Countries are realising mutually beneficial trade, our intelligence, military leaders are stuck in the Cold War.
RIYADH: This is with reference to Ejaz Haider’s article of October 8 titled “Pakistan needs strategic depth”.
While countries around the world are realising the importance of mutually beneficial trade and close ties, our intelligence agencies and military leaders are still stuck as if in a Cold War. They think of seeing everything in terms of hostility, enmity, conspiracies, subversion and sabotage. They do not realise that the world has changed and ordinary people the world over no longer see the other through the scope of a rifle. Russia is trading with Europe, China has flourishing trade with America and India, and look where we are.
If we raise serpents then we should expect to get stung. What good are our nuclear weapons when the state has lost its writ on large chunks of the country? The Algerian civil war and the current insurgency in that country should give us some idea of what may come to pass in the coming years, unless the military establishment wakes up and sees the reality.
MJ
Published in The Express Tribune, October 9th, 2011.
