The Centre for Strategic and Contemporary Research (CSCR) on Friday took the lead among think tanks in the country by organising a webinar “Altered State of the World Post COVID-19: Opportunities and Challenges.” It was a first of its kind online public event by any Pakistan-based think tank since the outbreak of COVID-19.

The current crisis of COVID-19 emerged globally following its first outbreak in December last year in Wuhan, China. With the passage of time, many speculations have been made through literature regarding the swift transmission of the virus beyond borders, the inability of modern day medical facilities to cure such a disease in shorter period of time and the scepticism of people in the reality of the deadly disease. Amongst such assumptions the major worry lies in the question of what would the world in a post COVID-19 era look like?

It was under this background that the CSCR planned a series of webinars in which esteemed professionals from different walks of life including International Relations, Culture, Economics, Sociology, Security, and Public Policy experts would deliberate over what would be the future possible scenario in the post-COVID-19 era from their respective fields.

The first of such online public engagement was conducted on April 3. The speakers for the session were Dr. Tughral Yamin (Associate Dean, Department of Peace and Conflict Studies, NUST), Dr. Ilhan Niaz (Associate Professor, Department of History, QAU) and Dr. Farhan Hanif Siddiqui (Associate Professor, School of Politics and International Relations, QAU).

CSCR’s Director Academics Mr. Talha Ibrahim began the proceedings by welcoming the distinguished panellists and elaborating the topic on hand. He laid down further general assumptions which could be seen as possible future scenarios of this technologically mastered world. He further said that there will be shift in focus from external supply chains towards internal supply chains. Furthermore, he explained how this novel coronavirus has challenged not only the military architecture but also exposed the political, economic and social orders globally. It leads one to believe that this could be a possible end to the phenomenon of globalisation, he added. He said that it is currently assumed by the general public that there will be more investments in the areas of healthcare and science. The Director concluded by saying that “Scientists will be held as heroes and post modernism as social science will be consigned to dustbins.”

Afterwards, Dr. Tughral began his talk on a positive note by expressing that hopefully more humanity will emerge after this pandemic. Adding that an end to colonialism could be expected since the virus has neither spared a prince nor a pauper. Governments will be forced to provide better internet coverage, and better teaching and learning opportunities to the people, he added. Businesses have been curtailed to laptops, wars are on hold, and shift in diplomatic ventures can be foreseen. Moreover, he said that the leading powers of the world should learn from the Chinese model as to how they won their battle against the virus in China. While remaining optimistic, Dr. Yamin expressed that a lot of good can come out of this crisis as he viewed it as a second chance to humanity, though with a prevailing question of how the life will be after this pandemic is over? Perhaps an interesting perspective which was shared was of how climate is healing now with lesser automobiles on road and in the air.

The second speaker was Dr. Ilhan. He started his talk by explaining how past pandemics have caused significant human losses and how Microbes had a devastating impact throughout the 20th century. The life expectancy in the developed world doubled following the discovery of antibiotics, he said. In addition, human discoveries have led to an expansion in our disease environment. According to him, all the major disasters of the earlier centuries happened due to pandemics and endemics as compared to all the civil and military conflicts as well as the world wars. Furthermore, he talked about mankind’s collective failure in its response towards climate change and expressed that no hopeful situation could come out beyond this crisis.

Dr. Farhan Siddiqi was the third and last speaker. He reflected on the current situation through the lens of international relations and linking it with domestic politics. The first notion he pointed out was to rethink the expanded definition of security beyond the fact that securitization is merely a speech act. Therefore, he classified that in coming time there will arise a disjuncture between state and civil society centred speech acts. The question he raised was that how do we transform these stereotypical to non-traditional speech acts? Or in an easier way from military to environment and economy debate. While talking about the nature of the post truth world, it is difficult for the states to cooperate with each other, he added. For comparison, Dr. Farhan elaborated that if the same virus had emerged in the 1990s, where the discourse was about cooperation and integration, the world would have reacted differently to it. This is where he says that we as humanity need to recover and revert back to the old norms of international politics during such pandemics. He also possessed much thought provoking questions that how the states should take the right measures and avoid taking risky measures collectively and individually.

Moreover, he said that the present situation of the crisis has shown us that disasters can loom from anywhere and the superpowers would carry on blaming each other.  No measure of nuclear weapons and armaments can help states in such crises, he said. He added that state elites are not ready to deal with such calamities. With such a realist perspective, Dr. Farhan still talked about the silver lining in such a scenario. Taking the example of social distancing and other practices which states are learning from each other as a result of globalisation, he pointed to a sort of hope for future human conduct with each other.

CSCR’s Policy Advisor Lt. General (R) Naeem Khalid Lodhi gave the concluding remarks. He said that the current ongoing pandemic will surely change the international arena in terms of geopolitics, geo-economy and geo-strategy. Adding to which he briefly elaborated how the definition and thresholds of war and threats to states will change in a post COVID-19 world. Moreover, he expressed his concerns by saying that the states emerging powerful out of this crisis might take up self-centered approaches for themselves. A questions and answers session followed the concluding remarks.