Pakistan does not announce itself as a great power. That is precisely why it works.
Prussia, built on Position, not Pretension
In a world that is reorganising around blocs, chokepoints, and undersea cables, Pakistan has emerged as one of the most dextrous middle powers on the planet. Not because it dominates geography, but because it understands it. Not because it leads alliances, but because it survives them. Most states are trapped by their alignments. Pakistan is not. It sits at the hinge of the Eurasian landmass: between the Gulf and Central Asia, between China and the Muslim world, between the Indo-Pacific and the Middle East. This position is dangerous for weak states. For competent ones, it is leverage. Pakistan has learned how to convert constraint into flexibility.
Dexterity & Diplomacy as Strategy
Militarily, it is credible without being threatening. Its armed forces are professional, disciplined, and interoperable with multiple systems. Pakistani officers train with the West, plan with China, coordinate quietly with the Gulf, and maintain channels to Iran. This is not confusion. It is optionality. Diplomatically, Pakistan speaks every necessary language. Literally and figuratively.
Speaking every Strategic Language
English gives it access to Anglo-American strategic culture. Urdu and Persianate habit give it fluency in the Muslim world. Its military-intelligence class understands how Washington thinks, how Beijing calculates, and how regional actors hedge. Few states can translate between these worlds without sounding incoherent. Pakistan can. This is why it keeps being invited back into relevance.
Being Invited Back into Relevance
When the United States needed supply routes into Afghanistan, Pakistan mattered. When China needed a corridor to the Arabian Sea, Pakistan mattered. When the Gulf wanted a nuclear-armed Muslim state that did not posture, Pakistan mattered. When Iran needed a neighbour that could disagree without escalating, Pakistan mattered. This is middle-power mastery: being unavoidable without being domineering. The current strategic map makes this clearer than ever. The West is attempting to stitch together the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific theatres through undersea dominance, submarine fleets, and technological integration.
CRINK
Against this stands a loose counter-bloc centred on China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. Most countries are being asked to choose. Pakistan has refused to perform loyalty theatre. It cooperates where it must. It abstains where it should. It commits where it benefits. It avoids moral grandstanding and ideological crusades. This frustrates pundits who prefer clarity over competence. But states do not survive on Twitter logic. Pakistan understands a truth that many louder powers ignore: realism is not about aggression. It is about endurance.
Endurance Over Exhibition
Unlike ideologically driven states, Pakistan does not confuse symbolism with strategy. It does not seek regime export, civilisational missions, or permanent enemies. Its doctrine is stability through balance. Its diplomacy is quiet. Its signalling is minimal. Its red lines are clear. This is why Pakistan remains functional while flashier states exhaust themselves. Its military knows how to deter without inviting escalation. Its diplomats know how to say no without burning bridges. Its elites know how to operate inside Western institutions without becoming dependent on them. This is not accidental. It is the result of decades of exposure to pressure. Pakistan has been sanctioned, courted, abandoned, and rediscovered. It has learned not to confuse attention with security. In a period where great powers are overstretched and alliances are brittle, Pakistan’s restraint looks increasingly sophisticated. It does not try to dominate the system. It positions itself so the system cannot bypass it. That is the essence of a successful middle power.
Operating from the Sidelines
Pakistan is not loud. It is not moralising. It is not doctrinaire. It does not pretend to be indispensable. It simply is. And in the coming decades, as undersea cables, energy routes, and continental logistics matter more than slogans, that quiet competence will matter far more than declarations of greatness. Pakistan does not seek the centre of the world. It operates from the seams. That is where the future is being decided.
Like the shiny unearned medals decorating the uniforms of Pakistani Jagirdaar jernails, this … is a whole lotta fancy adornment of bitter realities.
>Pakistani officers train with the West, plan with China, coordinate quietly with the Gulf, and maintain channels to Iran
In the last couple of decades, PakMil has created an almost complete dependency on the CCP – Apart from the legacy F16s, the entirety of Pakistani advanced war material is Chinese. And the “West” is well aware of this. “Training” or “liason” with the west is limited to the specific, and narrow use-cases where Uncle Sam wants to rent the PakMil – for its geography, its airspace, or as cheap ‘boots on the ground’. To put it bluntly, the fact is that the West can exert strong leverage on a bankrupted Pakistani state, led by its feudo-military kleptocracy.
And the kleptocracy is happily willing to be as pliable as needed, on any and all topics – whether that’s keeping mum on the CCP’s notorious persecution of Ummah Muslims in East Turkestan – where even Pakistani citizens and their wives have directly faced the brunt of state repression – to goose-step marching promptly on Drumpf’s diktats on American and Israeli desires in the Middle East. Even on critical policy issues where Pakistan’s own interests, and the strong preferences of its own populace are in direct contradiction.
One can pretend of course, that this pliability is an exercise in….. flexibiity instead of …majboori. But such pretense is as naked as the Pakistani state’s budget and HD indices.
>Pakistan does not confuse symbolism with strategy. It does not seek regime export, civilisational missions, or permanent enemies.
One might think that an Afghan, or a Bangladeshi perspective on this, may… strongly differ.
And on Iran, that nation is currently in an embattled corner, but I would imagine that an Iran, once restored and stable, is not going to simply ‘forget’ Pakistani …choices made in conjunction with Uncle Sam and Israel, when it was weak and vulnerable.