The Struggle Between Religious Authority and its Violent Counterfeit.
Violence becomes harder to defeat when it arrives wrapped in the vocabulary of faith. In Pakistan, militant organizations do not rely on weapons alone; they seek moral permission. Terms such as jihad, shahada and takfir are lifted from centuries of juristic debate, stripped of conditions and institutional authority, and repackaged as slogans that can turn […]
Pakistan Strategic Red Lines and the Houthi Threat
The Middle East security environment faces unprecedented disruption as non-state armed actors project advanced military power far beyond their immediate borders. The Houthi movement has rapidly evolved from a localized Zaydi revivalist group into a heavily armed actor threatening state sovereignty and international commerce. This systemic transformation presents a severe challenge to regional security and […]
Federalism Should be a Living, Evolving Arrangement
Federalism rests on a simple bargain: a country divides sovereignty between a national government and constituent units, each with powers the other cannot casually revoke. The bargain works when the units are balanced enough that none can dominate the rest, and when each is small enough to govern responsively. Pakistan’s four-province structure fails both tests, […]
Pakistan Shift from Strategic Restraint to Sovereign Self-Defence
The worsening security environment along the Durand Line reflects a fundamental collapse of diplomatic engagement between Islamabad and Kabul. Following the Taliban takeover in 2021, Pakistan extended significant diplomatic and economic goodwill by keeping its Kabul mission operational and facilitating international evacuations. Islamabad actively championed unfreezing $9 billion in Afghan foreign assets across international and […]
Has US accepted China as superpower?
Sometimes the symbolism surrounding a summit says as much as the substance of the talks. The arrival of Chinese President Xi Jinping in Washington last week was one such moment. When Xi’s aircraft landed at Joint Base Andrews, a red carpet was rolled out. President Donald Trump himself went to the tarmac to receive his […]
The Diaspora Pakistan Hasn’t Called on Yet
The chairman of Overseas Pakistanis Foundation boarded a series of flights earlier this year to Germany, South Korea, and Japan. During that trip, his responsibility was to listen directly to diaspora communities and address their concerns. It’s a minor but significant observation. Despite having over 9 million citizens across 115 countries, a single official travels […]
AI and Social Catastrophe
Over the past 12 months, the capabilities of frontier AI models have remained a central topic of debate. Recent performance demonstrations across a variety of technical fields (maths and bio-genetics in particular) show that scepticism around raw capability at least is a dated position. However, there are still question marks around financial viability, regulation of […]
Reuters Amplifies Unverified Taliban Claims Against Pakistan
A recent story published by Reuters quoting the Afghan Taliban Ministry of Defense alleges that individuals killed or captured during clashes in Kunar and Nuristan infiltrated from Pakistan. By uncritically echoing these claims without forensic verification or corroborating evidence, the news agency has compromised basic standards of objective journalism. Photographic evidence released on social media […]
Taliban, Resistance, Nuristan and The Return of History
The fighting that erupted this weekend in Kamdesh district of Nuristan and spilt into Kunar’s Nari district is, on its surface, a familiar story: the Afghanistan Freedom Front (AFF) claims to have repelled a Taliban assault backed by ground troops and drones, captured checkpoints, and pushed Taliban units back toward Nari. Independent reporting confirms clashes […]