Haq's Musings

Riaz Haq writes this data-driven blog to provide information, express his opinions and make comments on many topics. Subjects include personal activities, education, South Asia, South Asian community, regional and international affairs and US politics to financial markets. For investors interested in South Asia, Riaz has another blog called South Asia Investor at http://www.southasiainvestor.com and a YouTube video channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkrIDyFbC9N9evXYb9cA_gQ

Showing posts with label Collapse. Show all posts

Monday, January 23, 2023

Pakistan Is Not Collapsing!

Pakistan is currently facing major economic and political crises. These are partly of its own making but mostly the result of external shocks in terms of commodity prices that have exacerbated the nation's balance of payments. The Pakistani military's unnecessary meddling in politics and resulting political instability have not helped either. The unprecedented floods in the country have further added to the severity of the challenges.

US and China Compete For Influence in Pakistan. Source: Wall Street Journal

Pakistan's multidimensional crisis has spurred many in India and elsewhere to predict the Pakistani state's imminent collapse. Some disgruntled Pakistanis have also jumped on the doomsayers' bandwagon. What is often ignored in such oft-repeated dire predictions is Pakistan's size and its geopolitical importance in the world. Indian analyst Amit Bhandari has summarized it well in a recent Hindustan Times Op-ed: "Despite the severity of the challenges, Pakistan is unlikely to collapse — largely because of its geostrategic importance. A bailout by the IMF or friendly countries will happen". Let me expand on Bhandari's comments:

1. The collapse of a large country like Pakistan will be very destabilizing for the South Asia region and the world. Pakistan is the world's 5th most populous country. It has a large military armed with nuclear weapons.

2. Pakistan's location is geopolitically very important. It borders Afghanistan, China, India, Iran and the Indian Ocean. It has a coastline next to the sea lanes that transport the bulk of the world's oil. It is connected to multiple strategically important regions of the world: Central Asia, Middle East, South Asia and West Asia.

3. China, the United States and Gulf Arabs have expressed a strong interest in maintaining Pakistan's stability. All of them are offering assistance to Pakistan. China will continue to support Pakistan as it tries to stabilize its financial situation, state media quoted President Xi Jinping as saying, according to Reuters. Prince Mohammad Bin Salman of Saudi Arabia has offered to increase loans and investments of over $10 billion to Pakistan, according to Bloomberg. American officials have said they support the IMF assistance to Pakistan, according to Dawn newspaper.

4. Pakistan has received pledges of $10 billion worth of loans and grants to rebuild after devastating floods last year, according to Bloomberg News. The amount pledged exceeds the $8 billion that Pakistan sought at the United Nations Donors Conference in Geneva, Switzerland.

Debt to GDP Ratios. India 91%, Pakistan 87%. Source: Visual Capitalist

Pakistanis are no strangers to forecasts of their country's collapse. There have been many such forecasts over the last 75 years, starting with its birth. Western and Indian forecasts of Pakistan's collapse are not new. Lord Mountbatten, the British Viceroy of India who oversaw the partition agreed with the assessment of Pakistan made by India's leaders when he described Pakistan as a "Nissen hut" or a "temporary tent" in a conversation with Jawarhar Lal Nehru.

Here's the exact quote from Mountbatten: "administratively it [wa]s the difference between putting up a permanent building, a nissen hut or a tent. As far as Pakistan is concerned we are putting up a tent. We can do no more." The Brits and the Hindu leadership of India both fully expected Pakistan to fold soon after partition.

1999 DoD Forecast: Pakistan Disappears by 2015

A 1999 US Defense Department study titled "Asia 2025" forecast Pakistan's collapse by 2015. It further said that Pakistan would become part of a "South Asian Superstate" controlled by India as a "regional hegemon". Two of the study's contributors were "South Asia experts" of Indian origin. Much of the South Asia section of this study appears to be wishful thinking rather than serious analysis. Resilient Pakistan has defied this and many other similar forecasts of its demise since its birth.

Goldman Sachs Forecast Over Next 50 Years

Goldman Sachs analysts Kevin Daly and Tadas Gedminas project Pakistan's economy to grow to become the world's sixth largest by 2075. In a research paper titled "The Path to 2075", the authors forecast Pakistan's GDP to rise to $12.7 trillion with per capita income of $27,100. India’s GDP in 2075 is projected at $52.5 trillion and per capita GDP at $31,300. Bangladesh is projected to be a $6.3 trillion economy with per capita income of $31,000. By 2075, China will be the top global economy, followed by India 2nd, US 3rd, Indonesia 4th, Nigeria 5th and Pakistan 6th. The forecast is based primarily on changes in the size of working age populations over the next 50 years.

OpenAI's ChatGPT on Pakistan's Possible Collapse

There's no question that Pakistan is in the midst of very serious political and economic crises. The nation is deeply divided politically. The country's economic performance is dismal. It is of paramount importance for Pakistanis to come together to deal honestly with their internal political and economic differences. Doing so will help Pakistan's large young population realize their full potential to join the ranks of the world's top ten economies.

Here's a Wall Street Journal video on US-China Competition in Pakistan:

https://youtu.be/wvw-85CC1t4

Digital Pakistan 2022: Broadband Penetration 90% Among 15+ Age Group

Resilient Pakistan Defies Doomsayers

US and China Compete For Influence in Pakistan

Riaz Haq's Youtube Channel

PakAlumni: Pakistani Social Network

Monday, March 23, 2009

Pakistan's Demise Imminent?

"We're now reaching the point where within one to six months we could see the collapse of the Pakistani state, also because of the global financial crisis, which just exacerbates all these problems. . . . The collapse of Pakistan, al-Qaeda acquiring nuclear weapons, an extremist takeover -- that would dwarf everything we've seen in the war on terror today", said Bush Iraq adviser, David Kilcullen, on the eve of Pakistan Day commemorating Pakistan Resolution of 1940 that started the Pakistan Movement leading to the creation of the nation on August 14, 1947. Kilcullen is not alone in the belief that Pakistani state is in danger of collapse. Others, such as Shahan Mufti of the Global Post, argue that Pakistan is dying a slow death with each act of terrorism on its soil.

Appearing to give credence to the latest dire forecast of Pakistan as a "failed state" or a "proud nation" in "slow demise", Pakistan's TV channels showed live pictures of Pakistan's founders' shrine in Karachi plunged in total darkness on the evening of Pakistan Day 2009. The failure of a nation to keep the lights on at its important monuments on its National Day is symbolic of the serious crises the country faces today. But does it mean that the state is about to collapse? Let us examine this forecast in a little more depth.

While the extraordinary failures of Pakistan's ruling political-feudal-military elite are largely responsible for the multiple crises of food, water, electricity, militancy, economy, overall governance and public confidence, the last three decades (1980s, 1990s and the current decade) have been dominated by a series of disastrous foreign interventions in the region that have contributed to such failures.

In late 1970s and most of the 1980s, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan brought the United States CIA into the region, which put together a US-Saudi-Pakistani coalition to arm, train and indoctrinate an entire generation of Pashtoon men along the Pak-Afghan border. The rallying cry for Afghan resistance was Islamic Jihad against the infidels and the fighters were honored by Americans, Saudis and Pakistanis as Mujaheddin. The Islamic madrassahs in Pakistan's tribal belt rapidly multiplied as the anti-Soviet coalition invested in organizing a powerful insurgency that eventually brought down the Soviet Empire. By the end of the decade of 1980s, Afghanistan became the graveyard of the Red Army and caused the collapse of the Soviet Empire. The American-Saudi-Pakistani victory, however, could eventually turn out to be a Pyrrhic victory.

As the Americans and the Saudis ended their involvement in the region in late 1980s and early 1990s, a very large number of armed Mujahideen became unemployed. Afghanistan was left in ruins by a decade of conflict, and Pakistan was heavily sanctioned by the United States. No effort was made in rebuilding the region. The Afghan fighters had no other skills or opportunities and received no help in finding useful employment. Some of them started fighting among themselves for control of Afghanistan, while others went to Pakistan to settle and find unskilled jobs. Some were used by Pakistan's intelligence service, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to support an insurgency in Indian occupied Kashmir.

As Afghanistan became increasingly chaotic and total anarchy prevailed for most of the decade in 1990s, the Afghans got tired of the lawlessness of the war lords and yearned for restoring some semblance of law and order. It was under these circumstances that, with the help of Pakistan, the Taliban emerged as a force from the remnants of the Mujahideen and their offsprings, many of whom grew up in refugee camps in Pakistan and attended madrassahs in the border region. Though they enforced draconian laws and imposed rough justice, the Taliban did succeed in bringing relative peace to the war-torn nation. Unfortunately, they also became unwitting hosts to al Qaeda, consisting of mostly Arab Mujahideen led by Osama Bin Laden, who claimed responsibility for the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 (known as 911), in the United States, killing nearly 3000 Americans in New York and Washington.

In retaliation for the 911 tragic attacks, the Americans intervened yet again with deadly force, and drove the Taliban and al Qaeda into the border region of Pakistan known as Federally Administered Tribal Areas(FATA). As expected, the presence of large numbers of insurgents in Pakistan is now threatening the stability of Pakistan and the entire region. The situation has been further exacerbated by the unilateral and heavy-handed actions of the US military, causing large numbers of civilian casualties on both sides of the border. These increasing civilian casualties are fueling a rage in both Afghanistan and Pakistan against the US presence and against Pakistan government's support of it. And, according to media reports, the US is preparing to expand air strikes to Pakistan's major city of Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province. Such an escalation will make Kilcullen's dire forecast more plausible. It will also increase the chances of the region becoming the graveyard of yet another empire and its military.

Is Pakistani state on the verge of collapse? Will Pakistan become a failed state within the next six months? Such dire prognoses are not new for Pakistanis. But, in the unlikely event that it does fail, Pakistani leadership's monumental failures will be the main contributors to such a catastrophic development. But the real answer to these questions will depend largely on what policy the Obama administration chooses to pursue in the region. If American military continues to be seen as a foreign occupation force by the vast majority of the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan, it is destined to suffer the same fate as the Greeks, the British and Russians before it, unless President Obama changes course dramatically. Even if America does miraculously achieve a military victory in Afghanistan, it will likely be another Pyrrhic Victory in the absence of a more enlightened U.S. strategy. As Kilcullen says in his latest interview, the stakes are much higher than ever: "The collapse of Pakistan, al-Qaeda acquiring nuclear weapons, an extremist takeover -- that would dwarf everything we've seen in the war on terror today."

To quote an unknown Urdu poet, Hum to dubaiN gay sanam, tum ko bhi lay dubaiN gay.
Loosely translated, it says: As we drown, we'll take you down with us.

In other words, it's a cry for help: Please save us from ourselves.

Here's a video clip from Intelligence Squared debate about Pakistan: