The Counter-Violence Strategies and Foreign Policy Realignments of Pakistan Dissected under the Paradigm of Regional Security Complex Theory

Abstract

In the cotemporary arena of international relations, it is commonly accepted notion that the internal fragility and incapacity of any state to control the security spillover may lead to compromise the security features of the respective region. The Regional Security Complex Theory (RSCT) propounds that the security paradigm can best be explained using regional clusters of states which are so closely interrelated in their histories, geographies and politics, that their insecurities cannot be objectively examined in a separate account. Same is true in the case of Pakistan wherein the political volatility, ethnic imbalances, the lack of effective governance, and the economic strains have impaired its capacity to address the perennially existing interregional and intra-regional security threats and concerns. In this background, this paper studies the counter violence strategy followed by Pakistan and its impact on the domestic as well as regional political developments. It also reviews various measures taken by the security establishment of Pakistan to restore peace in the regions hit by terrorism. Furthermore, it examines the strategic realignments and foreign policy options for Pakistan towards the regional players as well as the global powers actively involved in the geostrategic developments of the South and Central Asia. It recommends that, though, Pakistan needs alliances but should not to rely solely upon them and should maintain such balance in the relationship with its partners that would make it stronger without conjuring at compromising the sovereignty or the long term stability. Pakistan has to enlarge its participation at the regional multilateral forums like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) to ensure economic stability and safeguard its strategic interests since such forums are valuable substitutes to the conventional overdependence on global economic giants such as the United States and China.