit the requirements of others.Rather than considering this to be something fundamentally unrelated,a zero-sum diversion shared global waters ought to rather be seen from a point of view of shared open consultation and cooperation for positive local advantages that can surpass the ideal national advantages,for instance as exchange relations and energy pools.The point of water strategy is in this way to search for and fortify these common advantages in reciprocal,provincial and worldwide settings.From this takes after that water discretion cannot concentrate just on water.Rather,close consideration of the key water-related sectors of the economy,for example,energy and agriculture security and inaddition environmental variations,public development and urban development as the hard drivers of trans-boundary collaboration instead of the occasionally assumed notion of participating in elusive natural values.This likewise shows it is insufficient to bring diplomacy into water participation(and thus to discuss water strategy),however parties ought to guarantee that water is implanted,or mainstreamed in different sorts of cross border collaboration,and,therefore,as a rule in their general relations.Technical and practical information is essential in water discussions,but not in the ways it has often been employed.It is disadvantageous to utilize scientific knowledge to support conclusions made arbitrarily.For instance,scientific facts about water resources has improved radically since the end of the Cold war,but the international community's aptitude to deal with water resources has not developed respectively.There are variances concerning information on water as a distinctive entity and the understanding of water as a complex resource.Zero-sum rational develops when parties consider water as a fixed resource.This is essential as the fundamental explanations behind the question and strategic pressures apparently on water,may in certainty begin outside the realm of water related issues.Without a doubt,because of the basic part that water has for nations' economies,water may fill in as an imperative conduit for collaboration.Along these lines,water cooperation can in a few select circumstances rise as a device for general diplomacy,giving much needed opportunities to coordinated efforts in regional state relations and international geopolitics.In the water sector,the cooperative approach is still too often based only on hydrological and climate-based data,on modeling and engineering,all relying on the application of scientific and mathematical principles to practical ends.Concerns over trans-boundary water collaboration have to deviate from complete water quantity to appropriate profit-sharing collaboration on water and energy supply.If collaboration is indispensable in ecological trans-boundary water management,natural gas and oil complement in a mutually advantageous manner can help build cooperation in appropriate trans-boundary river basins.Conceptualizing collaboration and friction and in a direct manner is not a solution oriented approach.It is difficult to attain trans-boundary water cooperation with normative expectations starting from conflicted water issues.Consequently it warrants a new conceptual perspective.It may be fruitful to focus on the analyses of swift changing which brought new sectionsto collaborate between basin states rather than taking distinct events related to trans-boundary water interactions.Water administration in many trans-boundary basins is an extremely politicized subject and has a substantial influence on stability in most regions,the prevention of conflicts,and international governance and reconciling parties that have areas of agreement on environmental concerns.Therefore,trans-boundary water governance is a domain that should elicit greater attention in the foreign policy community.The main obstacle before a constructive relation between the water wealth/energy deficiency and the water stress/energy wealth parties which joint explore the use of a similar basin in the parts to be played by downstream and upstream countries is that the absence of comprehensive and comprehensive energy provision policy which could guarantee the provision of energy in exchange for a water.The obligation to cooperate rests in the hands of the parties,however,the energy wealth/water stressed party has a tendency to to employ power asymmetry it originates solely from possessing energy and financial strength,while the party with water stress and energy wealth has a habit of to taking advantage of the perception which implies the delivery of water is a matter of observing human rights ignoring other facets of the inquiry.Brunei was located in a region where stability cannot be guaranteed as a consequence of a conflagration of great powers and unchartered international legal circumstances.The country's possession of vast oil deposits made it an alluring target for a rapacious powerful attacker.Following the attainment of independence in 1984,the kingdom of Brunei had to decide whether or not become a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations(ASEAN).The probable challenges with the neighboring states may have proven to be a greater challenge had Brunei not ratified its membership with ASEAN and by joining ASEAN Brunei hoped that it could handle disputes in a tactful,mediated and harmonious spirit contained by a charter in which the kingdom could reasonably and fortify affairs with its neighbors.Although the reach of capable states was not a prime concern,membership in ASEAN provided Brunei with protection from incursions by great powers outside the Southeast Asia region.ASEAN did not immediately focus on the cooperation or incorporation of regional armed forces but was a group of states pursuing democratic governance that hoped to preserve and undeterred international environment free of great power influence by its notion of the area as a Zone of Peace,Freedom andNeutrality(ZOPFAN)and by being a member,conflict is less likely.Membership of ASEAN further augments Brunei's international image and strengthens its claim as a viable sovereign state.On the converse side Brunei's membership of ASEAN enhances the prestige of the organization and its influence as a stable bloc within Southeast Asia,especially when compared with communist states in the area.The Foreign Ministers of Indonesia,Malaysia,the Philippines,Singapore and Thailand,considered the primary adherents in the establishment of the association,intended to create a community to characterized by social and political stability during a period of escalating tensions among the Asia-Pacific's post-colonial states.The Treaty of Amity and Cooperation,signed by members in 1976,lay emphasis on ASEAN's promotion of peace,friendship,and cooperation to build solidarity.Decisions within the ASEAN are achieved by way of discussion and consent directed by the values of‘noninterference in internal affairs and the peaceful resolution of conflicts'.Some specialists comprehend this approach to decision-making as a principal shortcoming for the organization.In general,Brunei's foreign affairs have prevailed with regards to reinforcing the power of the state by enhancing external issues,giving the country worldwide acknowledgment,especially in Southeast Asia,in the meantime as decreasing the potential for dispute with her neighbors.Brunei has made immense use of its oil reserves as a tool of foreign affairs and of the cordial affairs the Sultan appreciates on an individual level with the elites of Singapore,Malaysia,and Indonesia.Since the attainment of sovereignty,Brunei has not been confronted with any measurable foreign threats and uprisings with the domestic realm have been suppressed.The government of Brunei has not set eyes of a foreign policy intent on being a leading initiator on matters concerning ASEAN,however,the primary concern has been to maintain the legitimacy and authority of the Monarchy and the perpetual reign by the Royal family.Brunei is susceptible to variations in global market prices of oil.Thus the slump in oil prices was largely responsible for slow GDP rate in the 1980 s.Brunei cannot afford to be inactive in its response to foreign policy actions of its larger regional neighbors but must engage in supportive actions in its own best interests.Brunei's wealth and oil give it the power to be bridge the gap in its bid to improve affairs with its neighbors through the instruments of aid and trade,and in efforts to diversify itsown economy and to obtain the materials,goods and expertise that Brunei needs.The work will be divided into 5 chapters,a conclusion,and recommendation in order to address the main question and sub-question.Chapter I provides an introduction which includes the hypothesis,research question,scope of the study and an overview of the existing contributions to the dissertation.Chapter II primarily delves into the literature review to discuss the contending theoretical considerations and the cases special to small states within international relations and foreign policy decision-making.Chapter III examines the tumultuous history of the kingdom of Lesotho,an enclave that faced extreme coercion and manipulation from the Apartheid Regime.Regardless of the pressures the enclave incurred,it persevered well into the last years of the Cold War to oppose the oppressive regime and assist in the molding of a community with significant emphasis on the future of water scarcity and cooperation through interdependence.Chapter IV scrutinizes Brunei's historical context within Southeast Asia and more specifically the Island of Borneo to address the power asymmetry that the country encounter pre-independence and post-dependence and the methods in which the Sultanate employed the foreign policy apparatus to secure the countries energy future and diversify the country's domestic market.Chapter ? examines the findings and analytical premises founded on the notion that small states can play a greater role in their regional regardless of the geopolitical complex associated with an active foreign policy initiative and explains how strategic maneuvering as exemplified by the selected cases should be given more attention research.The study concludes that the possession and utility of strategic resources permits small states foreign policy to play a greater role in their regions.Small states appear to exhibit a plethora of foreign policy behaviors,often contingent on the domestic and external milieu.Although the resources differ(oil,bio-diversity and water)the consequences and benefits of the possession of these assets arguably warrants the manifestation of a foreign policy behavior considered uncharacteristic of small states i.e.the capability to maneuver strategically.Without a sound strategic maneuver and internal political stability,foreign policy pursuits are not only challenging to attain but unlikely to be succeed for the Lilliputian states. |
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