FOR nearly two years, the subject of geoeconomics has been discussed in Pakistan’s academic and official echelons. In an article published in this paper in December 2021, this writer had discussed the prospects of geoeconomics benefiting Pakistan by leveraging our economic geography to address geostrategic challenges — it being understood that geoeconomics is not a replacement for geopolitics and that both must work in tandem.
However, it is important to recognise that Pakistan’s pivot to geoeconomics is different from the way the term evolved in the Cold War context. US strategists proposed to use geoeconomics to gain geopolitical advantage against adversaries. An elaborate menu of economic instruments was developed: promoting or blocking investments, market access, or infrastructure projects and imposing economic sanctions, tariff wars, and technology wars. This represented a skewed dimension of geoeconomics suiting only stronger economies, while working against vulnerable ones. This is not the geoeconomic pivot to which Pakistan aspires. For Pakistan, the pivot to geoeconomics would mean benefiting from our unique economic geography.