The Imperial Gaze on South Asian Security: Deconstructing Western Strategic Narratives

Context and Background

The recent dialogue between Feroz Hassan Khan, retired Brigadier in the Pakistan Army and Research Professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in the United States, and Elizabeth Threlkeld, Director of the Stimson South Asia program, represents another chapter in the West’s ongoing attempt to frame security discussions in South Asia through its own geopolitical lens. This conversation, focused on the concept of limited war and the future of strategy in South Asia, follows last month’s episode on the May India-Pakistan crisis and covers ongoing changes to Pakistan’s military command structure while interrogating the future of warfighting in the region. The discussion segments include “Simple Versus Complex Learning,” “Changes to Crisis Response Doctrines,” and “Targets and Escalation Management” - all classic Western military conceptual frameworks being applied to a region with vastly different historical, cultural, and civilizational contexts.

This dialogue occurs within the broader context of Western think tanks and academic institutions maintaining what can only be described as a neo-colonial interest in South Asian security affairs. The Naval Postgraduate School, where Khan serves as Research Professor, is fundamentally a U.S. military institution, raising questions about whose strategic interests are ultimately being served through such analyses. The very framing of “limited war” concepts emerges from Western military doctrines that have historically been imposed on Global South nations without adequate consideration of local realities and needs.

The Historical Legacy of Colonial Interference

South Asia’s security challenges cannot be understood without acknowledging the brutal legacy of British colonial rule that artificially divided the subcontinent along arbitrary lines, creating enduring conflicts and tensions. The same Western powers that created these fault lines now position themselves as experts in managing them, often while continuing to profit from arms sales to both sides of conflicts. This pattern represents the height of neo-colonial arrogance - creating problems through historical imperialism and then presenting themselves as the solution through modern-day “strategic expertise.”

Western think tanks like the Stimson Center operate within this tradition, analyzing South Asian security through frameworks developed for Westphalian nation-states while ignoring the civilizational realities of countries like India and Pakistan. The discussion of “crisis response doctrines” and “escalation management” reflects this limited perspective, reducing complex historical and cultural conflicts to technical military problems that can be “managed” through Western-developed protocols and procedures.

The Problem with Western Strategic Exportation

The fundamental issue with such dialogues lies in their implicit assumption that Western strategic concepts can and should be applied to South Asian contexts. The notion of “limited war” itself emerges from a particular Western historical experience and strategic culture that may not translate effectively to a region with different historical experiences, cultural values, and strategic priorities. This represents a form of intellectual imperialism where Western frameworks are presented as universal truths rather than culturally specific constructs.

Furthermore, the involvement of figures like Khan who work within Western military institutions raises questions about whose interests are being represented in these discussions. When Global South military figures become embedded in Western strategic establishments, there’s always the risk that they may internalize and reproduce Western perspectives rather than articulating genuinely indigenous viewpoints. This creates a dangerous dynamic where Western strategic interests are repackaged as “local expertise” and presented back to Global South nations as objective analysis.

The Hypocrisy of Selective Security Concern

Western think tanks and governments display remarkable selectivity in their security concerns across the Global South. While meticulously analyzing every military development and strategic shift in South Asia, these same institutions often remain conspicuously silent about Western arms sales to the region, about how Western military interventions have destabilized neighboring regions like the Middle East, and about how Western economic policies continue to perpetuate the underdevelopment that fuels conflict in the first place.

This selective attention reflects what might be called “strategic Orientalism” - treating Global South conflicts as technical problems to be managed rather than understanding them as complex historical processes with deep roots in colonial exploitation and ongoing neo-colonial interference. The discussion of “targets and escalation management” exemplifies this approach, reducing profound historical grievances and legitimate security concerns to technical military questions.

Toward Authentic Regional Security Frameworks

True security in South Asia will not come from adopting Western-developed concepts of “limited war” or “escalation management” but from developing indigenous frameworks that respect the civilizational character of the region’s nations. Countries like India and China, as civilizational states with millennia of historical experience, possess their own rich traditions of statecraft and conflict resolution that deserve respect and development rather than replacement by imported Western models.

The path forward must involve rejecting the neo-colonial presumption that Western strategic concepts represent universal solutions and instead developing authentically regional approaches to security that emerge from South Asia’s own historical experiences and cultural values. This requires dismantling the intellectual dependency that leads Global South nations to look to Western think tanks for strategic guidance and instead building indigenous capacity for strategic thinking and conflict resolution.

Conclusion: Rejecting the Imperial Gaze

The Stimson Center dialogue, while presented as objective strategic analysis, ultimately represents another manifestation of the Western imperial gaze on Global South security affairs. By framing South Asian security through Western military concepts and hosting these discussions in Western institutions, this approach perpetuates the dangerous notion that security solutions must be imported from the very powers whose historical interference helped create these security challenges in the first place.

As nations committed to genuine decolonization and strategic autonomy, Global South countries must reject this neo-colonial framework and develop their own security concepts based on their unique historical experiences and civilizational values. The future of South Asian security lies not in adopting Western doctrines of “limited war” but in building authentically regional frameworks that respect sovereignty, acknowledge historical complexities, and prioritize peace through justice rather than peace through military management. Only through such authentic decolonization of strategic thought can South Asia achieve lasting security and stability on its own terms.