Not your dad’s cold war

A world order descended upon us after WW2. This order was called the cold war. The world was neatly divided in two by an iron curtain.

Our dictators found themselves on the side nearest to democracy. India’s democrats fell into the camp opposing democracy. And there we lived, and prospered, immune to any irony. We were the good guys in movies and our sports teams were winning world cups.

And then, one day, while we were still wondering who had blown our grinning dictator’s plane out of the sky, we learnt that our side had won. And a New World Order had begun. Some have called this order the ‘Unipolar Moment’ – a time with only one superpower.

The Unipolar Moment was not very forgiving for us. It was during this ‘moment’ that we lost ground to our neighbours. India, Bangladesh, and Vietnam zoomed ahead while we pined away, longing for those long-gone decades of USAID and military assistance, waiting for war.

War did come, in the shape of 9/11, and our war economy did get a short boost, but there was something amiss in this war. It was really confusing. Were we fighting America’s war? Were the Americans fighting our war? And then US forces packed up and left. All in all, this war was not enough to put us ahead of our neighbours but our actions in this war were dubious enough to make the world distrust us.

Historians feel that Nato’s withdrawal from Afghanistan is a clear signal that the Unipolar Moment is now over. Pakistanis hope to turn a new page. Our planners are now planning, breathlessly, for a New New World-Order – a second cold war.

When the first cold war ended, Zardari, Nawaz and Imran were still in their thirties, federal secretaries who manage government were in their twenties and the men who attend corps commanders conferences were teenagers. It is natural for them all to be nostalgic for those days. It would however be foolish for us to assume that ‘this’ cold war will be like ‘that’ cold war.

Cold War II has Chinese characteristics. It will not rip the world along an iron curtain because the Chinese are intertwined with the world economy in a way that was unthinkable for the Soviet Union. China and the US are the world’s largest trade partners. A loss for one will not necessarily mean a win for the other. Both camps are so interdependent that losses and gains will be mutual. If China slumps, the West also will slump. The end state of the first cold war was victory and defeat. The end state of the second cold war, according to the national security adviser to Joe Biden, will be coexistence after a readjustment of global rules. There will be no victor.

Instead of a geographic iron curtain, an information iron curtain is more likely. Both camps will increasingly try to separate their information flows, keeping technologies away from each other. Wars will rage over control of our minds through thought-influencing algorithms and social media platforms. Pro-freedom camps will fight with pro-development camps in each country. Countries that cannot manage these mental wars will see civil wars until a final readjustment in global rules is agreed upon. This could take decades.

Especially for Pakistan, ‘this’ cold war cannot be like ‘that’ cold war. Our geography and military were purpose-built for fighting the first cold war against the Russian Bear. True to our purpose, we pricked his communist underbelly while we helped peel away China from his orbit until he lost patience and invaded Afghanistan. We drew him in, bled him and then saw him disintegrate. Our loyalty to the West was clear and we looked down upon nations with unclear loyalties.

Today, our loyalty to the West is unclear. Like the first cold war (and two world wars before that) we want to join this conflict with the winning side. The last three global conflicts were won by democracies. Democracies are once again closing ranks and together are a much larger economic force than their rivals. Should we then not try to align with the democracies of the world? Is it even possible? The democracies have this time not aligned with us. They have aligned with India instead. On the other hand, even if the democracies give us an option to join in, could we imagine working against China? This is the conundrum we face.

Mr Biden is willing to accept this quandary of ours (and of other nations like us.) He understands this cold war is not like the last. He is willing to work with nations that do not choose sides – if we do not cross any of his core interests. (Mr Trump’s policy was not that forgiving. He wanted nations to clearly choose sides and to suffer consequences.)

So, what can we do? We can choose sides based on issues. For example, we can be pro-China with regard to CPEC, Saudi-Iran relations, Indian trade, and Taiwan and we can be pro-US with regard to nuclear non-proliferation, use of Gwadar for military purposes, climate change, Ukraine, and information. The details can be fought over.

But then, once we have internally agreed on which policies align with which camp, we need to clearly communicate these policies to everyone who would listen. Schoolchildren, government officials, neighbours, and both superpowers should then know this clearly and repeatedly. So we work with both camps but regain our credibility.

The writer is the author of ‘A Hundred Journeys – Stories of my Fatherland’.