Soft Power of Defence Diplomacy: A New Approach ... - ISIS Malaysia

7The activities include programs such as construction or improvement of schools,digging of freshwater wells, and providing direct medical and veterinary services topeople and their livestock. At the broadest level, HCA are a means of improvingsupport for the US in general and for the US military in particular. 19What the military called Phase Zero is what we used to call foreign policy leading tothe fear of militarization of development for 2 reasons. First, the primary rationale forproviding assistance should be to alleviate poverty and promote developmentalthough it can ultimately enhance national security. Furthermore, civiliandevelopment agencies and NGOs can perform such tasks with a higher level ofexpertise and at a lower cost. Second, this may create a “humanitarian paradox” inwhich the strategic efficacy of military HCA maybe decreased as recipients doubt thealtruistic motives of the military’s effort to engage with the local population. 20Geopolitics of EmotionsThe need for engagement with the local population reflects the increasing importanceof emotions in politics. 21 This is leading to changes in the dominant mode of conflictin the world which will be increasingly not be force-on-force military engagementsguided by traditional principles of warfare but more to do with psychology andidentity than military forces. Realpolitik is giving way to psychopolitik; geopolitics topsychopolitics related to the mass psychological trauma resulting from modernizationsuch as fears, alienations and grievances. 22In the context of Myanmar, the psychological effect of stagnation is increasinglyleading the Myanmar people to sink into a state of despair and hopelessness. The twolatter concerns overlap as the deterioration in the human condition and spirit greatlyincreased the risk of social instability, which could undermine the transition processand provoke further authoritarian backlashes. 23Therefore, a shift of defence budget into a wider array of instruments of nationalpower more attuned to the needs of conflict against alienation, especially a restoredand expanded public diplomacy programme. Militarization of conflicts essentiallypsychological in character will to exacerbate rather than calm grievances, alienations,fears and resentment that feed conflict. 2419 Ibid.20 Ibid.21 Moisi, Dominique, Geopolitics of Emotion: How Cultures of Fear, Humiliation and Hope areReshaping the World. New York: Doubleday, 2009.22 Mazarr, Michael J., Extremism, Terror, and the Future of Conflict, Policy Review, No. 000, WebSpecial, March 2006., 12 June 2010.23 International Crisis Group, Myanmar: The Military Regime’s View of the World, Asia Report No.28, December 7, 2001.24 Mazarr, Michael J., Extremism, Terror, and the Future of Conflict, Policy Review, No. 000, WebSpecial, March 2006., 12 June 2010.