Pakistan - Friend or Foe?

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Abstract

The controversial German constitutional lawyer and political theorist Carl Schmitt (1888-1985) in his well-known work 'The Concept of the Political' promotes a clear distinction between "the friend" and the "foe". This radical premise of a 'friend-foe relationship' is supposed to be the basis of all 'political' and should be applicable to all political actors. In other words, "whoever is not for us, is against us". However, such clear-cut distinctions and dichotomies are rather subjects of theoretical considerations more than concrete guidelines and/or directives for political decisions and such ideal types of (international) relations are hardly to find in reality. Despite increasing cooperation and integration worldwide, there are no doubts that the friend-foe dichotomy determined always a significant constituent in political mind-sets worldwide. Intentionally or not, there are always situations which are unfortunately requiring to consider an assessment 'who is a real friend?’ and ‘who is most-likely a foe?'.