A R Siddiqi

I was told specifically by the Field Marshal that under no circumstances would we cross into the Indian airspace, even after the Chamb Operation had been launched on September 1. The fear was that India might launch a preemptive strike. We could only retaliate to Indian moves without either violating their air space or crossing […]

In a rare exclusive 1979 interview to me, Air Marshal Nur Khan analysed the two wars clinically without reservations. The interview was in response to a questionnaire I submitted as the editor/publisher of the first generation monthly, Defence Journal (1975-1997). An intrepid fighter pilot and a soldier, Nur Khan commanded his young air force, the […]

Pakistan’s prospective ownership of the ‘Afghan-led’ and ‘Afghan-owned’ NATO war reflects a major paradigm shift in our politico-military doctrine. While an essential part of the war operationally, ownership of war did not figure at the level of a grand national strategy. Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, in his Independence Day message at […]

Elections under the LFO were scheduled for October 1970, the first ever on the basis of one-man-one-vote. In September-October, East Pakistan was hit by widespread floods necessitating indefinite postponement of the elections. Unlike West Pakistan reacting little, East Pakistan protested loudly against the postponement. The Awami League, under Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, projected the announcement as […]

Elections under the LFO were scheduled for October 1970, the first ever on the basis of one-man-one-vote. In September-October, East Pakistan was hit by widespread floods necessitating indefinite postponement of the elections. Unlike West Pakistan reacting little, East Pakistan protested loudly against the postponement. The Awami League, under Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, projected the announcement as […]

The JUI chief, the redoubtable Maulana Fazlur Rehman, forewarned the nation that if the election of the new prime minister ‘failed’, martial law would be the next step towards the resolution of the current political crisis. While the Maulana’s Cassandra-like prediction has lost much of its weight after the smooth election of the stopgap prime […]

The Balochistan issue is as old as the birth of Pakistan. The root cause lay in the blunt refusal of Mir Ahmed Yar Khan, the Khan of Kalat, to treat his princely state as part of British Balochistan. Thus on August 11, 1947, three days before the emergence of Pakistan, the ruler declared independence. It […]

A leading English daily carried its coverage of the Prime Minister (PM) Yousaf Raza Gilani’s recent tour of Balochistan under the headline, “PM Gilani confident of mainstreaming Baloch.” In the light of the painfully sorry record of the Pakistan People’s Party and other governments vis-à-vis Balochistan, distancing the Baloch would have been closer to the […]

US-Pakistan relations follow a crazy, roller-coaster path, now rising to dizzy heights, now descending to sinking lows. The former Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee Admiral Mike Mullen would pithily sum these up as ‘vexing yet vital’. Since the Abbottabad raid of May last and the unprovoked US fusillade at Pakistan’s Salala post, killing […]

The Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s advice to the opposition ‘not to oust the government’ must have come as a gratuitous boon to his Pakistani counterpart. It reaffirmed Turkey’s abiding goodwill for Pakistan. At the same time, however, it raises the question: whither Pakistan’s sovereignty? It also sadly reflects on our inability to resolve […]