Pakistan’s leaders often boast of our vital strategic geographical location. Yet this location has done little more than thrust the country into global wars and force it to become a proxy battleground for foreign ideological agendas. Pakistan now has an opportunity to turn this reality around courtesy of the profound geopolitical changes facing the world today.

There is increasing talk of a shift from America`s global hegemony to multipolarity and of a new emerging Great Game in which Washington is being challenged by aspiring competitors. Smaller states seldom have a chance to influence the direction of such hegemonic competition. But Pakistan finds itself suitably placed to force the great powers to be more cooperative and extract benefits for itself.

Geography is the principal enabler.

Competition is most pronounced in the South China Sea, in Russia`s extended backyard, and in the Middle East. Each of these regions intersects with Pakistan`s neighbourhood, and herein lies the opportunity.

China`s `Belt and Road` initiative is the poster child for Beijing`s willingness to prove its global mettle. CPEC is the quintessential test case whose success is necessary to convince China`s aspiring allies of its ability to lead independent geostrategic initiatives of serious consequence. This implies that Pakistan will be centre stage in Chinese foreign policy.

Second, Russia is looking for new partners and markets to export arms. India`s tilt towards the US has provided Pakistan an opening to mend ties with Moscow.

Third, because of the Middle East chaos, the world is struggling to find geopolitically relevant Muslim country partners that can have a moderating influence in the Islamic world. Pakistan is an obvious candidate.

Finally, the presence of nuclear weapons on the subcontinent implies that the costs of a total blow-up of Pak-India ties or Pakistan`s implosion are prohibitive.

With some visionary thinking, Pakistan can work the global chessboard in its favour by bringing the US, China, Russia, among others, together on these issues. China will remain CPEC`s driving force but proactive outreach from Pakistan to identify options to involve the US, UK, and Russia more seriously could transform an initiative otherwise seen as one of the flagships of Sino-US competition in Asia into a cooperative one.

Likewise, the US, China, and Russia share concerns about Islamist extremism. Pakistan is seen as part of the problem but its recent domestic counterterrorism successes imply that it can present itself as a potentially stable Muslim country that can stand up to the onslaught of Salafi-inspired radicalism thatis beginning to face pushback in Pakistan.

The fact that Islamabad maintains deep ties with the Gulf/Middle East positions it well to play this role.

Further, the world`s shared interest in avoiding a Pak-India disaster implies the need for the great powers to keep Pakistan engaged. This militates against the Modi government`s self-stated policy to isolate Pakistan and leaves space open for continued relations between Pakistan and the great powers, even if India remains their preferred partner. This will require Pakistan to reconsider its foreign policy orientation in at least two respects.

Foremost, the Cold War mentality of putting all eggs in one basket still lingers in Pakistani thinking. The emerging global order will prize countries able to demonstrate their importance for all competing camps.

The current discourse in Pakistan about Sino-Pak relations and improved Pak-Russia ties offsetting the deteriorating Pak-US equation is self-defeating in this regard. The USremains Pakistan`s largest export partner, it holds most influence over international donors that Pakistan relies on, and only it has the military, economic, and diplomatic tools to isolate Pakistan. No good can come of being on America`s wrong side.Second, Pakistan`s role as a melting pot for great power cooperation requires a bettermanaged neighbourhood. The tendency to allow ties with India to drive the country`s global policy orientation and the nature of its ties with other important countries has hurt Pakistan. The smarter policy would be to isolate Pak-India problems from broader discussions about Pakistan`s relations with the great powers. Refusal of other countries to support Islamabad on Pak-India issues must not be allowed to overshadow the need to work with them to establish Pakistan`s utility as a key enabler of great power cooperation in and around the South Asian region.

Finally, the vision purported here is predicated on Pakistan`s internal strength.

Economic and governance reforms that create opportunities for inclusive growth and stability remain crucial. So does the need for the state to consolidate counterterrorism gains and push ahead with the agenda to reverse the growing extremism in society.

This implies the need to ensure zero tolerance for all terrorist outfits in the country. The writer is a foreign policy expert based in Washington, DC.

This story was originally published by Dawn, Pakistan

Incoming army chief Gen Bajwa takes over at a time when Pakistan is already on the road to recovery. Since 2010, the country has experienced a significant reduction in terrorist violence. The economy has also begun to rebound. Gen Bajwa and the civilian government could keep doing more of the same to achieve further incremental progress. But this would reflect a ‘good enough’ approach. It’ll definitely keep Pakistan out of the ICU but we’ll still be weak and frail.

Moeed Yusuf

What may he discover?

First, that Pakistan’s current strategic paradigm guarantees that it will remain economically mediocre. A big reason is the security establishment’s regional outlook. Since the 1990s, when regional trading blocs became fashionable, overwhelming evidence has pointed to a direct correlation between strong regional economic interaction and national growth and progress of the countries involved. In our case, it would mean opening up economically to India.

What are the options for peace?

Naysayers argue that rather than singling out the India piece, we need to focus on domestic economic reforms, explore alternative trading and investment partners, and recognise that CPEC is a game changer. The general should sit with trade economists to understand the flaws in this contention. Even when we add up realistic appraisals of possible reforms, includes CPEC, and factor in new export markets Pakistan can tap, we still end up well short of what the country needs to keep competing with India and other peer countries.

More importantly, it is absolute, not relative, gains that matter. We need to be concerned about the additional growth we would generate from acting as a trade and transit hub for the near and far neighbourhood and the force-multiplier effect it would have rather than what India or others might get out of the arrangement. Plainly, the new chief must know that keeping the region closed guarantees that India and Pakistan’s differential will continue to grow in New Delhi’s favour.

Thinking through alternatives, he should consult political economists who can demonstrate policy options to allow greater regional integration without capitulating to India — rather, while strengthening Pakistan’s hand over the long run. I have repeatedly elaborated on these options in my columns.

Next, how does Pakistan go from the recent improvements in fighting domestic terrorism to durable peace? The answer one universally gets from experts is that the next counterterrorism phase is likely to be focused on urban areas and requires exemplary coordination between the military and civilians on implementing the National Action Plan.

The army chief has two challenges here. One, that the civilian sector is exceptionally weak. He can’t do much about it. Two, that civilian politicos and law-enforcement institutions feel that the security establishment operates more as a master than a friend. This, he must fix.

In researching for my edited book Pakistan’s Counterterrorism Challenge some years ago, I was alarmed at just how deep the distrust between civilian law-enforcement and intelligence and the military was. At times, the civilian sphere echoed views of the establishment’s intentions not much different from what one hears in the most critical quarters of the Western world. The military, on its part, not only finds these views exaggerated and misinformed, but tends to see its civilian counterparts as apathetic and worthless.

With such a disconnect, you can’t hope for much in terms of coordination. If so, efforts in pursuit of NAP will remain disjointed and suboptimal. Militant outfits will be the ultimate beneficiaries, and both the civilians and military fighting them will continue to incur losses.

Finally, little respect for Pakistan internationally implies all sorts of losses in terms of economic activity, increased risk of global isolation, etc.

If the general is a realist, he’ll realise the basic problem: Pakistan’s security policy runs smack in the face of the interests of world’s only superpower and its chief partners in South Asia. The US-led international community has forged a universal consensus that policies linked to violent non-state actors specifically of the Islamist bent are no longer acceptable. The apparent inability or unwillingness to tackle allegedly Pakistan-based violent actors aimed at Afghanistan and India defies this consensus. Fair or not, till this holds, Pakistan’s global perception will keep taking a major hit.

Gen Bajwa should work with his team to identify policy choices that protect Pakistan’s national interests, but without undermining or antagonising the US. Incidentally, this is exactly the advice his predecessors and Pakistan’s civilian leaders have consistently received from China.

Pakistan needs more than a good enough approach from its civilian and military leadership. The new army chief can set the tone for his institution.

The writer is a foreign policy expert based in Washington, DC.
Published in Dawn, December 6th, 2016

This story was originally published by Dawn, Pakistan

Of late, I have been studying Sri Lanka’s war experience. The country has fascinated students of comparative politics like me as it defies virtually all conventional wisdom about peace and conflict within societies.

Moeed Yusuf

Finally, the country’s majority is Buddhist — a pacifist religion at its core. Yet, it experienced brutal violence lasting decades. The LTTE-inspired insurgency introduced suicide bombing to the modern world and killed thousands. Less known but equally violent insurrections took place in the south of the country.

Sri Lanka’s experience throws out any number of lessons for peer countries, including Pakistan.

First, as significant as the conversation about quantity and quality of education is, Sri Lanka’s experience highlights a slightly different dimension: the bureaucracy and management of the education sector. The Sri Lankan education sector has produced three siloed youth cohorts by running parallel school systems catering to Sinhala, Tamil, and English-speaking kids. This represents both a linguistic and an ethnic faultline: the majority-Buddhist Sinhala who have ruled Sri Lanka since its independence vs the Tamil minority (mostly Hindus) who feel discriminated against by the Sinhala vs the English-speaking urban (mostly Colombo) elite.

Sri Lanka realises that ending a war doesn’t equal peace.

The result is that most of Sri Lanka’s young are mono-lingual and have grown up within their respective echo chambers. The literacy rate is combined with inherently polarised mindsets that live off stereotypes about the ‘other’, with no opportunity to form more informed opinions by interacting across these divides.

Second, hardly any other case provides a more obvious correlation between the politicisation of religion and its direct effect on societal discord and violence. As if Buddhism’s pacifist nature didn’t matter, Sri Lankan governments linked Sinhala nationalist chauvinism with a ‘Buddhism under siege’ mentality. Soon, it was none other than the Buddhist clergy leading the charge, justifying an anti-minority rhetoric, even violence, through scripture. Political violence was made holy, in a way not much different than much of the Muslim world.

Third, Sri Lanka provides an interesting insight into the socioeconomics and violence connection. Literature on the link between poverty and extremist violence is split, with most prominent voices still holding out on accepting a strong correlation. Yet, when one interacts with policy practitioners involved in counterterrorism in developing countries, one recognises their conviction that poverty is the number one driver of extremist violence.

In Sri Lanka’s case, absolute deprivation was lower than several other peer counties. But the island had serious disparities across its geographical regions, and its minority Tamil and Muslim communities harboured a sense of collective deprivation compared to the Sinhala-majority parts. It wasn’t as much about individual poverty and helplessness as it was about young men and women from minority communities feeling relatively deprived vis-à-vis the majority on behalf of their communities.

Finally, Sri Lanka is realising that ending a war doesn’t equal peace. It only represents a window of opportunity to begin to address the above-mentioned and many other deeper structural problems that caused the war in the first place.

Here is another fascinating reality. As I exa¬mine comparable cases, these trends quickly emerge as common themes across countries, including in South Asia. Pakistan is no exception. Our debates and solutions on education still tend to be more conventional than not. Lost amidst all the worries about extremist mindsets is the stratification of the education system and the acute disdain youth from across the elite private vs public vs madressah schools tend to have for each other.

Never do children from across these systems interact constructively with one another. The focus is on Islam’s role in statecraft rather than on calling out the gross misuse of religious dialect for an ultra-nationalist agenda. The question is how to get the majority to stop using faith as a tool to impose its will on the minority. It’s the same for us, the same for Sri Lanka, and the same for any other country with this problem.

Next, we need to examine the sense of collective deprivation across societal fault lines rather than only seeing these as anti-patriotic, externally inspired law-and-order problems.

Finally, we must recognise that while we have done fairly well in terms of cutting the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan to size militarily, it is the performance on the non-kinetic aspects of the National Action Plan that will determine whether or not Pakistan can achieve sustainable peace.

The writer is a foreign policy expert based in Washington, DC.
Published in Dawn October 25th, 2016

This story was originally published by Dawn, Pakistan

`Interesting` times are upon Pak-US ties again. A US drone strike killed Mullah Mansour in Balochistan; the proposed US F-16 sale to Pakistan formally expired. The Obama administration failed to convince lawmakers on Capitol Hill to allow use of US public funds to complete the transaction and Pakistan refused to pay for them in toto; and the US Congress is moving to put further Haqqani network-related conditionalities on assistance to Pakistan.

Obvious commonality here: the US stance on Pakistan is hardening again. What`s up? Perhaps the best way to explain this is to go back to my last article (`Two Pakistans`, May 10) where I had addressed the Pakistani confusion about Washington`s seemingly contradictory messages on the F-16s.

I had explained that the US policy apparatus must simultaneously work with `two Pakistans`: the Pakistan that Washington perceives as insincere on the terrorism front, and whose policies are seen as a key reason for the insurgency in Afghanistan; and the Pakistan that is a nuclear power and whose stability is an imperative for global security.

The Obama administration`s push to get the F-16 sale through was catering to `nuclear Pakistan`; it was to be a sign of continued commitment. The Hill`s decision was driven by `Afghanistan`s Pakistan`.

This is a generalisable principle: US choices based primarily on the Afghanistan aspect are often aimed at raising Pakistan`s costs for non-compliance while ones catering to the nuclear Pakistan tend to balance this out.

Things seemed to be improving in bilateral ties over the past 12-18 months because the global view on Afghanistan had shifted somewhat. Reconciliation with the Afghan Taliban was being formally prioritised and Pakistan was to play lynchpin in bringing them to the table. Signals to Pakistan were less pointed.

That phase is over. The reconciliation bid failed and Kabul is focused solely on the battleñeld. The conversation has rebounded to the old: Pakistan must use force to eliminate Afghan Taliban sanctuaries on its soil. And since we are now at the back end of a failed effort to woo them and at the front end of a potentially nightmarish fighting season for Kabul, the perceived need to push Pakistan to act now is that much greater. The F-16s and Mansour`s killing should be seen in this perspective.

The Pakistani mind asks: what does this accomplish? Short answer: probably nothing.

Then why do it? First, because there is lingering hope in Washington that US assistance can be used as leverage to get policy change in Pakistan.

US monies have provided its foreign policy immense leverage over the years; any num-ber of countries have behaved desirably (from the US perspective) in return for assistance. This includes Pakistan: it was a major factor in keeping Pakistan in the Western camp throughout the Cold War.

Two, because Afghanistan is more important to the US than Pakistan thinks it is, or should be. The logic isn`t difficult. For Capitol Hill it is a no-brainer: US lawmakers approved a war and billions for it. The effort hasn`t gone according to plan and they must continue investigating. They have held many hearings on Afghanistan and have heard the word `Pakistan` right up there in the list of reasons. Also, most US lawmakers have constituents directly and personally involved in or affected by the military deployment in Afghanistan. Americans have long wanted troops to come home but the situation doesn`t warrant it. Again, the frustration links back to the reasons for failure and Pakistan stands out.

On Pakistan, it ultimately boils down to asimplistic debate: is Pakistan the problem? Yes. Has US assistance changed their policy? No.

Then why are taxpayers` dollars being spent on a country that is supporting those who kill US soldiersinAfghanistan?Isn`t that tantamount to rewarding negative behaviour? Considering only `Afghanistan`s Pakistan` the logic holds. And it results in the vibes we are getting again: even if pulling back aid doesn`t help, continuing to provide it seems self-defeating. As custodians of the national purse, this logic matters to US lawmakers.

Of course, Pakistan has long argued that reality and facts are not that simple. But US decisions are informed by its, not Pakistan`s, view of things and on Afghanistan, Pakist an`s stock is negative.

US frustration with Pakistan is high enough that the Afghanistan debate will drive most decisions in the coming months, especially if the Taliban continue to ratchet up violence in Afghanistan.

To be sure, this doesn`t imply that a rupture is necessarilyin the ofHng.The lessons from the 2011 breal

The US government, most of all, will keep reminding everyone of the constraints `nuclear Pakistan` imposes on realistic policy choices. And yet, `interesting` times lie ahead.•

The writer is a foreign policy expert based in Washington, DC.

This story was originally published by Dawn, Pakistan