Act East or act West?

Towards east we had our arch enemy and rival India, so it was natural for Pakistan to look towards the west. I grew up and was raised and conditioned to believe in a geopolitical dream that someday Afghanistan will stabilise, and that will result in the dawn of a new era in trade and energy security for Pakistan. Many decades later, Afghanistan still stood destabilised, and the new era in trade and energy security for Pakistan is still to arrive.

To top it all, Pakistan has launched a military operation 'Ghazab Lil Haq' against Afghanistan, and practically both countries are now in a state of war. If anything, this war is likely to push the actualisation of our western theatre dream further back, and therefore, I think it is about time we started reimagining and rewriting the narrative of this once optimistic but now deeply flawed geopolitical dream. Can we draw a lesson from India in understanding what it takes to make a rightful strategic choice?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched India's Act East policy in 2014. Seen over a decade later, India has been able to build and deepen its strategic and economic ties with almost all the developing countries of North and North East Asia and has been able to extract security, economic and defence-related benefits in partnerships with these countries. Geopolitically, did India make a considerate strategic choice to prioritise its Act East policy by shelving the idea of acting West? Did India miss out on an opportunity to integrate Central Asia with the rest of the region?

Individually pursuing Act East policy may have benefited India; but by not acting towards the West, India ended up depriving the entire continent of Asia of the much-needed political and economic integration and connectivity that it badly needed. Acting East may have been individually beneficial for India, but acting West would have been transformational not only for India but for the entire region. Even Pakistan-Afghanistan relations today could be trade-driven and not security-centric and war-prone.

For India to play the role of integrator and ensure Central Asia's integration and connectivity with the rest of the region, India needs direct land access to Central Asia, a working relationship with Pakistan, a stable Afghanistan and a deep-set strategic partnership with Russia and Iran without them being under Western sanctions. India still put its foot in the SCO, explored the Chabahar route, and even invested in INSTC (International North South Transport Corridor), but the actions did little to promote India as an integrator of Central Asia with the rest of the region; instead, it put India in a direct strategic and security competition with China and its ally Pakistan. Also, being a country acting as a continental integrator, it needs direct/shared borders, connectivity enabling infrastructure, safe passages and corridors, and a capital surplus. India lacked all these advantages, and since China showcases nearly all of them, it was natural for India to conclude that acting West would always mean working under the shadow and dominance of China.

China is India's core competitor on land too, as it pressures India on the long border it shares with it, tests Indian domination of the Indian Ocean, and pushes back Indian INSTC and Chabahar leverage through BRI and CPEC. In Western Asia, China has direct land borders and has demonstrated over the years that it has the capacity to stay the course and absorb any geopolitical pressures regardless of which regime governs in Afghanistan.

Given these geopolitical realities and also the considerations that countries in Central and Western Asia are sanctions-prone, conflict-heavy, Russian-dominated and Chinese-invested, India was never a serious contender for a continental integration role and may be a strategic misfit to be considered for playing a meaningful role in integrating Central Asia with the rest of the region. Thus, prioritising its Act East policy over acting West came naturally to India. In hindsight, one can say that India was strategically smart to recognise the structural constraints of an Act West policy and chose to act East primarily as a defensive and developmental strategy. Going East has landed India towards formulating coalitions, multiplying its growth by partnering in investment, technology and manufacturing with the East and North East Asian states, such as Japan, South Korea, ASEAN member states and Australia.

It will be interesting to compare Pakistan's reliance on an Act West policy to leverage energy and trade benefits from Central Asia against India's Act East policy, which is more developmental and targets partnership with growing economies of the region. Pakistan's westward orientation was always geo-economic in nature, whereas the Act East policy was to integrate development. Pakistan was always seeking to leverage its geography and integrate Central Asia, Afghanistan and Iran, and become part of a transit and energy corridor. India's Act East policy boosted its trade with ASEAN and significantly increased its defence and industrial collaboration. Pakistan dreamt of becoming a gateway to Eurasia and a bridge between the Central Asian states, the Gulf countries and the Middle East. Our Look West approach was corridor-centric, and the corridor never saw peace and stability. India's Act East is production and growth-centric and, without the fear of instability, aligns closely with the rising major economic powers in the region.

Pakistan dreamt of leveraging geography and its location. India, on the other hand, has gained strategic weight by leveraging markets. If we remain at war with Afghanistan, Central Asia remains disconnected, and Iran is sanctioned, then should Pakistan not look towards East as well? It is about time we gave serious thought to an Act East policy. If the concern is that this may antagonise China, then it is unlikely because China itself is deeply integrated in ASEAN. A Pakistan-ASEAN linkage could, in fact, endorse and complement CPEC via maritime trade routes with ASEAN.