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Gwadar’s Uncertain Future: Between Regional Rivalries and Insurgent Reach
Gwadar Port stands at a critical crossroads. The port was built on the premise that geography could be made productive if the politics around it cooperated. Situated at the junction of the Arabian Sea, the Iranian border, and the Pakistani hinterland, it occupied a position that maps made look strategic and project documents made look…
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Gas, Gold, and Grievance: Who Does Balochistan’s Wealth Actually Serve?
Balochistan has historically accounted for a significant share of Pakistan’s domestic natural gas production—at its peak, over half—though its share has declined substantially in recent decades as production from other provinces has grown. The Reko Diq copper and gold deposit in Chagai district holds billions of tonnes of ore, placing it among the largest undeveloped…
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The Geopolitical Transformation of Asymmetric Naval Warfare: From the Sri Lankan Littoral to a Grand Strategy for the Strait of Hormuz
The modern maritime security environment has undergone a fundamental shift from blue-water fleet engagements to highly complex asymmetric confrontations in the littorals. This evolution is best exemplified by the conflict between the Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) Sea Tigers, a non-state actor that pioneered the use of suicide…
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Balancing Security Operations with Civil Liberties
Baloch Culture Day on March 2 is a reminder that identity and dignity do not disappear simply because a state tries to silence them. Yet in Pakistan’s Balochistan province, cultural celebration coexists with enforced disappearances, collective punishment, and a security paradigm that treats an entire population as suspect in the name of counterinsurgency. A Fractured…
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No More Free Passes: India’s Unyielding Stance on Pakistan-Backed Terror
The arc of strategic forbearance, however protracted, inevitably encounters its terminus. For the Union of India, that inflection point materialised amidst the smouldering wreckage of Pulwama and crystallised in the predawn skies above Balakot. These twin episodes, separated by a mere twelve days, yet connected by an inexorable logic of cause and consequence, have come…
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Bangladesh’s Pro-Pakistan Tilt Risks Borders, Unity and Strategic Autonomy
Bangladesh’s emerging pro-Pakistan posture is reviving old fault lines at home while creating fresh vulnerabilities along its borders. It is more than five decades after independence that any political recalibration that appears to soften Dhaka’s stance toward Islamabad inevitably reopens the unresolved scars of 1971. At a time when Bangladesh should be consolidating national unity…
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Why Bangladesh’s Tilt Toward Pakistan Undermines Its Independence Legacy and Strategic Autonomy
Bangladesh’s recent political and diplomatic proximity with Pakistan is not just a routine foreign policy recalibration, it is infact a troubling departure from its very foundations of 1971. The country’s independence was forged through major sacrifices and any attempt to dilute that legacy risks undermining national unity, strategic autonomy, internal cohesion as well as long-term…
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Defanging the Dragon: India’s Real Antidote to China’s Indian Ocean Strategy
This report provides a strategic analysis of India’s options for neutralizing geopolitical and non-traditional security threats within the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). The primary threat stems from the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) ‘String of Pearls’ strategy, a network of dual-use (commercial and military) ports designed to encircle India, secure Chinese Sea Lines of Communication…
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The Trident Nexus: An Analytical Report on the Convergence of LTTE Remnants, D-Company, and the ISI for Narco-Terrorism and Strategic Destabilization
This report provides a strategic analysis of an emerging narco-terrorist network, the “Trident Nexus,” which represents a symbiotic, state-sponsored alliance between remnants of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the D-Company organized crime syndicate, and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). The report argues that the LTTE’s 2009 military defeat resulted not in its eradication, but…
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Islamabad’s Colonial Grip on Pakistan-Occupied Jammu & Kashmir Is Fraying
The eruption of mass protests in Pakistan-Occupied Jammu & Kashmir (POJK) has once again laid bare the structural fragility of Islamabad’s rule. The region, carved out of the erstwhile princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, has for decades been administered by Pakistan without either constitutional clarity or democratic legitimacy. The latest demonstrations—organised by the Jammu…