The writer is a retired brigadier, and a PhD scholar in Peace and Conflict Studies at the National University of Science and Technology, Islamabad.
An undated picture of the parliament house building in Islamabad. — Senate website/FileGovernance and politics in Pakistan are bound in a...
No amount of politics would yield dividends unless the governance issue is fixed
India hosted the G20 summit from September 9 to 10 in Delhi. But it was amusing to see the steps it took to make the city more appealing, skilfully...
What happened in Jaranwala on August 16 is an example of all that is wrong with our extremist attitude towards the weak and vulnerable. The incident...
The Jammu and Kashmir region was already under the illegal occupation of India when on August 5, 2019 it was stripped of its autonomy granted under...
Pakistan’s power and energy crisis has reached crisis proportions. The power sector’s circular debt of Rs2,377 billion – combined with Rs1,400...
Irrational thinking usually leads to irrational decision. Hate is an irrational and visceral instinct, and those consumed by it are always prone to...
The time has come for Pakistan to take some tough decisions and reorient its economic policies. Business as usual will yield the same errors. The...
Anocracies are countries in transition towards full democracy after having experienced non-democratic rule in the past but are not fully committed...
The Tipu Sultan Express named after the famed freedom icon who resisted British colonialism in South India in the late 18th Century is being renamed...
The ethereal beauty of the Kashmir valley is being assaulted by the ugliness of Indian depredations on human rights and international law fronts in...
Geo-economics is the new buzzword these days, thrown around rather loosely without quantifying its benefits, especially in a country like Pakistan...
Like the West, Balochistan also exists in the past and the present simultaneously. The jagged serenity of its mountains contrasts eerily with the...
India is celebrating its 72nd Republic Day on January 26. Flaunting its status as the world’s most populous democracy, it nevertheless continues...
A nation’s national security policy is a national vade mecum or ‘grand national strategy’ which helps draft various sectoral strategies or...
After three percent of the global population of the world was wiped off in World War TT, humanity has not experienced that level of massacre, yet...
Pakistan Navy Submarine Hangor sank Indian frigate Khukri on an obstreperous stretch of the sea off the coast of Gujarat, India on December 9,...
“From the pressure of all desolations faith gushes forth … we are entering a grave illumined by the dawn.” Revolutions around the world have...
The Pakistan-US relationship is taking a new shape in the wake of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. Political experts also believe that in the...
The Tehreek e Taliban Pakistan was formed in 2007 in response to the army’s action against non-state actors in north and south Waziristan. After...
“At midnight on Aug 4, 2019 India turned all of Kashmir into a giant prison camp. Seven million Kashmiris were barricaded in their homes, internet...
A few questions first about the current Afghan situation, in order of their importance. Is Afghan peace hostage to big power rivalry? What policy...
The United States is leaving Afghanistan in turmoil after two decades of occupation. The Doha Agreement with the Taliban, bypassing the Ashraf Ghani...
The Afghan scenario is getting darkened by the violence levitating ominously over the horizon yet again. A conservative assessment of the peace...
There is a strong feeling of deja vu about Afghanistan in the air. The environment, despite the passage of two decades, is eerily reminiscent of the...
The East and West apparently can for once meet in a symbiosis of values and material rewards. The idea is embodied in the East West Economic...
Lawfare is defined as the theory and practice of the use of international law as an instrument to advance one's own interests. Orde Kittrie’s book...
A new security paradigm was unveiled during the recently concluded Islamabad Security Dialogue. The refreshing change was highlighted by the...
Like the proverbial city on the hill, the US has acted as a magnet for those who wanted to live out the American dream. For the world at large it...
Will Biden’s inauguration as the 46th US president turn a new page for one-third of humanity condemned to perpetual penury of thought and means by...
The engine of economic growth in South Asia has sputtered to a halt due to Indian intransigence and lack of vision. A region that was colonized by...
The RSS and its political wing the Bharatya Janata Party led by Prime Minister Modi operate in a parallel universe of their own
Human security, as defined by the UN Commission on Human Security, involves the protection of human lives to enhance liberties and ensure...
Lieutenant General McMaster, the co-author of counter-insurgency manual ‘FM3-24’, has conducted his first tour of Pakistan as the US...
Who has condemned South Asia to an existence of perpetual conflict and antagonism? Is our South Asian journey fated to be mired in perennial...
Crime and politics in the current Pakistani context is eerily redolent of the main theme of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s famous novel ‘Crime and...
Do we want to fight terrorism as a nation? The answer to this question lies in our national attitude towards it. Ambivalence, appeasement,...
Is Pakistan in the throes of fourth-generation warfare? In order to answer this question and to understand the nature of that warfare one needs to...
“Each year he grows more restless, the salt flows through his veins/ But the depths are for the young, not the old with many pains.” -...
Pakistan’s national security dilemma has an uncanny resemblance to the security dilemma of the Sparta-led Peloponnesian League that was...
Climate change and its concomitant natural disasters pose a clear danger to national security in the present era of the hyper-utilisation of natural...
What happens when a society sets itself upon a course to self destruction without understanding the consequences of its actions or – in a...
Defence and deterrence are the two notions in the pantheon of strategic ideas that confront a classic Euthyphro dilemma in the context of the...
The stygian gloom prevailing over Indo-Pakistan peace prospects calls for a deep introspection over the sub continental security dilemma....
India and Pakistan have again begun a familiarly deadly minuet of violent movements across a hitherto silent Line of Control. The two conjoined...
Winston Churchill had once conceded that “the only thing that ever frightened me was the U Boat peril”. He was alluding to the peril of...
Has passion trumped reason in the recently concluded US presidential elections? The answer may partially lie in the social constructivist views of...
The dialectics between democracy and politics defines the quality of governance and the concomitant public weal, the two objectives of a democratic...
Pakistan is currently beset with a clear and present danger – the desertification of its agricultural heartland along with a concomitant...
