Drivers of UAE-India Partnership and Implications for Pakistan

This was compiled in Nov-Dec 2021 before the formation of I2U2

1. Introduction

The current world order is projecting a sharp bifurcation with the United States firmly pressing to maintain its power against a rising China and a resurgent Russia. Amidst this competition, stands India, the heavyweight in South Asia with its own geopolitical ambitions and a surging economy, garnering attention from countries all over the world (Bifurcatio­n of World Order, 2021).[1] With world politics in flux, countries are seeking new alignments and realignments to further their respective national interests. The altering attitudes of the big powers towards Middle Eastern countries, especially the member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has resulted in a recalculation of their own approaches towards their region as well as global affairs. In this fluid environment, GCC countries are rearranging their priorities and relations from an ideational outlook to a more practical one (Cook, 2021). The case of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) deserves special attention since, despite its small size and population, the Lilliputian state is aspiring to play a larger role in regional and international affairs (Ahmad, 2017; Gibbins, 2017).

The UAE’s foreign policy shift is more pronounced in the South Asian region, where until recently it was firmly siding with Pakistan in its relations with its strong neighbour, India (Abbas, 2019). In the past two decades, the UAE tends to pursue a more non-aligned or ‘balanced’ foreign policy. UAE-India relations are expanding at a fast pace bilaterally, fueled with regional geopolitical alignments like the UAE-USA-Israel-India quadrilateral framework (Mohan, 2021).

The Emirati state is more than willing to work towards a tangible geo-economics agenda over ideational linkages and multiple factors are driving this partnership further. For instance, recently UAE and India signed a pact to ramp up infrastructure development in the Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IOJK) (Krishnan, 2021). This news met with intense uproar from Pakistan. Former Pakistani Ambassador to India, Abdul Basit made remarks in his YouTube vlog that the UAE-India deal was a major success for India, and that as things are going Pakistan will lose the matter from its hands with more and more Muslim nations partnering with India. Kashmir has been a nuclear flashpoint dominating the geopolitical landscape of South Asia since both countries attained freedom from British rule in August 1947. With Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi scrapping Kashmir’s special status on August 5, 2019, tensions in Indo-Pak ties have surged to new heights (Kuchay, 2019; News Desk, 2021).

Yet with many surprises under the mediating efforts led by the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Pakistan and India had announced retaining the February 2003 ceasefire agreement on the Line of Control (LoC). According to a Bloomberg report, Both Pakistan and India were able to accept the ceasefire negotiations due to talks brokered by UAE officials (Sen, 2021). In a Foreign Policy article, journalist Sushant Singh affirmed that both Pakistan and India have appreciated UAE’s role in brokering the ceasefire process that began in October 2020 (Rej, 2021). However, UAE has emphasized that it sees the Kashmir dispute as a bilateral matter between two countries, having little to do with the concept of Muslim Umma and more to do with a historic territorial dispute (Kuchay, 2019).

Given contemporary events surrounding the two countries, this paper dives into the background of UAE-India ties, the drivers of this burgeoning relationship and the implications for the region, especially Pakistan.

2. Background to UAE-India Relationship:

Gulf’s ties with India go as far back as 3000 years back when the Indian subcontinent established a trading nexus, which became more dominant with Muslim rulers in the subcontinent. With the Britishers coming to Power in 1857, they redesigned the Indian subcontinent’s outlook towards the Middle East fitting best to their objectives (Abbas, 2019; Singh, 2020).

Relations in Cold War Era

UAE gained independence in 1972 and India established relations the same year with the nascent state so there is not much to look at beyond this time except for the general policy of India and the Gulf countries towards each other then (Ministry of External Affairs India, 2020). India’s ties with the Gulf countries have been negligible during the cold war for two reasons: First, India was aligned with the former Soviet Union so naturally in that era prospects of relations between India and the US affiliated Emirati states were grim. Secondly, these states were closely aligned with Pakistan in Kashmir, so there was not enough room to explore the relationship for India. India and UAE were connected through minimal trade and expatriate labour relations (Pethiyagoda, 2017; Khushnam, 2021).

Moreover, India had an ideological outlook of anti-colonialism and a non-aligned movement towards the Middle East. Despite following the principle of neutrality, India was in no support of pro-Western monarchies during the regional Cold war of the 1950s and ’60s, mainly due to its affiliation with the Soviet Union. UAE followed the general trend of other Gulf States aligning with the US camp, with the US also being the third country to recognize the state. It also synergized with Pakistan, with religious affinity being the key link. These factors restricted India’s policy with the UAE to be more transactional than strategic (Abbas, 2019).

Relations in Post-Cold War Era

India and US ties expanded in the 1990s as the US had emerged as the sole power of the unipolar world. This has developed conditions for India and UAE to engage as both are key allies to the US now (Pethiyagoda, 2017; Ahmad, 2017). With geopolitical shifts all across the globe, both UAE and India have rediscovered themselves as key partners with mutual geopolitical objectives. The major policy shift came as a result of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1991, as at the time India’ was reliant on its energy supplies. This caused India to shift towards UAE and Saudi Arabia for oil and gas supplies. Furthermore, India began to engage with the GCC countries in the 1990s not just for energy supplies, but also on matters of combatting terrorism and defence cooperation (Shahab & Bhatnagar, 2010; Singh, 2020).

In 2005, former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced the “Look West” policy which aimed to bridge India’s relations with the Middle Eastern countries especially the GCC countries. Former National Security Advisor (NSA) M.K.Narayanan emphasized India’s “key focus” was to ensure the “stability and security of the region, comprising the arc of nations from the Gulf to East Asia” (Singh, 2020). The former Prime Minister made visits to Oman, Qatar in 2008, followed by a visit from the Kuwaiti side to India in 2009. In 2010, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also visited Saudi Arabia and signed the Riyadh Declaration. These visits led to the signing of various pacts and commitments on aspects ranging from political, economic, defence, etc. (Abbas, 2019; Kuchay, 2019).

The incumbent Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the first Indian Prime Minister to visit UAE in 2015 followed by Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan visiting India in 2016 and 2017 as India’s Chief Guest for Republic Day celebrations; This set the start of UAE-India’s strategic partnership (Abbas, 2019; Kuchay, 2019; Ministry of External Affairs India, 2020; Siyech, 2017). Modi has also received the “Order of Zayed ‘’, the highest civilian award in the UAE. Prime Minister Modi’s visit to the UAE in 2015 and Crown Prince Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayad Al Nahyan’s visit to New Delhi in 2016 set the tone for agreements ranging from economic to security cooperation. India and UAE have made considerable attempts to overcome barriers to their ties to engage on diplomatic and strategic fronts. For example in 2016, during the Uri terror attacks episode, the U.A.E. made a stern statement of solidarity with India (Ahmad, 2017; Kuchay, 2019; Khushnam, 2021). Several factors have fueled UAE-India bilateral relationship to transcend its transactional character to transform into a strategic partnership.

3. Drivers for the Strategic Partnership

The Economic Partnership

Historically, India and UAE’s trade links are centuries old. Before the discovery of oil in the UAE in 1962, the dominant trade items were mostly pearls, dates and fish. Eventually, Dubai transformed into an economic hub while in the 1990s India was transforming through policies of economic liberalization. India signed the first agreement to import oil from the UAE in 1975 and since then their relationship has advanced in the energy sector (Ministry of External Affairs India, 2020).

The Indo-UAE trade in the 1970s was valued at about 180 million USD, and around 2018–2019 it became 60 billion USD. UAE has investments in India in five main sections which include Infrastructure, Sea Transportation, Tertiary sector, urban development, etc. Meanwhile, India has invested approximately 85 billion USD with 4000 plus Indian companies, 238 commercial agencies and 4862 trademarks registered in the UAE, with major funding in real estate, retail, logistics and transport, finance and insurance, manufacturing, wholesale etc. Indian government’s Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) along with Bharat Petro Resources led a consortium in 2018 to UAE and for the first time, Abu Dhabi awarded 10 per cent stake in an oil field to the Indian group (Ministry of External Affairs India, 2020).

India’s economic might has led many regional actors to pivot towards India as a partner, and UAE’s approach is no different now. As of recent reportage, UAE and India are seeking to double their non-trade to at least 100 billion USD over the next five years while India is already UAE’s second-largest trading partner with about 40 billion USD in non-oil trade before the pandemic (Al Jazeera, 2021). These ties are further augmented due to the shared economic visions outlined in official papers from the UAE like the Vision 2021 document and the Economic Vision 2030 (Siyech, 2017).

UAE is the tenth-largest source of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in India and ever since the special UAE-India Business Council was formed in 2015, both countries continue to redesign frameworks for smooth investments and stronger business synergy (Vyas & Vajid, 2016). Moreover, the prospects of an India-UAE Food Corridor has tempted 5 trillion USD investments from India to the Emirates, and in return, India is willing to provide 100% tax exemption to UAE before 2024 March (Al Jazeera, 2021).

The two countries have finalised their Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA). Indian Minister for Commerce & Industry, Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution, and Textiles said in an interview with Emirates News Agency (WAM) that there were extensive discussions on CEPA with Dr Thani Al Zeyoudi, Minister of State for Foreign Trade. The Indian Minister stated that they had both agreed “that a Free Trade Agreement [FTA/ CEPA], including an interim agreement in the immediate future, will help kick start at least on those areas where there is a common understanding, and operationalizing at least part of that FTA quickly will reap huge benefits for the people and businesses in both countries” (WAM, 2021).

India and the UAE are building an economic dependency upon each other which will continue to dominate their relationship, giving more weightage to their convergences on geopolitical objectives as well. For example, the UAE sees investments in Indian Occupied Kashmir in no different light from this. Instead, it believes that economic infrastructure is more likely to stabilize the region (Ahmad, 2017; Krishnan, 2021). In 2022, UAE and India signed a transformative economic pact, through which bilateral trade could reach up to 100 billion USD. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/18/india-and-uae-sign-major-investment-pact-over-100bn-in-bilateral-trade-.html

Defence and Technological Cooperation

UAE-India defence ties have improved ever since 2003 when the two signed the Strategic Dialogue that allows both countries to export-import arms and a Defence cooperation Committee was also established the same year (Siyech, 2017; Singh, 2020). There have been sustained military, naval and air force exchanges between India and the UAE, including multiple exercises together that have boosted security coordination between the two. Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince and the Minister of State for Defence Mr. Mohammad Al Bowardi of UAE made a visit to India in January 2017 reaffirming the need for strategic dialogue and partnership (Ministry of External Affairs India, 2020).

These visits continued in April 2018 for the Defence Expo in Chennai and then in October 2018 for Aero India. From Indian counterparts, the visits were made by Admiral Sunil Lanba and Vice Admiral Girish Luthra in 2017, and in 2018 Vice Admiral Srikant; In 2019 Air Marshal J K Singh and Air Marshal H S Arora visited the UAE. Indian Armed Forces (IAF) have participated side by side with their counterparts from UAE bilateral exercises like the Observers in Trilateral Air Exercise on Humanitarian Assistance & Disaster Relief (HADR) 2018 and in Gulf Star 1 naval exercises of 2018 (Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, 2018).

Both UAE and India priorities counter-terrorism agenda and the merging of Gulf and Indian Ocean security can result in increased technical and knowledge-based exchanges between the two (Ahmad, 2017; Mohan, 2021). Space is yet another area of cooperation between the two countries and the collaboration quickened its pace in 2015. The two space agencies, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) and UAE Space Agency (UAESA) have launched the nano-satellite, Nayif-1, and are working on UAE’s ‘Red planet Mission’(Khushnam, 2021).

Culture and Community

India has up to 3.3 million expatriates constituting UAE’s 30 per cent of the total population (GMI, 2021). In the 1970s and 80s, the Indian community was mostly offered blue-collared jobs however that has drastically changed in recent years where up to 35 per cent of the Indian community is in the top qualified personnel (Pethiyagoda, 2017). The role of Indian expats has been forthcoming in UAE’s economic development and their significance for UAE was highlighted especially when Minister for Labor, Ali Bin Abdullah al Kaabi said in 2007:

God forbid something happens between us and India and they say ‘please we want all our Indians’, our airports would shut down, our streets and construction sites would be empty (Abbas, 2019).

India’s massive population in the UAE has incentivized the government to work proactively with the UAE government to intensify economic activities and to secure the rights of Indian workers residing there. In 2018, the annual remittances by the Indian community living in UAE were over 17.56 billion USD (Ministry of External Affairs India, 2020).

The people of UAE have been accepting towards Indian culture especially due to the ‘law-abiding, obedient’ character of the Indian expats. This has earned India a soft image that has been rejuvenated with the cultural diplomacy of India. In 2007 Bollywood was the dominant feature in Abu Dhabi’s International Film festival and the top stars from the industry have been receiving preferential treatment from the event organizers (Abbas, 2019).

After Prime Minister Modi launched his ‘Project Mausam’ to highlight strong links of India to the Gulf, the UAE allowed the construction of a Hindu temple in Abu Dhabi which was inaugurated in the presence of His Excellency, Dr Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi. In Abu Dhabi International Book Fair 2019, India was invited as the Guest of Honour Country. The Gandhi-Zayed Museum was also launched in 2019 and India received the Pioneer’s Award in 2019 because of this successful initiative. Furthermore, UAE’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan invited India as a guest of honour at the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). The OIC has in the past has sided with Pakistan, demanding India to stop its violence in Kashmir. Such a move by UAE displays the goodwill India enjoys now in its relations with the Emirati state (Ahmad, 2017; Abbas, 2019).

The Security Conditions of West Asia

The Arab Spring revolutions of 2011 combined with the impacts of war on terror have created ruptures in the security of West Asia. Civil conflicts in Libya, Syria and Yemen pose intense regional threats especially due to the involvement of non-state actors like Daesh and factions of Al-Qaeda, coupled with Saudi-Iran rivalry in the region (Shahab & Bhatnagar, 2010; Ahmad, 2017).

With such a volatile atmosphere, the UAE has redesigned its role regionally and internationally. As Dr Justin Gibbins puts it, the UAE has reconfigured its power in three ways: (i) with soft power, dealing with humanitarian work in over 150 countries;(ii) hard power, the military campaign in Libya, Yemen and Syria backing its counterterrorism endeavors, (ii) and ‘smart power’ whereby relying on multilateral approaches. Its ties with India can be thus seen through this prism (Ahmad, 2017; Gibbins, 2017).

As for India, these upheavals are detrimental to its energy supplies and a severe threat to the Indian community living in the region. At the same time, these risks have opened the door of opportunity for India’s ‘Look West’ policy. Both UAE and India have emphasized countering terrorism and other transnational threats in the region to ferment their relationship (Pethiyagoda, 2017; Singh, 2020; Miani, 2020).

When the leadership of both countries met in 2015, their joint statements emphasized a “need for a close strategic partnership” and to promote “cooperation in the wider South Asia, Gulf, and West Asia region.” In 2017, the UAE leadership acknowledged India’s “increasingly important role in regional and global affairs.” To which, Prime Minister Modi reciprocated by saying that the convergence of UAE and India “can help stabilize the region” (Pethiyagoda, 2017).

In 2018, the joint statement after Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi visited the UAE, highlighted the strategic nature of their ties. The statement shared UAE and India’s will to counter terrorism through “holistic” means. The UAE also agreed to work closely with India on the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism proposed at the United Nations. Thus the worsening security conditions of West Asia have beckoned the two countries to collaborate on Gulf and Indian Ocean security (Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, 2018).

Geopolitical Convergences

UAE has ambitions to cast itself as a dominant regional player not just in the Middle East but also in South Asia. In a similar fashion, India’s rise in Asia is marked by its aspirations to expand towards the East and West (Ahmad, 2017; Gibbins, 2017). The signing of the Abraham Accords has opened doors for UAE-India extended coordination. Many analysts have labelled the UAE-USA-Israel-India dialogue as the Middle East Quad that can “leverage complementary capabilities” in the region. This grouping marks a prominent convergence between Abu Dhabi’s and New Delhi’s interests in Asia and the Middle East. These engagements have offered India to unleash itself from constraints and engage with the Gulf on practical lines; As prominent Indian analyst, C Raja Mohan mentioned in his recent Op-ed on Foreign Policy, the coming together of “India’s market, the Emirati capital, Israeli technology, and the US geo-economics clout in the region” will develop enhanced economic synergy in the region (Mohan, 2021; (Rej, 2021)).

Moreover, UAE’s involvement with Pakistan and India, hyphenating the two helps it climb up the soft power ladder, offering deflection from its military campaigns in Yemen and Syria. This soft power mechanism will continue to attract the US towards UAE as a significant regional partner in targeting US foreign policy initiatives and goals in South Asia (Vyas & Vajid, 2016); Gibbins, 2017; Siyech, 2017). At the same time, the Afghan matter has put considerable pressure on many countries, however, UAE along with India, lack the level of political relevance and leverage that Qatar and Pakistan hold over the issue. Perhaps the UAE aims to bring itself as an indispensable figure in South Asia through its mediating efforts between Pakistan and India, which can then also offer an indirect route to engage with the Afghan stakeholders. UAE is garnering influence also because Turkey and Iran, UAE’s rivals, have made significant inroads in the region. Consequently, it would render Emirati contributions towards the reconstruction of Afghanistan and its efforts as a US coalition partner fruitless. The south Asian chessboard thus offers UAE a considerable advantage to play a peace brokering role, if not on the Durand Line, then at least on the Kashmir LoC (Karim, 2021).

For India, its engagements with the UAE is of extreme value not just on an economic front but also on a strategic one. UAE is one of the dominant actors in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) so this relationship helps India restructure its image among Muslim countries globally and then assert in its narrative across Muslim states (Casolari, 2021; Karim, 2021; Krishnan, 2021). Moreover, with Indian-Israeli ties in full swing, it has now secured another US ally (UAE) in its strategic prism without the inhibitions of any Arab-Israeli conflict disrupting this bonhomie. This helps India reposition its prominence geographically, politically and economically with the ability to “rearrange the regional order and the balance of power” (Mohan, 2021). The Indo-UAE synergy will uplift Indian impressions in Washington’s perception. Seeing India’s willingness and ability to proactively engage and align its foreign policy objectives with those of the US’s is likely to expand the bilateral and multilateral engagements of India in West Asia. Prominent analyst, Professor Michael Tanchum expanded on an interesting concept of the India-ArabMed corridor, and seeing the direction West Asian geopolitics is taking, India is likely to become the greatest benefactor with this idea materializing (Mohan, 2021; Suri, 2021).

With the US shifting its focus from the Middle East to the Indo Pacific region, India perceives this as an opportunity for China to hedge itself (Pethiyagoda, 2017; Suri, 2021). The developments in the Indian Ocean region have been accelerating towards a competitive atmosphere with the naval presence of multiple regional and extra-regional powers. Any malicious event in this strategic pathway can pose a severe security crisis for GCC countries like the UAE as well as for Asian countries like India. Much of Asia’s crude oil is now received through Gulf countries, meanwhile, the Gulf countries receive up to 90 per cent of food imports through important choke points of the Indian Ocean region (Ahmad, 2017; Abbas, 2019). In a 2017 joint statement, UAE and India both emphasized developing synergy on their shared goals in maritime security and that this would suffice as one of the pillars of their bilateral partnership. UAE is part of two the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) and the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium (IONS) along with India. While these organizations lack institutional arrangements, the current geopolitical dynamics may result in UAE and India shaping this diplomatic venture for more coordinated efforts in the Indian Ocean region due to mutual interests (Ahmad, 2017).

4. Implications of UAE-India ties for Pakistan

Cooperation and Competition is the defining feature of global contemporary events. New alignments have emerged shaking the architecture of world politics and the UAE-India partnership has significant implications for the broader region, but especially for Pakistan.

The waning of Pakistan-UAE ties

As a country born on religious lines, Pakistan has strived to sustain good ties, especially with the GCC countries. Pakistan was the first country to recognize the UAE after its independence and since then has enjoyed amiable relations. Pakistan has played a significant role in assisting the UAE’s institutional building and has played a significant role in siding with it on various diplomatic and military fronts (Abbas, 2019; Siddiqa, 2021). Up to 1.27 million Pakistani ex-pats are based in the UAE as of 2021 (GMI, 2021). At the same time, UAE has also been one of the biggest sources of foreign direct investment in Pakistan and through its assistance initiative launched in 2011, the UAE has participated in Pakistan’s various construction projects. For long UAE’s foreign policy compass pointed towards Pakistan, but the changes in the geopolitical landscape have altered UAE’s direction (Siddiqa, 2021).

However, over time Pakistan’s ties with the GCC have been facing a downward trajectory due to apparent divergences in interests. Pakistan has been very vocal about its position on Kashmir and in recent years it has called out OIC countries for not showing vigor over the matter (Kuchay, 2019; Karim, 2021). In an interview on domestic news channel ARY, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi lashed at the silence of OIC countries on Palestine and Kashmir issues, pointing out Indian atrocities in IOJK and the demolition of the Babri Mosque. He even lamented the fact that Pakistan pulled out of the Kualalumpur Summit at Saudi Arabia’s request. The Foreign Minister had openly criticized Saudi Arabia’s role and highlighted Turkey, Malaysia and Iran as the only ones supporting Pakistan on the Kashmir issue. These points have possibly stirred the UAE’s cold-shouldering towards Pakistan as well (Sajid, 2020).

Though the major UAE-Pakistan fallout was apparent with Pakistan’s neutral stance on Yemen. Pakistan denied sending in its troops to support the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen and UAE had criticized Pakistan for it. Moreover, Pakistan’s neutral disposition on the Qatar diplomatic stand-off and its support for the Iran nuclear deal also flared tensions between UAE and Pakistan (Sajid, 2020; Siddiqa, 2021). In 2020 UAE imposed travel restrictions on Pakistan in the context of the pandemic, while Indians were still allowed despite the high rise of delta variant infections in India. This has been perceived in a more geopolitical light seeing the normalization of UAE-Israeli ties and the growing proximity of UAE-India relations (Mohan, 2021; Siddiqa, 2021).

As mentioned earlier, UAE’s earlier tilt was aligned with Pakistan especially on the Kashmir matter. With UAE sidelining the Kashmir issue as a mere bilateral feud in return for the Indian market, breeds two immediate implications: (i) the internationalization of India’s posturing on Kashmir, and (ii) the obvious fragmentation of the Muslim Ummah concept. UAE being a crucial member of the OIC has always sided with Pakistan and on multiple fronts has sustained the sensitivities around this matter (Krishnan, 2021; News Desk, 2021). Pakistan is currently taken aback by UAE’s decision to embark on this investment pact with India for Kashmir. Religious affiliation has been the fulcrum upon which the campaign for Kashmir has been running, with UAE stripping it away from this character means that it will no longer have the same say at the OIC forum for it, making room for more countries to follow suit. This displays the fragmentation of the Muslim Ummah concept and establishes the supremacy of nation state-oriented goals above any second objective. Pakistan has previously disrupted many such ventures, for example, it vehemently lobbied against UAE opening a visa office at Srinagar airport and denied permit over its airspace for International flights (News Desk, 2021).

But these gimmicks can no longer work in UAE given the recent dents in the bilateral relations. Indian diplomatic ties are becoming more and more salient even if UAE-Pakistan ties are still in contact. This is exemplified in December 2020, when UAE restrained work visas for Pakistani migrants for security reasons but Indian migrants continued to enter its economy. Pakistan also backed out from supporting the UAE and Saudi Arabia in the Yemen war (Siddiqa, 2021).

These dents allow India to become a salesperson attracting them towards the benefits it can offer instead of constant crooning of worries and complaints. The opportune that India is, it is likely to utilize UAE’s support to legitimize Indian actions in IOJK (Krishnan, 2021). This will naturally render Pakistan’s hefty dossier on Kashmir a wasted effort. As Ambassador Abdul Basit puts it, “Presenting the dossier isn’t enough. Pakistan is weak on follow-up on a sustained basis. There is no reason why we don’t achieve the results [when it comes to Kashmir]. Maybe, we failed to strengthen our civilian platforms to meet the challenges of the 21st century.” He has urged the Pakistani government to sustain engagements with its partners and to put in more efforts for a solution as he notes “everything is one-sided and the ground has been ceded to India. Now, the condition is that Muslim nations are signing MoUs with India” (Desk, 2021).

Pakistan’s geo-economic Policy

In March 2020 Pakistan announced its geo-economic grand policy at the Islamabad Security dialogue (ISD). A Moscow-based analyst, Andrew Korybko shared on the Russian International Affairs Council that the “gist of Pakistan’s grand geo-economic vision is to encourage a friendly form of ‘competitive connectivity’ between all relevant countries”. Through this policy, Pakistan wants to redesign its image in the world that is currently associated with its greylisting in the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and the deep-seated connections with non-state actors (Korybko, 2021; Shad, 2021).

It is unaffordable for Pakistan to lose its ties with the UAE and other GCC countries as they explore new avenues with India. The economic ties may remain as the only ‘sustainable’ path for Pakistan to maintain its links with the UAE. This has been evident by the fact that despite Pakistan’s dissatisfaction with UAE’s stance on Kashmir, Pakistan has still participated at the Dubai Expo in 2021 (Karim, 2021; Siddiqa, 2021). In return, Pakistan has invited investments from UAE for the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which falls in line with UAE’s non-oil trade Economic Vision as well (Siddiqa, 2021).

However, as ambitious Pakistan is with this nascent policy shift, it cannot just escape or sideline its geopolitical realities. The current Afghan crisis may turn into a civil war in case the Afghan Taliban fail to formulate an inclusive government, plus the Daesh elements in Afghanistan can become a bane for Pakistan’s own stability as well. The geo-economic shift demands intensification of connectivity, however, Pakistan’s relations with India are stagnant despite the ceasefire brokered by the UAE; Moreover, the chances of Pakistan being straddled in the US-China rivalry can create mounting implications for it politically and economically (Rafiq, 2021).

Additionally, Pakistan’s dire economic situation needs to normalize for any of the points on the geo-economics agenda to materialize, an example is CPEC; Critics are pessimistic seeing the case of CPEC that has yet to become functional and unleash it’s said economic potential. While Pakistan has access to the warm waters of the gulf and sits at the rim of the Indian Ocean, it has been unable to offer tangible connectivity to the countries interested. Pakistan is plagued with Domestic issues like corruption and elitism culture, and for the geo-economics policy tilt to attract any powers outside, Pakistan will have to uplift conditions within its boundaries first (Rafiq, 202; Kashif, 2021).

Afghanistan may have helped Pakistan reposition itself geopolitically, but there needs to be a broader outlook in our foreign policy. For one there needs to be a rejuvenated effort to maintain traditional allies and make concerted efforts to seek new ones. Announcing a geo-economics shift alone is not enough to garner economically beneficial partnerships (Rafiq, 2021). The Gulf states like UAE will continue to remain a crucial lifeline for Pakistan, tied with religious, social and most importantly economically dependent bonds. As much as Pakistan relies on China for its existence, the ties with the Gulf remain irreplaceable. Pakistan cannot dictate what countries can other states align with, but it can certainly work towards ensuring that its ties and interests are not severely implicated (Karim, 2021).

Conclusion

Geopolitics is a realist’s field, and UAE-India ties will continue to grow. India and UAE are utilizing their ‘smart’ power to forge regional and international milestones together. With Israel and the US added to the equation, there is hardly room to deny the significance and potential growth of UAE-India relations. These developments can put Pakistan in a rough spot, for which it still lacks the capability to balance between different powers. Unless policymakers in Pakistan buckle up to meet the most urgent needs as well as put in efforts for what is important for the long term, there’s more to lose than to gain.

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