SOAS Research Online

Abstract

Against a great deal of contemporary Cold War scholarship, this chapter argues that Pakistan’s complex relations with the United States—as well as with the Soviet Union, China, India and Afghanistan—place it firmly at the centre of global Cold War politics. What’s more, as a curious site of many a ‘cold’ and ‘warm’ regional war since its inception, including those occurring well after the supposed end of the global Cold War, Pakistan’s story to date is one of seemingly infinite warfare and political instability. This chapter contends that this story is a reflection of the state’s continuous internal class struggle as well as its early less-than-successful attempts to excel in Cold War international lawfare in which its neighbouring states and the two global superpowers have arguably been more successful. The chapter shows that often-idiosyncratic interventions of Pakistan’s diplomats and international lawyers form a distinct legal and political trajectory, which is at odds with arbitrary, yet ubiquitous, conceptual delineations between ‘cold’ and ‘warm’ wars, in particular in the Global South.