Triple alliance and the regional situation

As the fourth week of the US–Israel military campaign against Iran unfolded in March 2026, a major geopolitical shift reshaped South Asia and the Middle East. For years, India’s rise under Narendra Modi had dominated regional diplomacy while Pakistan faced marginalization and economic struggles. However, the outbreak of war in West Asia created an opportunity for Pakistan to leverage its geography and relationships to regain global relevance. Within weeks, Pakistan mounted a proactive and unified diplomatic effort led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and military chief Field Marshal Asim Munir, reversing its isolation and, according to observers, redirecting diplomatic pressure toward India. This “peace offensive” highlighted Pakistan’s strategic agility and exposed perceived weaknesses in India’s foreign policy, marking a striking turnaround in regional influence. This resurgence began after the US and Israel launched their offensive against Iran on February 28, 2026, forcing countries into difficult alignments. Pakistan instead positioned itself as a neutral stabilizer, maintaining ties with both the United States and Iran while emphasizing its stake in de-escalation due to its shared border with Iran. A rare civil-military unity drove this strategy: Sharif engaged the Muslim world and framed mediation as a moral duty, including direct outreach to Iran’s president, while Munir used high-level connections in Washington to open backchannel communications. His rapport with US leadership enabled message exchanges between American and Iranian officials, helping establish a temporary de-escalation and cementing Pakistan’s role as a key diplomatic intermediary. The effectiveness of this two-pronged approach became evident when President Trump announced a conditional pause on plans to “obliterate” Iranian energy infrastructure. In his announcement on the Truth Social platform, Trump cited “VERY GOOD AND PRODUCTIVE” conversations, a tacit acknowledgment of the behind-the-scenes efforts being made by Pakistan. Building on this momentum, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif made a formal, public offer on March 24, 2026, stating that Pakistan “stands ready and honoured to be the host to facilitate meaningful and conclusive talks” between the United States and Iran. In an extraordinary diplomatic signal that underscored the shift in Washington’s attitude toward Islamabad, President Trump reposted Sharif’s offer on his Truth Social account. This repost was widely interpreted by analysts and officials in Islamabad as Washington’s de facto endorsement of Pakistan’s emerging role as a credible and neutral mediator, capable of hosting what would be a historic breakthrough in one of the world’s most volatile conflicts. While the White House cautioned that such talks remained speculative, the very fact that Pakistan was being discussed as a potential venue—and that its leadership was publicly coordinating with Turkey and Egypt to secure a fragile pause in hostilities—represented a monumental diplomatic victory for a nation that had spent years trying to shake off its image as an international pariah. The strategic ramifications of Pakistan’s diplomatic surge extend far beyond the immediate conflict in West Asia, striking directly at the heart of India’s long-standing foreign policy objectives under Prime Minister Modi. For years, a central pillar of India’s global strategy was the policy of isolating Pakistan, portraying it as a sponsor of terrorism and an unstable, economically faltering state. By deepening India’s strategic partnerships with Western powers, including the United States, Israel, and the Gulf monarchies, New Delhi sought to limit Islamabad’s diplomatic space and marginalize its influence on the world stage. However, Pakistan’s performance as the lead mediator in the US-Iran conflict has fundamentally challenged this narrative. By demonstrating that it possesses “strategic synergy” and can act as a “responsible nuclear power” and a stabilizing force, Pakistan has proven itself to be an “indispensable actor” in a crisis where a larger power like India cannot provide the same utility. This development has been described by scholars like Vali Nasr as a calculated and highly effective move to prove that Pakistan is more than a “problem child,” capable of “walking the talk” on global peace. This reversal has been so stark that it has prompted open criticism of the Modi government from within India itself. Congress leader Jairam Ramesh, a prominent voice in the Indian opposition, issued a series of scathing statements on March 24, 2026, acknowledging that Pakistan’s diplomatic engagement and narrative management had been “markedly superior to that of the Modi Govt”. Ramesh went further, stating that the international media reports identifying Pakistan as a potential intermediary represented a “severe setback and rebuff to India”. He directly attributed this disadvantage to the “self-styled Vishwaguru” (world leader) foreign policy of Prime Minister Modi, arguing that despite India’s military successes, its diplomatic space in the region had shrunk over the previous year. A key point of criticism was Modi’s “ill-advised” visit to Israel just days before the US-Israel strikes on Iran, a move that Ramesh and other analysts argued fatally compromised any claim India might have had to neutrality in the conflict. In contrast, Pakistan, despite being a close US ally, was able to maintain a balanced posture, leveraging its ties with both Washington and Tehran to become the preferred interlocutor. The once-celebrated “hug diplomacy” of Prime Minister Modi, which sought to build deep personal relationships with global leaders, was now being characterized by critics as “brutally exposed,” unable to compete with the practical, geostrategic value that Pakistan was able to offer in a moment of acute crisis. The architect of Pakistan’s success in securing such favorable access to the US administration is widely acknowledged to be Field Marshal Asim Munir, whose efforts to rebuild ties with Washington began long before the war with Iran erupted. Throughout 2025, Munir engaged in a methodical campaign to reverse the diplomatic isolation that Pakistan experienced during the Biden administration. A pivotal moment came when Pakistan nominated President Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, citing his role in de-escalating tensions between India and Pakistan. This shrewd move, which played to Trump’s well-known desire for the prestigious award, was rewarded with an invitation for Munir to a one-on-one White House lunch—a privilege rarely granted to a foreign military leader who was not also a head of state. Furthermore, Pakistan aligned

One question stayed with me long after I attended a workshop under the project titled ‘Digital Trust and Free Expression in the Era of AI’, organized by the Department of Media and Development Communication, University of the Punjab with the support of the U.S. Mission to Pakistan in partnership with the Pakistan-U.S. Alumni Network, was, ‘How will we preserve digital trust and free expression in the age of AI’? As AI becomes an integral part of digital journalism, the question is no longer whether it should be used, and more importantly who should be held responsible when things go wrong. Artificial Intelligence has definitely proven to be a powerful tool for journalists. It can summarize long reports, translate content into multiple languages, follow breaking news, analyze vast quantities of data and even write complete news reports in seconds. All of these capabilities have revolutionized newsroom processes and enabled journalists to process information more efficiently than ever before. But efficiency is not the only measure of ethical journalism. Journalism isn’t about being fast, it’s about informing the public accurately, fairly and responsibly. One of the most valuable lessons I learned from the workshop was that AI does not understand information; it predicts the most likely response based on patterns in the data it has learned from. This distinction is important because when reliable information is unavailable at the time, AI generates responses that seem convincing but inaccurate, but are wrong, which is often referred to as AI hallucination. What’s most concerning is that the AI generated mistakes can appear convincing enough for people to accept them as true. This poses an ethical question: Who should be held responsible if AI-generated news contains misleading information? The burden can’t be placed entirely on the algorithm. AI has no moral judgement or legal accountability. It cannot distinguish between public interest and public harm and is not aware of the social consequences of publishing inaccurate information. This means that the responsibility rests with those who decide to employ these technologies: journalists, editors, newsroom leaders, and media organizations. While AI can help create content, it cannot replace responsibility. This is where ethics become more important than technological advancements. Checking information should not take a back seat to the ‘Publish first’ mentality. With all of the digital platforms that exist today, misinformation can spread from continent to continent within minutes and corrections often fail to reach the same audience. Each unverified headline altered photo or AI-generated mistake can damage the public’s trust, both in a specific news organization and in journalism.   The discussions also reinforced the importance of Media and Information Literacy (MIL). Verification is not only the responsibility of journalists, but also something that is necessary for every digital citizen. Learning how to use reverse image search, source verification techniques, and critical evaluation of online information is no longer an option, it’s essential for protecting ourselves from deception. As AI-generated content becomes increasingly sophisticated, it is essential to verify information before accepting it as true. AI will continue to evolve and so will digital journalism. The challenge is not innovation itself but using it responsibly. Trust is not something algorithms can build, it is something that can be gained only through transparency, accountability and a steadfast dedication to truth. While adopting new technologies to do journalism, let’s not forget that the tools should enhance journalism’s values, not shape journalism. AI may help write the news, but only humans can uphold the ethics behind it. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this blog are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. Mission to Pakistan or USEFP.

The fiscal deficit fell to just 2.6 of GDP—the lowest in 22 years—while the primary surplus reached a record 2.9%, the highest since at least FY 2000-01— tweet by Khurram Schehzad, Adviser to Federal Finance Minister The latest official numbers tell an impressive story. Pakistan closed fiscal year 2025–26 with a consolidated budget deficit of Rs. 3.313 trillion, equal to 2.6% of gross domestic product (GDP), and a primary surplus of 2.9%. They accompany a familiar boast: the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) achieved a “record” collection of Rs. 13.010 trillion. In the post cited above, Adviser to the Federal Finance Minister, Khurram Schehzad, described the outcome as the “strongest fiscal performance in 22 years”. He highlighted three consecutive primary surpluses, the “lowest fiscal deficit in 22 years”, and the highest primary surplus in at least 26 years, debt growth at a 20-year low, and declining debt-to-GDP and interest burdens. He concluded that Pakistan was moving decisively from recurring fiscal stress towards discipline, stability and sustainable growth. The improvement is real. The conclusion is premature. The Finance Division’s newly released Fiscal Operations for July–June 2025–26 show consolidated revenue of Rs. 19.774 trillion and expenditure of Rs. 23.087 trillion. The resulting deficit is unquestionably lower than the enormous gaps of recent years. Fiscal consolidation has occurred and should be acknowledged. The claim of a 22-year low, however, does not survive the adviser’s own infographic. The chart accompanying the post places the deficit at 1.7% in 2003–04 and 2.5% in 2004–05—both below 2.6%. The contemporaneous Pakistan Economic Survey 2006–07, using the series then published, recorded 2.4% for 2003–04. Revisions may explain the discrepancy between 1.7% and 2.4%, but neither figure supports an unqualified record claim. The latest statement is also provisional. The defensible description is that 2.6% is among the lowest deficits in about two decades. More importantly, 2.6% is the consolidated deficit. The federation did not run a deficit of Rs. 3.313 trillion. Its net revenue receipts, after transfers to provinces, were Rs. 10.520 trillion, against expenditure of Rs. 15.283 trillion. The federal deficit was Rs. 4.763 trillion, or about 3.8% of GDP. It fell to the consolidated figure because the provinces produced a combined surplus of Rs. 1.450 trillion. Punjab alone contributed Rs. 914 billion. Provincial surpluses assist macroeconomic management but do not extinguish the federation’s borrowing requirement. They are intergovernmental cash offsets while the federal government remains deeply indebted. The earlier article, Bankruptcy of ideas—X: Debt, Taxes & Democracy, argues that shifting cash between tiers cannot repair a debt-driven state. An even more striking adjustment appears under “statistical discrepancy”. The detailed expenditure table reports total consolidated expenditure of Rs. 23.940 trillion. A negative statistical discrepancy of Rs. 853 billion lowers expenditure in the summary to Rs. 23.087 trillion. Without this adjustment, the gap between revenue and expenditure would be about Rs. 4.167 trillion, or approximately 3.3% of GDP. Statistical discrepancies are not unusual in provisional accounts. An adjustment equal to more than one-quarter of the celebrated deficit nevertheless demands explanation before a historic record is proclaimed. Transparency requires reconciliation of this amount when the accounts are finalised. The composition of expenditure further weakens the triumphal narrative. Mark-up payments reached Rs. 6.948 trillion—5.5% of GDP. Federal Public Sector Development Programme expenditure, excluding development grants to provinces, was only Rs. 727 billion. Interest was therefore about 9.6 times the federal development programme. A deficit can fall because investment and public services are compressed while inherited interest obligations continue dominating expenditure. That is fiscal compression, not fiscal transformation. The “record” FBR’s collection claim presents a similar illusion. With inflation and nominal GDP growth, the largest rupee collection will normally recur. The relevant questions are whether revenue rose relative to GDP, the base broadened and additional taxation reduced borrowing. FBR’s Rs. 13.010 trillion was only 10.3% of GDP. It was about Rs. 1.12 trillion below the original target of Rs. 14.13 trillion and barely exceeded the subsequently revised figure of approximately Rs. 12.983 trillion. The goalpost was moved, and arrival at the moved goalpost was described as a record. Analysis of Pakistan’s withholding-based system [Tax Proposals for Budget 2027—III: Withholdingisation: Weapon of destruction, Minute Mirror, May 25, 2026 and FBR’s Performance FY 2024-25 (Part II): Income Tax or Expropriatory Taxation, Minute Mirror, April 14, 2026] has repeatedly shown why aggregate collection cannot be equated with administrative performance. During FY 2024–25, withholding and advance collection accounted for about 96% of income tax, leaving only a small fraction attributable to returns and enforcement. Employers, banks, utilities, importers and businesses collect much of FBR’s revenue on behalf of the state. Extraction at source is not evidence that concealed income has been discovered or that privileged sectors have entered the tax net. The latest statement also exposes reliance on non-tax revenue. Federal non-tax receipts reached Rs. 5.178 trillion. These included Rs. 2.428 trillion transferred as State Bank of Pakistan surplus and Rs.1.567 trillion collected as petroleum levy. Together, the two sources provided almost Rs. 4 trillion. As explained in Bankruptcy of ideas—VII: The Petroleum (Levy) State, the petrolem levy operates as inflationary and regressive extraction. It raises transport, agricultural, industrial and household costs. It also remains outside the divisible pool, allowing the federation to retain revenue that would otherwise be shared under the National Finance Commission framework. A large central-bank transfer and an ever-rising fuel levy cannot substitute for fair, broad-based taxation. Debt servicing supplies the decisive test. Cash mark-up payments of Rs. 6.948 trillion absorbed 53.4% of FBR collection and about 66% of federal net revenue receipts. Domestic interest alone was Rs. 6.030 trillion; foreign interest was Rs. 917 billion. These figures do not include refinancing of maturing domestic principal. The financing table reports gross external financing of Rs. 3.805 trillion and external debt repayments of Rs. 2.627 trillion. Programme loans alone amounted to Rs. 2.054 trillion. The federal deficit required net financing of Rs. 4.763 trillion: Rs. 1.178 trillion externally and Rs. 3.585 trillion domestically. State Bank financing reached Rs. 3.202 trillion. These amounts

In the winter of 1979, a neighbour’s house caught fire. The Soviet Union had marched into Afghanistan, and the flames of war were licking at the walls of Kabul. From across the ocean, a distant power arrived at Pakistan’s door. It did not come with soldiers. It came with money, guns, and a promise: *”Let us fight this fire together. Use your roof. Use your roads. We will stand with you. We will not let the fire reach your house.”* Pakistan opened its door. What else could it do? The Soviet army sat on its western border. The world was divided into two camps, and neutrality was a luxury no frontline state could afford. For ten years, Pakistan became the staging ground for a war that was not its own. It hosted three million refugees. Its cities swelled. Its tribal areas became training grounds for fighters armed and funded by outside money. Weapons arrived by the shipload through Karachi. Pakistani officers coordinated strategy. Every bullet fired at a Soviet convoy in the Hindu Kush passed through Pakistani hands. The distant power paid the bills. It sent the Stinger missiles. It called the resistance fighters “freedom fighters” and Pakistan a “frontline state.” But the war was never truly about Pakistan’s safety. It was about bleeding the Soviet Union in a distant mountainside, using Pakistani soil as the operating theatre and Afghan bodies as the currency. Then, in 1989, the Soviet Union withdrew. The fire in the neighbour’s house went out. And the distant power that had promised eternal friendship turned its attention elsewhere. The billions dried up. The diplomatic interest evaporated. Afghanistan, the battlefield, was left to warlords who turned the weapons on each other. Pakistan was left with three million refugees who would not go home, a Kalashnikov culture that would not disappear, and a border that would never again be quiet. The weapons that had been given to fight the Soviets did not rust. They remained. They moved into streets, into disputes, into corners of the country where the state had never fully reached. The guest who had brought the fire extinguisher had started a blaze that spread to the host’s own house — and then moved to a new neighbourhood. The distant power won its strategic objective at the cost of Afghan and Pakistani soil, then walked away. Its own cities were never bombed. Its own children never became refugees. Its economy never staggered under the weight of someone else’s war. Pakistan, which had signed no formal treaty of alliance but had acted as an ally in every meaningful sense, was left holding the pieces. This is what happens when alliances are forged in the middle of a fire. The stronger partner does not need your victory. He needs your usefulness. He needs you to hold the front, to absorb the blow, to stand in a place where he does not wish to stand. And when the war ends, he will shake your hand and go home — while you remain amid the embers, wondering why the fire you helped extinguish has reignited in your own courtyard. History records a curious pattern. The alliances that have endured — the ones that outlasted their founders and shaped the world for generations — were almost never built while the house was burning. NATO was forged in 1949, not because the bombs were falling on Paris, but because the memory of war was still fresh and the desire to prevent it was shared. The parties had time to read the text, to negotiate the terms, to build institutions that could survive a change of government on either side. An alliance born in the middle of a fire is a different creature entirely. It is an emergency measure. And emergency measures have a way of becoming permanent arrangements that no one planned and no one fully controls. When you sign while the heat is at your back and the smoke is in your eyes, you do not have time to ask who owns the hose, who pays for the water, and who walks away when the flames are out. The Afghan episode is not ancient history. It is in our own lifetime. It is written in the smoke that still rises from our western border. And it is written in the simple fact that the weapons once aimed at a northern invader eventually turned inward, because no one had written a clause for what happens after the guest leaves. Pakistan has every right to defend itself. Pakistan has every right to seek friends in a dangerous world. But history offers a quiet observation for those who are listening: **the strongest alliances are built in peacetime, not borrowed in panic.** The fire is real. The neighbour’s house is burning. Yet the hand that offers protection in the middle of a war is holding a different ledger than the hand that offers partnership in the middle of calm. That is not a warning against friendship. It is simply what the record shows.

Readers might have noticed my infatuation with the past. I often relate my childhood experience to a modern day issue. I often drag my school or university days when I write about today’s youth. I love my past, but sometimes what worries me the most is what if these memories disappear or fade gradually. As we age, our memory becomes weak and we start forgetting the past events. Occasionally, I struggle to remember the name of someone who I met a couple of weeks ago. I still have several friends who narrate a two decade old event with minute detail. I envy their brain health. Now I find this excellent blog on Minute Mirror site which says something that gave me real comfort. It said forgotten memories may not be gone at all. They may just be sleeping. Scientists studied fruit flies, of all creatures, and found something remarkable. When they placed these tiny flies back in an environment similar to where a memory first formed, that memory came alive again. It was not dead. It was only quiet, waiting for the right door to knock on. Now I am no scientist, friends. I am just a man who spends too much time looking backward. But when I read this, something in my chest loosened up a little. Because I always feared that my old memories were leaking out of me, drop by drop, the way water leaks from a cracked clay pot. I feared that one day I would wake up and my childhood street would be gone from my mind, my mother’s voice reading me stories would be gone, the smell of my school canteen would be gone. But this research tells a gentler story. It tells me that memory is not a candle that simply burns out. It is more like a lamp switched off in a room I stopped visiting. The lamp is still there. The bulb still works. I only need to walk back into that room, and somehow, the light comes on again. Think about it, friends. Have you ever caught a scent, maybe of rain falling on dry earth, and suddenly you are eight years old again, standing on your grandmother’s veranda? Have you ever heard an old song on the radio and felt your whole childhood come rushing back in one breath? That is not magic. That is your brain finding the right key for a door it had quietly locked. Of course, the article is honest enough to admit that scientists still do not fully understand everything. Sometimes the brain brings back memories that are not entirely true. It mixes things up. It adds a little color here, removes a little detail there. Human memory, unlike a fruit fly’s, is a complicated thing. But even with its flaws, I find this idea beautiful. Our memories are patient. They do not vanish just because we stop visiting them. They simply wait. I think of my old friends, the ones who can recall an event from twenty years ago as if it happened yesterday. I used to envy them, thinking their brains were simply built better than mine. Now I wonder if maybe they just keep walking back into those old rooms more often than I do. Maybe remembering is not only about a strong brain. Maybe it is about visiting. So here is what I plan to do, friends. I plan to walk old streets again. I plan to visit my old school gate, even if it now sells mobile phone covers instead of candy. I plan to play those old songs my father used to hum while shaving in the morning. I plan to open every quiet room in my mind, one by one, and let the light back in. Because somewhere in me, my mother is still calling me in for dinner. Somewhere in me, my school bell is still ringing. Somewhere in me, a boy is still running home before the streetlights come on. They are not gone. They were only sleeping. And tonight, God willing, I intend to wake every single one of them up.

“Remember your humanity, and forget the rest”— Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein, The Russell–Einstein Manifesto, 1955   On the morning of August 6, 1945, Hiroshima was a living city. Children were preparing for school, workers were beginning another day, meals were being eaten, conversations remained unfinished and countless ordinary plans had been made for an evening many would never see. At 8:15 am, a single atomic bomb changed all that. In seconds, a city became an inferno and human ingenuity demonstrated what it was capable of when divorced from human conscience. Three days later, Nagasaki suffered the same fate.   More than eight decades have passed, yet the mind still struggles to comprehend what happened. Not merely the scale of destruction, but the extraordinary contradiction it represented. Human beings had acquired sufficient knowledge of physics to split the atom but apparently insufficient wisdom to prevent that knowledge from being used to incinerate fellow human beings. This raises an uncomfortable question: is man the cruellest animal?   Animals kill. Nature is certainly not a sentimental place. Predators hunt for food, animals fight over territory, mates and dominance, and some species occasionally kill for reasons other than immediate survival. Yet no creature other than Homo sapiens has transformed killing into an organised industry. No animal constructs factories to manufacture weapons capable of destroying entire cities. None develops elaborate ideologies to justify mass slaughter, calculates acceptable casualties or decorates members of its species for becoming exceptionally efficient at killing others. Only the supposedly “wise man” has achieved such sophistication.   The atomic bombings cannot, of course, be examined outside the horrors of the Second World War. Nazi Germany had perpetrated the holocaust. Imperial Japan had committed horrific atrocities across Asia. Cities had already been devastated by conventional and incendiary bombing. Millions of soldiers and civilians were dead. Defenders of the decision to use atomic weapons maintain that the bombs accelerated Japan’s surrender and avoided an invasion that could have caused enormous casualties on both sides. Critics have long questioned whether alternatives existed and whether the second bombing, in particular, was necessary.   Historians may continue debating these questions. Humanity must confront another. At what point does military necessity cease to provide moral shelter for the deliberate infliction of unimaginable suffering upon civilians? Perhaps the most disturbing legacy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is not simply that atomic bombs were used. It is that humanity had reached a stage where the destruction of enormous number of ordinary people could be incorporated into strategic calculation. Human beings had become numbers. Therein lies the first requirement of organised cruelty: dehumanisation.   Before we can inflict unbearable suffering upon others, we must somehow stop seeing them as ourselves. They become the enemy, an alien race, religion, nationality, sect or ideology. Children become unfortunate collateral damage. Dead bodies become casualty figures. Destroyed neighbourhoods become strategic targets. Language performs the anaesthesia that conscience might otherwise refuse. Once human beings are converted into categories, almost anything becomes possible.   History is littered with evidence. Colonial atrocities required subject populations to be regarded as inferior. Ethnic cleansing requires neighbours to become enemies. Genocide requires individual faces to disappear behind collective labels. Modern warfare similarly becomes easier to tolerate when suffering is viewed through satellite images rather than through the eyes of a mother holding her dead child. Perhaps that explains one of the strangest contradictions of our species. The same human hand that tenderly caresses a newborn can press the button that launches a missile towards somebody else’s newborn.   The same species that produces Mozart and Rumi, builds hospitals, writes poetry, explores distant planets and risks lives rescuing strangers from disasters also constructs concentration camps, torture chambers, chemical weapons and nuclear warheads. How can such tenderness and such barbarity inhabit the same creature?   We proudly call ourselves civilised. Yet civilisation cannot merely mean technological advancement. If anything, technology without corresponding moral advancement makes human beings more dangerous, not less. A primitive weapon can kill one person. Human intelligence created weapons capable of killing millions. Science gives us power. It does not necessarily give us wisdom. That distinction should haunt us.   The scientists who unlocked the secrets of the atom demonstrated one of humanity’s greatest intellectual achievements. But when knowledge becomes separated from ethics, achievement can become catastrophe. Ten years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein, together with other distinguished scientists, issued their famous manifesto warning humanity about nuclear war. Their appeal was breathtakingly simple: “Remember your humanity, and forget the rest.”   What an extraordinary plea to have to make to human beings. Remember that the person across the border is human. Remember that the child beneath the rubble is human. Remember that the mother screaming outside a hospital is human. Remember that beneath uniforms, flags, religions, ethnicities and nationalities beats essentially the same vulnerable human heart.   Yet eighty-one years after Hiroshima, humanity still maintains nuclear arsenals capable of inflicting destruction on a scale those who witnessed 1945 could scarcely have imagined. Governments speak comfortably of deterrence, strategic balance, tactical nuclear weapons and acceptable responses. Behind this sophisticated vocabulary lies an elementary reality: we have created instruments capable of annihilating ourselves and entrusted their possible use to human beings subject to anger, ambition, miscalculation and fear. What could be more absurd?   Perhaps the problem lies in our understanding of civilisation itself. We measure progress through economic growth, scientific discovery, technological innovation and military capability. We celebrate artificial intelligence, space exploration and machines capable of performing tasks once thought impossible but are we becoming better human beings? Can technological advancement truly be called progress if our moral consciousness remains primitive?   The jungle may be brutal, but it possesses no Hiroshima, no Nagasaki, no Bosnia, no Rwanda and no Gaza. Animals do not convene conferences to plan genocide. They do not manufacture propaganda to persuade millions to hate strangers. They do not teach generations to inherit ancient hostilities. Above all, they have never developed