THE return flight from Bangkok crosses Indian airspace flying low over the physical boundary on the final descent into Lahore.

Unlike the Swiss-German border or indeed even the border at Torkham, there is no line of parked cars, buses and trucks, waiting patiently for customs formalities. Instead, one sees a concertina wire fence complete with searchlights, watchtowers and motion sensors.

Before I folded the meal table I had been drawing three overlapping circles, one each representing South Asia, Central Asia and West Asia — or call it the Middle East. The region where the three circles overlap was Pakistan … an enviable strategic position indeed! The finality of being fenced out would appear to indicate one less circle.

Meanwhile I had folded the drawing paper and was now using it as a bookmark placed inside my in-flight read; Imtiaz Gul’s The Most Dangerous Place: Pakistan’s Lawless Frontier resting in the seat pocket in front of me.

“What Pakistan faces today is not a ragtag army comprised of just a few thousand religious zealots,” writes Gul, who also runs the Centre for Research and Security Studies in Islamabad. “Beyond a doubt, the TTP [Taliban] is out to destroy the entire Pakistani security establishment. This will be possible only if the security forces face a continuous and sustained challenge all over the border regions, where one-fourth of the Pakistan Army is now deployed. One thing is clear: a long, bloody struggle lies ahead.”

And whilst the mess in Afghanistan may or may not have been influenced by our own blinkered strategic vision, even after 14 years, the supposed trucks from Torkham crossing the Oxus into Central Asia remain a mirage. Effectively, this brings us to only one strategic circle, the Middle East. Even there for the last two decades, Pakistan as a locked state with an impoverished economy has had little to offer (other than a pool of semi-skilled labour).

Judging from the shopping bags my fellow passengers have stuffed in the overhead cabin compartments, it is apparent that not just the Middle Eastern market but Pakistani consumers themselves now demand quality and standards. Accordingly, the last remaining circle, too, fades away. This leaves only Af-Pak. So how do you squander a huge strategic geopolitical advantage? Easy! Hold firm to a flawed strategic vision that is underpinned by an even more flawed ideology — that sees strategic depth to the west and an enemy to the east. How does one change this endemic condition? One way is with economics.

Since 9/11, Pakistan has lobbied for greater market access for its textile products to the US market. “What benefit will this bring?” asked the US administration. “Five-fold increase in exports — from $3bn to $15bn,” responded the Pakistani textile industry; a verbal attestation without any economics research to back it up with.

Ten million new jobs thus created would water down religious militancy, a favourably inclined US administration pleads to a reluctant US Congress. “Well, also please do tell us who will bear the cost: US industry and taxpayers or the other textile-producing Asian countries?” asks the US Congress. Once again, without rigorous quantitative analysis these questions cannot be answered and so the issue of free-market access continues to languish.

The gravity model for trade is an econometric estimation technique to simulate trade volume flows between two countries (or two regions). In similar fashion to a war game exercise, it churns out predictions based on input parameters such as the distance between and the relative sizes of the two economies. This technique has been used to predict the outcomes of trade agreements like Nafta (North American Free Trade Agreement).

According to our own logic, Pakistan needs a big market for its export, one that will stabilise the shattered economy. For 10 years we have chased the US market but have missed seeing the huge market next door that even the US and the rest of the world vie for. This is because even while India may have the world’s 10th most regressive trading regime it is still the world’s second or third most sought after business destination on account of the size and growth rate of its consumer market.

India offered Pakistan the most-favoured nation status, a position any other country would bend over backwards to obtain. Pakistan has yet to reciprocate. The Gravity Model has been applied several times to simulate trade between the two countries under varying assumptions. On average, it has indicated a twenty-fold increase — from the present $2bn to $40bn in two-way trade. This implies a doubling of exports in one stroke. It also implies a cheaper total import bill.

In what may be a competitive model to Singapore, the Malaysian province of Penang is positioning itself to become a regional economic powerhouse. In this scheme of things, Penang’s greater economy would incorporate southern Thailand and the Indonesian island of Sumatra. All will benefit. In similar fashion, Lahore, together with central Punjab, stands to gain immensely as a potential hub of a greater economy.

From a geopolitical perspective, the Indian cities of Amritsar, Jullunder, Ludhiana and Patiala are closer to Lahore, (and to Punjab’s golden triangle comprising the manufacturing clusters of Gujranwala, Gujrat and Sialkot) than to northern Indian industrial cities in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar or Bengal. Generally for the Indian states of East Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, Lahore is the nearest commercial hub and Karachi is the nearest seaport and there is a plausible rail link in between.

The GHQ probably realises that a flooded Pakistan, facing an existential threat emanating from its lawless tribal frontier is also a country with diminished economic war potential to ward off this threat. There is nothing unusual about a policy reappraisal following a calamity. In that sense, the opening of Wagah represents the decisive round in the battle between the forces of progress and the forces of reaction. The choice of moment for that showdown has never been more urgent.

Copyright © 2010 – Dawn Media Group

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