Pakistan needs strategic clarity amid transforming world: Mushahid
Pakistan
Pakistan needs strategic clarity amid transforming world: Mushahid Hussain
ISLAMABAD (APP) - Senate Standing Committee on Defence Chairman Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed said Thursday that the country needed strategic clarity to avoid becoming ‘a cat’s paw’ for any nation in the new Cold War era and transforming world that is emerging into a multilateral comity of nations shunning the old unipolar world order.
Syed was delivering his keynote address at the launch ceremony of a book titled, “Collected Works on Foreign Affairs and Security Policy”, authored by Dr Huma Baqai, here at the Institute of Regional Studies.
Senator Syed termed the book a fine piece of document that would guide the professionals and common people alike. He said that foreign policy was a subject that used to get comments every day, and termed the essence of the book as “separating facts from fiction”, a classic Chinese idiom highlighting approach of ancient Chinese scholars who paid great attention to acquiring solid facts in order to arrive at the correct understanding or conclusion.
Opining his critical views, Syed said the terminology of Indo-Pacific term was overloaded in Dr Baqai’s book because the original term was Asia Pacific. The Indo-Pacific term was used by the European Union, the US and others to rope in India which had its own ego of self-projection, he added.
The aspect of the cold war was very importantly highlighted in the book, whereas mentioning of the KSA-Iran rapprochement also significant was also crucial as it was one of the biggest achievements in the region, he said.
Syed commented that the way the world was developing needed to be focused on as there was a lack of institutionalised decision making forum at the civilian and military side of the country which left it with only reactive approaches which also should be harnessed for prudent approaches.
“Pakistan has a strategic location and it needs to be friendly with all and should avoid becoming “cat’s paw” for any other nation in the new Cold War. We are on the right side of history and this century belongs to Asia as predicted by Allama Iqbal in his poetry some 90 years back,” he said while ending his comments with the verses of Dr Allama Mohammad Iqbal.
IRS President Ambassador Nadeem Riyaz moderated the panel discussion that highlighted discourse on the book.
Ambassador Naghmana Hashmi, in her remarks, congratulated Dr Huma Baqai on the publication of her book and termed it an excellent piece of publication. She underscored that the book would be a guiding document for intellectuals, Foreign Office professionals and youth interested in understanding the world affairs. The book, she said, was based on the columns and articles of the author.
The author made a very careful selection of 46 articles out of a 100 written over the years by her and divided them in a chronological order while arranging them into the book’s content.
“She (Dr Baqai) has brilliantly covered the flux the world had witnessed. She takes us through the various stages the world passed from 2019 to so far. The author also covered the flux Pakistan is going through from different levels of political, social and others,” she said.
Senior Journalist, Zahid Hussain, while expressing his view, said that the country was back to a brief 9/11 situation after the withdrawal of the US forces from Afghanistan. He said the author, Dr Huma, had described how resetting of the nation could take place in this scenario.
The author, Dr Huma Baqai, said that it was her third book which she wrote with the vision that a book should be written in an eloquent manner which should be easily understandable.
“Our youth are directionless and our nation is intellectually starved because there is no book reading and writing culture in the society. However, youth is the only hope for our nation as they can drive the real change,” she added.
Baqai commented that her book could serve as a brand of Pakistan which should have more Pakistani perspective in its projection. She added that intellectual hygiene was very important and this book would also be a guiding document for the media fraternity to understand the complex concepts of geopolitics and international relations.
