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Historically, Balochistan connected the pre-partitioned India with Middle East and Central Asia through MakranCoast and Bolan Pass, respectively. Alexander the Great and his army marched through the coastal area of Makran as a shortest route to return back home from India. The Arabs under Mohammad Bin Qasim marched along the coastline of Makran in early 8th Century to invade Sindh. The expansionist Tsarist Russian Empire desired to make inroads into the Indian subcontinent through the Kalat State during the Great Game. Owing to the strategic Bolan Pass and Makran coastline, the British Empire colonized the Kalat State and other Baloch princely states after the First Anglo-Afghan War (1839-42). The competing European powers during the First and Second World Warshad their strategic footprints in Balochistan. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 was believed to be an expansionist attempt to access the warm waters of the Arabian Sea of the Indian Ocean via Balochistan. In early 21st Century, the seismic shifts in global politics after 9/11 and the quests for geopolitical and geo-economic domination once again brought Balochistaninto the spotlight of power politics. This research paper analyses the history, geopolitics and ethnic conflict of Balochistan by applying a qualitative method based on explanatory, descriptive and analytical approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the relationship between socioeconomic deprivation fanaticism and terrorism in Pakistan using Waziristan as a case study. It claims that major cause of radicalization was the weak and meagre socio-economic conditions including the negligence of the region by the successive governments since the creation of Pakistan. The research concludes that poverty and socioeconomic backwardness has serious implications in causing radicalism and resultantly it foments terrorism in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]