Pakistan appears to have caught the geopolitical winds good. Final month, Pakistan signed a defence settlement with Saudi Arabia. Beneath this daring pact, an assault on one can be considered an assault on each, a dramatic escalation of safety ensures in a area already crowded with rivalries. On the identical time, Islamabad has quietly dispatched uncommon earth mineral samples to the US and is exploring deeper export agreements. Washington, for its half, seems newly fascinated about treating Pakistan as greater than a peripheral irritant.
These strikes counsel momentum. Commentators in Islamabad and Riyadh name it a renaissance of Pakistani overseas coverage, a belated recognition of the nation’s strategic indispensability. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s presence on the Gaza peace summit solely bolstered the impression of a nation returning to centre stage within the Muslim world.
However that is no in a single day miracle. It’s the product of necessity, strain and shifting alignments in a unstable area. Behind the optics lie more durable realities.
The primary driver of Pakistan’s overseas coverage push is the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. Washington’s abrupt exit left a vacuum it nonetheless struggles to fill. With a hostile Iran and an entrenched Taliban, the US wants a counterweight within the area. Pakistan, with its geography, intelligence networks and lengthy entanglement in Afghan affairs, abruptly issues once more.
US President Donald Trump’s demand that the Taliban hand over the Bagram airbase, 5 years after signing the deal that paved the best way for the US withdrawal, underscores America’s seek for leverage. If that gambit fails, Pakistan turns into the apparent fallback: the one state with each logistical capability and political connections to assist Washington keep a presence within the area.
The second issue is the uneasy US-India relationship. Over the previous decade, Washington has drawn New Delhi deeper into its Indo-Pacific technique, strengthening its international profile in methods Pakistan sees as threatening. But US-India friction has grown. Disputes over visas and tariffs have festered. India’s embrace of Moscow has raised eyebrows in Washington.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s August go to to Beijing despatched a transparent sign that India is keen to hedge its bets with China. Economically, his “Make in India” programme, modelled on East Asia’s low-cost export methods, might undercut US manufacturing. For Trump, keen to keep up stability in Asia, Pakistan seems helpful once more as a counterweight to India’s flirtations with Beijing.
The third and most precarious driver is mineral diplomacy. Islamabad’s outreach to Washington centres on guarantees of entry to uncommon earth minerals, a lot of that are positioned within the restive area of Balochistan. On paper, this seems to be like a win-win: Pakistan positive factors funding, and the US secures important sources. However the actuality is darker. Balochistan stays Pakistan’s poorest province regardless of many years of extraction. Infrastructure initiatives stand underused, airports lie empty and unemployment stays stubbornly excessive.
The Balochistan Mines and Minerals Act 2025, handed by the provincial legislature in March, has solely deepened discontent. Beneath the act, Islamabad is formally empowered to suggest mining insurance policies and licensing selections in Balochistan, a transfer that has provoked opposition throughout the political spectrum. Critics argue it undermines provincial autonomy and recentralises management in Islamabad. Even right-wing non secular events, such because the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI-F), seldom aligned with nationalist teams, have expressed opposition, portraying the regulation as one more try and dispossess native communities of their rightful stake within the province’s sources.
This backlash underscores a harmful pattern. Useful resource exploitation with out native participation fuels resentment and insurgency. By opening mineral wealth to overseas traders with out social safeguards, Islamabad dangers deepening the alienation of a province already scarred by battle and militarisation. What seems to be like salvation in Islamabad can appear like dispossession in Quetta.
Taken collectively, these drivers present that Pakistan’s overseas coverage shift is much less a renaissance than a calculated pivot beneath strain. The Afghan vacuum, the recalibration of US-India ties and the lure of mineral diplomacy all clarify Islamabad’s newfound prominence. However none erases underlying fragilities. Washington could as soon as once more deal with Pakistan as disposable when its priorities change. India’s weight in US technique isn’t going away. And Balochistan’s grievances will solely deepen if useful resource offers stay extractive and exclusionary.
The applause in Riyadh, the visibility on the Gaza summit and the well mannered handshakes in Washington shouldn’t be mistaken for a strategic rebirth. Pakistan is manoeuvring rigorously, improvising beneath strain and searching for to show vulnerabilities into alternatives. However the actual check lies at house. Until Islamabad can confront governance failures, regional inequalities and political distrust, overseas coverage positive factors will stay fragile.
In the long run, no defence pact or minerals deal can substitute for a secure social contract inside Pakistan itself. That’s the true renaissance Pakistan nonetheless awaits.
The views expressed on this article are the writer’s personal and don’t essentially mirror Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
