Nepal, March 17 -- Following the recent elections and the Rastriya Swatantra Party's (RSP) landslide victory, the debate on Nepal's foreign policy has resurfaced. Yet the fundamentals of foreign policy remain intact because they are built on the notion of defending national interests. The tenets of national interests entail at least three factors-core, vital and peripheral. While core and vital interests are directly related to the existence of the state (political, economic, social and territorial), peripheral interests, for their part, are secondary but contribute immensely in consolidating vital and core interests.

That said, all these interests are intrinsic and interlinked. Hence, it can be argued that national interests are permane...