Which One Were You?
We have a phrase at CommandEleven – be a victim or a volunteer. A victim is someone who fights to the end. A volunteer submits.
Which one were you?
July 6, 2017
We have a phrase at CommandEleven – be a victim or a volunteer. A victim is someone who fights to the end. A volunteer submits.
Which one were you?
It will be on rare occasions that you’ll find me addressing the CommandEleven audience about something related to CommandEleven. We didn’t build this platform, bring the best analysts together and begin counter the negative image being wrongly portrayed about Pakistan to sit back and accept someone’s blind judgement of our work and organization.
One of the first reports that was made public was in June 2015 published by Intercept which highlighted GCHQ’s infiltrating PTCL’s Core Routers and hence allowing them not only intercept every single user’s traffic but it also had abilities to re-route the traffic to their passive collection systems.
The Trump administration this week appeared to take a potential step closer to backing efforts plotted by Saudi Arabia and the UAE to destabilize Iran; possibly topple its Islamic government; and force Qatar to fall into line with Gulf policies that target Iran, political Islam, and militants; with the appointment of a seasoned covert operations officer as head of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Iran operations.
Relations between China and India have been souring over the past year since New Delhi agreed to an unprecedented military-strategic partnership last summer with Washington through LEMOA. The US long planned to use India as its “Lead from Behind” proxy in countering China, hoping to set the two Asian Great Powers against one in the ultimate divide-and-rule strategy of the 21st century.
Decorated with Hilal-e-Imtiaz, Hilal-e-Imtiaz (Mil), and Sitar-e-Jurat, Lieutenant General Masood Aslam (Retired) served for almost 40 years in the Pakistan Army. He was seriously wounded during the 1971 War with India and was awarded Imtiazi Sanad.
The Indian Defense Minister Arun Jatley visited the frontlines on the currently active Line of Control (LoC). After meeting field commanders and troops deployed on the Forward Defended Localities (FDLs), he expressed his satisfaction over the morale of the troops and called upon them to maintain heightened vigil.
Why does a media tycoon, his empire under criticism for playing second fiddle to a political stunt generated by the sitting government, need a tweet from the US Consulate in Karachi to prove his innocence?
Pakistan’s tenuous house is built on a torturous effort to balance relations with Saudi Arabia and Iran amid rising tension between the two regional rivals, prevent Pakistan from becoming an operational base for possible Saudi and US efforts to destabilize the Islamic republic, and employ militant groups as proxies in achieving its geopolitical objectives.
General Sharif had barely landed when Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman dashed the Pakistani’s hopes to include Iran in the alliance that nominally was created to fight terrorism rather than confront Iran.
Pakistan and Iran had traditionally enjoyed cordial relations. When Pakistan was formed, Iran was the first country to recognize it. Iran (under Reza Shah Pahlavi) and Pakistan both were part of the western capitalist camp during the tight bipolarity of the cold war.
The statement of Mr. Ahsan Iqbal clearly expresses that China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is pivotal for both Pakistan and China. It is a $ 46 billion project, which will connect Chinese province of Xinjiang with Pakistani port of Gwadar through the land route.
Pakistan politely declined to attend the US’ “Summit for Democracy” after earlier being invited to participate alongside over 100 others. Islamabad told Washington that it values their bilateral relations and reaffirmed its democracy commitments in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ press release about its decision.
Pakistan has been for at least four decades a major theatre of operations in the global struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran for dominance in the Muslim world. The stakes for both regional powers are high given that Pakistan borders on Iran; shares with the Islamic republic the restless region of Baluchistan that potentially allows Saudi Arabia and Iran to stir the pot in each other’s backyard; and is home to the world’s largest Shiite minority viewed by the kingdom as an Iranian fifth wheel.
CommandEleven’s briefing paper on the terrorism threat to CPEC — mapping BLA, TTP, and other groups targeting Chinese infrastructure and workers across Pakistan.
The Fourth Generation Warfare is characterized by a return to decentralized forms of warfare, blurring of the lines between war and politics, combatants and civilians due to nation states‘ loss of their near-monopoly on combat forces, returning to modes of conflict common in pre-modern times.
What is democracy in context of Pakistan? There are a few political dynasties ruling the roost. These dynasties control the political parties where there are no internal elections and an inner circle makes all the important appointments.
The 21st century’s Great Game is about the creation of a new Eurasia-centered world. It locks China, Russia, India, Japan, and Europe into what is an epic battle.
Financial Action Task Force (FATF) of the G7 countries has threatened Pakistan with sanctions if it “fails to comply with necessary actions against terrorism” (Corr,2017). It has, rather magnanimously, given Pakistan three months’ time to comply or else face the music.
The Central Asian Republics have been historically connected to the world through the ancient Silk Road, situated at the crossroads of East Asia, West Asia, South Asia and Europe, their location is excellent for trade.
Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Mansoor has been killed in a U.S. airstrike along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, he became leader of the Afghan Taliban only last year in July after the death of Mullah Umar was confirmed.
Let us admit it for once that the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) is nothing more than an international club of Muslim states which has very limited success to its name for over a generational period.
Faisal Aijaz, CommandEleven’s Deputy Director General – Operations, had an exclusive talk with Mike, a Norwegian Army veteran who served in Norwegian Army’s elite Telemark Battalion during his deployment in Afghanistan and then went to Iraqi Kurdistan to join Peshmerga, fighting the Islamic State/ISIS.
India never paid much attention to Gilgit-Baltistan or even claimed it along with Kashmir, so much so that the world did not even know that the ‘Kashmir dispute’ included the region of Gilgit-Baltistan, it was thought to be just the Kashmir valley which was claimed by both countries. Indian claim on Gilgit-Baltistan is a relatively recent development because it feels threatened by increasing Chinese influence and the China Pakistan Economic Corridor CPEC.
The China Pakistan Economic Corridor runs through one of the most important and central geo-strategic locations in South Asia, its main port Gwadar’s natural layout and depth enables largest tonnage ships to dock there, a characteristic which is absent in Dubai and Chahbahar ports.
This Haqqani Network, consisting of Husain Haqqani, Christine Fair and Bruce Riedel, operates outside Pakistan to damage and weaken Pakistan’s armed forces and intelligence structure.
The past couple of years have been marked by dramatic geopolitical changes triggered by the onset of the New Cold War, and while events such as the spree of urban terrorism popularly known as “Euromaidan” and Russia’s anti-terrorist intervention in Syria are well known, there are other major shifts which have yet to generate considerable public attention but have been no less consequential.
A remarkable geopolitical shift has taken place in this part of the world as the traditional pattern of friends and adversaries is broken. India and Pakistan have been in opposite camps since the partition of the subcontinent in 1947.
This new ‘wave of terror’ has transpired just as the country is poised to make its debut as a global trade destination. The China Pakistan Economic Corridor has been progressing satisfactorily, foreign investment has been rapidly multiplying and Pakistanis have never been this hopeful about the future before.
Moscow will host six-party talks about Afghanistan on 15 February, with Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, Iran, India, and naturally Russia expected to be represented. Moreover, Zamir Kabulov – thought of as being the leader of the “Islamophile” South Asian faction in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs – extended an invitation to the US as well, though stipulating that it should first be “ready to work constructively with regional powers” and “determine what they are planning to do in Afghanistan.”
It must be realised that when we are generally talking of smaller provinces in the future, here we are advocating enhancing one to even bigger proportions. That what the Federal resources could not do for FATA, is assumed would be done by Provincial resources.
For quite some time, a debate has been going on worldwide that, given Pakistan’s conventional military weakness in the face of a sudden Indian offensive under the Cold War doctrine, Pakistan will retaliate by using tactical nuclear weapons (TNWs) early in the conflict.
A country is only as good as its statesmen, decision makers, thinkers, strategists, Generals, Spy masters and political leaders who are collectively known as the ‘intelligentsia’. The decisions made by the ‘intelligentsia’ have far reaching consequences for a country’s fate, especially if the state in question is an infant country with scarce resources, limited national power and is dearly wanted by its powerful neighbors due to its valuable geography.
For Pakistan’s government, military and people, there are core interests in US foreign and development policy. We, as a nation, are still fighting the scourge of terrorism carried out in Pakistan domestically and from neighboring countries.
Not so long ago, “Counter-Terrorism” was an abstruse word for Pakistan’s military till General Tariq Khan stepped up and was handed over the command of 14 Division and later on Frontier Corps.