To be absolutely clear, there’s no connection between PTI’s peaceful protest and the TTP-BLA terrorist nexus’ attacks, though it wouldn’t be surprising if the authorities falsely claim that there is.
Thank you for explaining why you just focused on the latest events. my first take on reading this article was similar to McDodd's. There is no end to how far back one could go to explaining the conflicts in Pakistan.
Perhaps the overriding factor is the much-desired corridor through Pakistan. As we know, China, especially, plays the long game & maybe Russia, too. Doing what they must to get the job done despite current difficulties is testament to the road's importance. In twenty years, the trade corridor will be standing even if all the players today are gone. In addition SCO aims to deal with violent extremist groups, so, it's right where it belongs.
But where we're at right now is that the post-modern coup as I've called it led to the political turmoil and more terrorist attacks, which are most immediately holding the country back. Their resolution, as I suggested, is freeing IK and holding truly free and fair elections, though no one in the SCO is going to demand that since they all also have their own state-level interests in Pakistan that they don't want to risk by getting on its bad side.
Even Russia is cozying up to Pakistan despite previously condemning the post-modern coup and being aware of what it officially considers "unconfirmed reports" of Pakistan arming Ukraine, which I consider credible and have written about before, but nonetheless it's also pursuing its own national interests in what can be described as a cynical or "realist" way.
What I'm trying to say is that there's definitely a lot more to this, but I can't express how exhausting it is to repeat the same background in dozens of articles each reworded in their own way (I'm not a fan of copying and pasting), which is why I don't do it. I instead assume that my readers are either familiar with my existing works or have some basic knowledge about the background to this.
That's why sometimes I only publish short briefings about Pakistan instead of longer analyses, but each short briefing would turn into a longer piece -- and very exhausting for me to write -- if I had to include all the background information. I've been publishing original analyses daily since the SMO began, so for over 950 consecutive days, and just don't have it in me to do what you're suggesting.
Others who produce maybe one article a day or a few a month can do it, but I physically can't, plus it's overkill to review everything in detail every time I talk about Pakistan. I won't even do it for Ukraine, also because it's way too exhausting (I did so early on just like with Pakistan but it's not possible to do it in every single article).
Back to my point though after having clarified all of this, yes, I do still maintain that political turmoil and terrorist threats hold Pakistan back. Even after the coup, some compromise could in theory have been reached, but the establishment refused to, which led to the latest political tensions. They also redirected the state's focus to persecuting PTI, which led to the explosion in terrorist attacks over the past year, so both are actually still accurate descriptions of the problem.
To go back to its roots though is way too exhausting, and I'd risk losing readers too who are already familiar with my dozens of analyses on this. There's a guy who's written about Syria and Iran for years and references a US think tank's report from the early 2000s literally every single time that he mentions them. I usually stop reading once I come across that part because it's so predictable and also exhausting on my end to read another reworded summary of that.
If you want to get into the nitty gritty, sure, the post-modern coup is one of the root causes of today's problems, but going even further, it's the military and intelligence establishment's decades-long intimate ties with the US that led to them becoming compromised and no longer functioning as true guardians of objective national interests (if they ever were, that is, whether perfectly or even only partially).
But we're getting into master's thesis territory here, perhaps even PhD territory depending on how far you want to go, and I just don't have it in me to do something like that. It's not realistic to expect a detailed summary of the events leading up to the present every time I cover Pakistan. Again, it's way too exhausting, and I really hope you understand.
I already did my PhD on Russian-Pakistani relations, prior to which I published literally hundreds of analyses on their ties and Pakistani grand strategy more broadly, so going over this stuff every single time I write about it is like a nuclear physicist having to explain elementary mathematics every single time before they talk about their expertise. Again, I hope you understand, but it's not realistic to expect this of me in my work on this topic.
Thank you for explaining why you just focused on the latest events. my first take on reading this article was similar to McDodd's. There is no end to how far back one could go to explaining the conflicts in Pakistan.
Perhaps the overriding factor is the much-desired corridor through Pakistan. As we know, China, especially, plays the long game & maybe Russia, too. Doing what they must to get the job done despite current difficulties is testament to the road's importance. In twenty years, the trade corridor will be standing even if all the players today are gone. In addition SCO aims to deal with violent extremist groups, so, it's right where it belongs.
What a mess Pakistan has turned out to be.
They have gotten very little right since day one.
Muhammed Ali Jinnah has a lot to answer for.
I've written a lot about that a lot since it happened:
https://web.archive.org/web/20220622170306/http:/reportersdiary.com/blog/13445/pakistans-regime-change-operation-a-russian-perspective/?amp=1
https://korybko.substack.com/p/analyzing-the-newly-leaked-pakistani
But where we're at right now is that the post-modern coup as I've called it led to the political turmoil and more terrorist attacks, which are most immediately holding the country back. Their resolution, as I suggested, is freeing IK and holding truly free and fair elections, though no one in the SCO is going to demand that since they all also have their own state-level interests in Pakistan that they don't want to risk by getting on its bad side.
Even Russia is cozying up to Pakistan despite previously condemning the post-modern coup and being aware of what it officially considers "unconfirmed reports" of Pakistan arming Ukraine, which I consider credible and have written about before, but nonetheless it's also pursuing its own national interests in what can be described as a cynical or "realist" way.
What I'm trying to say is that there's definitely a lot more to this, but I can't express how exhausting it is to repeat the same background in dozens of articles each reworded in their own way (I'm not a fan of copying and pasting), which is why I don't do it. I instead assume that my readers are either familiar with my existing works or have some basic knowledge about the background to this.
That's why sometimes I only publish short briefings about Pakistan instead of longer analyses, but each short briefing would turn into a longer piece -- and very exhausting for me to write -- if I had to include all the background information. I've been publishing original analyses daily since the SMO began, so for over 950 consecutive days, and just don't have it in me to do what you're suggesting.
Others who produce maybe one article a day or a few a month can do it, but I physically can't, plus it's overkill to review everything in detail every time I talk about Pakistan. I won't even do it for Ukraine, also because it's way too exhausting (I did so early on just like with Pakistan but it's not possible to do it in every single article).
Back to my point though after having clarified all of this, yes, I do still maintain that political turmoil and terrorist threats hold Pakistan back. Even after the coup, some compromise could in theory have been reached, but the establishment refused to, which led to the latest political tensions. They also redirected the state's focus to persecuting PTI, which led to the explosion in terrorist attacks over the past year, so both are actually still accurate descriptions of the problem.
To go back to its roots though is way too exhausting, and I'd risk losing readers too who are already familiar with my dozens of analyses on this. There's a guy who's written about Syria and Iran for years and references a US think tank's report from the early 2000s literally every single time that he mentions them. I usually stop reading once I come across that part because it's so predictable and also exhausting on my end to read another reworded summary of that.
If you want to get into the nitty gritty, sure, the post-modern coup is one of the root causes of today's problems, but going even further, it's the military and intelligence establishment's decades-long intimate ties with the US that led to them becoming compromised and no longer functioning as true guardians of objective national interests (if they ever were, that is, whether perfectly or even only partially).
But we're getting into master's thesis territory here, perhaps even PhD territory depending on how far you want to go, and I just don't have it in me to do something like that. It's not realistic to expect a detailed summary of the events leading up to the present every time I cover Pakistan. Again, it's way too exhausting, and I really hope you understand.
I already did my PhD on Russian-Pakistani relations, prior to which I published literally hundreds of analyses on their ties and Pakistani grand strategy more broadly, so going over this stuff every single time I write about it is like a nuclear physicist having to explain elementary mathematics every single time before they talk about their expertise. Again, I hope you understand, but it's not realistic to expect this of me in my work on this topic.
Thank you for your reporting.
It's okay, no worries.