Interpreting Pakistani COAS Bajwa’s Remarks About Russia’s Special Operation
Islamabad cannot endorse any country’s foreign military operation no matter how legitimate its security concerns are due to the possibility of its Indian rival carrying out such against Pakistan under a similar pretext. It’s therefore perfectly sensible that this influential establishment figure wouldn’t praise Russia’s special operation.
Pakistani Chief Of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Bajwa shared some remarks about Russia’s ongoing special military operation in Ukraine while speaking at the second Islamabad Security Dialogue on Saturday. He said that Moscow’s operation can’t be condoned despite its legitimate security concerns, called for an immediate ceasefire, and said that Ukraine showed that smaller countries can still defend their territory by carrying out military modernization. The words from this influential figure within Pakistan’s permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”, also known as “The Establishment” in his country’s parlance) immediately generated global attention, especially since they came within the context of the US’ rolling regime change operation against Prime Minister Imran Khan that was orchestrated in response to his country’s game-changing rapprochement with Russia.
This South Asian state presently practices an impressive policy of principled neutrality towards that conflict inspired by its newly promulgated National Security Policy’s prohibition of bloc politics that its former American overlord has unprecedentedly pressured Pakistan to revert to in contradiction of its objective national interests. General Bajwa’s remarks therefore shouldn’t be interpreted, at least at this stage prior to Prime Minister Khan’s possible overthrow following Sunday’s no-confidence vote, as signaling any change in Pakistan’s approach, let alone towards Russia. Islamabad cannot endorse any country’s foreign military operation no matter how legitimate its security concerns are due to the possibility of its Indian rival carrying out such against Pakistan under a similar pretext. It’s therefore perfectly sensible that this influential establishment figure wouldn’t praise Russia’s special operation.
It should be remembered that General Bajwa supports the improvement of Russian-Pakistani relations as evidenced by their yearly anti-terrorist drills that rotate between one another’s countries. These ties aren’t aimed against any third party like America or India but are mutually beneficial and contribute to strengthening stability in the Eurasian supercontinent across which plenty multipolar processes are presently unfolding. Patriotic members of the Pakistani establishment stand in solidarity with the game-changing rapprochement with Russia that Prime Minister Khan has overseen since entering office in 2018. If that wasn’t the case, then they’d have already undertaken efforts to stop this and it wouldn’t have materialized like it has, not to mention with the Pakistani leader’s maiden visit to Moscow in late February that powerfully symbolized this new phase in their relations.
For this reason, observers shouldn’t wildly speculate that General Bajwa’s remarks about Russia’s special operation in Ukraine represent any change of policy towards that Eurasian Great Power. Bilateral relations remain strong though they might suffer in the event that Prime Minister Khan is overthrown after Sunday’s no-confidence vote and pro-American proxies return to power in Pakistan’s “establishment”. That worst-case scenario is far from certain, however, since there still remain plenty of patriots within that policymaking structure who’ll do their utmost to ensure that their objective national interests aren’t sacrificed for the sake of American interests like that declining unipolar hegemon’s domestic proxies are plotting. General Bajwa is one such patriot whose impeccable credentials speak for themselves so no sincere observer of Pakistani affairs should ever doubt his integrity.
