Pakistan: Eight Decades of Strategic Drift

Pakistan just celebrated 79 years of Independence today [August 14], with the national leadership calling for peace, stability and reforms.

There was much emphasis on resolve and capacity of the nation to defend sovereignty and national interests reflecting on Marka e Haq Pakistan operation launched to counter Operation Sindoor in May 2025.

In the past year the country has been in the global limelight for mediation of the US and Iran Memorandum of Understanding which set a timeline of 60 days for a final accord. Ironically this timeline has lapsed just a couple of days prior to Islamabad’s self-congratulatory celebrations.

"Pakistan's approach is clear. We believe that disputes, no matter how serious, must ultimately be addressed through dialogue and diplomacy," President Asif Ali Zardari stated, in his Independence Day Address flaunting the mediation nonsuccess.

Suffice to say that Islamabad is unwilling to hold a dialogue with India its principal neighbour and thus the claim by the President of addressing disputes howsoever serious through diplomacy falls flat.

Neither is Pakistan willing to engage proactively with its Western neighbour Afghanistan continuing coercive approach of evicting Afghan refugees who have spent decades in the country and bombing Kabul and Kandahar from time to time.

Now a new stratagem has been unfolded by the Inter Services Intelligence [ISI] in launching Afghan resistance groups across Chitral into Badakhshan province.

While the nuclear weapons are seen as a symbol of national pride but as Pakistan’s academic Sadia Tasleem notes in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientist commentary the bomb failed to deliver security in May 2025 as India launched deep strikes in the country.

In a way this suits the Pakistan military as it conveys a degree of indispensability of the conventional force.

One outcome of the strategic drift in Pakistan’s foreign and security policy is ironically the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement [MJDA] inked with Turkey and Saudi Arabia on August 07. This clearly takes away Pakistan from the centre of gravity of national interest and influence in South Asia.

The MJDA for short will not resolve Pakistan’s security dilemmas which rest in its neighbourhood and not far away Middle East, yet the feel-good factor to the national and military leadership tempts a drift away from reality, reflecting in the glory of Saudi largesse and Turkey’s expansionist interests.

On the domestic front, the situation remains grim politically as well as economically.

The military’s trial balloon for creating new provinces floated through its key intermediary in the national governance structure – Mohsin Naqvi, the Interior Minister who is an independent member of the Senate not belonging to the ruling PML N clearly indicating which side his loyalties lie.

With the National Assembly and Senate due to meet from August 17 it remains to be seen if this trial balloon will lead to a Constitutional Amendment. Yet, creating more provinces is the least of Pakistan’s challenges which are in governance where corruption, nepotism and elite interest dominate.

On the economic front there is a façade of order but one that is maintained by sustainment of the debt bulge which continues to grow each year with servicing managed through rollovers and heavy dependence on remittances. PM Shehbaz in his Independence Day address acknowledged the role of remittances, saying, “During the past two years, remittances of overseas Pakistanis have increased by $11.3 billion, reflecting their continued confidence in the policies of the government".

The International Monetary Fund [IMF] appears to be helpless as Islamabad uses the good word from Washington and the EFF mechanism continues to support the economy.

Meanwhile the Financial Action Task Force [FATF] is set to consider return of Pakistan to the grey list unless once again the Trump administration bails out.

The state of agriculture in the country is raising alarm where once again the blame is being placed on India for holding the Indus Water Treaty in abeyance even as inability for Pakistan to manage its water resources is a cause for frequent floods and drought. The IWT abeyance by India has given a fait accompli to Pak leadership to conceal mismanagement over the years.

Internal security continues to remain Pakistan’s most serious challenge for now as the country has the dubious distinction of having topped the Global Terrorism Index 2026 and is most likely set to beat its own record of terrorism fatalities in the coming Index as well.

Large swaths of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are not under state control with night curfew now standard in many districts. The only panacea for Pakistan has been to name the terrorists as Fitna e Kharij and Fitna e Hindustan blaming Afghanistan and India respectively for its own internal security incapabilities.

To sum up in his Independence Day address, PM Shehbaz described it as an "immense honour and pride" for the country that the struggle for independence was led by Quaid-e-Azam, Allama Muhammad Iqbal and many other distinguished leaders. "Our forefathers endured immense hardships and made unparalleled sacrifices, ultimately bringing the struggle for freedom to a successful conclusion," he said.

It would also have been apt to state that generations over the past eight decades through their greed for power and personal aggrandizement, failed the founding fathers.

State fracture in 1971 which led to the creation of Bangladesh has not led to any attempt to rationalise the event in the national discourse from the socio political perspective. With a military dominant view prevalent the loss is attributed to India's attempts to change the status quo rather than failure to meet the aspirations of the people of then East Pakistan at large. This chapter and lack of lessons therefrom by the strategic community has led to the elites continuing with the policy of acceding to the military' choices as a path of least resistance contributing to the strategic drift.

While, there maybe no danger of immediate state fracture in Pakistan the state of strategic drift appears to be a permanent feature of the nation's character, something that the neighbourhood that is India and Pakistan’s well wishers China, U.S. Turkey and Saudi Arabia need to factor in their engagement.