Strategic depth, does it promote our strategic interests?

Pakistan in order to gain strategic depth helped US during Afghan war but as this war ended Pakistan stands almost alone to bear its consequences.

After Afghan war Pakistan was left with more than 3 million refugees to care for, thousands of madrassas funded by foreign money (Saudi Arabia) where youth was recruited to get training for militant activities, a Kalashnikov culture and the drug trade especially in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) which also became heaven for the militant outfits.

Kudos to our flawed strategic depth doctrine, which was adopted without realizing the long term effects that it would have on Pakistan’s society, culture and survival as a nation state.

After 9/11 the situation has further complicated, now Pakistan is fighting against the same militants who were once trained by its incorporation with CIA. As Pakistan’s competition for influence in the region vastly outweighed the country’s interests in the “War on Terror”, its perceived policy ambivalence towards militants was in actuality a conscious decision as Pakistan Army never considered Al-Qaeda, the Afghan Taliban or the Punjabi Taliban a threat to the State.

Moreover, increasing ‘Indian influence’ in Afghanistan is creating even more security concerns for Pakistan.
Policy makers of Pakistan believe that India’s expensive, extensive and growing Afghan presence is a direct threat to Pakistan and after the incident of 9/11 this area of strategic depth has been transformed into a second military frontier with India”

India is effectively pursuing its long term policy of ‘strategic encirclement’ of Pakistan but unfortunately in response to it Pakistan does not have effective counter diplomatic and security policy towards Afghanistan.
It is very much evident that Pakistan’s security policy towards Afghanistan needs to be reviewed as this idea of strategic depth have failed badly and now ultimately the policy makers should realize that no strategic arrangement can be fruitful if it is based on country’s compromise of sovereignty.


Bushra
2324 hours
Sunday 12 January