THE militants must be pleased with the policies of the federal and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governments. The two are not missing any opportunity to appease them or grant concessions in the hope of maintaining peace. But the militants are not convinced they have to return the favour and their terrorist onslaught continues across the country.

It is not clear yet what exactly is the government’s policy to counter terrorism. Though the government is talking about talks, it is still in search of credible contacts to establish a channel with the enemy.

It seems that both governments believe that through their appeasement policy they’ll be able to keep the terrorist threat confined within the established conflict zones. On the contrary, they have fears that any tough decision made to launch a massive campaign against terrorists could be counterproductive and cause them to scatter in the settled areas of KP and eventually launch retaliatory attacks in Punjab.

If this is the approach it may not work because it is based on a simplistic threat perception, which conceives Pakistani Taliban-led terrorism as a tribal phenomenon that is directly linked to the situation in Afghanistan. The dangerous aspect of this ‘confinement approach’ is that it does not assess accurately. It especially does not offer any insight into the link between the real potential of urban terrorism and sectarian violence. It does not even help in understanding the different tendencies of extremism and how these have developed close bonds with each other.

This approach ignores complexities of the situation and presents a simple solution. It creates a perception that things could settle down through give and take. Give some concessions to the terrorists and get assurances they will not target the political constituencies of the federal and KP governments or areas of influence, ie Punjab and settled areas in KP respectively.

This approach holds an optimistic view as it takes militancy as a threat and not a resolute challenge and in return applies fire-fighting solutions.

This attitude is not new as before the Swat operation in 2009 governments had displayed a similar approach until ultimately the state reached the conclusion that surgical intervention was required. Initially, the PPP at the centre and the Awami National Party in KP had adopted a wait-and-see policy, until the militants started attacking their leaders and workers from mid-2008.

Interestingly, the incumbent government is also giving contradictory indications, that it will eventually adopt a surgical approach if talks with the terrorists fail. The government is giving this impression mainly to the international community to keep its trust. But it again indicates major flaws in the government’s perception that it can deceive everyone through its ambiguous and contradictory approaches.

These ambiguous approaches have already badly affected the responses of the state to the terrorists. The government keeps blaming the US drone attacks inside Pakistan as a trigger of terrorism and spoiler of its attempts to make peace with the terrorists.

Statistically speaking, this perception proved wrong again in 2013 as the US drone strikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas registered a 31pc decrease from the year before, while suicide attacks increased by 39pc as compared to the previous year; as many as 46 suicide attacks took place in Pakistan last year.

At the same time, 2,113 people were killed — between the day when Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif took oath of office in June and Dec 31 — in 1,345 incidents of violence, including 827 terrorist attacks. But the government and political leadership is not ready to come out from its state of denial and keeps shifting responsibility to external factors.

No doubt, political engagement with non-state actors is always an important part of countering insurgencies and terrorist strategies, and states launch political intervention for both operational and reintegration purposes. Plenty of literature is available on this subject, but the incumbent government has been using the mantra of peace talks as rhetoric and has not pursued its prime strategy of talks wholeheartedly.

The government is not yet clear about what it wants to achieve through talks. This is important to determine if the desired objective is to minimise terrorist attacks in the country, or dismantle the terrorist networks, regain lost ground or help reintegrate militants in society. It’s also crucial what the state demands of the militants, and what is offered in return.

It is important to bear in mind that a peace process is always a long exercise, and it is not prudent to expect a resolution of issues within weeks or months. Also, it is not clear that if talks start what timeline the government will have in mind.

On the other hand, the reaction of the Pakistan military to the TTP attack on the Khajori check post, in Mirali, North Waziristan, in December last year indicates that the security establishment’s patience has been exhausted and it now appears to have zero tolerance for such attacks. Even then the security establishment is not interfering in policy on internal security, mainly talks with the terrorists.

At the same time, the PML-N government is lucky that it has to deal with no extensive international pressure on its internal security policy issues. The world is focusing mainly on Afghanistan and has left Pakistan on its own on this issue.

With so much space and freedom, if the government fails to deliver on the security front and continues to practise its appeasement approach, it would be called nothing except self-destruction.

The writer is a security analyst.