Islamabad, Pakistan – Pakistan entered a brand new yr in a state of relative calm after tumultuous 30 months, marked by risky politics, a controversial election, and an economic system teetering on the breaking point.
As home politics stabilises and economic system hopes for a turnaround in South Asia’s second-most populous nation, international coverage and safety challenges are more likely to emerge because the nation’s most urgent issues this yr.
Analysts predict a troublesome 2025 for Pakistan, because it manages ties with its rapid neighbours, allies and adversaries the world over, in addition to with the US, the place Donald Trump is about to return to energy later this month.
Most of Pakistan’s international coverage and safety challenges come up resulting from its neighbourhood, primarily Afghanistan to its west and archrival India on the east.
Violence by armed teams and rebels intensified throughout Pakistan after the Afghan Taliban seized Kabul in 2021. In 2024, armed assaults claimed the lives of practically 700 regulation enforcement personnel, making it one of many deadliest years in a rustic of 240 million individuals.
The assaults have been primarily carried out by the Pakistan Taliban (Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, TTP), an armed group that considers the Afghan Taliban its ideological twin. Separate insurgent assaults focused websites associated to the China-Pakistan Financial Hall (CPEC), a $62bn megaproject that has introduced Islamabad and Beijing nearer than ever as political and financial allies.
Christopher Clary, a non-resident fellow at Stimson Heart, a US-based nonprofit, and an affiliate professor of political science on the College at Albany, says Pakistan faces its “most extreme” nationwide safety problem “in at the very least a decade and presumably because the Nineties”.
“Pakistan has no grand strategic selection apart from to get its financial home so as and restore its relationships with different nice powers and regional neighbours. This seemingly entails years of labor, and it’s not clear that Pakistan has years to try this work earlier than the home tumbles in,” Clary informed Al Jazeera.
Right here’s a lowdown on the nations that would be the focus of Islamabad’s international coverage this yr:
China
Pakistani authorities regularly tout their “deeper than the oceans, taller than the mountains” friendship with China. However 2024 revealed cracks in that relationship.
Assaults on Chinese language residents and pursuits culminated, forcing a uncommon public rebuke by Beijing’s envoy to Islamabad. “It’s unacceptable for us to be attacked twice in solely six months,” Jiang Zaidong stated at an occasion in Islamabad in October.
Muhammad Faisal, a international coverage knowledgeable on China, warns that whereas China will proceed to offer monetary help to Pakistan, any additional growth of the CPEC undertaking within the nation is unlikely.
“Pakistan should skillfully navigate mounting strain from Beijing for a ‘Joint Safety Mechanism’, primarily placing Chinese language safety personnel on Pakistani territory which, in flip, would make them the goal of militants complicating present safety measures,” Faisal informed Al Jazeera.
Chinese language troopers manning the nation’s tasks on Pakistani soil would characterize an admission of Islamabad’s safety failures, improve the danger of Chinese language nationals being focused, and in addition amplify the politically delicate chance of Chinese language fighters killing Pakistani nationals.
In the meantime, consultants additionally concern that Trump’s adversarial stance in direction of China might push Beijing to demand public help from Pakistan, which can then be pressured to stroll a diplomatic tightrope as a way to keep away from annoying Washington, an previous ally.
Trump has taken a persistently hardline place on China, together with his first time period seeing a commerce conflict between the 2 financial powers. In his second stint, the US chief has pledged to impose as much as 60 p.c tariffs on Chinese language imports.
“However since Pakistan isn’t excessive on Trump administration’s worldwide agenda, there’s a silver lining. But, uncertainty is the widespread denominator of each of Pakistan’s challenges with China,” Faisal stated.
Kamran Bokhari, senior director on the US-based New Strains Institute for Technique and Coverage, stated China’s frustrations with Pakistan stem from its in depth investments within the CPEC yielding few returns. He added that China’s predicament might work to the US’s benefit.
“China is already fairly upset with Pakistan and the connection has been terse for a while. However Beijing is in a repair as a result of it’s knee-deep in Pakistan, due to CPEC funding of billions, with out getting any profit from it. So, China being in a quagmire in Pakistan is sweet for the US,” Bokhari informed Al Jazeera.
The USA
Pakistan’s relations with the US return to its independence from British rule and emergence as a brand new nation in 1947. However Islamabad-Washington ties have largely pivoted on how Pakistan aided US insurance policies within the area, primarily in Afghanistan, which noticed the Soviet invasion within the Nineteen Seventies and Nineteen Eighties, or the US-led “conflict on terror” following the 9/11 assaults in 2001.
With the Afghan Taliban again in energy in Kabul, the Pakistan-US strategic partnership within the South Asian area has dwindled. Whereas the US is now much less invested in Afghanistan, Pakistan has regularly moved in direction of China for financial, navy and technological wants.
Hassan Abbas, professor on the Nationwide Protection College in Washington, DC, believes Pakistan should “fastidiously navigate” its ties with the US amid tensions with China and India. He says “whereas nervousness is clear” on Pakistan’s half, dramatic adjustments within the relationship seem unlikely.
“Safety points and regional challenges, similar to instability in Afghanistan,” Abbas informed Al Jazeera, “are more likely to dominate bilateral interactions.” Abbas can be the writer of The Return of Taliban: Afghanistan after Individuals Left.
Bokhari stated Pakistan stays a low precedence for the US, which has extra urgent world points such because the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the a number of Center East conflicts to sort out.
“Proper now, I don’t see any tensions rising to important ranges between the 2 nations and Pakistan is taking part in its playing cards very safely. In DC, the notion about Pakistan is that it’s a weak, messy state which wants to determine its personal enterprise first earlier than anything,” he stated.
India
India stays the greatest international coverage conundrum for Pakistan.
Whereas restricted interactions happen at multilateral boards, relations have been virtually frozen for years. Tensions over Kashmir additional intensified after New Delhi stripped Indian-administered Kashmir of its restricted autonomy in 2019, triggering a robust condemnation by Pakistan. Each India and Pakistan rule over elements of Kashmir, however declare the Himalayan area in its entirety, making it one of many world’s longest and bloodiest navy conflicts.
“The asymmetry with India is more and more stark, and Pakistan has few choices to compel India to take it severely that don’t endanger different Pakistani international coverage targets,” analyst Clary informed Al Jazeera, including that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has “little ideological curiosity” in rapprochement with Pakistan and “sees it as impractical throughout a interval of home instability” in Pakistan.
Abdul Basit, a former Pakistani envoy to India, views the Kashmir subject as a unbroken impasse requiring behind-the-scenes diplomacy. “India has proven no willingness for flexibility after the constitutional modification,” he informed Al Jazeera, referring to the Modi authorities’s scrapping of Article 370, the regulation that granted Indian-administered Kashmir its partial autonomy.
With India getting nearer to the West, primarily the US, over their widespread enemy in China, Basit thinks Islamabad should discover methods to have interaction with New Delhi.
“In any other case, we’ll hold transferring from one stalemate to the subsequent and by no means have the ability to put our relationship on a trajectory of constructing regular relations. That, for me, is the crux of the matter in terms of India,” the retired envoy stated.
Nevertheless, Bokhari of the New Strains Institute for Technique and Coverage thinks it might be India that is perhaps within the US crosshairs this yr and discover itself below strain over its rivalry with China.
“India has a lot nearer and sensible ties with Iran, the place it’s constructing a port. Additionally it is shopping for oil from Russia, which is waging a conflict in Ukraine. In order that they [India] have a much bigger probability of being put below strain by the incoming [Trump] administration,” he stated.
For Pakistan to draw US consideration, in accordance with Bokhari, it should supply a strategic worth because it did throughout the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and throughout the post-9/11 US wars.
“If you need US consideration, you need to supply them one thing that might considerably generate an curiosity for the US, and solely then you may get consideration,” he stated. “It wasn’t that the US appreciated Pakistan or turned finest mates, it was simply that Pakistan supplied a goal.”
Iran
The yr 2024 turned out to be a cataclysmic yr for Iran, because it noticed its geopolitical pursuits within the Center East endure heavy losses and Israel even launching direct assaults on its territories on a number of events.
However the yr started with Iran launching assaults inside Pakistan’s Balochistan province, citing an armed group known as Jaish al-Adl as a risk to its safety in border areas. The assault prompted a swift navy retaliation by Pakistan. However the tensions between the primarily Muslim neighbours didn’t escalate, with Tehran resorting to diplomacy to resolve the difficulty.
Umer Karim, researcher on the College of Birmingham in the UK, foresees the “uneasy rapprochement” persevering with, in addition to the emergence of recent challenges with Trump’s return to the White Home.
Karim warns {that a} deterioration in Pakistan-Iran ties might worsen border safety, emboldening Baloch separatists who’re reported to have hideouts in Iran. The Baloch rebels have been combating for many years for a separate homeland.
“Pakistan will pursue optimistic engagement with Iran to keep away from additional antagonism amid rising home violence,” stated Karim.
