CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE: PAKISTAN'S BALANCING ACT BETWEEN U.S. PRESSURE AND IRAN'S AXIS OF RESISTANCE

Abstract

Pakistan is a country with a strategic location at the intersection of South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East, and thus it cannot be ignored in the geopolitics of the region. Its geographical location close to Iran, the long-standing security cooperation with the United States (U.S.), strategic relationship with China, and the close political and economic relations with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) put Islamabad in a tricky diplomatic situation. New geopolitical realities, such as the worsening of U.S.-Iran relations, the growth of the Axis of Resistance, tightening of sanctions against Tehran, and the conflicts in the region between Israel, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis have added to the foreign policy options of Pakistan. Pakistan has always tried to keep out of regional disputes without necessarily engaging in any of them but has always enjoyed good relations with all the key stakeholders. This paper will discuss the balancing policy of Pakistan between the U.S. strategic expectations and Iranian growing influence in the region through the prism of strategic hedging and neoclassical realism. The paper presents a case based on a qualitative study which is a secondary research and argues that Pakistan has pursued a pragmatic foreign policy that has placed strategic autonomy, economic security, regional stability and domestic security issues above alliance politics. Despite the fact that this balancing policy has helped Islamabad to be diplomatically flexible, geopolitical polarization and regional instability are still increasing and present a great challenge. The paper concludes that the future foreign policy of Pakistan will be more reliant on economic diplomacy, regional interconnectedness, and multi-vectoral interactions as opposed to strategic alliances.