Towards east we had our arch enemy and rival India, so it was natural for Pakistan to look towards the west. I grew up and was raised and conditioned to believe in a geopolitical dream that someday Afghanistan will stabilise, and that will result in the dawn of a new era in trade and energy security for Pakistan. Many decades later, Afghanistan still stood destabilised, and the new era in trade and energy security for Pakistan is still to arrive.

To top it all, Pakistan has launched a military operation 'Ghazab Lil Haq' against Afghanistan, and practically both countries are now in a state of war. If anything, this war is likely to push the actualisation of our western theatre dream further back, and therefore, I think it is about time we started reimagining and rewriting the narrative of this once optimistic but now deeply flawed geopolitical dream. Can we draw a lesson from India in understanding what it takes to make a rightful strategic choice?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched India's Act East policy in 2014. Seen over a decade later, India has been able to build and deepen its strategic and economic ties with almost all the developing countries of North and North East Asia and has been able to extract security, economic and defence-related benefits in partnerships with these countries. Geopolitically, did India make a considerate strategic choice to prioritise its Act East policy by shelving the idea of acting West? Did India miss out on an opportunity to integrate Central Asia with........

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