What are the biggest problems facing Pakistan today?
• Perhaps Pakistan’s greatest asset, and liability, is its geographic location. As the gateway to Central Asia, it borders Iran, China, India, and perpetually unstable Afghanistan, for which it has twice served as a critical staging ground for Western military offensives. Like many former colonies, Pakistan’s boundaries were drawn in an often illogical manner that separated and combined different ethnic, cultural, and language groups. This haunts the nation today in the form of separatist, sectarian, and inter-state conflict. Pakistan is the second largest Muslim country in the world, and poised to soon become the fifth most populous nation on the planet. It lacks significant mineral resources, but serves as an important conduit for the movement of those resources between the Middle East and Asia. • Economic development is a critical issue in Pakistan. On quality of life indicators, Pakistan already ranks the lowest of any country outside Sub-Saharan Africa; widespread poverty, extreme
