President Ayub Khan’s brief address to the nation on 6th September 1965 was a moment when the history of Pakistan took a turn. It was a moment which we remember for exactly what we were doing or where we were, when it happened. On that day, a few minutes past eleven in the morning and…

Pakistan’s EEZ and extended continental shelf constitutes over 35% of its land and it has a sea front of more than 1000 kilometers. Nearly 90% of our trade by volume and 70% by value is carried out through the sea, yet the maritime sector has not been adequately exploited for accrual of optimal benefits and…

For centuries, inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula have been navigating the Indian Ocean in pursuit of new resources and opportunities but their knowledge of the oceans remained localized and limited only to trade winds and monsoonal phenomenon. With passage of time, as long distance mariners ventured beyond continental shelf to where blue…

China’s interest in maritime trade dates back to early 15th century when, between 1433 and 1495 during the Ming era, Admiral Zheng undertook seven ocean voyages to coastal territories of the Indian Ocean and beyond. Historians credit him as being well accustomed to battle and having sound knowledge about warfare. Over the course of these…

In the early 1960s, visitors waiting for a boat at Keamari basin would toss a coin into the clear sea and young boys from nearby localities would dive and recover it from the bottom in no time. It was both fun and a small source of earning for the lads in less inflationary times. Those…

Alfred Mahan and Sir Halford Mackinder were both highly respected geopolitical theorists and contemporaries in the 19th century. While Mahan is better known for his emphasis on maritime power interplay between occidental and oriental global framework, Mackinder is famous for his ‘Heartland Theory’ which stipulated that rule over largest landmass would become the basis for…

The idea of recognizing a nation State’s special rights over sea space outside territorial limits and calling it Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) is a relatively new one. In earlier times, a country’s sovereign territorial waters extended up to the distance where cannon shots landed in the water from the coast and was generally taken as…

Piracy at sea with all its lore and literature is not new and is believed to have existed in turbulent periods as early as 14th century BC when the Sea People, as they were then called, threatened Aegean and Mediterranean voyages. It is said that the great Roman emperor Julius Caesar was also captured by…

In the maritime environment of the 21st century, oceans are coming under increasingly sharp focus as new power centers emerge due to nation states extending influence beyond their shores, which is often at odds with the dynamics of global politics. This is a cause for concern for many countries since oceans and seas are generally…