Pakistan’s neutrality in the Russia-Ukraine war: Navigating great power politics

ABSTRACT

This contribution argues that Pakistan’s decision to maintain neutrality in the Russia-Ukraine war is influenced by its policy to avoid entrapment in “camp politics”, signaling a departure from its longstanding strategic dilemma of choosing between major powers such as the US, Russia and China. It also argues that Islamabad’s unwillingness to denounce Russia for invading Ukraine and violating its sovereignty and territorial integrity demonstrates Pakistan’s “sovereignty paradox”. It highlights that Pakistan has always condemned any violation of its sovereignty and territorial integrity as a contravention of the right/notion of “equal sovereignty.” However, on the Russia-Ukraine war, Pakistan has refrained from condemning Russia’s violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, which not only violates the country’s principled foreign policy stance on the sovereign equality of all states, but also raises questions about its commitment towards the key principles of international law and the UN charter.

KEYWORDS:

• Russia-Ukraine war
• Pakistan
• India-China-US
• equal sovereignty
• decolonization-non-alignment-neutrality
• UN-NAM

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the two reviewers and the editors of the journal for their invaluable feedback which has significantly improved the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 For a detailed discussion, see Introduction, Forum.

2 Some analysts aver that Pakistan’s powerful support for sovereign equality and territorial integrity of states and non-acquisition of territory by the threat or use of force do not align well with its revisionist policies against India and its prior willingness to use force to resolve the Kashmir dispute. While the argument about use of force to resolve the Kashmir dispute cannot be overlooked, it is noteworthy that since the 2008 Mumbai attacks, Pakistan has embarked on an apparent but widely overlooked shift in its policy of using force (or using militant groups) against India. Furthermore, Pakistan has also undertaken visible steps to improve ties with India along the line of control (LOC) agreeing to ceasefire in 2021. For more details see Bacon (2023).