THE annual survey of ‘failed states’ covering 2012 has just appeared in Foreign Policy. Using data on elements such as ‘demographic pressures’, ‘refugees’, ‘public services’, ‘economic decline’, ‘factionalised elites’, ‘security apparatus’ etc it places Pakistan in the 13th position with a total score of 102.9 (It had the same score in 2010).

According to the compilers any figure above 80 puts the country in the ‘critical’ category. For purposes of comparison, Bangladesh stands at 24th with a score of 96.1, Sri Lanka at 25th with a score of 95.7 and India at 79th with 77.5. Many of the criteria can be disputed but few would question the conclusion that Pakistan is in danger of becoming a failed state. Just look at the facts.

Estimates vary but according to one compilation, there were a total of at least 6,211 terrorism-related fatalities, including 3,007 civilians, 2,472 militants and 732 security forces personnel in 2012 as against 6,303 fatalities, including 2,738 civilians, 2,800 militants and 765 security forces personnel in 2011. This year, reports of daily mayhem suggest the figure will be much higher.

For six hours, a deranged individual brought normal life to a halt in an important part of the capital in which vast sums have been expended on creating security forces and security structures.

In April last year Bannu Jail was attacked and numerous hard-core terrorists escaped. This year, even after timely intelligence warnings, an escapee from the Bannu Jail masterminded an attack on the Dera Ismail Khan jail releasing a further 40-45 high-value prisoners.

Last year, Khalid Chishti was arrested after some witnesses, including Hafiz Zubair who was the muezzin in the mosque where Chishti was imam, testified that Chishti had put pages of the Holy Quran in the bag containing burnt papers carried by a mentally challenged Christian girl so that she could be convicted of blasphemy. Now the court has freed Chishti, because the prosecution failed to prove the case against him. There was, however, no direction that those who provided the sworn testimony should now be prosecuted for perjury, which is the action that the court should have ordered if Chishti was being released because of false testimony.

The elections have proved that this is not a political problem or an ideological divide. This represents only a breakdown of law and order. The deterioration in the quality of the civil administration, the guardian of law and order is one factor, but more importantly such elements of competence as have survived cannot act because of the ambivalence of the power centres that created this menace to achieve unrealisable foreign policy objectives and because other power centres choose to exploit rather than fight this menace.

I would question our interior minister’s recent assertion that the “war on terrorism” was thrust upon us but there can be no questioning his other assertion that this is now “our war”. What is needed is that all power centres must now be united in tackling on a war footing this law and order problem.

Unrealisable foreign policy objectives must no longer be permitted to determine how we handle this nor should foreign policy issues be allowed to distract our leaders from establishing the writ of the state in all parts of the country and thus creating the conditions in which our battered economy can recover.

Admittedly, ignoring foreign policy appears difficult given the new tensions in India-Pakistan relations after the killing of five Indian soldiers near the Line of Control and the harsh rhetoric from Indian politicians looking to the next election. But again, let’s look at the facts.

Pakistan traditionally kept all its troops on the Indian border or in cantonments from where they could be deployed to that border. The threatened Indian adoption of the Cold Start doctrine notwithstanding, 150,000 troops moved to our tribal agencies to fight the war against terrorism without any discernible increase in the threat perception. India has a defence budget of $40bn clearly outmatching us even when all our troops are on the Indian border. Our ‘nuclear deterrent’, however, remains largely unaffected by the vast discrepancy in conventional forces or by redeployment away from the Indian border. Our need is to maintain the credibility of that deterrent.

In the meanwhile, I would suggest that barring extreme provocation, large-scale military operations on India’s part are unthinkable particularly at this time when the world (read Nato powers) needs Pakistan for a graceful exit from Afghanistan, and India needs the world’s goodwill as it seeks recognition of its major regional if not global power status.

As we tackle our internal problem the prospect of such an extreme provocation will decline because our actions will reduce the capabilities of those intent on sabotaging any movement towards normalisation of Indo-Pak relations.

Afghanistan is our other major foreign policy issue. The major terrorism threat within Pakistan is that the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and its leaders aver that they have sworn loyalty to Mullah Omar. This loyalty may be more theoretical than real but it illustrates the point that as we tackle the TTP we will also be tackling the problem of cross-border activity that puts us at odds with the Afghans and more importantly with Nato. If we sincerely fight the TTP and by extension the foreign terrorists to whom they provide sanctuary we will earn the goodwill of the powers on whose economic and technological assistance we will depend as we seek to fix our economic malaise. A stable Afghanistan, no matter who is at the helm, will help relieve our drug and other smuggling problems, perhaps even secure the return of some of the five million refugees whose presence has strained our economy.

How far will the growth of Indian influence in Afghanistan complicate Pakistan’s security dilemma? In a subsequent article, I will attempt a dispassionate analysis of what India can do through Afghanistan, which it cannot do otherwise and what we should expect from a Karzai now fighting for political survival.

The writer is a former foreign secretary.