Not long ago, the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in north-west Pakistan was a no-go area where a combination of foreign terrorists and local extremists ruled the roost. Frequent attacks against civilians continued to scar the landscape while poorly coordinated US drone attacks on civilians only served to add to the blood bath. All the while, US …
It was hardly earth-shattering news that the Pakistan Navy had withdrawn its two warships from the multi-national Combined Task Force (CTF 151) that has been operating in an anti-piracy role in the western Indian Ocean since 2009. CTF 151 is one of these little-known but important international associations that are not only successful in what they aim …
Continue reading How the US Gains Enemies and Alienates Friends
Russia and Pakistan signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) late last month to carry out a feasibility study for prospectively building a $10 billion undersea gas pipeline that Moscow hopes will eventually connect Iran, Pakistan, and India. The megaproject was first floated last November during President Putin’s visit to Tehran at the time, and the …
Continue reading The Russian-Pakistani $10 Billion Pipeline Will Promote Eurasian Integration
Russia’s relationship with Pakistan continues to improve, but the optics must improve rapidly Of all three nuclear superpowers, Russia’s geopolitical relations are the most interwoven and therefore the most complex. Russia is a nation with good relations with Israel and Iran, Turkey and Syria, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, China and Vietnam, Serbia and Croatia as …
Continue reading China Should Buy More Russian S-400s and Sell Them to Pakistan
The IMF tightens the vice Decades of domestic mismanagement in respect of the Pakistani economy appears to have forced Islamabad back to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a new bailout to stop Pakistan’s current account deficit from causing a major economic crisis. While Prime Minister Imran Khan recently stated that he will approach three …
Continue reading Pakistan Must Defend CPEC in Any Potential IMF Deal
Pakistan, following in the footsteps of Malaysia and Myanmar, is the latest country to balk at the China and infrastructure focus of Beijing’s Belt and Road-related investments. Preparing for his first visit to China as Pakistan’s prime minister, Imran Khan is insisting that the focus of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a US$60 billion …
Continue reading Remodelling the Belt and Road: Pakistan Picks Up the Torch
With Afghanistan and Pakistan as the staging grounds, politics in South and Central Asia appears to be coming full circle with the making and breaking of alliances involving major regional and international actors. The switching of goalposts by the erstwhile Cold War-era allies — keeping their converging and diverging geopolitical, geoeconomic, and geostrategic interests in …
The US — Indian negotiations held in New Delhi on September 6 this year with the participation of the Ministers for Foreign Affairs and Defence (in the so-called 2+2 format) represent one of the most significant events of late in the region of the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. It can be compared to a heavy …
Desperate for funding to fend off a financial crisis fuelled in part by mounting debt to China, Pakistan is playing a complicated game of poker that could hand Saudi Arabia a strategic victory in its bitter feud with Iran at the People’s Republic’s expense. The Pakistani moves threaten a key leg of the USD60 billion …
Continue reading Pakistani Poker: Playing Saudi Arabia Against China
