Tahreem Amanullah is an undergraduate student of international relations at BUITEMS, Quetta.

Slavery was abolished, but the chains were not truly broken; sovereignty was granted, but the soul was dead. Today’s world politics represents a similar scenario. The world indeed counts the mid-20th century as the end of colonization, where many colonies, like those in the Americas, Africa, and Asia, broke the chains and gained independence. However, the world could not realize that it was just going to enter into modern colonialism, which features abstractness. Putting it in simple words, imperialism was indeed ended, but it still echoes around, and states’ sovereignty seems under chains through aid and debt. For instance, today, many periphery countries repay more in interest than they receive in aid. According to the World Bank’s 2024 report, $1.4 trillion was paid by developing countries to service their foreign debt in 2023.

This silent economic burden reminds us of the warning of Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first president, who once said, “Neo-colonialism is the last stage of imperialism.”  As aforementioned, colonialism has departed physically, but the colonial rulers have left behind invisible strings tied to economic systems, financial institutions, and foreign aid. What was once ruled by bullets is now governed by budgets. This article argues that foreign aid and debts are modern instruments of control, extracting and exploiting the labor and resources under the guise of development and liberalization of trade and finance. Thus, a silent war was waged with aid and contracts instead of bullets.

With the end of World War II, the colonial powers began to crumble. Many nations gained independence.........

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