Session delves into the shift toward global weaponry, “pre-war” preparation, and the erosion of the nuclear order
A photograph of the panel on Crisis Preparedness in a Pre-War World at the Pakistan Institute of International Affairs conference on Sunday, May 10. Seated from left to right: researcher Dr Tahir Mahmood Azad, former ambassador Mustafa Kamal Kazi and historian Victoria Schofield. PHOTO: THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE
Experts warned on the second day of an international conference titled “Living on the Threshold of Global Crises” that the world was no longer simply preparing for a future conflict but was already structurally integrated into a “pre-war” international order amid the conflict between the United States and Iran.
Hosted by the Pakistan Institute of International Affairs (PIIA), Sunday’s session delved into the shift towards global arms and “pre-war” preparedness, the erosion of the nuclear order and the “poison” of information warfare.
The morning session, chaired by former ambassador to Russia, the Netherlands, Indonesia and Iraq, Mustafa Kamal Kazi, focused on “Crisis Preparedness in a Pre-War World.” Dr Tahir Mahmood Azad, Research Fellow at the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Reading, spoke about militarization and the transformation of defense in the Global South.
He said the traditional lens of “militarization” – defined by quantitative easing and big budgets – did not capture the current qualitative transformation; was captured more accurately by “weaponization”.
“We are no longer simply witnessing militarization…we are witnessing systematic weaponization within a pre-war international order,” he said, adding that global military spending had reached $2.9 trillion, representing 2.5% of global GDP, while the distinction between peacetime and wartime was “functionally erased.”
Azad identified China as a “challenger to the entire Western-dominated arms export architecture,” offering a “GPS-independent weapons ecosystem” to the Global South without political strings attached.
“The pre-war world is no closer. We are already inside it.”
Dr. James Nixey, former director of Chatham House Russia and an independent consultant whose work focuses on Russia, addressed the usefulness of “strategic ambiguity” in foreign and security policy, warning that while it could keep an opponent guessing, it was often confused with “paralysis or worse, cowardice.”
Criticizing Western policies in Ukraine, he argued that “Russia plays the game of strategic ambiguity relatively well,” while the West has been too clear about what it will not do. “That supposed strategic ambiguity… that paralysis… has a lot of blood in it,” Nixey said.
Historian and international affairs commentator Victoria Schofield provided a look at conflict zones, specifically occupied Kashmir, where she noted that “the prospects for peace were better” in the 1990s than today. After 30 years of documenting the dispute, he observed that “wars are easier to start than to end.”
He concluded with a call to humanity, quoting the Persian poet Saadi from his poem. Bani Adam: “If you do not feel sympathy for human pain, you will not be able to retain the name of being human.”
Deterrence in the era of “invisible” threats
The second panel, chaired by Dr Rukhsana A Siddiqui, PhD in international relations at the University of Pennsylvania, explored the “nuclear order under stress”.
Physicist Dr Abdul Hameed Nayyar warned that emerging technologies such as quantum sensing were “undoing some of the work” of modern stealth platforms by making them visible. “Quantum sensing threatens to disrupt modern warfare by making the invisible visible,” Nayyar explained, adding that now even submarines in the deep ocean could be detected by “magnetic field changes.”
He detailed the nuclear treaties over the years and explained how the expiration of many nuclear treaties was causing “instability in the nuclear order.”
“The withdrawal of ABM [Anti-Ballistic Missile] Treaty and the collapse of the INF [Intermediate-range Nuclear Force] Treaty were two basic problems that began the signs of instability of this nuclear order. Then the New START Treaty… expired earlier this year in January, and no work has been done to restart it since. And that is a problem,” he said.
Johnmark Ochieng, a Kenyan communications specialist at the Research Institute for Innovation and Sustainability, said deterrence is no longer just about military capability but about perception. He warned that “nuclear language has entered everyday political discourse” through social media, which “blurs the line between rhetorical posturing and real commitment.”
Ochieng said the “normalization of nuclear rhetoric” caused it to lose its exceptional status, making the unthinkable seem routine.
Dr. Ahmed Ijaz Malik, associate professor at Quaid-i-Azam University’s School of Politics and International Relations, criticized the rationale for arms control, calling existing frameworks “epistemologically deficient.”
He claimed that the purpose of arms control frameworks was to prevent global nuclear conflict, but the conclusion that nuclear weapons were “merely weapons of deterrence, crisis-causing and strategic coercion” was implausible.
Disinformation, control and narrative war
The final session, “Information Wars and Narrative Control,” chaired by human rights activist and journalist Zohra Yusuf, addressed the “information tsunami.”
Journalist, columnist and co-host of private television show Zara Hat Kay, Zarrar Khuhro compared modern social media to ancient Roman times, when Octavian, Julius Caesar’s adopted heir, inscribed insults defaming Mark Antony on coins.
“What has changed in the intervening centuries or millennia? It’s not the nature of the propaganda; it’s the nature of the technology that spreads that propaganda.”
He stated that one of the reasons misinformation spreads quickly is because of a person’s desire to believe something that aligns with their worldview, “and when we want to believe, then we are willing to believe anything, and that’s why this spreads.”
One of the reasons behind people spreading misinformation was what he described as a “financial motive,” referencing a recent story from a viral AI-generated right-wing influencer named Emily Hart, where a young man had created this avatar simply as a means to “farm engagement” as a way to pay for his education.
He also talked about state actors who drive disinformation and “quasi-state actors,” such as people who work for political movements, who drive disinformation to serve certain agendas. He ended by warning that the truth was losing the race: “When the truth gets out of bed… the lie has burned the entire city.”
Speaking by video from Beijing, Dr. Mabel Lu Miao, co-founder and secretary-general of the Center for China and Globalization, said the Global South was “rewriting the history” of multilateralism. He claimed that the old Western-led narrative had collapsed by failing to address conflict or nuclear tension.
“We are no longer begging for a seat at the table… we demand that the table be rebuilt,” he said, highlighting the expansion of the BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as new models of “diversified and inclusive multilateral cooperation.”
Mehmal Sarfraz, journalist and co-founder of Safe Journalism, a platform that seeks to unite media professionals and civil society in efforts to provide justice to journalists in Pakistan, highlighted the “information siege” surrounding Palestine, stating that “the new normal is misinformation.”
“Tools are now being used around the world to disenfranchise the media and civil society as a result of rapid change in technology and the advent of AI,” he said, detailing the serious risks faced by journalists and noting that Israel was responsible for killing two-thirds of all media workers in 2025.
As for Pakistan, it described a campaign of “coordinated online harassment” against female journalists involving “sexualized abuse, doxing” and “rape threats.”
“There are more images, AI videos, rape and death threats, and attempts to hack our social media accounts like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and even our emails have become a norm.
Sarfraz urged a united front: “We have to overcome our differences… because if we don’t, our future is bleak.”
Concluding the two-day event, Dr. Masuma Hasan, Honorary President of PIIA, and former Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed thanked all the participants for their attendance. Hasan noted at the end that the collapse of multilateralism had allowed “impunity” to take root globally.
“Spheres of influence are being created through the barrel of a gun and peace is being built through trade agreements.”
