Transcription
Good day, friends.
In today's video, I'll explain how Pakistan, after Operation Synindur, has emerged as the only country in the world today to have strategic ties with all three great powers which are driving global geopolitics. And these three great powers are America, China, and Russia.
Now, when I talk of strategic ties, I'm not talking about Pakistan's crypto, mineral, or oil deals with America. I'm talking about ties that impact global and regional geopolitics. So, I will explain how Pakistan today has strategic ties with America, how it has strategic ties with Russia. I don't have to explain Pakistan's strategic ties with China. The world knows about that. And in the end, I will also talk about what Pakistan gets back in return for being in this exceptional position of having strategic ties with all three great powers.
But before I do all this, I need to spell out the three things which have propelled Pakistan to this exalted position where it can interact strategically with all three great powers. So, these three things are: Pakistan's geography. Second is Operation Synindur, where the world, and especially America, saw how Pakistan convincingly demonstrated its credible conventional war-fighting capabilities, with the Pakistan Air Force having a central role in it. And the third is Pakistan's time-tested, ironclad ties with China, which have withstood the vicissitudes of global geopolitics.
Now, having said that, let me talk about Pakistan's strategic ties with the Trump administration. Now, President Trump recently said, "I do business with people alike." Now, surely Trump likes the political and military leadership of Pakistan because they have done two things which have pleased Trump. The first is, publicly, the Pakistan leadership has said that the Pakistan Air Force shot down seven jet fighters of the Indian Air Force with no rebuttal coming from the Indian side, implying that what happened in the four-day combat operation Synindur was an intense combat. And then they have given, Pakistan has given the credit of the ceasefire between India and Pakistan to President Trump.
Now, when you see things from President Trump's perspective, there was an intense combat between India and Pakistan, two countries with nuclear weapons, and he was able to bring about a ceasefire there. Now, as far as Trump is concerned, of all the priorities that he has in his second term, the topmost is that he wants to be seen as a peace-time president. Which is why, at least 35 times, and most recently at his speech at the United Nations, he once again spoke about ending seven wars. Of course, in this, the most important was the India-Pakistan war, for which Pakistan has given credit, but India has not given credit to President Trump.
Now, I also spoke about that when Trump had invited, as a consequence of the performance of Pakistan in Operation Sindur, he had invited Pakistan Army Chief Field Marshal Aim Munir to lunch in the White House on June 18th. One of the things he would have discussed with Aim Munir is the extended role of the Pakistan military's conventional capabilities in the Middle East to stabilize the Middle East. Something that will, that is what Trump wants.
Now, there is evidence that what I had given as an assessment has come about. But before I give that evidence and talk about it, there are two more issues that need an update. Let me do that. We know that Pakistan and Saudi Arabia signed on September 17th this important strategic mutual defense agreement. Now, what we have come to know is that China, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan will be participating in their first-ever combined exercise called Warrior 9, implying that China is perfectly on board. China is happy, as much as Trump is happy, with the extended military role, a conventional military role, of the Pakistan military in the Middle East.
And the second update is that Iran was informed, as I had said in my last video, by Saudi Arabia once the Saudis signed the agreement with Pakistan, and Iran was happy with this agreement. Now, on September 24th, at the United Nations, the Iranian president made this important point. He said that Iran is looking to building a comprehensive regional security system with the cooperation of Muslims of West Asia in political, security, and defense domains. Implicit in this is the extended role of the Pakistan military.
Now, with this as the backdrop, let me come to the Trump, the strategic ties between Trump and Pakistan. Now, on September 23rd, Trump held a very important meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations of eight Islamic and Arab nations, which Trump called was the most important of his 23 meetings that he had held on the sidelines of the UN session. And in this, he discussed his 21-point peace plan for Gaza, because, as everybody knows, in the Middle East, Trump wants peace. But unfortunately, it is Israel that runs America's foreign policy in the Middle East. So, he discussed his 21-point peace plan with these countries: Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Indonesia, Egypt, UAE, and Jordan. Pakistan was present here.
Not only that, Trump thought it appropriate to now, to then invite, after this meeting, the leadership of Pakistan to the White House to have further discussions to see their central role, a strategic role in the Middle East. Therefore, on September 25th, Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif and Army Chief Field Marshal Aim Munir, they met with President Trump in the White House, where Vice President Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo were also present. Three strategic issues would certainly have been discussed then. One, of course, is Pakistan's role for the stabilization of the Middle East, Pakistan's military role. Second is Iran. Now, as I have said so many times in my earlier videos, nobody understands Iran better than Pakistan. And Iran is what troubles and bothers Trump. So, that would have been discussed. And the third issue on the table was the Bagram Air Base. The Americans are very keen to get this. Trump is very keen, and Trump would have sought Pakistan's help in this, which, of course, Pakistan is not willing to do.
And therefore, the same day, on September 25th, a meeting was held of four countries concerning Afghanistan issues, and these four countries are China, Russia, Iran, and Pakistan, where a joint statement was issued that no outside military base, implying a military base of America or of NATO countries, will be acceptable in Afghanistan to these four countries. So, please understand, these four countries matter, and they work together: China, Russia, Iran, and Pakistan. So, it is very clear that as far as President Trump is concerned, he has given a strategic role to Pakistan for stabilization in the Middle East. That's one.
Now, coming to Pakistan's strategic ties with Russia. Now, you see, these are all, this is, these ties have been underplayed. The reality is, these ties are evolving very fast and at two levels. One level is, they are evolving at the level of what I call the new global governance system, where we have Russia and China as the key players, the key players who are supporting this system, which is about geoeconomics, which is about trade, which is about development, which is about stability of the world, something that I have discussed in my earlier videos also. So, these two countries are working together. And how they are working together is that when President Xi Jinping came to office in November 2012, his first foreign visit was to Moscow, and that happened in March 2013, where he met with President Putin, and he also gave an address at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, where for the first time, President Xi Jinping spoke about a new type of international relations. It is this new type of international relations that he spoke about then, which now has finally evolved into, it has all the bricks in place, all the things in place. It has evolved into this new global governance system that I'm talking about. And the final thing said on this was the Global Governance Initiative, which was given out by President Xi Jinping at the SCO summit in China on September 1st. So, the point to make is, both these countries are, they are working together. Both these great powers, their visions are aligned. And therefore, if Pakistan has very close, strategic, time-tested ties with China, it also will have, as part of the global south, close ties with Moscow.
Now, the second is the more direct or bilateral strategic ties between the two countries. We know that on September 15th, Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif met up with President Putin, and a Kremlin note was issued. And the Kremlin note clearly said that President Putin said that Pakistan is a priority partner in Southeast Asia, in Asia as a whole. This is a big statement coming from President Putin. And he also spoke about the Afghanistan issue to be settled with the help of Pakistan. So, this is the strategic role Pakistan, as far as Moscow is concerned, has a big role to play in stabilization in Afghanistan. And he also spoke about, Putin spoke about the gas pipeline from Russia to Pakistan, and where he said that certain amount of infrastructure has already been built in Russia, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan. So, in short, let us not misunderstand or not understand that today Pakistan has also strategic ties with Russia. So, it has strategic ties with all three great powers.
And what does Pakistan get in return? Well, it gets more reach and more grasp. What is reach? Reach is what we call an area of interest of a nation. Which means that those countries or that area where a particular country is interested in having deep political and economic relations and connectivity. That is the reach part. So, today, Pakistan's reach, because of this relationship it has, it goes beyond South Asia to the Middle East, to the Central Asian Republics, and even to Southeast Asia, where Russia and China both are very keen that Pakistan have a role there, a role of reach.
And the second is grasp. Grasp is what we call the area of influence. That is, how far your military capabilities can extend to protect your interests. So, it is the area of influence, and this is, as far as Pakistan is concerned, post-Operation Sindur, it is now, it goes beyond South Asia to the Middle East and to the western Indian Ocean region, where I have already done videos explaining how Bangladesh, Pakistan, and China, they have come together for the security of the western Indian Ocean region.
Now, recently, Pakistan's Defense Minister was asked, you know, recently, that Pakistan today has close ties with both America as well as China. Which of these is more important? And he said, well, Pakistan has durable and long-standing ties with China. The thing is that Pakistan today not only has ties with China, Pakistan has taken the right step of being on the right side of geopolitics because it today has ties with the new global governance system, which I have said is supported by China and Russia. And when we understand this, two things become very clear. The first thing that becomes very clear is that when we look at this system, the new system that I'm talking about, this is about partnership. In this system, the whole thinking is that all the countries have total freedom to see who they want to build their relations with, so long as they are aligned with the thinking of the new global, of this new global governance system. So, it is in this context that China and Russia simply have no problems with Pakistan's strategic role with America.
And the second point is, as far as America is concerned, America's foreign policy, it changes every four years, which is not the case with Russia or China, where there is an institutional thinking. So, the point to make is that Pakistan today is in a good position. It has, it earlier made the right choice of being grounded with the correct geopolitical system.
Thank you very much.