By: Azhar Azam
While to the ire of the United States, China’s blooming marches in each and every field – from trade to space – has mutilated the US crave to solitarily influence the world at will, the rationale behind the US push over China.
China is a gigantic economic power with the world’s largest population and the biggest market. It needs strong and consistent economic drive to remain stable. And China’s Silk Road project – Xi’s idée fixe – unwraps a sublime opportunity.
The flipside is that the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) – the jewel in the crown of Chinese One Belt-One Road (OBOR) mega project – has exceedingly fired up the US angsts. The United States perceives OBOR as a peril to its geopolitical supremacy.
Unlike the Soviet Union’s fiasco when it came across Pakistan – this time, the United States is fluffing to find such a valiant ally to counter China as both Pakistan and China share monumental rapport and also CPEC is crucial for Pakistan’s economy.
As the likelihoods of conventional warfare dry up in modern days; the United States is now deeply converging onto another type of feud – Hybrid War – to impede China’s economic strides, the fulcrum of which is CPEC or the land of Pakistan.
Hybrid War is used as a catchphrase to describe a non-linear or non-traditional warfare which strategizes to destabilize an opponent by clandestine maneuvers such as political disruption, economic subversion, propaganda campaigns (including social media), and cyber assaults in addition to employing conventional warfare tactics.
Delving the depths of cloak-and-dagger activities, nearly all components of hybrid war are deployed toward Pakistan on the back of its increasing geopolitical importance – which serves as the ‘Zipper’ to the Eurasian integration. The ultimate target explicitly is the Pakistan’s nuclear stockpile – the cornerstone of its national security.
Several external factors, with the help of some domestic political and social elements, are running propaganda campaigns to dent core ‘national security’ interest of Pakistan. They are inciting people, especially from the deprived zones, against the national security institutions, hoping to harvest a political-military conflict.
Economic cataclysm is also an important component of irregular warfare which has unfortunately miffed the Pakistan’s economy. The combination of these internal and external elements has purposely restrained the country’s economy to grow.
The menaces of outspread corruption, bad governance, illegal money transfers, nepotism, and marginalization of youth not only substantially paled the Pakistan’s economy but also relayed US and UK an opportunity to place Pakistan on FATF grey-list.
On the global front, Pakistan’s frenemy – the United Sates – has also beckoned to maim the vulnerable economy by influencing IMF, in case Pakistan decides to solicit a bail-out package from international financial institution.
Unarguably India and Pakistan are inevitable foes but as the New Cold War begins in the backcloth of Sino-US trade conflicts and strategic disputes in South China Sea; Pakistan is taking the toll for championing its unprecedented friend, China.
The devised Indo-US strategic partnership is the secret endeavor or the hybrid assault to contain Pakistan by fanning ‘ethno-regional identity conflicts’ – supported by Indian-backed terrorist activities in Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan and terrorist attacks from Afghanistan – alongside developing India into a military might against China.
The United States had also offered India its Patriot air defense system (PAC-3) to shift the balance of power in favor of India as the system is capable of intercepting enemy’s tactical and cruise missiles and aircrafts.
However India annoyed the United States by going for five battery Russian S-400 Triumf for $6 billion, which embraces the same capability as does the PAC-3. Both the American and Russian air defense systems carry high price tags.
India will be deploying these systems alongside China and Pakistan borders. Although it will stance serious intimidations to Pakistan’s national security, however Pakistan’s all-weather ally, China, has already bought S-400 which can deployed to shield either of them.
Israel is also accompanying India to posing hybrid threats and causing unrest in Pakistan. It is now the second-largest arms supplier to India. With the help of Israeli Aerospace Industries (IAS), India is developing short-range and long-range surface-to-air (SAM) missile systems (SAM).
Azriel Bermant – research fellow at National Security Studies, Tel Aviv – opined that Pakistan might be a real nuclear threat to the United States and Israel, instead of Iran and North Korea. The recent republication of his jaundiced analysis could just be a tip of the iceberg, steering at hybrid war on Pakistan.
While the activities of the US navy in South China Sea drive to repress China’s influence, Indian naval presence on Chabahar port in Iran and Duqm port in Oman can target China, Pakistan, and their central CPEC project.
It is due to this Indo-US strategic naval fusion which has goaded China and Pakistan to shore up their naval collaboration and expand maritime surveillance and security in the Indian Ocean to deal with the US contrived proxy, India.
In the newest concept of hybrid war, the United States and India are manipulating the mainstream media to impair the international reputation of Pakistan; implementing a series of disinformation programs, hypothetical analysis, and odious Op-eds.
They oscillate the western minds that Pakistan is a land of terrorism and poverty to prevent the country’s potential CPEC-linked growth – awaited by connecting the economies of European Union, China, Iran, and SAARC.
The media onslaught on Pakistan army and its intelligence service – ISI – is the key gambit of Indo-US hybrid ‘shelling’ on Pakistan to malevolently obscure the country’s remarkable achievements in war on terror.
It is evident that the United States has distinctly reformed its regional strategy to live off India against China and Pakistan but the christened superficial alliance is doomed to collapse because of India’s inability to play a key role in the mixt geopolitics.