5 Military Diplomacy

The use of armed forces and defence relationships as instruments of foreign policy (short of combat): defence attachés and military missions; joint exercises and training exchanges; arms and defence-industry cooperation; defence agreements and white papers as signals; port calls and military humanitarian assistance (disaster relief — a Nepal-earthquake-era lesson in military diplomacy's soft face); and, above all for Nepal, peacekeeping as military diplomacy: the Nepal Army's six decades of UN deployments building international prestige, relationships and access — the army's most successful export. Nepal's practice: defence attaché postings in key capitals, the defense diplomacy with both neighbours kept scrupulously balanced (the arms- purchase signal of 1988 remembered both ways — Unit 4), the US State Partnership Program debate, and the RAX? no — keep to: the recurring Chinese and Indian military-aid offers (bilateral grant military assistance since 2010s) received with calibrated gratitude. The line for answers: for a small state, military diplomacy's object is reassurance (of neighbours) and reputation (with the world) — never provocation.