by Mirza Abdul Aleem BAIG
Pakistan’s renewed courtship of Central Asia, Vision Central Asia, is being sold as a strategic awakening, an overdue realization that geography, if intelligently leveraged, can be destiny rather than curse. From Astana to Tashkent, Islamabad now speaks the language of connectivity, corridors, and continental integration, presenting itself as a natural bridge between South Asia, Central Asia, and the warm waters of the Arabian Sea.
Yet beneath this confident narrative lies an uncomfortable truth – no external pivot can compensate for internal paralysis. Pakistan’s Central Asia ambition, like many grand strategies before it, risks collapsing under the weight of unresolved domestic contradictions.
For decades, Pakistan approached foreign policy as a security doctrine rather than a development strategy. Central Asia now appears as a tempting corrective, a region in flux, no longer monopolized by a single power, and searching for diversified access routes.
Pakistan sees an opening to dilute global powers dominance without confronting it, to regain relevance without becoming dependent, and to externalize its security anxieties by pushing economic interdependence beyond its western borders. On paper, the logic is impeccable. In practice, the execution is hostage to realities Islamabad prefers not to confront.
The assumption that Pakistan can emerge as a dominant player in Central Asia ignores a basic rule of techno-geopolitics – influence is exported only after stability is secured at home. Connectivity is not declared; it is earned through reliability.
Central Asian states, despite their authoritarian systems, are deeply transactional and risk-averse. They value predictability, institutional continuity, and policy coherence – qualities Pakistan has systematically eroded through chronic political turbulence, abrupt policy reversals, and an economy permanently on life support.
Pakistan’s attempt to balance China and the United States through this regional outreach further exposes its strategic overconfidence. Beijing remains Pakistan’s principal economic patron, yet its patience is visibly thinning. CPEC’s security vulnerabilities, debt concerns, and implementation delays have already injected caution into Chinese planning.
Pakistan’s Central Asia ambitions, if perceived as competing corridors rather than complementary extensions, could quietly unsettle a relationship Islamabad can ill afford to destabilize. China does not object to Pakistan’s outreach; it objects to unpredictability.
Washington, meanwhile, offers relevance without reassurance. The United States sees Central Asia through a narrow prism; counterterrorism, supply chain resilience, and preventing exclusive Chinese dominance. Pakistan may find itself temporarily useful as a facilitator, but not indispensable as a partner.
Any expectation that Central Asia will restore Pakistan’s strategic centrality in Washington reflects a misreading of post-Afghanistan American priorities. The era of geopolitical rent-seeking is over; utility now must be proven, not assumed. More troubling is the belief that regional integration can substitute for domestic reform.
Pakistan speaks of becoming a transit hub while its own economy remains structurally uncompetitive. It dreams of energy corridors while its power sector bleeds inefficiency. It promotes trade routes while its customs, taxation, and regulatory regimes repel investors. It promises security to others while struggling to secure its own highways and border regions. No corridor can outrun governance failure.
The Afghanistan variable alone should temper Islamabad’s optimism. Every northbound vision passes through a country over which Pakistan has influence but not control. Betting long-term regional strategy on such an unstable intermediary without first consolidating domestic resilience is not strategic foresight; it is strategic gambling.
The uncomfortable conclusion is this; Pakistan’s Central Asia push will not fail because of foreign resistance, it will fail because of domestic neglect. External ambition without internal reform is not strategy – it is escapism. If policymakers in Islamabad are serious about making this pivot meaningful, the starting point lies not in summits abroad but in reforms at home.
Economic stabilization must move beyond IMF firefighting toward export competitiveness, industrial productivity, and energy rationalization. Governance reform must prioritize institutional continuity over personality-driven rule, restoring credibility to civilian policymaking and regulatory frameworks. Political stability must be earned through legitimacy, not managed through coercion, because no foreign partner invests in a state uncertain about its own future.
Pakistan must also abandon the illusion that balancing great powers is a substitute for becoming a functional state. Strategic autonomy is not achieved by playing capitals against each other; it is achieved when a country becomes too stable, too valuable, and too predictable to be ignored.
Until Pakistan addresses its socio-economic decay, governance incoherence, and political fragmentation, Central Asia will remain a projection screen for unrealized ambitions rather than a platform for genuine influence.
To cut a long story short, geography has given Pakistan an opportunity many states would envy. History, however, offers a harsher lesson, geography rewards those who govern themselves first. Without domestic repair, Pakistan’s regional pivot will join a long list of strategic doctrines – eloquent in intent, impressive in rhetoric, and ultimately undone by realities at home.
