POLICY: GEOPOLITICAL TETRIS
Dawn · Majid Ehsan ·
As global power shifts, Pakistan must decide which relationships to prioritise — and which commitments it can no longer afford.
Tetris is an interestingly simple but challenging game. Blocks of different shapes descend on to a confined board and the player must continuously find space to accommodate them. Every placement affects the next move. As the board fills, choices diminish, mistakes become increasingly expensive, and even the right piece arriving at the wrong time can become a problem.
The evolving global geopolitical landscape bears an astonishing resemblance to this game. Yet the intrinsic simplicity of the game is missing: the blocks are getting larger, time and space are shrinking, and states have less freedom to position themselves without new vulnerabilities.
A bird’s eye view of the prevailing environment reveals that Russia remains locked in Ukraine in a contest it portrays in terms of security, strategic identity and its place in the European order. Europe, meanwhile, is grappling with the perceived long-term threat from Russia, the burden of sustaining Ukraine, changing ties with Washington, the demands for greater burden-sharing, energy insecurity and sluggish growth.