The expected launch of an indigenously-constructed Fleet Tanker at the Karachi Shipyard & Engineering Works Ltd on 19 August 2016 marks a significant milestone in the history of Pak-Turkey defence collaboration. These two countries have always enjoyed the most fraternal of ties and under its overarching warmth, cooperation at the military, and more particularly the naval, level has continued to blossom. The first time this…
Pak-US Ties – An Uneasy Alliance
Since Pakistan’s emergence on the world map, Pak-US ties have been characterised more by mutual dependence than shared interests as is the norm. America to its credit has always made its concerns clear: Soviet Union being its favourite bugbear till the end of the Cold War and the deceptively ambiguous war on terror thereafter. Though Pakistan officially tows the same line, its commitment is diffused…
The Chabahar-Gwadar Conundrum
The prevailing sense of elation about the supposedly ultra-bright prospects of the Gwadar-CPEC projects has in recent times been dampened by news about the expected rise of an adjoining port, a mere 70 kms away across the border in Iran. The signing of a trilateral MOU between India, Iran and Afghanistan to facilitate Indo-Afghan trade through Chabahar has added to the speculation. It is thus…
Safeguarding the Vital Links in Sea Trade
Nothing encapsulates, and perhaps embodies, the spirit of globalisation better than world trade, most of which is carried out via the medium of the sea. Maritime trade can thus be said to be the pivot around which the global economy as well as our collective social well-being actually revolves. The enormous natural resources on land, coupled with a matching industrial capacity for value-addition, are not…
Combating Traditional and Non-traditional Threats at Sea
Navies all over the world, by virtue of the peculiar characteristics they are endowed with, play a significant role at all times in preserving the sanctity of the nation’s shores. Nontraditional challenges at sea like piracy, terrorism, poaching, narco-smuggling, gunrunning, human trafficking and environmental degradation have not only attained prominence, but tend to crop up in areas where they face the least resistance, thereby prompting the…
Gwadar in Focus
Gwadar has had a turbulent yet lonely history. Though it has been visited, and even nominally managed at times, by the Macedonians, the Ummayad Arabs, the Omanis and even the British, it managed to retain its own identity till the turn of the last century. It goes to the credit of the inhabitants that they didn’t permit the Portuguese to establish a foothold there in…
Setting the Sea Afire – Exercise Seaspark
The Pakistan Navy’s annual war exercise code-named Seaspark is currently underway in the waters of the Arabian Sea. It happens to be the latest in a series of suchlike tactical exercises aimed at enhancing the Navy’s war fighting efficiency. The fleet’s maintenance schedule, in fact, is planned in such a manner that maximum number of ships, submarines, Maritime Patrol Aircraft and helicopters become available for…
Seawater Intrusion in the Indus Delta and Associated Hazards
Seawater intrusion into the once-fertile Indus Delta has unfortunately become a way of life, simply because almost everyone not directly impacted by this phenomenon has started taking it for granted and very few are willing to do anything about it. This has resulted in substantial damage to the ecology and biodiversity of the environment, as well as the regional economy and more specifically, the livelihood…
A Time for Introspection
The Muslim ‘Ummah’, if it can be termed as such, is on the verge of imploding. Almost all countries in its fold are riven with strife, strife of their own making. The reason is not hard to find: a blatant disregard of the cardinal principle of unity as enshrined in the Quran, which enjoins the believers “to hold fast to the rope of Allah, and…
Gwadar and CPEC – Reality Check
This is a subject which deserves to be tackled with utmost seriousness, as it is one in which it is becoming increasingly difficult to discern fact from fiction, and where rhetoric is found to trump reality every time. It will thus be my endeavour to present as realistic and pragmatic a picture as possible to enable this vital issue to be better understood in an…
