It’s still too early to render judgement on Pakistan’s de facto most powerful official since he only just assumed office, yet the great leap forward in mutually beneficial economic and energy cooperation with Russia this week suggests that new COAS Munir isn’t as partisan as his predecessor. This observation doesn’t mean that he’s from the…
Pakistani Minister of State for Petroleum Musadik Malik’s official statement about Pakistan’s intent to import 35% of its total crude oil requirement from Russia, which was obviously approved by new Chief Of Army Staff Asim Munir, sharply contrasts with the prior fake news about Russian oil that circulated immediately after last April’s post-modern coup. Some…
The worst-case scenario is that Pakistan launches even just a limited ground operation into Afghanistan together with relying on US drone strikes either across the border or within its own. That could immediately set into motion the fast-moving sequence of events that results in the never-ending war that former Prime Minister Imran Khan is so…
Russia is a responsible regional stakeholder and therefore doesn’t want the worst-case scenario of a never-ending Pakistani-Taliban war to transpire, yet it’s powerless to directly shape the dynamics for de-escalating this crisis in order to avert that outcome. Nevertheless, it’ll never give up trying, hence the real reason why Special Presidential Representative for Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov…
Pakistani-Taliban ties are a lot more complicated than most observers assume, especially in light of their latest tensions. They lost control over their security dilemma after their American and TTP partners who they respectively recruited as leverage over the other exploited them in pursuit of their own self-interested ends. It’s still not too late to…
The Pakistani-Taliban security dilemma is untenable and quickly approaching the breaking point, which is why Islamabad might soon seize the initiative to decisively defend itself from Afghan-emanating terrorist threats, but it’s unknown exactly how far it might go in this respect. In any case, the US is expected to support its recently restored regional proxy…
