Dr Zia Ul Haque Shamsi

“Politics is the art of the possible.” Bismarck’s (1815-1898) precepts about the possibilities in the political arena are widely quoted, and followed by political scientists. His dicta have withstood extremely challenging, and evolving international scenarios. On the other hand, Lord Palmerston’s brilliant concept that “there are no permanent friends, and foes in the international relations,” […]

Information warfare is as old as the warfare itself. However, in the olden days, “information warfare included only fields such as misinformation, propaganda, and deception.” It has been successfully employed by all nations, perhaps since Sun Tzu, who said, “All wars are based on deception.” In modern times, Information Technology (IT) gained prominence with a […]

Chinese sage Sun Tzu laid great emphasis on knowing the enemy well so that it can be easily countered and defeated. Sun Tzu’s pronouncements reiterate that it is incumbent upon the state to correctly recognise its enemies, and give the right emphasis on preparing the response in a prioritised order.Pakistan also needs to correctly recognise […]

Pakistan and its agencies are once again at the centre-stage of geopolitics. This time for allegedly supporting Taliban offensive against the Afghan National Army (ANA), which has been raised, trained, equipped, and funded by the US, and NATO, over the last two decades. Pakistan stayed abreast the US in its war on terror in the […]

It pains me to write that terrorists have succeeded in their planning, execution, and accomplishment of the stated objectives on a number of occasions. They appeared organized, virtuously committed (even for a wrong cause), and perhaps, better trained. This is not a good sign as it is the sole responsibilityof any state to provide safety […]

There may be multiple reasons for the breakup of formal and informal talks between India and Pakistan, but it is important to note that the ceasefire along the Line of Control (LoC) is holding ground. The strict implementation of the ceasefire of 2003 provides much-needed relief from the fear of fire and flash to the […]

The fundamental difference between the Taliban under Mullah Omer in 1996, and the Taliban under Mawlawi Hibatullah Akhundzada, is perhaps political legitimacy. Despite being the founding leader and an extremely popular figure within Afghanistan, Mullah Omer could not earn the much-needed political legitimacy, particularly in the western capitals. Hence, the then Taliban government was only […]

India, the world’s largest democracy and a non-NPT nuclear weapons’ state, is plagued with scandals for military procurements. Despite stringent and painstaking bureaucratic processes for the approvals of defence procurements, India has perhaps the most numbers of scandals of corruptions when it comes to buying arms and equipment. The most famous corruption scandal in Indian […]

The use of the term ‘hybrid’ has become exceedingly common; its true meaning, however, can be seen in the domain of aerospace power. The evolution of airpower immediately attracted the strategists, who started to use the medium of air for military purposes. Hence the race to reach space started, because mankind believed that whosoever controls […]

States, at times, take actions that neither have rationale nor can be explained or justified. But, there is always a purpose behind it. India is no different. For it does not miss an opportunity to plan, execute and exploit gains from its stage-managed incidents to malign Pakistan for its self-designed specific objectives. Be it the […]