Author: Shakeel Akhtar

Strategic Resilience and the New World Order Pakistan, Muslim World Cooperation and the Contest Between Military Power and Human Judgment Man Proposes, God Disposes The old English proverb, “Man proposes, God disposes,” carries a timeless lesson for a world increasingly absorbed in military competition, technological advancement and geopolitical ambition. Nations devise strategies, build alliances and acquire sophisticated weapons in pursuit of security. Yet history reminds us that no plan is immune to uncertainty, and no military advantage guarantees political success. The emerging relationship between Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries deserves consideration in this wider context. Its importance lies…

Modernity, national confidence and the value of freedom There is a curious phenomenon in the life of nations: what the outside world recognises as an achievement, people at home can sometimes take for granted. We become so accustomed to what we possess that we forget how difficult it was to build, how much sacrifice it required, and how easily its value can be overlooked. Pakistan deserves to be viewed through this wider perspective. Across the Muslim world, Pakistan carries a distinct identity: a country with a modern state, a professional military, a strategic nuclear capability, scientific and technical talent, and…

When political confrontation paralyses the state, ordinary citizens pay the price. Pakistan needs clear red lines, responsible leadership and a national debate on the limits of agitation. Pakistan must confront a question that extends beyond any government, political party or individual leader: how long can a nation afford to make political confrontation a recurring feature of its public life before the confrontation itself becomes a threat to national stability? The repeated spectacle of long marches, road blockages, containers deployed across public routes and the mobilisation of state machinery against anticipated protests should compel every serious stakeholder to reflect. When political…

Power can silence a voice, redraw a boundary and cast a long shadow over a nation. But can power, by itself, make an action right? That is the question the world must confront whenever the language of law grows quiet before the language of force. For a country such as Pakistan, the answer is not merely a matter of diplomatic theory; it touches the foundations of sovereignty, security and justice. A world in which rules bend to the will of the powerful is a world in which no nation can feel entirely secure. This thought returned to me on 8…

There is a point at which propaganda stops being a battle of narratives and begins to affect real human lives. A photograph, a television headline, a social-media post or an allegation repeated often enough can turn an ordinary person into a terrorist in the public imagination before the facts have been independently established. By the time the truth is examined, a reputation may already have been destroyed, a family humiliated and an entire community pushed further into suspicion. The recent episode involving Muhammad Asif, presented alive at a Pakistani military press conference on October 1, 2026, is a striking example.…

The United Nations still provides the world with an important diplomatic stage, but the stage should not be confused with the balance of power behind it. When major powers disagree, the institution can become a place where positions are declared rather than problems resolved. The recent General Assembly once again exposed the distance between international representation and the realities of power. For Pakistan, however, the more important question is not whether the UN has lost some of its effectiveness. It is how a country should operate when the international environment itself is becoming less predictable. Pakistan’s security challenges are no…

The Middle East is entering another dangerous phase in which old rivalries, new alliances, and competing security calculations are becoming increasingly intertwined. For Pakistan and Turkiye, this presents a difficult strategic question: how can they maintain important relationships with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states without becoming trapped in conflicts whose origins and political end-states remain uncertain? Yemen provides perhaps the clearest example. The temptation is to view regional security through a simple formula: the friend of my friend is my friend, and the enemy of my enemy is therefore my ally. Yet this logic has become one of the…

“The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.” Helen Keller, who became blind at a very young age and lived from 1880 to 1968, is widely associated with these words. They speak to something much larger than physical blindness. A person can have sight and still fail to understand what is unfolding in front of them. Governments and nations can face the same problem. They may possess intelligence, surveillance, military capability and an abundance of information, yet still miss the meaning of the moment. That distinction between seeing and understanding is particularly relevant to the…

Pakistan’s future cannot be escorted by strategic minds alone. A nation certainly needs strategic vision, strong institutions, defence preparedness and the capacity to read the changing world. But long before a young Pakistani becomes a strategist, an officer, a scientist, a professional or a leader, someone must first teach that child how to read, how to think and how to understand where he or she comes from. Sometimes that nation-building begins with nothing more than a pen, a piece of paper and a teacher who refuses to believe that his work is small. The life ofMaster Bashir Ahmed Sahib is…

When the world enters an age of shadow wars, the first defence of a state is the strength of its system I sometimes wonder whether, as a writer, I have become a kind of parallel state in my own mind-not a state that commands armies or signs agreements, but one that watches, observes and tries to understand the wars that governments cannot always explain to their citizens. The world is entering an era in which war is no longer confined to the battlefield. Some wars are visible; others operate through missiles, drones, information, economic pressure, political influence and carefully cultivated…