Saad Masood

Natural disasters are notorious for two things – one, unleashing an era of human suffering and two, putting the moral compass and learning effectiveness of the ruling elite and the state under the microscope! In the recent floods hitting vast swathes of Pakistan, the former was unfortunately on ample display, and the latter was repeatedly […]

Rarely has a recent conflict been more replete with lessons for the policy making elite than the Ukraine-Russia war. This marks the end of the optimistic bonhomie of the 90s and definitively starts another era of a new Cold War between the US and its allies on one side and Russia and China aligned nations […]

The Greeks have given us many things – democracy, philosophy, architecture, mythology, the Olympics – the list goes on. Another highly valuable Greek contribution to this world is logic. It was Aristotle, Plato and Socrates who were its biggest proponents and underpinned it with knowledge, analysis and judgement. Subsequently, societies were steeped in logical thinking […]

Recently, there has been a lot of talk about honour and independence in international relations, specifically in foreign policy formulation. Imran Khan particularly has struck a chord with the population all across the country. Right or wrong, his narrative of a “foreign conspiracy” to stop his “independent foreign policy” is gaining traction within the masses. […]

Imagine two opposing parties slugging it out in a court of law and then both accepting the ruling wholeheartedly afterwards. Imagine indicted individuals coming to court or jail without displaying victory signs. Imagine the truth actually coming out during a hearing. Imagine the competence, or lack thereof, of the prosecution and defence open for public […]

Recently the political climate in Pakistan has been abuzz with the phrase “regime change.”This has added fuel to the fire, which was already raging quite wildly! The fact that regime change is a reality that the world has witnessed quite often is a given but the fact that regime change can gain a successful outcome […]

Recent events have put the nature of foreign policy in the spotlight once again. There has been a glut of noise – especially from the esteemed social media brigade – against foreign policy options that lack emotions, empathy and morality! Generally, social media opinions are nonsensical at best but this one is worthy of discourse. […]

Absolute monarchies are generally that – absolute. Therefore, recent news emanating from the Saudi kingdom suggesting changes to the system governing its flag and anthem was not without some iota of surprise! Note that the contents are not being changed but just that the binding rules that authorise the usage of the two are being […]

The first part of my two-parter opinion on the recently released national security policy focused on commending the good start, defining and then suggesting adding national identity and national purpose to the conceived national security framework, recommending clear and succinct articulation of vital national interests and touching upon instruments of statecraft needed and the underlying […]

In Pakistan, intellectual endeavours – especially those emanating from the government – are few and far between. Therefore, any governmental work done in that domain should be cherished. Consequently, the recently released national security policy – its publicly available version anyway – should be appreciated. I have previously written about rebooting the national security framework […]