Hardly a day passes these days without a statement by one of our leaders begging the international community to come to Pakistan's rescue in the form of economic and military assistance. Our leaders curiously take pride in embarking upon foreign trips with the sole objective of securing pledges of assistance from foreign countries to keep our economy going and our military machine well supplied. The success of these trips taken at enormous cost to the national exchequer is measured primarily in terms of the amount of assistance that our leaders are able to extract from their foreign benefactors. It does not bother them if in the process the national self-respect is lost or if they enter into commitments which undermine our national interests. Of course, beggars cannot be choosers. The irony is that while on these begging trips, our leaders tend to live like kings in expensive hotels together with their large entourages. We all remember the obnoxiously high expenditure that former military dictator Musharraf spent on his foreign trips including the one undertaken early last year whose only purpose was to shore up international support for his government and malign the illegally deposed Chief Justice of Pakistan after the former's unconstitutional acts of November, 2007.Unfortunately, President Zardari and the advisers around him do not appear to have learnt any lesson from history as would be seen from the enormous amount being spent on his current visit to the US and the unnecessarily large delegation (62 officials plus the private media representatives accompanying him). Zardari's decision to stay in New York for a few days reportedly for private purposes at the cost of the national exchequer again lacks moral, political and economic justification. There is also no justification for his decision to stay abroad for 20 days at a stretch when the country is virtually on fire. The same is true about his frequent trips to Dubai. If his private life has such heavy demands on him, he would be well advised to choose another calling for himself. And, finally, how does one justify the frequent Umra trips that our leaders undertake at the government expense in the company of large entourages consisting of their relatives, friends and cronies? The negative effect on foreign leaders of this tendency to waste national resources while begging them for assistance to meet our economic and military requirements is not hard to imagine. Our leaders through their wasteful conduct convey to their foreign interlocutors the impression of lacking both in sincerity and commitment to their nation. Instead they are seen as interested only in having a good time while their inning in power lasts. They are, therefore, treated with disdain and contempt by foreign leaders, and ridiculed by the foreign media as already seems to be happening in the case of Zardari's on-going visit to the US. Our foreign minister proudly remarked recently at the end of a press conference with a visiting American dignitary that Pakistan had not given a blank cheque to the US. He needs to be reminded that while that may be true, there is also no free lunch in international politics. The nation has to pay a heavy price for every penny of foreign assistance that it gets from foreign governments in the form of compromising its national interests. It is illogical to expect foreign governments to dole out large amounts of assistance without extracting commitments from us which suit their interests and not necessarily those of our country. It is unrealistic to profess an independent foreign policy when the country is so heavily dependent on foreign economic and military assistance for its very survival as we are. But above all, it is the national self-respect which is the most serious casualty of this begging bowl diplomacy to which our leaders and the elite of our country have become accustomed. This loss of national self-respect becomes apparent if you look at the way our leaders are met and treated by foreign leaders. You could see it from the way the US secretary of state presided over a trilateral meeting last week with Presidents Karzai and Zardari on her right and left. This is also evident from the obsequious and servile manner in which our leaders in Islamabad receive visiting mid-ranking US officials, who would not be received above the rank of an additional secretary in a country with some self-respect. The shameful manner in which our leaders and senior officials fawn upon them is disgusting to say the least. But then this is the price you pay for the begging bowl diplomacy. A foreign policy of national self-respect, which is geared to the service of national interests in the best manner possible, presupposes a policy of self-reliance and a grand strategy which enables a nation to conduct its internal and external affairs within its resources. A policy of self-reliance sometimes involves painful sacrifices by the nation as a whole and especially by its elite classes. Pakistan from the very beginning opted for a high profile foreign policy and a security policy which placed more burden on its resources than what its economy could sustain. In addition, our elite classes adopted an ostentatious living style which could not be justified by the low level of development of the country and the widespread poverty from which it suffered. The net result was the fast growing burden of external debt whose servicing takes away a large chunk of our budgetary resources. Currently, most of what is left in the federal budget is allocated to the military expenditure. Consequently, the country has to depend upon foreign loans to meet a large component of our current non-military expenditure. As for the development expenditure, it is entirely dependent on borrowings from various sources. There is little hope for fast economic progress of a nation which spends most of its resources on military expenditure and debt servicing leaving little for economic development. The example of the current financial year is instructive when because of budgetary constraints, the federal government had to cut the development expenditure drastically down to Rs 354 billion from the originally budgeted amount of Rs 549 billion. If we wish to reverse the situation and lead the life of a respectable nation, we would have to bring about a radical change in our internal and external policies, and learn to live within our resources. We would have to lower our sights considerably as far as our foreign policy is concerned. We would have to adopt a strategy in the security field which, instead of relying on large and unsustainable military expenditures, is geared to safeguarding the national security within the limits of our resources. We would have to cut all no-essential expenditure of the federal and provincial governments and our leaders and the elite classes would have to adopt an austere life style. Above all, we would have to get out of the syndrome of a security state from which we currently suffer and transform our country into a welfare state where the primary focus of the government is on enhancing the welfare of the people and accelerating the economic development of the country rather than on wasteful expenditure in military and non-military fields. Historically speaking, the nations which have prospered in modern times were those which concentrated on economic development in the initial phase of their growth and focused on the build up of their military potential at a later stage when they had strengthened their economic base and reached a high stage of development. Unfortunately, we have put the cart before the horse and focused on military build up while neglecting the economic development of the country. Zardari is in the habit of frequent visits to China. He and his close advisers would be well advised to take a leaf from China's history after the radical transformation of its internal and external policies beginning from 1979 under its great leader Deng Xiaoping. Our failure to change course in a similar fashion would expose us to serious risks both internally and externally. We should remember that the former Soviet Union disintegrated not because of the lack of advanced weaponry but because its weak economic foundation could not sustain the burden of a heavy military superstructure. The writer is a retired ambassador E-mail: javid.husain@gmail.com