IF there’s one subject that the mainstream Pakistani intelligentsia takes seriously, it is regional and global geo-politics. Accepting the diversity, complexity and conflict within our society is beyond many of our brightest minds. But assume that Pakistan is a monolith, engaged in existential conflicts with other states and these same minds prove themselves second to none.

This is not to suggest that international relations isn’t a legitimate field of knowledge. But reducing it, as our establishment lackeys are prone to do, to a narrative of unending conspiracy is another matter. Having said this, there’s a long history of proxy wars and intrigues in our wider region that precedes the Pakistani state.

It has been almost two centuries since the British and Russian empires pioneered the so-called Great Game as they struggled for control over Central and Southwest Asia. The world has changed since then, but the colonial game has yet to be confined to the dustbin of history.

Amongst its other inheritances, Pakistan was bequeathed with a ‘strategic location’. Accordingly, successive (military) rulers have never ceased to remind us about our status as ‘frontline’ state. A growing number of people here now recognise the need to move beyond the static worldview that has made perennial ‘enemies’ of our immediate neighbours, but those who have made their living on such enmities will not give up their calling so easily.

It is thus that ‘experts’ are speculating furiously about the future regional balance of power as the US ‘drawdown’ deadline draws nearer. Those close to the establishment seem to think that post-2014 Afghanistan is again ours for the taking. The truth is they are simply refusing to acknowledge the host of possible permutations.

To be sure, there are not just a handful of players in the game. Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states claim a stake because they comprise the wider region. Beyond this are the global powers — most prominently the US — that continue to demand a place at the main negotiating table. If there’s to be some kind of durable peace in Afghanistan and the region, a regional consensus will have to be forged, regardless of Washington’s preferred end result. This is why we ought to move beyond our obsession with strategic conflict and start imagining strategic cooperation.

The government would argue that it has done exactly that by engaging China immediately after coming to power. But that is neither here nor there. China has never been regional public enemy number one. That mantle has always belonged to India, with Afghanistan a close second.

Sadly little has changed on that front. Our establishment and its ideologues still view every sign of cooperation between our two immediate neighbours as a conspiracy against Pakistan. We are also not comfortable with Iran, which has an influential role to play both in Afghanistan and the region more generally. There was a suggestion that the gas pipeline project would help turn over a new leaf in relations with Iran and India, but that initiative appears to be dead in the water.

At the end of the day, our closest allies in the region remain the Sunni supremacist states in the Gulf. Notwithstanding the destructive role that our Muslim brethren have played in fomenting bigotry and violence within Pakistani society, our trust in them has not wavered, and is unlikely to in the near future.

For their part, none of these states, least of all the Gulf kingdoms, have yet to take the lead in generating a regional consensus, for Afghanistan or more generally. Hamid Karzai’s recent rants against Washington suggest that contemporary alliances are hardly to be taken for granted either.

All this suggests that the ‘Great Game’ is alive and well. Chances are that things will get even more gory and desperate for the millions caught in the crossfire before anything gets better. And all states who act in the name of these people will continue insisting that their strategic initiatives are in the ‘greater national interest’.

Yet we cannot obsess about others. Those struggling for the cause of regional — and by extension internal — peace in this country must continue to wage the battle against a myopic military establishment that seeks to drum up nationalistic frenzy at every available opportunity. Such a policy can only be the source of more proxy wars, palace intrigues, and perhaps most importantly, social discord within Pakistan.

Resisting this policy — whether it’s called strategic depth or anything else — is an uphill battle because there is no obvious blueprint for peace. Meanwhile influential political and intellectual constituencies simply do not tolerate any affront to monolithic Pakistani nationalism. But regardless of the constraints, all progressives must come together and take on this fight. The game has already gone on too long.

The writer teaches at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.