(By Khalid Masood) When the dawn of September 6, 1965, broke over the subcontinent, it did not bring the peace of a new morning; it brought the thunder of unprovoked aggression. As enemy armour rolled across the international border with the explicit objective of seizing Lahore, isolating Kashmir, and crushing the young nation’s spirit, they…
(By Khalid Masood) I. The SCO Bishkek Summit 2026: Cementing Pakistan’s Multilateral Leadership The Summit Context and Strategic Posture The 26th Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Council of Heads of State summit, convened in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, in late August 2026, marked a watershed moment for Eurasian geopolitics. Occurring against a backdrop of profound regional turbulence—including the…
An In-Depth Analysis of the 30–31 August Escalation and Its Global, Regional, and Gulf Implications (By Khalid Masood) I. Executive Summary The overnight exchange of 30–31 August 2026 — a US precision strike on Iranian launchers at Larak Island followed by Iran’s first-ever ballistic missile attacks on American air bases in Jordan — represents the…
(By Khalid Masood) The air inside a neonatal intensive care unit is normally defined by a fragile rhythm: the hiss of ventilators, the measured beeping of monitors and the hurried but controlled movements of doctors and nurses fighting to keep premature and critically ill babies alive. On the morning of 26 August 2026, that rhythm…
Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan have created a new security framework. Its significance, however, will depend less on the language of collective defence than on whether the three states can reconcile very different strategic interests. (By Khalid Masood) When Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Army Chief Field Marshal Asim Munir, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin…
(By Khalid Masood) Introduction: From Estrangement to Entente In the shifting architecture of twenty-first-century geopolitics, few bilateral relationships have undergone a more consequential transformation than that between India and Japan. For much of the post-war era, the two nations remained polite but distant—separated by geography, divergent strategic cultures, and India’s steadfast non-alignment. Today, however, New…
(By Khalid Masood) On 18 August 2026, Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif stood beside Wilson L. White, Google’s Vice President of Government Affairs and Public Policy, and unveiled the foundation plaque of the company’s first office in Pakistan. The ceremony at the Prime Minister’s House in Islamabad carried the weight of a nation eager to…
(By Khalid Masood) When the two-part docuseries Declassified: Operation Sindoor premiered on India’s 80th Independence Day, August 15, 2026, the Indian establishment hailed it as a triumph of transparency and military prowess. Broadcast on the Discovery Channel and streamed globally, the series meticulously details the 88-hour cross-border kinetic operation launched in May 2025. Yet, beneath…
(Quratulain Khalid) The Dichotomy of August 15 Today, as India marks its 79th Independence Day with elaborate military parades, flag-hoisting ceremonies, and sweeping declarations of its rise as a global power, a radically different narrative unfolds just a few hundred kilometers away in the disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir. There, August 15 is not…
(By Quratulain Khalid) The Warm-Water Obsession For over a century, the Kremlin has harboured a singular, unyielding geopolitical ambition: to reach the warm waters of the Arabian Sea. It is a dream that has shaped empires, triggered wars, and redrawn the map of Eurasia. In December 1979, that dream drove the Soviet Union to send…
