Pakistan’s Coming Collapse Should Worry the World

[TNT]

We are fast heading towards disintegration, the rott is on each and every level. I say let it fall down, we can build a new structure only if this mess falls down.

 

[truthseeker2010]

First of all, the first part of your post makes literally no sense. When where such claims ever made?

The thing here is that it hurt the psychology of the West/Christian world that a newly established Muslim country (former British colony moreover) was able to build nuclear weapons almost 3 decades ago.

As for the USSR, you need to brush up your history lessons. USSR disintegrated peacefully and by mutual accord from the leaders of the USSR republics. This culminated in December of 1991 when Gorbachov signed the document that abolished the USSR. Later (as a consequence of the USSR collapse) small local conflicts emerged. The main ones being in Chechnya, Abkhazia, Southern Ossetia and Moldova. In other words former USSR territories that had no nuclear weapons.

Totally incomparable to a 230 million big nuclear armed nation that has the backing of China, Arabs and others.

Also no matter how much trouble the West creates for Pakistan or vice versa, the West (USA) wants to do everything in their power to have a foot inside Pakistan and for Pakistan not to enter the China camp fully. Probably the recent coup was an desperate attempt of that.


Final comment.

USSR population by 1991: 289 million.

Pakistan population by 2022: Around 220-230 million.

Not exactly a huge difference here.

You need to comprehend what he is saying in order to make sense to you unless u want to keep yourself in denial.

What makes u think pakistan cannot bankrupt? Nukes? Ussr was far larger in every respect and still it disintegrated. And how and why do u think the allies that u call will come to ur rescue when u yourself don't want to reform? ur PM is openly begging Yr nuclear chief is openly begging u got IMF bailout and still inflation and dollar both is not becoming stable What else is left except matter of time. You can keep yourself motivated hoping that some other country will bail u out except for your own rulers are now openly saying that nobody is willing to give us money anymore.

 

[fitpOsitive]

This endless belief in some Napoleon riding his horse coming to rescue Pakistan is pure delusion.
Instead of trying to reform the painful and only way to emerge out of this morass that would take decades of sustained clear headed effort, Pakistani leaders promise miracle cures.
Decline first has to be slowed and then reversed.
There is no one and nothing in Pakistan that can manage such a transformation .

Dont you think that high reserves have prevented the similar situation in India till now?
But the real question should be, for how long? Because indian reserves are draining fast, and man atleast I know it.

We are fast heading towards disintegration, the rott is on each and every level. I say let it fall down, we can build a new structure only if this mess falls down.

Just like we built a new india after 1947.
Soon after disintegrations, each country makes her own army, which insures the prevention of re-integration.

 

[Pak_Sher]

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July 14, 2022 Topic: Pakistan Region: Asia Tags: PakistanIMFChinaCPECFailed StateNuclear Weapons

Pakistan’s Coming Collapse Should Worry the World​

The bubble is collapsing, and the result will not be pretty.
by Michael Rubin
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent economic shockwaves across not only Europe but also the broader Middle East. Pakistan, whose economy is already weak because of decades of corruption, mismanagement, and unstable governance, has been particularly vulnerable. While many countries are dependent upon Ukrainian or Russian wheat or foreign energy imports, Pakistan requires both. Between July 2020 and January 2021, for example, Pakistan was the third-largest consumer of Ukrainian wheat exports after Indonesia and Egypt. The price spike in oil prices has hit Pakistan hard, driving up the cost of its imports by more than 85 percent, to almost $5 billion, just between 2020 and 2021.
For Pakistan, it is a perfect storm. At the end of Pakistan’s fiscal year on June 30, 2022, its trade deficit neared $50 billion, a 57 percent increase over the previous year. Had the Shehbaz Sharif government not banned the import of more than 800 non-essential luxury items in May 2022, the figure might have been even higher.
Even the middle class is unable to keep up with inflation. In June, inflation soared to over 20 percent, the highest in the recent past. An International Monetary Fund-directed end to subsidies has caused both the price of electricity and gas to soar, even beyond the hike caused by the rise in oil prices worldwide. Food insecurity is rife. According to the State Bank of Pakistan, “reliance on imports for edible oil and oilseed meals to meet domestic demand consumption has been increasing over the past two decades: 86 percent of domestic edible oil consumption in 2020 came from imports up from 77 percent in 2000.” Population growth is only increasing the need for imports as domestic projects to produce soybean and palm oil falter.
Meanwhile, the Pakistani rupee continues to hemorrhage value when compared to the U.S. dollar, off more than 30 percent over the past year. In contrast, the Indian rupee has slid just over six percent. The decline in the Pakistani rupee hurts the middle class especially and all those unable to dollarize their saving. Wealthier households and the affluent invest in lucrative real estate dealings instead of activity that could generate not only rent-seeking income but also employment.
Yusuf Nazar, a former chief strategist at Citigroup’s emerging markets division, estimates that Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves have dropped by half since February to just $6.3 billion, akin to what Iran suffered under the so-called “maximum pressure” campaign. For Pakistan, however, the dramatic decline is of its own making: According to Nazar, Pakistan has received more International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailouts than any other country. This shows the unwillingness or inability of the Sharifs, Bhuttos, and Khans to implement serious reform.
International patience has worn out. The IMF no longer trusts Pakistani promises to reform, and is unwilling to throw good money after bad. Islamabad’s unwillingness to conduct reforms demanded by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) underlines how intertwined the Inter-Services Intelligence agency is with the murkier aspects of Pakistani finance.
Efforts by some Pakistani liberals to relaunch the stalled Trade and Investment Framework Agreement with the United States have gone nowhere, especially given Washington’s concerns with poor Pakistani regulatory practices, supply chain management, data protection, and intellectual property rights.
One of the reasons successive Pakistani leaders avoided reform was that they believed it easier to accept the fairytales spun by China. Far from being an economic savior for Pakistan, however, it is now clear that Beijing used the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), foolishly acceded to by Sharif’s brother Nawaz, as a mechanism to enslave Pakistan. “Our friendship is higher than the Himalayas and deeper than the deepest sea in the world and sweeter than honey,” he said in words that most Pakistanis today rue. Instead of promoting growth in Pakistan, the CPEC has become a liability for Islamabad. Sovereign counter guarantees to Chinese independent power producers eat up the Pakistani government’s revenue, even as Pakistan continues to face lengthy power outages. CPEC project implementation is sporadic even though, for the last four years, Pakistan is the world’s largest recipient of Chinese grants and assistance.
The World Bank has warned that Pakistan could soon face “macroeconomic instability.” Societal instability would soon follow. Pakistan’s private sector has not created enough jobs to absorb the labor pool. Anger is reaching the boiling point, and growing criminality hints at societal breakdown.
Sri Lanka’s collapse worries the region, but Pakistan’s collapse should worry the world. For decades, state failure in Pakistan has been a nightmare scenario. Both Pakistan and the broader world have had a taste of that scenario as violence, extremism, and poverty engulf the former capital and commercial hub of Karachi and as Pakistani authorities lose control over many regions alongside the Afghanistan border. The United States, India, and Iran are right to worry about the security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, as military officers also begin to struggle to get by. Pakistani elite live in a state of denial believing that the status quo in which they live an affluent life insulated from broader society is permanent. It is not. The bubble is collapsing, and the result will not be pretty.
Michael Rubin is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
Image: Reuters.

Michael Rubin from names sounds Jewish with a Zionist Agenda. We can print this article and use as toilet paper @HAIDER

 

[Flight of falcon]

Says volumes about who wrote it….

Michael Rubin is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute

 

[Redbeanpaste]

What I don't understand is why was there no warning that the situation was so dire before it got this bad. And what is the way out? Does anyone have a game plan or they just hoping it all works out.

 

[OldenWisdom...قول بزرگ]

In fact it is the other way round...

Pakistan and countries like it have been willing subordinates, paying members of the club... where it's own, rather the interests of it's people do not align.

Pakistan has been divesting away from it's own goals, policies and priorities and into those of its masters. From language, culture, education, arts and sciences, policies and politics that tell it's own story instead be a part of someone else's timeline/story and in the meantime like it's peers face obsolescence.

 

[Corruptistan]

You need to comprehend what he is saying in order to make sense to you unless u want to keep yourself in denial.

What makes u think pakistan cannot bankrupt? Nukes? Ussr was far larger in every respect and still it disintegrated. And how and why do u think the allies that u call will come to ur rescue when u yourself don't want to reform? ur PM is openly begging Yr nuclear chief is openly begging u got IMF bailout and still inflation and dollar both is not becoming stable What else is left except matter of time. You can keep yourself motivated hoping that some other country will bail u out except for your own rulers are now openly saying that nobody is willing to give us money anymore.

If not for Arab and Chinese help Pakistan would already have been bankrupt. Did you even read what I wrote earlier? This confirms that the powers that be, are not going to accept the disintegration of the Pakistani state.

The whole coup in April was about US fearing that they would eventually lose the connection to the Pakistani army the longer IK ruled and the more we gravitated towards China.

Pakistani economy needs to restructure itself completely and a total reset and people need to start paying their taxes and the state needs to provide basic services to ALL Pakistani people first.

You are daydreaming if you think that Pakistan is going to turn into another Afghanistan or something similar.

We are fast heading towards disintegration, the rott is on each and every level. I say let it fall down, we can build a new structure only if this mess falls down.

Disintegration of the corrupt system. Not of Pakistan as a concept or Pakistanis. Or are you telling me that every native ethnic group wants to create their own little Pakistan? None of which will survive and all will be eaten by larger countries (India says hello) or neighboring countries. Afghanistan will try to annex the Pashtun majority lands of Pakistan and Iran the Baloch ones. India will try to annex Punjab and Sindh. It's not going to work, none of those ethnic states will have any future whatsoever on their own.

What is needed is a restructured Pakistan that actually adheres to the founding ideas of Pakistan. What Pakistan has turned into for the past many decades is a joke and nothing what our founding fathers envisioned.

 

[nahtanbob]

First of all, the first part of your post makes literally no sense. When where such claims ever made?

The thing here is that it hurt the psychology of the West/Christian world that a newly established Muslim country (former British colony moreover) was able to build nuclear weapons almost 3 decades ago.

As for the USSR, you need to brush up your history lessons. USSR disintegrated peacefully and by mutual accord from the leaders of the USSR republics. This culminated in December of 1991 when Gorbachov signed the document that abolished the USSR. Later (as a consequence of the USSR collapse) small local conflicts emerged. The main ones being in Chechnya, Abkhazia, Southern Ossetia and Moldova. In other words former USSR territories that had no nuclear weapons.

Totally incomparable to a 230 million big nuclear armed nation that has the backing of China, Arabs and others.

Also no matter how much trouble the West creates for Pakistan or vice versa, the West (USA) wants to do everything in their power to have a foot inside Pakistan and for Pakistan not to enter the China camp fully. Probably the recent coup was an desperate attempt of that.


Final comment.

USSR population by 1991: 289 million.

Pakistan population by 2022: Around 220-230 million.

Not exactly a huge difference here.

USSR is 25 times the landmass of Pakistan. Russia replaced the USSR for all practical purposes. By no means USSR was bankrupt.

If not for Arab and Chinese help Pakistan would already have been bankrupt. Did you even read what I wrote earlier? This confirms that the powers that be, are not going to accept the disintegration of the Pakistani state.

The whole coup in April was about US fearing that they would eventually lose the connection to the Pakistani army the longer IK ruled and the more we gravitated towards China.

Pakistani economy needs to restructure itself completely and a total reset and people need to start paying their taxes and the state needs to provide basic services to ALL Pakistani people first.

You are daydreaming if you think that Pakistan is going to turn into another Afghanistan or something similar.



Disintegration of the corrupt system. Not of Pakistan as a concept or Pakistanis. Or are you telling me that every native ethnic group wants to create their own little Pakistan? None of which will survive and all will be eaten by larger countries (India says hello) or neighboring countries. Afghanistan will try to annex the Pashtun majority lands of Pakistan and Iran the Baloch ones. India will try to annex Punjab and Sindh. It's not going to work, none of those ethnic states will have any future whatsoever on their own.

What is needed is a restructured Pakistan that actually adheres to the founding ideas of Pakistan. What Pakistan has turned into for the past many decades is a joke and nothing what our founding fathers envisioned.

There is a better chance that current crowd in Pakistan pulls a Bangladesh with respect to India and moves on

 

[Hakikat ve Hikmet]

If not for Arab and Chinese help Pakistan would already have been bankrupt. Did you even read what I wrote earlier? This confirms that the powers that be, are not going to accept the disintegration of the Pakistani state.

The whole coup in April was about US fearing that they would eventually lose the connection to the Pakistani army the longer IK ruled and the more we gravitated towards China.

Pakistani economy needs to restructure itself completely and a total reset and people need to start paying their taxes and the state needs to provide basic services to ALL Pakistani people first.

You are daydreaming if you think that Pakistan is going to turn into another Afghanistan or something similar.



Disintegration of the corrupt system. Not of Pakistan as a concept or Pakistanis. Or are you telling me that every native ethnic group wants to create their own little Pakistan? None of which will survive and all will be eaten by larger countries (India says hello) or neighboring countries. Afghanistan will try to annex the Pashtun majority lands of Pakistan and Iran the Baloch ones. India will try to annex Punjab and Sindh. It's not going to work, none of those ethnic states will have any future whatsoever on their own.

What is needed is a restructured Pakistan that actually adheres to the founding ideas of Pakistan. What Pakistan has turned into for the past many decades is a joke and nothing what our founding fathers envisioned.

Losing Pak is no option for the US policymakers; the rest are all Fasa Fiso. The loss of Afganistan, and the entire Europe is now thrown into the fire.....

 

[Corruptistan]

USSR is 25 times the landmass of Pakistan. Russia replaced the USSR for all practical purposes. By no means USSR was bankrupt.

Most of the USSR landmass was barren tundra, ice or desert.

USSR population in 1991: 289 million.

Pakistani population in 2022: 220-230 million.

We live in 2022. Not in 1991. Most people/a lot of people have access to either a mobile phone, a computer or know someone who has. News spreads like wildfire today.

Who in the neighborhood is a military threat for Pakistan other than India? A failed and perpetually unstable Afghanistan is surely not other than small border skirmishes and spread of terrorism. Iran is a joke military speaking and no threat to us and they have plenty on their own plate. Which leaves 1.4 billion big India. Now this is where our nuclear weapons come into play. Any large-scale conflict between Pakistan and India risks a full-scale nuclear war from emerging. Nobody is interesting in that and that is why such a large scale war has never happened since 1947 and is unlikely to happen as long as Pakistan remains a nuclear-armed state.

So the only threat to Pakistan's integrity and survival is our own incompetent elites and internal problems (injustice, poverty, ethnic divisions, corruption etc.). But as I wrote a divided Pakistan into 4-5 separate entities based on ethnicity has no future whatsoever and will not survive. That has mostly always been the case historically speaking. There was always 1 major power keeping it all together. Today this power is the Pakistani military and that has been the case since 1947.

This Indian idea of the demise of Pakistan since 1947 is your guys favorite pastime. The demise of India as a united country is as likely as that of Pakistan. Neither is going to happen thanks to the militaries of both countries (nuclear armed now) that hold it all together. Without this, I doubt that both would have survived in their current shape. In particular India with its enormous ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity not to include the whole ingrained caste system that creates a caste society where people are perpetually born into misery without being able to change this. This creates bitterness and disunity.

 

[newb3e]

so the article is pointing to chinas cpec but in reality it has been US supported puppets both in military and civilian leadership that has ruled for 70 years and looted and destroyed the economy! and Pakistan was trying to get rid of US supported elites and moving to a very "neutral" position where we could not only got rid of these bastards but also worked with our allies to rebuild our economy!

 

[Corruptistan]

Let me repeat it again, the only danger to Pakistan's existence is found within Pakistan itself and Pakistanis.

Dissatisfaction is prevalent when injustice, lack of accountability, lack of progress, corruption, ineffective public sector, inadequate education sector is present. All this breeds anger and disunity. In such an environment when people are trying to survive, small differences can turn into huge differences and everything gets amplified.

We also need to realize that a lot of our cultural practices are rotten to the core. I won't mention many of them or any at all not to offend people (last time I did it my entire thread was deleted even though it was meant as internal reflection) which is not exclusive to Pakistanis but most cultures of the world. Some more than others.

We also need to realize that our Pakistani elites/those in power did not jump down from the sky. They came from within our society and are sons (mostly) and daughters of our soil. We thus need to correct some of our ills because nobody else is going to do it for us. No amount of outside investment is going to do it.

Pakistan is what we Pakistanis make it to be. Without it it is just land like any other on this planet. We, the people, make it stick together and make it either work or fail.

We need a serious look at ourselves in the mirror and try to find solutions to our problems. We all have different ideas, backgrounds, histories, symphonies, political views etc. but we should all strive to be as productive citizens as possible for the greater good.

And the easiest solution for this is education and more education. It is the only thing that will cure illiteracy, ignorance, primitive practices etc. An educated person that for instance is well aware of Pakistani history or even something as Pakistani DNA will realize that ethnic hatred within Pakistan is a idiotic thing to engage in. Just to mention an example.

 

[HAIDER]

Michael Rubin from names sounds Jewish with a Zionist Agenda. We can print this article and use as toilet paper @HAIDER

But listen to what he said, take it as constructive criticism. Can't we see the economic condition of our country? .. Moodys, Goldman Sachs, Fitch, S&P ... all credit agencies are owned by Jews

 

[Corruptistan]

except for Baluchistan, everyone would be worse off and end up in long-term poverty with little chance of improvement- I don't wanna go though it but think critically about it yourself

Baluchistan will actually be the ones most worse off. They are the people that have the biggest problem with sardars. Not only that they would not be able to survive on their own as they inhabit the largest province of Pakistan but also the by far least populated one. Most of their land is barren/extremely arid which makes the little agriculture difficult to sustain. This is why Baloch emigrated to Arabia next door in such large numbers in search of a better life. Or to Sindh next door.

No province in Pakistan can thrive and survive on their own. Even the most populous one (Punjab) would fail due to being landlocked and open for grabs for Indians. No natural geographic barriers mostly either to protect it. Take Lahore as an example. At least Sindh has the Thar desert.

All this is daydreaming by ethnic chauvinist. Which sane nationalistic Pakistani Pashtun is going to want to join/merge with Afghanistan when 10.000's of Afghans (each day) are crossing the border into Pakistan due to the miserable condition of Afghanistan?

It does not even make sense to discuss such topics, it only happens online and only a tiny amount of Pashtuns and Baloch even want such a thing to happen.