Impatience seems to have gotten the better of us every time we thought of our jugular vein in the clutches of India. Indeed, instead of waiting to get our own house in order, economically as well as socio-politically, we rushed with arms where even angels would have hesitated to enter. We sent our still-in-a-formative-stage Army into Kashmir within a few months of independence, ostensibly to back up the tribal lashkars rushing towards Srinagar thus providing India the excuse to fly in its Air Force to 'protect' the Valley from what it called the marauding tribal lashkar.
The result: A long-drawn stalemate necessitating the two countries to increase their respective military budgets to defend the 'gains' each had made in the first unfinished encounter.
However, by 1965 Pakistan, thanks to its Cold War associated economic and military arrangements with the US, was well on the road to recovery.
But tempted by India's ignominious defeat at the hands of China in 1962, Pakistan once again, without a thought to its own immediate and long term economic needs, went into IoK only to be stopped and turned back when India went for Lahore across the international borders.
The result: Our economy was back to square one with our most allied ally of the Cold War stopping all assistance, especially the military aid as a punishment for using its military hardware (given to Rawalpindi to contain Soviet and Chinese communism), in a war against a non-communist India.
The resulting economic and military weaknesses that afflicted Pakistan following the war and the subsequent use of military force by Rawalpindi to subjugate the then East Pakistan was fully exploited by India manipulating to the hilt the schism that had emerged between the people of East and West Pakistan. A short war ensued which ended with East Pakistan turning into an independent Bangladesh.
The man of the hour, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, however, picked up the pieces immediately, rearmed the military more than adequately, established massive industrial infrastructure setting up fertilizer factories, used Chinese help to establish Machine Tool Factory, Heavy Mechanical Complex, Heavy Electrical Complex, brought on stream the Soviet assisted Steel Mills, set up Cotton Export Corporation, Rice Export Corporation, Karachi Export Processing Zone, Agriculture Support Prices agency, privatized all rent seeking enterprises, except private textile mills and manufacturing units set up by foreign private investment and launched the much coveted nuclear program.
Instead of taking full advantage of these assets and putting the country on the path to economic progress the ensuing years were wasted in fighting other peoples' wars. The first Afghan war lasted ten years but when the American CIA walked away from the region after the collapse of the Soviet Union an economically destitute Pakistan was left to shoulder the enormous responsibilities of over three million Afghan refugees, a gun and drug culture and the tricky task of managing a completely lawless Afghanistan in the midst of a bloody civil war.
Zia's successors in the GHQ used whatever little was left in our kitty following the end of the first Afghan war to fund another armed misadventure to liberate IoK. This time they used the non-state actors like Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba. Meanwhile, we got involved in the Afghan civil war as well which was going on between Taliban who controlled Kabul and Ahmad Shah Masood's Northern Alliance.
And for ten long years a destitute Pakistan instead of trying to revive its economy and rebuild its social and physical infrastructure was seen fighting two low intensity wars--one on the side of Taliban against Northern Alliance and on the other inside the IoK on the side of an indigenous intifada. And in-between we tried to enter IoK via Kargil arguably with intrusive effects. At the end of this idiotic war the entire world witnessed our soldiers retreating from across the Line of Control (LoC).
The result: The entire 1990s turned into a lost decade for Pakistan. During this decade we were the most sanctioned country in the world after Libya. The list had included the sanctions related to crossing the nuclear red-line, the nuclear tests, Kargil misadventure and the military coup.
India on the other hand used this decade to work on its economy. And within a few years' time the then Indian Finance Minister Manmohan Singh had lifted his country from the depths of 'Hindu rate of growth' to the heights of G-20 Group of rich countries.
At the turn of the century we were once again on our own and destitute--all alone with not a single friend in the world except China. Naturally, when the opportunity knocked at our door we were not in a position to refuse the tempting offer. Once again we found ourselves fighting others' wars. This time we became a Non-Nato Ally of the US fighting a war against the so-called global terrorism. The second Afghan war is now 18-year-old and continuing.
This perhaps was the last chance Pakistan had had to set its own house in order with the dollars pouring in from the US by way of compensation for services rendered as well as from multilateral aid agencies like the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the IMF.
But, again our impatience to forcibly liberate IoK once again got the better of our instincts and we stupidly allowed our non-state actors to re-launch their jihad in the IoK; and on the aside we helped the premier Afghan Taliban fighters, the Haqqanis. The US accusing us of playing a double game retaliated by stopping all assistance.
What, however, happened next was too unexpected. The November 26, 2008 massacre in Mumbai is being linked to LET of Hafiz Saeed. Next, there were other such jihadi attacks in Uri, Pathankot and the last one to date, Pulwama. All linked to JEM. Pakistan denies that any of its non-state actors have had anything to do with these incidents. But the Indian propaganda seems to have been swallowed hook, line and sinker by the international public opinion.
Of course, the question that would readily come to mind is, if this was a wrong approach (military), then what other approaches were available to Islamabad to liberate IoK? The answer is simple. The economic way. In other words, learning from the way China has attempted to resolve some of its own disputes. The British had to return Hong Kong to China without so much as even a whimper when the 100- year contract expired. Had China not become the economic giant that it is today, contract or no contract the UK would never have returned HK to Beijing. Similarly, the mainland has been in a position militarily to annex Taiwan for decades now but even without having done so, it has replaced Taipei in the UN Security Council and today that 'country' is part of what Beijing calls one country, two systems!
That is the option which was available to Pakistan all through these 72 years. We had needed to build our economy, making it self- sufficient not needing any external crutches. We had the time and the resources to accomplish this 'miracle'. And if we had gone this way today the world would have treated both India and Pakistan at par with the same esteem and respect. And India perhaps would not have even dared what it did on August 5, 2019.
Of course, it is not possible to replicate the policies and strategies of another country in their entirety. And also the issues of HK and Taiwan are qualitatively vastly different from that of IoK. Still, it is the current level of economic progress in China and India which discourages other nations from taking liberties with the political sovereignty of these countries. On the other hand, in our case the situation has remained tentative all along. We have an internationally justifiable Kashmir case. But its validity has continued to remain greatly diminished because of our economy being in the dumps most of these 72 years. This has downgraded our global political ranking which lets even countries like Afghanistan and UAE take liberties with our political sovereignty, what to talk of the world supporting our Kashmir case and the cause.