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The Center for Peace Security and Developmental Studies (CPSD) organized a one day International Seminar on Strategic Coercion: Global Dynamics and South Asia on 12th March 2019 in Karachi. This seminar was organized with the aim to foster understanding on Strategic Coercion and its relevance to the evolving global geo-political, geo-economic, and security dynamics and their implications on states’ developments in South Asia. Furthermore, the seminar also aimed at comprehending the policy perspective and recommendations for Pakistan to deal with strategic coercion in the transiting regional and global order.

The conduct of an international seminar on this important subject was a resounding success. The distinguished speakers from Pakistan, Russia, and the United States shared their insights on different conceptual and empirical dimensions of strategic coercion. Given the diverse and complex nature of evolving global order, speakers - academics, former diplomats, strategists, and government officials - highlighted that the transition of power centers from the West to the East has unfolded new challenges and opportunities for South Asian region. In this context, the seminar proceedings were instrumental in highlighting the emerging strategic trends and the use of coercion as a policy tool by many states for realizing their goals of this era.

The seminar covered ground on the rising potential of regionalism where core and periphery states are coming closer to each other. The competition and cooperation among regional and extra-regional states within South Asia remained the focal point of the discussion during the seminar. In this context, the changing nature of warfare and the exploitation of nations’ vulnerabilities across the political, military, economic, social, informational, and infrastructural domains were highlighted by the speakers. The growing nexus between United States and India, and its implications for regional stability and prosperity were discussed in detail during the proceedings.

It was highlighted that in the current era of rising populism and protectionism, states are being coerced through application of creative chaos, regime change, shock and awe doctrine, proxies, and informational warfare. Furthermore, there was a consensus that economic coercion and coercive diplomacy are being used as instruments of statecraft to achieve strategic goals in this anarchic global order.

The event was attended by representatives from diplomatic corps, business community, government officials, and security institutions. A large number of academics, researchers, and students also attended the seminar and participated in the interactive sessions that generated rich intellectual discourse.

The proceedings of the seminar were divided into three main sessions followed by executive summary and closing remarks by the Chief Guest. The titles of the sessions are:

Session One : Strategic Coercion and Evolving Geo-Economics

Session Two : Regional Politico-Economic Order – Coercion as a Policy Tool

Session Three : Pursuit for Regional Stability, Prosperity, and Security