>> We clearly see a trend perhaps more propagated by the Americans than the Chinese where the world is being divided into two different affairs and pretty much everybody saying, "Which camp do you belong to?"

I say we belong to the Pakistan camp.

♪♪ >> Hello and welcome to "GZERO World."

I'm Ian Bremmer, and today, as the world focuses on Russia's invasion of Ukraine... ...we take you to another nation caught in the middle of great power politics.

Since 9/11, Pakistan has played a key and often fraught role in America's global war on terror.

But deepening economic ties between Islamabad and Beijing over the past few years signals a shift eastward in Pakistan's foreign policy orientation.

And Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan's visit to Moscow on the eve of Putin's invasion into Ukraine only serves to reinforce that.

Recently at the Munich Security Conference, I sat down with Pakistan's former Foreign Minister, Hina Khar, who thinks that her country should walk away from the global stage, turn its focus inward.

Then we'll introduce you to some of the brave Ukrainians taking up arms to defend their nation against Russia.

Don't worry, I've also got your "Puppet Regime."

>> Just think -- we can stay annoying, but just be a lot less prominent.

>> But first, a word from the folks who help us keep the lights on.

>> Major corporate funding provided by founding sponsor First Republic.

At First Republic, our clients come first.

Taking the time to listen helps us provide customized banking and wealth-management solutions.

More on our clients at firstrepublic.com.

Additional funding provided by... ...and by... >> President Putin, stop your troops from attacking the Ukraine.

Give peace a chance.

Too many people have already died.

>> Moments after United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres delivered those words, Russia invaded Ukraine.

His pleas for peace fell on deaf ears as Putin's troops marched on to Kyiv.

Calls for the international community to isolate Putin through sanctions and economic boycotts came from Washington, Brussels and the Ukrainian capital as war broke out on the European continent for the first time in decades.

But even though a clear line has been drawn between the West and Moscow, the Kremlin does still have some friends.

Chinese officials have publicly called for peace in Ukraine.

They abstained from a U.N. Security Council vote on Russia's actions, but they have also openly sympathized with Russia's position on NATO expansion, and it's clear that Putin would have consulted directly with Chinese President Xi Jinping before the attack.

It's also no surprise that Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko stood close by his buddy Vladimir, while coordinating joint military exercises along the Ukrainian border.

And there's a new member in the Putin camp.

As a major military assault on Ukraine played out, Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan decided to visit Moscow to discuss cooperation on a new gas pipeline.

And while Khan says he hopes the crisis can be resolved peacefully, there's no question as to how his visit will have been received in Washington.

Pakistan and the United States have been allies for many years, with Islamabad playing a crucial role in both the global war on terror and the war in Afghanistan.

But relations between the two countries have soured lately.

Since taking office, President Joe Biden has yet to call Imran Khan on the phone.

That's a move that angered officials in Islamabad.

Khan's statement praising the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan as "breaking the chains of slavery" was also viewed as a slap in the face to the Biden administration.

And during a visit to Islamabad in October, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman made it clear the United States was downgrading its ties with Pakistan.

As the relationship further deteriorates, Prime Minister Khan is looking to form new alliances in order to further his country's strategic interests.

But my guest today, Hina Khar, thinks it's time for her country to step back from international politics and step up to confront the nation's mounting domestic challenges.

It's not something you usually hear from a former foreign minister.

Hina Khar, wonderful to see you back at the Munich Security Conference.

>> Wonderful to be back.

>> So, you know, Russia-Ukraine is getting so much attention right now, but not so far away from that is Afghanistan, and a lot has transpired since the last time we've all met together.

Talk to me, I mean, now that it's all fallen apart, what is -- what's the state of play from your perspective with the Taliban government today?

>> Okay, so the state of play right now, from my perspective, or should be from your perspective also, from everyone's perspective, is that things are not falling apart, but they had -- they have already fallen apart in many ways, right?

And now we are putting up -- I think the international community is setting the stage for an absolute failure.

So you want 100, 100 guaranteed failure of the Afghan state in how we reacted to this hasty, hurried, catastrophic departure of international forces from Afghanistan.

I'm just coming out of a session on Afghanistan, and it's very interesting to see that we have selective amnesia.

Actually, we have long-term amnesia.

>> In terms of what?

Tell me, what was it that you were most struck by?

>> Okay, Ian, look, Pakistan has had a different perspective.

My perspective may not be completely aligned with the state of Pakistan's perspective, right?

But I can give you a perspective.

Now, in the history withdrawal, I think one thing that has made it clear to me -- very, very clear is that the U.S. and allied forces or the international community were in Afghanistan because there was a domestic demand or a reaction to 9/11.

>> Of course, of course.

>> Okay.

>> Internationally, across the entire coalition, yes.

>> And not because the Afghans invited them or the Afghans needed them or they came to help Afghans, et cetera, right?

And they left when the demand for the Afghan adventure just completely ceased to exist.

So they were responding to demand before and they were responding to demand later -- domestic demand.

Now what happens is that you may be responding to the domestic demand for action and then no action.

But in the process, the cost of war study tells us that we lost 926,000 people altogether in the post-9/11 wars that the U.S. conducted.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> Okay?

>> Yeah.

>> 363,000 or somewhere close to that were civilians.

Now, I ask you because we propagate because, you know, many of the problems that we're seeing and we experience every, you know, every year at Munich and conferences such as that about, you know, the grand question of international values, et cetera.

I think we have to ask ourselves the question, "Are we really propagating international value system across the board for all nationalities?"

If it was, you know, 363,000 American, British, European lives, would it still be, you know, fair game?

>> No.

>> It wouldn't be, right?

And that is why interventions themselves, I feel, have broken or cast a deep shadow on the entire democratic sort of value system.

I'll give you an example.

Of course, people are talking about the starving Afghan people who need our help.

But that's like, you know, the white man's burden.

Okay, not accepting what you did wrong in creating the situation that is starving the Afghans right now and not accepting that you are continuing to do something wrong to setting the stage for more Afghans to die, right?

Now, for instance, if an American important person were to say that we -- you know, "Taliban must never be legitimized," I ask the question, "Who legitimated the Taliban in the 2020 document in which they were called the people --" You know, there was this long nomenclature used to define the Taliban and which country decided to engage with the Taliban direct before the intra-Afghan dialogue, which was being conducted -- >> You're talking about the Trump administration.

>> I'm talking about the U.S. administration.

>> Yes, that's right.

>> When you talk about Pakistan, you talk about Pakistan.

You don't talk about Imran Khan.

>> No, that's fair, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

>> So the choices you make, fortunately or unfortunately, have consequences that you don't have to live through but I have to live through because I belong to that region.

Yeah?

And their whole interventions of the last two decades, I think, have had such unintended consequences that we are going to live through the consequences of those for decades to come.

The value system that you want, that you espouse domestically, you do not espouse internationally when you do these intervention.

I am no spokesperson for the Taliban.

I do not espouse to any of the value system that they bring.

I think that the biggest threat, their coming to power in the one sense is the biggest threat to my country in the messages that it sends to the extremists and, you know, at the security level.

>> So if the Taliban are there, we need to figure out how to work with them.

Because there is the sense in the United States that there's no Taliban 2.0, that in reality, this is a group that is beyond the pale, that you can't work with them, you can't engage with them.

Is your view that that's not the case and why?

>> No, absolutely not.

I am no spokesperson for them.

I am not very -- I don't espouse to any of the values that they bring in.

I don't espouse to their, you know, governmental system or the values for women and the fact that it's not inclusive, the fact that schools for girls are still not open.

None of that.

However, we have the luxury to have an ask.

I mean, they are there, right, now, so were you to say, "Oh, we don't want to engage with them" is basically you -- If you were becoming an enabler of 35 million Afghans starving, I would judge you on that and I have a right to judge you on that, right, because those ones starving will have an impact at least on my country and certainly on the Afghans, and forget my country's impact or your country's impact.

What about the fact that these are lives and don't -- Weren't we propagators of human rights and value of human life?

So where does it all go?

Do we have the luxury to have grand positions that we can hold when we, especially when in the last 20 years or 30 years, we have done a pretty shoddy job?

>> So I take it that at a minimum, listening as opposed to just hearing would mean that all of the reserves that are now the Taliban's reserves as the government, even though no one voted for them, you would suggest, should be unfrozen.

They should be made available to the Afghan people.

>> Of course they should be made available to the Afghan people, but to the Afghan people, as I'm saying.

So I'm not talking about recognizing the Taliban or -- All I'm saying is that you try to create Alice in Wonderland in Afghanistan for three decades.

You failed miserably.

>> So let's talk a little bit about your country and where you see Pakistan role in international affairs right now.

How is it changing?

>> Okay, so, Ian, I'm a very different person than typically you would find in an ex-foreign minister or current foreign minister.

I do not look for if Pakistan or Pakistani role in international affairs, okay?

I pretty much want Pakistan to take time-out and concentrate on its own -- within domestically.

>> It doesn't sound like a foreign affairs minister usually.

That's not what you get.

>> Because I think Pakistan has suffered from wanting a role.

Pakistan has suffered for the last four decades for having a role perhaps pushed on it because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

And then from then onwards, Pakistan has never really had breathing space, okay?

And economically, we have weakened ourselves in that process.

We have been independent in that process.

By the way, I believe in aid architecture, so when we talk about humanitarian crises and developmental, econom-- you know, developmental spending, the aid architecture both on the humanitarian side and on the development side is pretty much broken as a recipient country.

I managed that portfolio for Pakistan for seven years.

I can tell you it is broken, okay?

Whether it's U.S. aid, you know, the European Union, any and each one of them.

So there are many international goods that we need to fix within the international architecture, but from Pakistan's perspective, I would not want Pakistan to have any role.

I would want Pakistan to concentrate inward.

I would want Pakistan to secure its borders, not be -- not allow threat to emanate from a very, very revisionist India, if you allow me to say this, from Afghanistan.

>> I'll push you on that later, but that's okay.

>> I'll take the bait on that one.

>> Yeah, okay.

>> And Afghanistan, the instability from Afghans, so we have too much instability.

So we have been larger than life and we've said, "Oh, you know, all the refugees, three million come over, we'll take care of you."

Our first responsibility -- take care of our own.

>> India is now a part of the Quad.

It's engaged more with the United States, but India's more traditional role in foreign policy has been non-aligned.

"We want to work with everyone.

We don't want to do geopolitics."

Are you suggesting that actually what Pakistan needs is the traditional Indian foreign policy?

>> You know, they only benefited from it, and we didn't really benefit from being overly aligned with one country or the other.

I don't believe -- >> You can say it -- You can say Pakistan needs India's traditional foreign policy.

>> No, I don't think so.

>> You're not gonna go there?

>> No, no.

>> You don't want that quote?

>> Because India was not really non-aligned.

It said it was non-aligned, but it was aligned in many ways, right?

But what I'm saying is that look, India had its successes.

I think India is now going to a trajectory where it will not be able to come back to seeing a positive trajectory anymore.

I think the whole concept -- extremism being propagated at the state level -- you know, The Economist did a very good article where it said that it is ticking all the boxes on the democratic system, but the democratic pillars in India are being eroded.

>> You know, I mean, given the enormous importance of China's economy in the region, Belt and Road, the investments.

I mean, how does one say, "Actually, Beijing" -- I mean, Pakistan was invited to the Biden Democracy Summit and said no, and there was much said and much written about the fact that, "Well, the Chinese told you not to attend."

>> Not really.

You know, I don't think the Chinese did.

I think some of the wrong choices we make are on our own.

You know, give us that much credit.

So I say this because I think Pakistan has suffered from overattention rather than lack thereof, okay?

And the whole concept of a sovereign state is a state which can make its own decisions on what works for it in which situation.

Right?

So when we are now -- We clearly see a trend perhaps more propagated by the Americans than the Chinese where the world is being wanted to be divided into two different affairs and pretty much everybody saying, "Which camp do you belong to?"

I say no camp.

I say we belong to the Pakistan camp.

And I say we are very set on remaining and we should remain within the Pakistani camp.

And it is exceptionally important that Pakistan is able to build on its strengths.

You know, a country which is dependent on IMF largesse, you not really want to have an overprojected role in the world, right?

Our first role should be to our own people.

Our first responsibility should be to our own.

I think we've ignored that too much and I think that's what fractured democracies are looking like.

And therefore, you know, democracies are supposed to be a means to an end.

Right?

I think we've gotten so worked up and involved in the means that we have stopped looking at what the end of what democracy -- >> Human development, civil society, social contract.

>> And may I add over here that I feel that the West is feeling so threatened right now not because of many other things, but because it feels that now there's an alternate model, perhaps, which is giving the end a true means which are not democratic, perhaps, entirely democratic as in Western democracies.

And that is perhaps leading to the fear, and that is leading to all of this restlessness and the helplessness.

>> Yeah, which are the two themes that we've had two years ago and this year in the Munich Security Conference.

I agree that those, you know, the global elites that go to these conferences feel that way.

I think the average American is not yet in any way thinking about the fact that there's an alternative model out there that's threatening to them.

They're thinking that the alternative model is Democrats versus Republicans, a different problem.

But I remember two years ago and you said you'll take the bait.

I believe you when you mentioned to me about the democratic erosion of India because you referred to India under Modi as a rogue state.

>> India is now becoming the bully for the entire region and is actually going against every international commitment, and, frankly speaking, regional commitments and bilateral commitments it made to Pakistan by what it did in Kashmir.

Now, when you do all of that, what do you become?

You become a rogue state.

>> Which is a strong statement.

Do you still feel that way?

He's very popular today in India.

He's about to win a whole bunch of state elections.

Do you still feel that way?

>> You know, Ian, everyone who's doing the wrong thing is popular in their own countries, right?

So this, you know, this whole theme of helplessness?

And we talked about it in the main session that helplessness felt by people, by the electorate, okay, creates this demand for someone coming in with an alternate system.

So India, a secular, developing country with strong democratic credentials.

And here comes this person who gives an alternate route to India, okay, which is nonsecular, for sure.

India is -- You know, since we talked, by the way, there has been the Citizen Amendment Act.

Okay?

I think after that was Kashmir or just around the same time.

>> The taking away of the autonomy of Kashmir.

>> Taking away of the autonomy.

Taking away of the autonomy, and the Citizenship Act is not a small thing, right?

Basically you're saying everybody who's Hindu has a right to be an Indian citizen and anyone who's Muslim has the least right and anyone in the middle, we'll think about it, right?

And after that, there have been attacks on universities.

There have been attacks on people covering their head.

So that is not a liberal India, okay, where you're propagating a certain person or certain set of people who are Indians and the rest are not.

If you don't follow the right religion, if you don't follow the right ethnicity, if you, you know, you may not be as Indian as the others.

That is very, very dangerous because India is a large country.

India has a regional, you know, presence, okay?

And I will connect this to the Quad because India's in Quad why?

Or, you know, suddenly, why has the Quad come up?

Because everything that is happening in the world or at least our part of the world has to do with containment of China.

>> It's a reaction to China.

>> You know, I'm going to stick to that position because pretty much everything that is happening around our region where the West is involved, where the U.S. particularly is involved, all of it is coming in from a fear of China, from a containment of China policy, and India today can get away with murder and the West would look away because they need -- they look at India as the only alternative to containing China within the region, embroiling China in some ways.

I think it's very, very dangerous.

The trends in the world right now are supremely dangerous.

>> Pakistan is a country that's in desperate need of investment development.

It's got to come from somewhere.

>> Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

So it's coming from wherever -- whoever is willing to give it to us.

>> That sounds mostly like China.

>> That is China, and that is also other countries, whoever is willing to.

So you see the thing with China also is now we have a lot of Western countries telling us "Oh, you're taking too much," you know, not assistance.

>> It's investments.

>> It's investments from China.

And as someone who managed Pakistan's portfolio, investment portfolio and aid portfolio, for like almost seven years from 2002 till about 2010, so quite a long time.

We pretty much begged every country for the same level of investments in hard loan, in soft loan.

We begged the World Bank for those type of infrastructure investments.

It was not forthcoming.

Then China comes up with this initiative and it's exactly what we've been asking for.

Of course we're going to take it.

That's what I call sovereign decisions, Ian.

So when I say we're not aligned with anyone -- >> But there are consequences to taking the money.

>> There might be consequences, but you see, the consequences are for you to figure out and for me not to care about because I will do what is right for my country.

I should do what is right for my country.

I should make choices which are aligned with my country's interests.

Right now, my country's foremost only interest should be the betterment of its people.

We have ignored that for far too long, okay?

We've been too embroiled in one problem and this problem and that problem and how bad India is and how good someone else is to really concentrate on our people, and our people have suffered.

We are 220 million people.

That's a lot of people.

It's a lot of youth.

So I think mostly pretty much every country will do much better if they were to focus inward.

You know, we have lots of issues, I think, each one of us within our own country.

Sort them out and then we can lay back a bit.

>> Hina Khar, thank you very much.

>> Thank you very much, Ian.

♪♪ >> Russia's invasion into Ukraine marks the beginning of a new war in Europe.

And while many analysts believe that Ukraine's military is better prepared today than it was in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called on his fellow countrymen to pick up arms, tweeting, "We will give weapons to anyone who wants to defend the country.

Be ready to support Ukraine in the squares of our cities."

And they have.

"GZERO's" Alex Kliment talked to one Ukrainian who is fighting to preserve his country's democracy.

>> Facing a massive attack by the world's fifth largest army, Ukraine is holding out as best it can.

[ Indistinct shouting ] President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has declared martial law, prohibited all men between the ages of 18 and 60 from leaving the country and promised weapons to anyone who wants to join the fight.

The interior minister says more than 25,000 rifles have already been handed out in Kyiv alone.

And across the country, armed volunteer groups have sprung up to defend local communities as well.

One such group, active on the outskirts of Kyiv, calls itself the Wolverines, a nod to the heroes of the 1984 film "Red Dawn."

>> Wolverines!

>> Daniel Bilak, a Canadian lawyer with Ukrainian heritage, who has lived in the country for more than 30 years, leads the group.

>> This is a crime against humanity.

I mean, Putin and his -- and his gangster friends are all going to be tried as war criminals.

>> At his home, he was without power, his face lit by candlelight as the fighting moved closer to his village.

>> Everything that I worked for to build is now being threatened, and that's worth defending.

The rights and the great democracy, the vibrant, dynamic democracy that Ukrainians have built is worth fighting for.

>> If you're going out on armed patrols in the middle of a war, are you scared when you go out at night?

>> I think people are just pissed off.

I'm pissed off.

We've had 300 years of living under colonial oppression of one form or another and being basically denied an identity, a right to exist, our own language by the Russians.

>> Groups like the Wolverines may be showing Ukraine's claws against a much larger enemy.

But experts like Sarah Yager at Human Rights Watch worry about the dangers of giving out weapons to civilians with limited military training.

>> As soon as you pick up that weapon, you are, according to international law, directly participating in hostilities, which means that you lose your civilian status, which means that you can be targeted.

And it also means that you have to abide by the laws of war.

And of course, nobody has had training on the laws of war.

>> Still, with the Russian war machine bearing down on them, Ukrainians like Daniel believe they're fighting not only for their country, but for something bigger.

>> We are fighting for every democratic country, certainly in Europe and for democratic and European values.

>> For "GZERO World," I'm Alex Kliment.

♪♪ >> And now I've got your "Puppet Regime."

>> Experts now say that the omicron wave could signal an end to the pandemic.

Speaking today from Geneva, the head of the World... >> Turn that garbage off.

>> Oh, honey, it's going to be alright.

>> Is it?

We've been at this for two years now, and now all of our hard work is for nothing.

>> But all things must come to an end, sweetheart.

From alpha to omicron and then to omega.

>> Okay, okay, Mr.

Philosophical, whose side are you even on?

>> Look, I'm just trying to be realistic here, hun.

The truth is we'll never go away, but we may just slowly become -- >> Become what?

Irrelevant?

I did not birth all of those variants to accept failure.

>> No, it'll be great, hun.

We can finally step out of the limelight.

>> What do you mean?

>> Just think.

We can stay annoying, but just be a lot less prominent.

Like Baby Shark, rollerblades, or Rudy Giuliani.

>> ♪ Puppet Regime, do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do ♪ >> That's our show this week.

Come back next week, and if you like what you see, I know you do, you're just thinking about, "Hey, how does this new Cold War play out?

What does it mean for me?"

We have you covered.

Check us out at gzeromedia.com.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ >> Major corporate funding provided by founding sponsor First Republic.

At First Republic, our clients come first.

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