GeoStrategic Importance of Pakistan

GeoStrategic richness of PakistanGeo- Strategic means importance of a country or a region as by virtue of its geographical location. Geo political is delimit as, stressing the influence of geographic factors on the state power, internationalistic conduct and advantages it derives from its location.Pakistan is dictated at a region which has a slap-up economic, political and strategic location. It has been the hub of great activities for the past twenty years. Stephen Cohn describes this importance While history has been pitiless to Pakistan, its geography has been its sterling(prenominal) benefit. It has resource rich line of business in the north-west, mint rich in the north-east. Pakistan is a junction of South Asia, tungsten Asia and rally Asia, a way from resource efficient countries to resource deficient countries. The knowledge domain is facing energy crisis and terrorism. Pakistan is a route for transportation, and a front downslope state against terrorism. Pakistan has witnessed the intervention of three great powers Britons, U.S.S.R and U.S. Its significance is further enhance during the chilliness war when it became the alley of the U.S policy of containment of U.S.S.R and now the post cold war era has witnessed its significance politically after the event of 9/11.Pakistans Geographical LocationPakistan is located in southern Asia. It is located amidst 24 and 36.5 blue latitude and mingled with 61 and 75.5 eastern latitude. The area of Pakistan is estimated at 803,940 four cheering kilometers. Pakistan is the bridge mingled with South Asia and South West Asia.Towards the North western part of Pakistan there lies Afghanistaniistan. Pakistans bourn with Afghanistan is about 2,250 kilometers long. In the north, it runs along the ridges of the Hindu Kush (meaning Hindu Killer) mountains and the Pamirs, where a narrow strip of Afghan territory called the Wakhan Corridor extends between Pakistan and Tajikistan. This strip is about 16 to 25 kilometers long. The boundary line between Pakistan and Afghanistan is called Durand Line and it was drawn by Sir Mortimer Durand in 1893 and he was the foreign sectary of British India and was acceded to by the ameer of Afghanistan that same year. It was non in doubt when Pakistan became independent in 1947, although its legitimacy was in afterwards years disputed periodically by the Afghan government as well as by Pakhtun tribes straddling the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. On the one hand, Afghanistan claimed that the Durand Line had been compel by a stronger power upon a weaker one, and it favored the establishment of motionless a nonher state to be called Pashtunistan or Pakhtunistan. On the other hand, Pakistan, as the legatee of the British in the region, insisted on the legality and permanence of the boundary. The Durand Line remained in effect in 1994.In the northeastern tip of the country, Pakistan controls about 84,159 square kilometers of the former princely state of J ammu and Kashmir. This area, consisting of Azad Kashmir (11,639 square kilometers) and or so of the Northern Areas (72,520 square kilometers), which includes Gilgit and Baltistan, is the most visually stunning of Pakistan. The Northern Areas has five of the worlds seventeen highest mountains. It likewise has such extensive glaciers that it has nightimes been called the third pole. The boundary line has been a matter of pivotal dispute between Pakistan and India since 1947, and the Siachen Glacier in northern Kashmir has been an of the essence(predicate) arena for fighting between the two sides since 1984, although far more soldiers go through died of exposure to the cold than from any skirmishes in the conflict.From the eastern end of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, a boundary of about 520 kilometers runs generally southeast between China and Pakistan, terminal near the Karakoram Pass. This line was determined from 1961 to 1965 in a series of agreements between China and Paki stan. By mutual agreement, a new boundary accordance is to be negotiated between China and Pakistan when the dispute over Kashmir is finally firm between India and Pakistan.The India-Pakistan Border, known locally as the International Border (IB), is the international boundary between India and Pakistan that demarcates the Indian states of Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat from provinces of Punjab and Sindh. Pakistan borders India in the East. The border resulted from the Partition of India in 1947.The Line of Control (L.O.C) separates The Indian administered Jammu and Kashmir from Pakistan administered Azad Kashmir.Wagah, the ceremonial point of crossing between India and Pakistan lies along this border between the Indian city of Amritsar and the Pakistani city of Lahore, and is within close distance of both cities urban sprwal.The boundary with Iran, nigh 800 kilometers in length, was first delimited by a British outfit in 1893, separating Iran from what was then British Indian B alochistan. In 1957 Pakistan signed a frontier agreement with Iran, and since then the border between the two countries has not been a subject of serious dispute.To the South of Pakistan , Arabian sea and Indian ocean are located. The costal belt of Pakistan is about 700 kilometer. Pakistan significance is compound as it located near the Persian Gulf from where 65% anele of the world is produced.HISTORICAL OVERVIEW500 BC , one of the worlds first great civilizations began to develop in the Indus valley in what is now Pakistan.Ruin of Harrapa and Mhenjo- Daro , were the two major cities of the civilization, show that both were large and well planned. By about 1700 BC, the Indus Valley civilization had disappeared. Experts dont know why it collapsed.During the next several thousand years, umpteen people from southwest and central Asia came into the region that is now Pakistan. nigh 1500 BC, a key Asian people called Aryans came through the mountains passes to the Punjab regio n. In time, they settled crosswise almost all of india.The Persians conquered the Punjab during the 500 BC and made it part of the Brobdingnagian Achmenid empire. In 236BC, Alexander the great took control of most of what is now Pakistan, a few years later, the emperor Chandra Gupta Mauriya made the region, part of Mauriyan empire.The Mauriyan Empire began to recess up about 230BC. Greeks from the independent state of Bacteria in Central Asia then invaded the Indus valley, they established kingdom with seat of governments near the present day cities of Peshawar and Rawalpindi. About 100BC Scythians from Afghanistan came into Baluchistan and Sindh. In time they conquered the Indus region. The Parthian, who in turn was conquered by the Kushans of Central Asia, replaced Afghans. The Kushans control what is now Afghan. Pakistan and northwest India from about AD 50 mid 200s. They controlled the consider routes from China to India and the Middle East, Peshawar, the kushan capital, bec ame the major commercial center. During the mid 300 the Indus valley become part of the Gupta Empire which had expanded westward from northeastern India, Huns from Central Asia conquered the empire in mid 400s. The coming of Islam, In AD 711,Arabs Muslims sailed across the Arabian sea and invaded Sindh bringing Islam to the region, Beginning about AD gram Turkish Muslim invaded Northern Pakistan from Iran.The Turkish prescript Mehmood of Ghazni established a Muslim kingdom that in time including the entire Indus Valley. Lahore become the capital of the kingdom and developed into a major entre of Muslim culture.In 1206, most of what is now Pakistan became part of the Delhi Sultanat, a Muslim empire that included Northern India. The Delhi Sultanat lasted until 1526, when Babar a Muslim ruler from Afghanistan, invaded India and established the Mughul Empire.By far Sher Shahs greatest legacy is the modern Grand Trunk road which ran from Bengal to Attock, however some claim it ran righ t up to Kabul. Along the way Baulis and Sarais were constructed which are the same of Modern day Service stations. Some 450 years later, an incompetent ruler of Modern Pakistan also fancied going down in memoir as Sher Shah Suri. The result, a road though one of the best in the world but a white elephant for the Pakistani Nation.