Navneet Kumar asked: What does the term ‘de-hyphenation’ mean in the foreign policy context?

Ashok Kumar Behuria replies: In international politics, de-hyphenation means dealing with two countries, having adversarial relationship between them, in an independent manner. This would mean building relationship with one, ignoring the complexities of its relations with the other. If a third country were to be too conscious of the adversarial relations between two such countries, locked in enduring hostility, it is likely to face foreign policy challenges in conducting smooth relationship with both. Therefore, in such a case, a declaratory policy of de-hyphenation creates the required space for manouevre for the third country by lowering expectations of partisanship from it, in the other two countries. The United States (US) has advocated such a policy vis-à-vis India and Pakistan, since the second-term Bush presidency, connoting that its relationship with India would stand on its own rather than getting affected by its relations with Pakistan. It has served the India-US relations well.

Posted on August 31, 2018