Foreign Policy of Pakistan: Internal Challenges

Abstract

Since the post Cold War period, Pakistan has been in the face of diverse challenges. No doubt, the relative stability and predictability of that era has disappeared and a large number of regional and global alignments have lost significance as well. Old ties and linkages are under stress and almost every state is now reviewing the parameters of its foreign policy. Hence the post Cold War era can be described as New World Order or New World Disorder, as the security of small states has become more challenging than ever before. It has been dilemma of Pakistan that whenever in history, the dictators ruled the country, it was the US administration which found itself easy as the democratic governments relatively prefer to build up relations on mutual basis. From the last few years, the foreign policy of Pakistan has been directionless and to some extent, it has remained reactive too. The country is being run without any national security policy in face of many imposing challenges. The paper will discuss what challenges Pakistan is to face on the foreign policy front without going into details on onedimensional focus on political aspects of country’s foreign relations. It will analyze what issues should be taken up as urgent and important as far as the current challenges of the country are concerned.