Pakistan's Counterterrorism Challenge

Conclusion

Conclusion MOEED YUSUF THE AUTHORS of this volume were tasked to examine Pakistan’s Islamist militant challenge. The topics covered are not exhaustive; the focus was deliberately narrowed to counterterrorism (CT), defined strictly as actions intended to directly prevent or respond to outfits or individuals employing terrorist tactics. The contributions covered both the military and nonmilitary aspects of CT—political weakness, policing, legal and financial lacunae, and the use of cyberspace. The analyses produced some telling observations, not only on the monumental scale of Pakistan’s CT challenge but also in terms of deeper structural issues that make these specific challenges all the more difficult to overcome. Five major trends emerged from the volume. Lack of Clarity: Who Is the Enemy? The Pakistani state is yet to fulfill the first prerequisite of tackling any challenge , let alone a violent one: clarity on what or who is to be targeted. The question, ‘‘who is the enemy’’ continues to lack an obvious answer, both for outsiders who largely believe that Pakistan continues to condone Islamists for strategic reasons and for the domestic audience, where views are polarized and conflicted. The lack of clarity is even reflected by the state’s institutions that are responsible for tackling terrorism. It is obvious from the chapters focusing on the nontraditional force functions that key functionaries are often puzzled over just how widely they are to cast their CT net. A history of state support to militancy, a civil–military disconnect, a public discourse that allows Islamists to create ambivalence and conflate issues to their advantage, and an overall lack of direction all feed into this very evident sense of confusion. 203 204 Conclusion The ‘‘capacity versus will’’ question raised in chapter 1 lies at the heart of this concern. Once the Pakistani state pledges lack of capacity, determining whether it has the resolve to go after militants of all shades becomes impossible . Is Pakistan really pursuing a sequential approach dictated by its capacity limitations, as it claims, or is the approach a selective one that aims to merely manage rather than eliminate Islamist militancy, as the Western world contends ? From a Pakistani perspective, one may be able to argue that convincing the world of its sincerity is of secondary importance and that there is a limit to how much effort and resources it can expend on it. Not providing clarity domestically, however, could prove to be fatal. The Pakistani civilian and military leadership must clearly lay out for all its internal organs, most importantly the functionaries responsible for implementing any aspect of the CT effort, their outlook, and their vision on tackling militants. And if Pakistan is indeed committed to pacifying the entire web of militants, its domestic audience must be able to see a concrete, long-term, and holistic strategy, both militarily and in terms of addressing the nonmilitary issues examined in this volume. There are no signs of this yet. The primacy of the domestic audience does not imply that the state can ignore the external, geostrategic factors when it comes to Pakistan’s CT conundrum because these are also intrinsically linked to the future of Islamist militancy in the country. There is little doubt that the post-9/11 developments in Afghanistan have caused a backlash in Pakistan, and the militant enclave has cashed in on constant US pressure on Pakistan to ‘‘do more’’ in order to sow confusion in Pakistani minds about the Islamists’ ultimate objectives. Lieven’s analysis in chapter 9 crystallizes just how central the United States has become to this equation. While remaining upbeat about Pakistan’s ability to prevent an Islamist takeover, the two tipping points he presents are both linked to provoking Washington to substantially expand the remit of direct military action against Pakistan, and to consequently overwhelming any possibility of the Pakistani state prevailing over violent Islamists. The larger regional question is just as important: Pakistan’s concerns about India are largely dismissed as paranoia by outsiders, but the Western world has failed to incentivize the Pakistani military’s move away from its India obsession. Pakistan, for its part, professes to have realized that its number one threat is internal, but its policies in Afghanistan hardly reflect this change. The result may well be a continuing disproportionate focus on India that will distract the state from the internal threat and perhaps keep some of the militant groups attractive as policy tools. In essence, Pakistan will be consumed by its concerns about the growing regional imbalance...