Pakistan – A Complex Geopolitical Landscape

The Republic of Pakistan is an important actor on the geopolitical stage.  It is the sixth-largest by population.  It is the world’s seventh declared nuclear power.  It is the world’s first nation-state to have been established on the basis of “religious nationalism”.  Indeed, it is an important country in the “Islamic bloc” having been a founding member of the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC).  Pakistan has been called the “Asian Fulcrum”, a strategic “regional lynchpin” and with good reason.  The country is located at the intersection of multiple geographical regions, civilizations, military powers, and vital energy resources.  It is a medium-sized country that belongs to three geographical regions of the world: South Asia, Central Asia, and the Greater Middle East.  It is situated in very close proximity to Arab, Indian, Persian, and Turkic civilizations.  These ancient civilizations have influenced each other for millennia.  Perhaps, nowhere is this civilizational, racial, cultural, and linguistic fusion as pronounced as it is in Pakistan.   The word Pakistan itself consist of Pak, meaning pure in Farsi, and Stan, meaning land in Turkish.

The country is made up of six major territories which include Baluchistan, Gilgit-Baltistan[1], Khyber-Pukhtunkhwa, Azad (Free) Kashmir[2], the Punjab, and Sindh.  Each province has its own languages, literature, cuisine, folklore, music, and customs.  While the diverse inhabitants of Pakistan have interspersed, intermingled, and intermarried, they have proudly retained their unique cultures.  What they all have in common is one of the great river systems of the world.  For millennia, the inhabitants of modern-day Pakistan have met on the banks of the River Indus for water, trade, transportation, sustenance, and spirituality.  The river is to Pakistan what the Nile is to Egypt.  The Indus gave shape to both the ancient Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) and the modern nation-state of Pakistan.  It flows southward along the full length of Pakistan from the dramatic peaks of the Karakoram mountain range to the sedate Arabian Sea.  As the river collects pristine, glacial waters in the north, it surges south meandering its way through a wide array of ecologies.  On its way to the warm waters of the Arabian Sea, the river bears witness to the world’s tallest mountains, its biggest glaciers[3], and humanity’s earliest settlements.

Pakistan is home to important archaeological sites that have shaped the course of not only South and Central Asian history but human history.  Tools nearly two million years old were found in Soan Valley near present-day Rawalpindi.  Farming settlements with mud-brick homes and granaries were discovered at Mehrgarh dating back to 7000 BC near Quetta, Balochistan.  A scatterplot of villages with the Indus River as its line of regression formed the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC).  From these villages, emerged a culture that culminated into the great ancient cities of Mohenjodaro (the first planned city) and Taxila. Throughout history, the Indus region has served as a civilizational intersection due to mountainous passes and ancient trade routes that have led invaders from Central Asia to the Indus and out to the Trans-Indus.  Pakistan is a sort of ancient world’s arc de triumphe with avenues such as the Khyber Pass, Silk Road, Karakoram Pass, Grand Trunk Road, Bolan Pass, and the Makran Coast.   Races as varied as the Greeks, Turcs, Mongols, Afghans, Achaemeninans, Persians, Arabs, Scythians, Parthians, Kushans, Sassanians, Hephthalites, and the British engaged in commerce and war in this region.  Throughout history, dramatic stories have unfolded here.  In Multan, Alexander the Great was humbled by a near-fatal arrow to the lung.  Near Jhelum, Raja Puru mounted on top of a white elephant fought valiantly at the battle of Hydapses().  Muhammad Bin Qasim, the ill-fated Ummayad general, marched through the Makran(?) coast to avenge Scythian pirates in Sindh.  The Pushtun Ghaznavids and Ghurids, Turkic Mughals often chose the great city of Lahore as their capital.  Nadir Shah of Persia, Mongols Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, Acaheminans Cyrus and Darius, Chandragupta() of Magadha all ravaged through this region in pursuit of conquests.  Sir Charles Napier of the British Indian Empire famously “sinned” in Sindh[4].   More recently, Americans swooped down in dramatic fashion on a “Waziri Mansion” in the garrison city of Abbottabad.  Pakistan continues to attract both warriors and empires right up to the present day.

Pakistan is also wedged between some of the most powerful and resource-rich nations of the world.  China and India are the world’s 2^nd and 10^th biggest economies, respectively. Together, the two Asian giants have a population of over 2.3 billion people with a seemingly insatiable appetite for energy.  Saudi Arabia and Iran hold the 2^nd and 4^th largest reserves of oil respectively.  Iran, Turkmenistan, and Saudi Arabia have the 2^nd, 4^th and 6^th largest reserves of natural gas respectively.  Pakistan, on the other hand, is neither a great economy (49^th) nor endowed with vast reserves of fossil fuels.  In a cruel twist of fate, oilfields and natural gas reserves are tantalizingly close but not in Pakistan itself.   Thus Pakistan is important by itself but critical for what surrounds it.  It is in the middle of those with a surplus of energy on one side and those with a deficit on the other.  Pakistan and Iran would like to build a pipeline through Pakistan but it is passionately opposed by the Americans.  The Americans strongly support the Turkmenistan pipeline but it must transit through war-ravaged Afghanistan.  Russians are building a pipeline from Karachi to Lahore and the Chinese are building a network of ports, roads, and railways to link Kashgar to Gwadar.

On the whole, Pakistan has not been able to capitalize on its location.  Like the diamonds of Sierra Leone, Pakistan’s geo-strategic location has been more curse than a blessing.  This is partially due to a tough and rather unforgiving neighborhood.  To the west are Afghanistan and Iran.  Afghanistan, the fabled graveyard of empires, is terminally unstable.  The Saudis, Iranians, Pakistanis, Emiratis, and Indians are all jockeying for positions in the vacuum of Afghanistan.  Each conflagration results in the displacement of millions of Afghans and an influx of refugees in Pakistan.  The Islamic Republic of Iran is a Shiite theocracy internationally isolated since the Islamic revolution of 1979.  It has a bitter relationship with the West and Israel.  Iran is also locked in an Intra-Muslim cold war with predominantly Sunni Arabia across the Persian Gulf.  It fought a bitter 8-year war with Arab-Sunni-led Iraq in which well over a million people died.  Pakistan is one of the theaters of Sunni Arab and Shiite Persia sectarian rivalry with each side maintaining and supporting proxies often resulting in sectarian disharmony in Pakistan.

To Pakistan’s north are two of the most powerful countries in the world, Russia and China along with the energy-rich “Stans” of Central Asia.  Russia is the former superpower (USSR) in whose breakup Pakistan played no small part.  China, the world’s first superpower is now on the cusp of reclaiming that position.  Russia is the largest country in the world by area.  China is the largest country in the world by population.

To Pakistan’s south, is the port of Gwadar close to the straits of Hormuz.  This critical chokepoint is Arabian Peninsula juts upwards into the Persian Gulf at exactly its narrowest and shallowest point.  It is from these shipping lanes that 30% of the planet’s oil is exported to fuel the global economy.   To Pakistan’s east is the contested territory of Kashmir and to its south is the arch-rival and nuclear power, India.  Pakistan and India have a deep-rooted animus that goes back to the bloody “partition” of British India.  Pakistan and India have fought five wars (1948, 1965, 1971, 1982, 1999), four over the disputed territory of Kashmir (1948, 1965, 1982, 1999).  Today, well over a million men face each other across a highly militarized “working boundary” and “line of control” between the two combatants.  The border frequently conflagrates into artillery exchanges for which each side passionately blames the other.  Indo/Pak enmity remains one of the world’s most dangerous flashpoints with a nuclear overhang.

Pakistan then is a country where geography, history, religion, civilizations, and ancient routes collide and not always in a good way.  It is a mosaic of cultures, a confluence of civilizations, and a mecca for trouble.

________________

[1] Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Have a special non-provincial status.

[2] Azad Kashmir is an independent state.

[3] Outside of the Arctic Circle?

[4] He did not actually say that; it was a satirical comment in Punch magazine.