Amidst all the other crises engulfing Pakistan, one that gets little attention these days is the matter of national security, all the more important because it can facilitate the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, boosting regional trade. Focusing on trade, rather than war, has already paid dividends in the Gulf, evident from normalization of ties between Iran and Arab states. In a recent op-ed, Lt. Gen. (retd.) Talat Masood backed this, arguing that any government in Pakistan must achieve not only political stability, but also national security. Significantly, he points to economic betterment as a means of countering militancy, shifting the country away from isolationism and toward relationships built from trade.
In the past, closing borders and cutting ties with threatening states could ensure national security. Today, however, states grow their power and security through trade, not war. A good example is trade between India and China—increasing 29 percent over the past five years from $89.72 billion in 2017-18 to $115 billion in 2021-22—even as the two states clash on the Line of Actual Control. By contrast, the “security state” of Pakistan is threatened from both its eastern and western borders, with rampant smuggling taking the place of trade. For Pakistan, lack of regional trade increasingly undermines the state more effectively than any war.
Bilateral trade leads to states becoming reliant on each other for mutual prosperity, making them invested in each other’s stability. These alliances create a web of interdependence, eventually leading to peace and stability. One of the objectives of the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995 was to prevent a mass war, with Europe perhaps the most successful example of economic interdependence, displaying regional peace and stability as well as labor mobility. To achieve this in South Asia, however, care is required to ensure strategists stuck with archaic views on “honor of the state” do not take precedence over the prosperity of its people.