Defence Minister Khawaja Asif is a very happy man. He is happy with the situation Pakistan has been put into in the wake of the four-day war with India. The hybrid system back home is working perfectly; our Chief of Army Staff has been invited to the White House for a luncheon; at the SCO Defence Ministers’ conference, Pakistan’s position has been endorsed while India’s position has been shunted out; Pakistani Armed Forces are being welcomed everywhere in the immediate region as well as in the wider world; and, last but not least, Pakistan’s military-industrial complex is getting contracts from the armed forces of friendly countries. All those things which make a Defence Minister happy are happening in and around Pakistan. Since Khawaja Asif is considered the chief troubleshooter for the ruling party, it is good that the military and civilian leadership see eye to eye on all issues of national importance.

It seems Khawaja Asif’s happiness has had a trickle-down effect. The other day I was stopped by a very dear friend while I was on my daily evening walk in the residential colony I live in. I was passing in front of the colony’s central mosque, and my friend was stepping out after offering his Isha prayers. “Dear, is India really finished?” he asked me. I was totally flabbergasted. I asked him how India was finished. “I mean, nobody is listening to it,” he said. I had no answer, as I was myself deeply confused. Can the jingoism of media and political classes have such a profound impact on public opinion that they could ignore basic facts—facts which are available to anyone using a handset or with access to a television screen?

“India is a big and powerful country, and what they are facing is the cost of their strategic mistake. I think they will soon come out of it,” I heard myself telling my friend. But my thoughts were elsewhere: I thought to myself that Pakistan’s self-claimed military victory in the four-day war will strengthen its dependence on the sole source of national power it has developed over the past seven decades. This will, in turn, reinforce the unvirtuous cycle Pakistani society has been stuck in since its independence.

Is Pakistan’s 109th Place In The World Happiness Report 2025 Justified?

A virtuous cycle, in Western economic studies, is described as a chain of positive events where each event reinforces the others, leading to continuous improvement or economic growth. Unvirtuous cycles, in the context of Pakistan's political system, are a chain of events and developments which reinforce each other, leading to continuous degradation of national power, as well as causing political, economic and social instability.

The Pakistani foreign policy establishment would be miscalculating its own clout with the Western world if it underestimates the depth of........

© The Friday Times