A popular saying goes: when an empire talks peace, it means war. Every time a high-level bilateral meeting between the United States and Bangladesh has come up with messages that both countries are eager to further strengthen their friendship, it has been invariably followed by US pressure on Bangladesh to goad the country into toeing its prescribed policy lines, crafted in tandem with its broader foreign policy agenda, leading in turn to further deterioration of their bilateral ties.

This peculiar pattern has been predominantly played out over the last couple of years, notably concerning the US sanctions on Bangladesh's elite security force, the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), and some of its former and current officials in December 2021, and the recent U.S. visa curb policy with stated aims to ensure a free and fair election in Bangladesh due in December 2023 or January 2024. In both cases, a flurry of diplomatic activities had been seen taking place before it was followed by the above-mentioned escalating US measures. As a result, the     Bangladeshi people have been learning first-hand the true meaning of Henry Kissinger’s famous dictum, “To be an enemy of the US is dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal.”

With discussion on the upcoming general elections at the center of the agenda, a delegation from the United States, led by Undersecretary for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights Uzra Zeya recently visited Bangladesh. Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu, infamously blamed by former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan for his ouster from power, also accompanied Uzra Zeya. Apart from discussing issues of mutual interest, including human rights, trade, labor rights, and the Rohingya crisis, they discussed “the need for free and fair elections” and reiterated US support and collaboration for “an inclusive, democratic Bangladesh in which all Bangladeshis can thrive”.

Doubts over visit

Whereas the visit has left an impression, notably across government circles, that the recent high-profile trip would contribute to bridging the gap between the two partners, skepticism still lingers among foreign policy watchers in regional experts. In the aftermath of the visit, the question is hanging in the air whether the visit would result in any constructive outcomes toward normalization of already strained relations between the two countries, or end with further US pressure on Bangladesh that the government in Dhaka alleged was part of a wider regime-change agenda against Bangladesh.

But given the previous pattern persistent over the last several years regarding Bangladesh-US ties, the latter looks more like a possibility to observers in Dhaka. And such a presumed proposition warrants the next important question: what are the underlying bottlenecks that have been hindering bilateral relations from being taken into a trajectory crafted through mutual compromise and consensus?

It is undeniable that Bangladesh has a part in the current bilateral wrangling over the country’s peaceful democratic transition through “free and fair” elections. To be fair, the last two elections under the current regime were fraught with myriad allegations, particularly regarding the aspects of electoral inclusiveness and fairness. But the lens that the Western stakeholders typically use to examine electoral integrity in an emerging Global South nation like Bangladesh without taking the country’s polarized election culture, political history, and fragmented politico-economic reality into account also warrants closer examination.

Here in Bangladesh, elections are more than power transition as is the case in the West. Elections here decisively determine the political stability and economic future of the country, given the political culture and binary ideological dispositions between the country’s two major political parties - the Awami League based on secular political ideals and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party based on right-wing nationalism with leanings towards political Islamism.

Strong-arming Bangladesh into toeing its prescribed policy positions is part of the Biden Administration’s wider external agenda of promoting the liberal values of democracy and human rights as the centerpiece of its foreign policy. But the real problem doesn’t lie in policy postures, but rather in the way these policies are being executed. The fundamental fault line in US foreign policy approach, specifically toward the developing world, is that it is fixated on the “liberal illusion” entrenched during the short-lived “unipolar moment” it enjoyed after the collapse of the former Soviet Union in the 1990s.

A changing world order  

The global world order is on the verge of a radical transformation, with emerging economies’  tendency to govern themselves free of external assertions and aversion to the current international order viewed largely through the Western ideological prism. Unfortunately, America’s hubristic belief in its bygone capacity to police and shape global events is curbing its ability to comprehend these groundbreaking changes. As a result, its foreign policy is losing its capacity to adapt to the political, economic, and cultural realities and, most importantly, failing to read the people’s pulse. America’s recent foreign policy setbacks in the Middle East and the growth of anti-Western political and economic organizations are a testament to this.  

The current US foreign policy strategy premised on ideological bloc politics is mostly self-serving, designed to confirm and strengthen its hegemonic primacy threatened by the rise of China and other powerful emerging economies. But the United States should remember that great power comes with great responsibility. Desperate to reinstate its global primacy and blind to the diverse set of political realities across the world will only accelerate further pushback against its democracy vs autocracy-centred foreign policy.

It should also remember that the capacity it once held in engineering changes in other countries was more to do with its unique ability to read the politico-economic and cultural reality of a country The people of Bangladesh desperately want the upcoming elections to be “free, fair and peaceful”. But there are other things that the people of this country care about more than electoral power transitions - political stability, economic emancipation, and the absence of Islamist terrorism, among other things.   

(The author is a political analyst and columnist in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Views are personal. He can be contacted at dr.ranajitmazumder1980@gmail.com)