Javid Husain, Pakistan and a World in Disorder: A Grand Strategy for the Twenty-First Century (New York: Palgrave, 2016), 222

Abstract

Pakistan’s foreign policy is ‘out of sync with the ground realities at regional and global level’ as ‘it failed the tests of a sound foreign policy, and, therefore, it called for a fundamental review’ (p. 1) writes Javid Husain in his book Pakistan and a World in Disorder: A Grand Strategy for the Twenty-First Century. Husain is a former Pakistani diplomat who has served various important positions around the world, including as the ambassador of Pakistan to the Netherlands, the Republic of Korea and Iran. In the book, the author highlights historical foreign policy failures of Pakistan, and starts the discussion with two of the most debated theories of international relations pertaining to the post-Cold War world order: Clash of Civilisations and End of History by Samuel P. Huntington and Francis Fukuyama, respectively. According to him, the stipulated mottoes of the post-Cold War period, such as equality and peace remained unfulfilled by the international community wherein United States (US) remained the chief culprit for her blatant disregard of the principles of international law and the United Nations. International politics, in this regard, remained engulfed with the conundrums of realpolitik as major powers could not establish peace and the menace of war overshadowed world affairs, the invasion of Iraq being an example.