Dr Qaisar Rashid

Germans are generally attracted to the word volk, meaning people. One of the reasons is that the word volk contains a racial identity in it. Adolf Hitler used this word in a slogan, “Wir sind das volk!” (We are the people), as mentioned in Hitler’s autobiography Mein Kampf (My Struggle) translated into English by James […]

In the South Asia region,when the context is Pakistan and India, the US seems to have three main priorities: first, establishing bilateral politico-economic ties with individual countries, second, preventing nuclear proliferation and, third, combating terrorism. The establishment of bilateral ties of the US with individual countries in the spheres of politics (or diplomacy) and economics […]

The incumbent government has committed a gigantic act of injustice with the people of Pakistan, especially those living in Punjab, by letting the issue of petroleum scarcity unfold into a crisis. Reportedly, the state-owned Pakistan State Oil (PSO) has defaulted on its payments and is in need of about Rs 100 billion and at least […]

It is not known when the ongoing war on terror will be over. However, it is known that whenever it is finished, Pakistan may be subjected to certain sanctions related to its nuclear programme. Furthermore, as the delivery system is part of Pakistan’s nuclear deterrence strategy, sanctions can also be imposed on Pakistan’s missile testing […]

It is said that the end of the Cold War in 1991 marked the advent of the second nuclear age, the first being the Cold War era itself. The second nuclear age can be divided into two phases. The first phase was from 1991 to 2000 in which Pakistan refused to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty […]

When the context is Afghanistan, an interesting point related to Pakistan and India is that both are keen to train the Afghan security forces, especially the army. Similarly, both are keen to provide Afghanistan with light weaponry. Both countries might be supposing some financial advantage in return but the actual expected yield is different from […]

A commonly observed phenomenon is that Germans have two faces. One is apparent outside Germany and the other is visible inside Germany. In Islamabad, Germans are found advocating pluralism and open-mindedness but, in Berlin, the opposite of these virtues rules. Meet a German in London or Chicago and find a liberal, egalitarian person in him. […]

On November 9 this year, Germany celebrated the 25th anniversary of (the beginning of) the demolition of the Berlin Wall. The wall was constructed in 1961 to divide Germany into two halves: East Germany, allied to the former Soviet Union, and West Germany, in the western Allied camp. The wall began to fall in 1989 […]

Strategically, not much distance is present between the news item that on his recent visit, the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Raheel Sharif had been given a red carpet welcome in the US and the news item that US President Barack Obama had silently permitted a residual combat force (numbering about 10,000) in Afghanistan […]

In Pakistan-Afghanistan relations, the word Pak-Afghan is still wanting in articulating the true nature of the Islamabad-Kabul relationship in both bilateral and multilateral contexts. In Pakistan, Afghanistan is still seen as two parts coalesced together: first comes Kabul with the north one-third of Afghanistan, and second comes the rest comprising the south two-thirds of Afghanistan. […]