NEW COLD WAR IN INDIAN

OCEAN REGION:

PAKISTAN’S POSITION AND

OPTIONS FOR FOREIGN
POLICY
 THE OLD COLD WAR
1945-1991
• The old cold war started with United States becoming
the great victor in 1945, followed by Europe’s division
in 1947 and Soviet nuclear test in 1949
• Although, after the Cuban Missile Crisis 1962, despite
local conflicts of many sorts, the U.S. and the Soviet
Union both sought to avoid the kinds of direct
confrontations that might have triggered a mutual
catastrophe, however the cold war ended years later in
1991 after consuming the entire globe both financially
and politically
• The major components of cold war included ideological
division, a bipolar world and militarization and arms
race
 THE NEW COLD WAR
• The cold war never ended; it just transformed
into a soft version
• As before, the United States and its rivals are
engaged in an accelerating arms race,
focused on defense and arms building of
ever-increasing range, precision, and lethality
• Countries, in characteristic Cold War fashion,
are lining up allies in what increasingly looks
like a global power struggle

 But the similarities end here…

 THE NEW COLD
WAR
• Super power rivalry now is primarily
among the three poles, the United States,
China and Russia
• The U.S. has now found itself in what is
known as the ‘Thucydides Trap’ (rivalry
between an established power and a rising one)
• Intensification of trade war
• Rising Chinese influence
• Shift of wealth and economic power from
West to the East
 A MULTIPOLAR WORLD
• According to the data released by the Stockholm
International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) in
April 2020, the total global military expenditure
rose to $1917 billion in 2019, with an increase of
3.6 per cent from 2018 and the largest annual
growth in spending since 2010.
• The five largest spenders in 2019, which
accounted for 62 per cent of expenditure, were the
United States, China, India, Russia and Saudi
Arabia.
• This is the first time that two Asian states have
featured among the top three military spenders.
UNITED STATES’ ROLE IN THE WORLD
• Since the end of WWII, United States has
been the central player in the international
system, leading in the creation of new
international organizations like the United
Nations, NATO, the International Monetary
Fund and the World Bank
• American diplomacy has been essential to
multinational agreements on trade, climate,
regional security and arms control.
Americans could and did claim to be at the
center of a “rules-based international order”
 WHAT MADE UNITED STATES A SUPER
POWER IN THE OLD COLD WAR ERA?
1. In contrast to the direct rule of the British in
the 1800s, U.S. has dominated world affairs
since 1945 mainly by using indirect forms of
influence or neo-colonial strategies.
2. U.S. has not built an empire by colonising
other nations. Instead, it has used hard power
and soft power mechanisms, such as wars,
threats, economic sanctions, media, aid and
diplomacy.
3. U.S. has never experienced an act of war on its
own land, except perhaps 9/11. When
Europeans were busy fighting each other, U.S.
was working on its nuclear technology.
IS UNITED STATES RECEDING?
• United States’ singular post-Cold War dominance
is fading now, it no longer occupies the unrivaled
position of strength that it enjoyed after the
collapse of the Soviet Union
• United States’  “rebalance to Asia” (shifting from
a foreign policy dominated by the Middle East to
one more centered on Asia) becomes its point of
focus
• What U.S. now have, is just an opportunity to join
China and Russia in peace making and economic
development in the world
 REASONS OF U.S. ECONOMIC
SLOW-DOWN

1. Heavy costs of war

2. Focus on short-term interests, rather than
cooperation with other countries
3. Imposing protectionist trade barriers
against other countries.
4. Requiring other countries to pay more for
their collective defense
 REASONS OF U.S. ECONOMIC
SLOW-DOWN

5. Trumponomics:

 Lower international trade

 Disincentivizing investment 
 European political risk
 Tax reduction for Individuals
 ECONOMIC COLD WAR
• As the twenty-first century is driven by
multiple sets of political economic forces
where the economic connectivity thrust
initiated by China is far reaching, the west is
coming up with alternatives to China’s BRI

• BRI comes up with huge financing to the

developing world, whereas the western
“alternatives” are only intended to evaluate
infrastructure projects and lack vision
 CHINA’S BRI TAKING OVER
• Mid to late 1990s and early 2000s BRI, both
land-based routes and maritime silk route,
connecting China with the world economies on a
trans-continental scale could well become the
biggest projects of the twenty first century
• China is engaged in economic projects with some
65 other countries that account collectively for
over 30 percent of global GDP, 62 percent of
population, and 75 percent of known energy
reserves
• China has also announced Health Silk Road,
which aims to improve public health in countries
along China’s Belt and Road
 CHINESE INVESTMENTS TO THE
WORLD
• China is spending billions of dollars around the
world through building infrastructure, roads, ports
and highways. The value of China’s overseas
investment and construction combined since 2005
is approaching $2 trillion, according to the China
Global Investment Tracker, the American
Enterprise Institute
• From 2005 to 2017, low and middle-income
economies received 83.9 percent of the $734 billion
spent by China on construction projects across the
globe. In contrast, high-income countries – mainly
those in North America and Europe – attracted 65.6
percent of Chinese FDI outflows
 THE CHINESE UMBRELLA
• China has become second largest contributor to
the United Nations Peace Keeping. However, it is
contributing to the world beyond financial
investments and infrastructure building. It is
emerging as a strategic problem solver for many
global issues, for which U.S. was idealized once
• China is emerging as a transit and destination
country for refugees. In the past 20 years, China
experienced at least four mass influxes of
displaced foreigners from neighboring countries;
North Koreans since the mid-1990s, the Kokangs
from Myanmar in 2009 and then since 2015, and
the Kachins from Myanmar since 2011
 THE CHINESE
UMBRELLA

• China has also emerged as the

powerbroker in global climate talks
as it hosted many of the preparatory
meetings that were crucial for
setting the direction, helping fill a
leadership vacuum created by
Trump administration in 2017
 2020: CHINA IS A SAVIOR
• China’s outreach to the world during the hard times of
Coronavirus pandemic, especially to Italy, Iran, Pakistan
and even the U.S. is commendable
• It was China that stepped up first to help Italy and
dispatched masks, ventilators and 300 intensive care
doctors to support overwhelmed hospitals in the country
• China also stands in the forefront to help Africa with
massive donations and has given a $50 million gift to
WHO, to fight the coronavirus pandemic
• The Jack Ma Foundation has also sent 20,000 testing
kits, 1,000,000 masks and 1,000 protective suits and face
shields to all countries of Africa.
• The projection of state power beyond its borders was the
domain of U.S. and the west. The role is fast changing
 RUSSIAN POSITION
• Russia is an equal player in the global agenda of
the multipolar world, where in various spheres
there are different leading countries such as
United States and China. Russia is no longer
defending its interests, its expanding them
• Russia is ready to take measures for the
transcontinental cooperation, and aims to avoid
new arms race. Russia has initiated peace talks
in Afghanistan in collaboration with China
• Russia faces disintegration and, therefore, it
urgently needs to begin new mobilization and/or
to align with China and the West
 RUSSIAN POSITION
• Russia is a strategic partner of
China in the Far East region and in
“The New Silk Road” project
targeting Western European
markets and Central Asian
infrastructure projects
• Russia is also seeking a unified
European security system where it
can participate also through the
Collective Security Treaty
Organization (CSTO)
 GEOPOLITICS AND
GEOECONOMICS
• What China is doing today to win friends and
influence people is within the range of what
other countries do to exert “soft power,” but
the efforts at persuasion and cooperation such
as cultural exchanges, conferences, speeches,
and paid advertisements, are all benefitting the
nations of the world, and United States
acknowledges it
• The world is experiencing a crisscross of
geopolitics and geoeconomics with their core
ingredients of space, territory, territoriality, and
power, and resources, capital, technology,
information and services, respectively
 PAKISTAN: A PIVOT STATE
• Pakistan is a junction of South Asia, West Asia
(Middle East) and Central Asia; a way from
resource efficient countries to resource deficient
countries, which makes it important for not only
its neighboring countries, but also for major
powers, including China, Russia and the United
States
• Pakistan’s sincere efforts on War on Terror along
with the counter-terrorism operation, Zarb-e-
Azb, is globally acknowledged and appreciated.
• Pakistan has also largely contributed in initiating
and promoting Afghan-led and Afghan-owned
peace process
 PAKISTAN: A PIVOT STATE
• The world is facing energy shortage,
terrorism and most recently health
crisis. Pakistan can play its role in
regional and global integration, using
CPEC as an opportunity to become a
frontline state of economic and health
initiatives by China. Pakistan’s
potential to emerge as an energy and
trade corridor, and now a health
corridor is immense
 LAST WORD…
• Nationalist ideologies are back and are now
translated and re-emerged as economic
competition
• Bush new world order has dead-ended in “No
World Order”
• U.S. failed efforts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and
Syria testify to the impossibility of imposing a new
world order by force. In addition to this, it is easy
to predict China taking over the west, given the
geostrategic changes in result of COVID-19
pandemic
• United States has lost opportunity after opportunity
to play the global leader role, it was known for. It
has failed the test on all three fronts of wealth,
power and legitimacy
“The trouble with a cold war is
that it doesn’t take too long
before it becomes heated.” 
― Anthony T. Hincks
Hincks is a British Author