Security is imperative

Published October 13, 2013

WHEN Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif assumed his third term in office, he proposed unconditional talks to India; sought a rapprochement with Hamid Karzai in Kabul; and offered negotiations to the Pakistani Taliban.

The harsh realities of Pakistan’s security environment have, however, confronted the prime minister’s goodwill in seeking to engage with Pakistan’s adversaries and address its security challenges.

India initially agreed to resume talks with Pakistan, though it conditioned them on an absence of “violence and terrorism”. The revival of anti-India protests in India-held Kashmir, exchanges of fire across the Line of Control and the impending national elections in India seem to have put paid to the prospects of an early resumption of the Indo-Pakistan dialogue.

Speaking at the UN General Assembly last month, Mr Sharif reaffirmed Pakistan’s long-standing call for a solution to Kashmir based on the will of its people even while urging resumption of talks with India. This evoked a vicious response from his Indian counterpart: not only reiterating India’s claim on Kashmir but also depicting Pakistan as the “epicentre of terrorism”. Although the meeting between the two prime ministers went ahead in New York, New Delhi retracted its earlier willingness to resume the dialogue with Pakistan.

The portents are not auspicious. Pakistan-baiting will be a favoured election ploy of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), now led by Narendra Modi, the Hindu supremacist. It will oblige the ruling Congress to adopt the hardline stance evident in New York. If the BJP wins, India’s belligerence may go beyond words. For its part, Pakistan will find it difficult to deal with Modi, given that he is widely held responsible for the massacre of over 2000 Muslims in the 2002 Gujrat riots.

Given these negative trends, the statement issued by Pakistan’s National Command Authority, chaired by the prime minister on Sept 5, was prescient. It declared that Pakistan “would not remain oblivious to the evolving security dynamics in South Asia and would maintain full spectrum deterrence capability to deter all forms of aggression”.

Pakistan has in place a clear security posture and doctrine to deter Indian aggression. The 2002 Pakistan-India military confrontation brought home the fact that the nuclear-armed neighbours risk mutual catastrophe were they to go to war. Despite India’s ambitious arms buildup, this reality of “mutual assured destruction” is unlikely to change.

The only danger of Pakistan’s deterrence capability being compromised — politically or militarily — would arise if there is collusion between India and a Great Power. Pakistani strategists have noted the US desire to build India as a strategic counter to a rising China. The US discrimination against Pakistan’s civilian nuclear programme, and objections to its strategic response to India’s nuclear and conventional buildup, are disturbing indications of policy bias if not intent.

While Pakistan’s posture towards India has strategic clarity, the same cannot be said regarding its policy towards Afghanistan and the Taliban — both the Afghan and Pakistani varieties.

The conflict in Afghanistan, which has progressively spread into Pakistan, poses a direct threat to Pakistan’s external and internal security. The composition and attitude of the future rulers of Afghanistan is most relevant for Pakistan’s stability and security. An unfriendly regime in Kabul, or one under Indian tutelage, will add to Pakistan’s security challenges.

However, this threat needs to be kept in perspective. Even if the future regime in Kabul is unfriendly, it cannot pose an existential threat to Pakistan. India’s attempts to gain influence will end as badly as those of other external powers. At best, Afghanistan will have a weak and fractious coalition. At worst, civil war will continue.

Pakistan should make the effort to promote peace in Afghanistan. But it would be unwise to expend strategic capital to control the Afghan factions. This attempt could compromise Pakistan’s priority objective of improving its own security.

Pakistan’s main concern must be to insulate itself, as far as possible, from the Afghan turbulence; neutralise the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan’s (TTP) war against the state; end the insurgency in Balochistan and sectarian violence in Karachi and other parts of the country. This requires a coherent policy encompassing economic, social, political and military dimensions and guided by national self-interest.

Asserting Pakistan’s sovereignty must be the central principle of this policy. Islamabad should not tolerate support for the TTP or the Baloch Liberation Army from Afghanistan (or elsewhere). It should demand an end to drone strikes but also to financial support to extremist groups. Pakistan must require all Afghans, insurgent groups and the millions of refugees still in Pakistan, to return to their country.

Second, the government must reassert its monopoly over power. This entails disarming all groups, including armed wings of political parties, by persuasion, fiat and, where necessary, by force. This may evoke resistance and violence; but the alternative, witnessed in Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq, will erode Pakistan’s stability and territorial integrity.

Third, negotiations must always be the preferred solution, but not be allowed to signal the state’s weakness. The uptick in terrorist attacks after the government’s offer of negotiations is no accident. The threat and, where necessary, the use of force are essential elements for ending terrorism and sectarian violence.

Fourth, the government will need to utilise and work with the armed forces to impose security. Civilian rule is now too well entrenched to fear a military takeover. A demonstration by the civilian government that it has the political will to prevent chaos is the best insurance against unconstitutional alternatives.

Two other considerations should strengthen the government’s determination to act boldly. One, in the absence of security, investment and economic growth are unlikely. Without growth, Pakistan’s social and political problems will multiply and propel it towards chaos.

Two, chaos and terrorism can and will be used by Pakistan’s adversaries to demand the neutralisation of its nuclear capability. Syria is a current example.

Mao Zedong is reported to have once admonished that “security cannot be 99pc; it must be 100pc”. Pakistan’s security today is only 50pc. We must make up the deficit urgently.

The writer is a former Pakistan ambassador to the UN.

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