Nazir Ahmad Mir

The movement of the Baloch people is likely to continue because of the strong undercurrent of popular disaffection in the province against the Pakistan state, and the sustained enthusiasm of the people to fight for their freedom, autonomy and rights

• Published: May 30, 2020
• IDSA Comments

While scientists all over the world are working tirelessly to find an antidote to COVID-19, the narratives doing the rounds in Pakistan – pushed and peddled by the Urdu media, accuse them of conspiring to turn this virus into a weapon to not only kill but also to alter the human psyche.

• Published: April 20, 2020
• IDSA Comments

Realpolitik and its terminology have dominated the discourse on the conduct and behaviour of states in ‘anarchical’ international environment. Concepts like balance of power (BoP) and security dilemma continue to draw the attention of students of international politics. It has been argued, or presumed, that in the security-driven environment of the international system, foreign policies of individual states are externally driven.

• Published: January-June 2020
• Journal of Defence Studies

The government and the military in Pakistan appear quite determined to either silence or censor media by all means. This may prove counter-productive since such restrictions can fuel further criticism, especially at a time when the government seems unable to fulfil its promises and meet the expectations of the people.

• Published: January 17, 2020
• IDSA Comments

While contending the prevailing realists’ explanation of war happening because of power struggle, John Vasquez argues in his book, The War Puzzle Revisited, that a majority of wars are fought over territory, either to defend or occupy it. According to Vasquez, territorial disputes between two countries are ‘much more war-prone’ than others.

• Published: July-September 2019
• Journal of Defence Studies

ince the time of their invention and the first-and-only use on 6 and 9 August 1945 on two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively, nuclear weapons have been seen by the states that possess them, or the ones that seek them, as the ultimate guarantors of their security.1 It is believed that these weapons are key to achieving victory in a war that otherwise may go on for a long time or may end in defeat if fought in conventional ways by a weaker country; in other words, nuclear weapons are believed to act as instruments of deterrence.

• Published: April-June 2019
• Journal of Defence Studies

While Pakistan clearly seeks to maintain cordial relations with Iran, it is unlikely that it would be willing to incur the displeasure of Saudi Arabia with which it has greater economic and strategic links.

• Published: October 24, 2018
• IDSA Comments

Pakistan is undergoing political turmoil once again. Once again an elected prime minister was first removed in July 2017, and then barred from fighting elections for life on April 13, 2018.

• Published: July 2018
• Strategic Analysis

Will the Pakistani civilian leadership cease to placate the Islamist forces for their own electoral gain? Will the Army rein in the jihadis it has been using to retain “strategic depth” in Afghanistan?

• Published: March 17, 2017
• IDSA Comments

The burgeoning scholarship on the army’s role in nation building, or the lack of it, is unsurprising. In the modern political order, a nation without its own army is hardly imaginable. A crucial relationship exists between the two, which is also a reason for the uneasiness about the army’s pro-active involvement in the nation-making process. Political sociologists have been uncovering striking causal relationships that demonstrate the crucial role of the army and its internal ‘organisation’, ‘control’ and ‘function’ for the subsisting units of the modern world system: nation-states.

• Published: January 2016
• Strategic Analysis