Islamabad Symposium 2025 underscored a decisive pivot from sentimental brotherhood to geo-economic realism
The author is a Physician of Philosophy in Semiotics and Philosophy of Communication from Charles College Prague. She may be reached at shaziaanwer@yahoo.com
The primary session of the Islamabad Symposium 2025 was held on October 15, across the time Pakistan and Afghanistan had been engaged in border clashes. The theme of the symposium was “Balancing Relationships Between the World North and World South: Challenges and Alternatives”. The inaugural session was adopted by the launch of a ebook, Pakistan’s Seek for Peace with Afghanistan: Statecraft, Coverage, and Technique, written by Dr Muhammad Zahid Latif, the Rector NUST.
Each the ebook and the symposium’s discussions, printed on-line, offered invaluable insights for academicians and policymakers in regards to the management position Pakistan can play as a serious companion of the World South, and the form of relationship it ought to construct with Afghanistan.
The audio system additionally uncovered the fallacies of the Western “rules-based order” and highlighted the rising challenges for the West after its double requirements had been revealed throughout the Gaza genocide.
The vast majority of audio system emphasised that the World North stays unresponsive to the problems confronted by the World South (residence to 86% of the world’s inhabitants) and that the World South has now opted for inclusive multilateralism and collective growth and cooperation as a response to weaponised interdependence.
There is no such thing as a doubt that the Western mannequin of a rules-based order has suffered a lack of credibility at a time when the West is already dropping energy, whereas the World South is providing an alternate strategy primarily based on non-interference in inside affairs, indivisible safety and respect for civilisational variety.
The important thing takeaway from the Symposium is {that a} multi-nodal world order is evolving, and the period of domination by one nation or a bunch of nations is coming to an finish. The evolving geopolitics is reworking the worldwide order.
The brand new geo-economics is rebalancing North-South financial and commerce relations, and the altering geopolitical panorama gives strategic house for Pakistan to leverage its potential. Conversely, this requires a constant and sustainable overseas coverage. Each time state operators are questioned about their irrational and illogical Afghan Coverage, they reply that it was designed to satisfy the calls for of a selected time. These shifting narratives over the Pak-Afghan relationship have already claimed the lives of over 100,000 civilians and safety personnel, but the architects of that coverage haven’t accepted that it was essentially flawed.
The ebook by Dr Latif, launched throughout the symposium, gives considerate and insightful steerage for peaceable coexistence and the long run trajectory of Pak-Afghan relations. Dr Zahid, a retired lieutenant basic of Pakistan Military, has been on the centre of the nation’s strategic panorama for many years. His viewpoint seems clear: the one sustainable relationship Pakistan can have with Afghanistan have to be primarily based on geo-economics relatively than the defective notion of brotherhood.
Pakistan has suffered immensely resulting from its faulty and outdated Afghan coverage and has didn’t revise it even after the APS Peshawar bloodbath of 2014. That tragedy offered a serious alternative for Pakistan to evaluation, revisit and redesign its Afghan coverage. Nevertheless, Islamabad made solely beauty modifications, which additional emboldened the Afghan Taliban to make use of Afghan soil in opposition to Pakistan.
Islamabad has by no means accepted that Kabul has traditionally been a hostile neighbour, and Pakistan’s strategic coverage towards Afghanistan has by no means been rooted in realism, resilience, or adaptability.
From classical to modern strategic thought, it has at all times been emphasised that nationwide curiosity have to be the supreme guideline when making diplomatic, navy or financial choices. However should not such choices serve the core nationwide pursuits: sovereignty, safety, territorial integrity and financial stability.
This time, Pakistan appears severe about ending its pricey love affair with the Afghan Taliban and Afghanistan. Nonetheless, it’s too early to say that the “Pak-Afghan Bhai Bhai” section is altogether over.
