WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 (UPI) -- On Nov. 3 Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf declared emergency rule in Pakistan.

In his "Proclamation of Emergency," Musharraf began with the country's rising troubles from rising militancy and terrorism, beginning by telling the nation, "There is visible ascendancy in the activities of extremists and incidents of terrorist attacks, including suicide bombings, IED explosions, rocket firing and bomb explosions and the banding together of some militant groups have taken such activities to an unprecedented level of violent intensity posing a grave threat to the life and property of the citizens of Pakistan," and ending by proclaiming, "The constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan shall remain in abeyance."

India immediately closed the border and put its troops on heightened alert.

An unintended but significant byproduct of the proclamation is to kill, perhaps for good, any Pakistani or Indian hopes for sharing in the burgeoning Caspian basin energy exports, threatening some projects that have been on the drawing boards for years. Proposed pipelines include those to bring Turkmen and Iranian hydrocarbons via Pakistan and thence onward to India. The chaos in Afghanistan initially dimmed Indian and Pakistani hopes as the chaos, combined with other more stable suitors, most notably China, stepped into the breach with offers and funding. Islamabad's recent pronouncement seems hardly likely to quell the anxieties of potential Western investors, painfully aware this is the first time since 1945 that a nuclear-armed state has declared a state of emergency.

For the foreign investment community, Pakistan's announcement constitutes a triple whammy for possible pipeline projects -- Iran, one of the major potential providers of energy exports, remains under relentless U.S. sanctions pressure, while neighboring Afghanistan copes with a persistent Taliban insurgency six years after they were driven from power. Pakistan in turn faces a turbulent North West Frontier province along with a second of Pakistan's four provinces simmering in unrest, Balochistan.