Assessing Nepal’s military diplomacy: Neighborhood and beyond

Bhattarai, Gaurav

doi:10.3126/unityj.v1i0.35694

Cited by 5 publications

(7 citation statements)

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“…Nepal's special relationship with India also extends to the military sector. Since 1950, both nations have awarded the honorary rank of General to each other's army chiefs, and this special relationship is further highlighted by the fact that India's military assistance to Nepal is based on a 60:40 ratio of loans and grants (Bhattarai, 2020). Both nations have also jointly conduct Surya Kiran, a biannual military exercise held alternatively in India and Nepal.…”

Section: Nepal's Hedging Strategymentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysing Nepal’s Foreign Policy: A Hedging Perspective

Mainali¹

2022

Journal of Asian Security and International Affairs

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Wary of their significant dependence on India, Nepal has pursued a policy of hedging in order to mitigate potential harm. The harmful consequences of this dependence were on display in 2015 when a blockade along the southern border with India resulted in massive economic losses for Nepal at a time when the nation was recovering from an earthquake. To insure themselves against a similar fate in the future, Nepal has chosen to hedge by pursuing closer relations with China. This article analyses and outlines how Nepal has deployed this hedging strategy. It argues that Nepal’s relations with China, albeit improved, is not enough as India still retains a monopoly on Nepal’s economy. The increasingly hostile and polarised nature of Sino-Indian relations also means that hedging is not a sustainable policy, and if the rivalry between the regional powers worsen, Nepal may be forced to pick a side.

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Section: Nepal's Hedging Strategymentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysing Nepal’s Foreign Policy: A Hedging Perspective

Mainali¹

2022

Journal of Asian Security and International Affairs

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“…During the Rana regime, the national army was well organized by Jung Bahadur Rana, the first Rana Prime Minister, using the British Indian model (Right, 1990). Prime Minister Jung Bahadur Rana commanded a regiment of the Nepali Army to assist the British during the Indian soldiers' revolution between 1857 and 1858 shows how the Nepali Army was strategically significant to even the British empire (Bhattarai, 2020). The East India Company was happy with this support of Jung Bahadur Rana and returned the part of western Terai that currently includes four districts -Banke, Bardiya, Kailali and Kanchanpur.…”

Section: Perceptions Of the Role Of The Nepali Army In Nation Formationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Role of Nepali Army from Nation Formation to Nation Building: People’s Perceptions

Paudel¹

2022

Unity Jnl

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This paper has featured people’s beliefs and perceptions of the roles the national army has played in the formation of Nepal and nation building ever since its establishment in the eighteenth century by King Prithvi Narayan Shah, the chief architect of modern Nepal. This study has investigated and reported how the Nepali Army has contributed to developing the nation through its involvement in various development and construction works including the national pride projects besides its primary duty of the safeguarding of freedom and territorial integrity of the country. This study is qualitative in nature guided by interpretivism. Both primary and secondary sources of data have been used in the study. The data for this study came from interviews with purposively selected participants and reviews of various policy documents, books, journal articles, reports and websites of relevant ministries and organizations. The results revealed that the Nepali Army played a significant role in unifying Nepal which helped collect the energy to fight against external forces. Eventually, Nepal has been a sovereign nation since time immemorial. The national army has played an instrumental role in the development of Nepal through its involvement in the development works. It has ever helped citizenry coming to the front line at the times of crises. This paper argues that the Nepali Army needs to be more strategic for the safeguarding of the freedom and development of the country because of Nepal’s unique situatedness between two Asian rising powers– China and India. The Nepali Army, an efficient apparatus of the Government of Nepal, can further strengthen foreign relations with neighboring countries and beyond through effective military diplomacy.

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“…Tradition of conferring title of an honorary General to each other between two military institution of Nepal and India was started since 1965 (Chauhan, 2021). It is not only a unique, regular and customary but also a mark of the closest and special relationship between two countries (Anand, 2016;Army Chief, 2018;Bhattarai, 2020;Nepal Army, 2018). It was historically released from the first goodwill visit of Cariappa to Nepal in 1950 (Basnet, 2020;Chauhan, 2021).…”

Section: Conferring Honorary General Rankmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Military institutions played a creative role as soft power diplomat. It was an important turning point as a new paradigm shift in Nepal-India relations (Bhattarai, 2020;Government Unveils, 2020;MoFA, 2020;Pradhan & Giri, 2020;Nepal-India, 2020). Signifying this development AIDIA (2021) articulates that a sever paradigm shift in bilateral Nepal-India ties was emerged after Nepal's reaction against the economic blockade of India in 2015 and new political map release including Nepalese territory.…”

Section: Paradigm Shift In Bilateral Ties and Energized Role Of Milit...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Such increasing role of military diplomacy has been revealed in many writings. Some exemplarily writings are, "[i]t was interesting to note that the civilian governments took resources to military dialogue to recover their serious bilateral deadlocks" (Subedi, 2020); or, militaries had played role of conciliating and uniting during the collided political realm of two countries (Bhattarai, 2020;Thapa, 2016). "…[M]ilitary diplomacy has been active to open communication channel to get their bilateral relations back-to-back."…”

Section: Increased Trust To Military Diplomacymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Military Diplomacy as A Soft Power Strategy: Nepal-India Relations since 2015

Limbu¹

2022

Unity Jnl

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The military diplomacy has increasingly occupied a wider space in Nepal-India bilateral ties. It has been an effective soft power instrument to convey the message of alive relationship, to bond the ties stronger and to revive the strained relationships. Today, it has got a central place of political as well as public concern. Such glorious history of military diplomacy begins after the challenging official visit of Chief of Army Staff (CoAS) of Nepal to India in 2016 and successful role to revive the severely ruined Nepal-India relationships by ending the unofficial blockade of India imposed to Nepal. Later, it has been recertified considering the Indian Army (IA) Chief’s visit to Nepal in 2020 as an icebreaker visit to reset soured bilateral relationship between two immediate neighbors developed after a bitter boarder row dispute in Kalapani-Lipulekh-Limpiyadhura area. These instances produce a new sequence, value and significance of military diplomacy in contemporary Nepal-India ties and raise a question. Why and how the military diplomacy as a soft power strategy is a constructive and useful in diplomatic relation of two democratic states Nepal and India in the twenty-first century. This study answers this question through the secondary data interpretation observed in practices of military diplomacy employed between two states and analyses of them by linking to the concept of soft power thematically in qualitative style. For this, Indian unofficial blockade imposed upon Nepal and Kalapani-Lipulekh-Limpiyadhura territorial border dispute started since 2019 are two major issues of study. The study finds, the issue of economic blockade and boarder row produced during 2015-2021 are the main factors which shifted the Nepal-India ties into a new paradigm, expanded the role of military diplomacy in new heights and developed a new public trust upon the military performance as a soft power in diplomatic realm. To present this idea, the writing contains contextual and conceptual operations of military diplomacy, soft-power and realism in first part, detail account of practice of military diplomacy in middle part, and conclusion in last part.

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Assessing Nepal’s military diplomacy: Neighborhood and beyond

Cited by 5 publications

References 0 publications

Analysing Nepal’s Foreign Policy: A Hedging Perspective

Analysing Nepal’s Foreign Policy: A Hedging Perspective

Role of Nepali Army from Nation Formation to Nation Building: People’s Perceptions

Military Diplomacy as A Soft Power Strategy: Nepal-India Relations since 2015

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