The menace of circular debt has today become one of the gravest threats to Pakistan’s sovereignty and survival, rivaling the scourges of terrorism and insurgency that have long plagued the state.

The circular debt in the power sector has already surpassed five trillion rupees, creating a financial vortex that cripples the government, suffocates economic growth, and burdens citizens with unaffordable tariffs.

Unless Pakistan begins to think imaginatively, innovatively, and courageously, this spiraling debt will continue to erode the very foundations of the national economy.

One solution, which is both viable and strategic, lies in transforming Pakistan into a regional exporter of electricity, supplying power to Afghanistan, China, and even India, thereby ensuring not only the monetization of Pakistan’s surplus energy but also the creation of a unified regional grid that could anchor stability, interdependence, and peace.

In the last two years, Pakistan, China, and Afghanistan have held multiple sessions of the Trilateral Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, yet the outcomes remain little more than scripted press releases, with no clarity about concrete achievements or actionable steps toward grid connectivity. The truth is that nobody knows whether there has been any genuine progress, for the discussions remain cloaked in diplomatic ambiguity.

What is certain, however, is that while official communiqués speak of cooperation, the ground realities tell another story. The outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) invaders from Afghanistan continue to launch deadly attacks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, killing soldiers and civilians alike.

The metaphor is painfully clear: Pakistan and Afghanistan are not “on the same grid.” Neither in energy nor in security do the two countries operate with alignment, and until such time as they are brought onto one common platform, both will continue to bleed—Pakistan in particular, with its soldiers’ blood flowing in the borderlands and its economy drained by the circular debt crisis.

The question then arises: how can these neighbors be brought onto one grid? This is not a rhetorical issue but a matter of national survival. The hope is that the articulation of this argument may reach policymakers who today face simultaneous challenges of insurgency, terrorism, economic fragility, and now the more insidious threat of circular debt that has begun to undermine national sovereignty........

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