Raashid Wali Janjua

What best advice would be a sincere friend of the leading global power of the world i.e. USA render regarding its Afghan project? Pakistan, being a country that has had a love-hate relationship with USA since its inception, cannot be accused of insincerity when it comes to an engagement with a country once referred to […]

The focus on health, education and  infrastructural development is what makes a state a truely ‘developmental state’. Such states prioritise resource allocation for development needs as opposed to national defence needs  Professor TV Paul in “Warrior State” has drawn a comparison between a “National Security State’ and a “Development State”. Put simply a “Warrior State” […]

What stops us to build big reservoirs to tap the nature’s bounty that we so wantonly gift away to the oceans every year? Is it lack of resources or the lack of will due to vested interests bent upon harming the country, that the issue has been hanging fire? Is our lemming like propinquity for […]

Why is it that we securitise everything in our neck of the woods except the human security? The answer perhaps lies in the country’s unique political trajectory begotten out of the cataclysm of a struggle for liberation from colonial bondage. A colonial bequest of exploitation and resource rent extraction drove a wedge between the state […]

“You are proceeding on a mission to construct a road linking Pakistan to China. Presently there will be no contact with you for some time. Detailed instructions will follow with the main body. This is the biggest challenge thrown to the Corps of Engineers. We want to make the road in competition with Chinese road […]

Can Pakistan survive as a Garrison or a National Security state? The question encapsulates a painful reminder of our entire historical voyage as an independent state. Before expatiating on the anatomy and sociology of a Garrison State it is appropriate to get acquainted with the nature and definition of the Garrison State. According to Harold […]

How long will the winter of our nuclear discontent last with India? Tactical nuclear weapons that range from 60 to 120 kilometres are being created for service by India and Pakistan. Namely, Al Nasr in Pakistan and Prohar in India. Pakistan is going for tactical nukes in order to thwart the Indian Cold war threat. […]

Balochistan is on the boil again while the paeans to the glory of a new dawn continue to be sung with metronomic regularity by official quarters. The recrudescence of the violence and sectarian killings is a harbinger of a new phase of militancy that somehow refuses to die down despite best efforts of state. Balochistan […]

If we lose a dollar they will lose a dollar, intoned superciliously the Qatar finance minister after a slew of sanctions imposed by the fellow Gulf brethren. The upbeat mien of the Qatari minister Ahmed bin Jassim while saying that the food stocks in Qatar would last a year without any trouble however betrayed a […]

“When everyone is dead, then the Great Game is finished, not before”                Kim, Rudyard Kipling   The quote highlights the permanence of the Great Game, a term used by a British political officer Arthur Conolly in India in 1840 to refer to the regional conflict between British Empire and Tsarist Russia. Like the fabled […]