London, Feb 13 Pakistan is not only suffering from militancy but also suffering from the consequences of a ruling elite that considered militancy as a strategic asset, governance as an inconvenience and accountability as a foreign concept, a report has stated.
"Every collapsing regime needs an external villain. Pakistan’s establishment has turned this into a reflex. Kabul did it. New Delhi did it. Foreign agencies did it. Invisible hands did it. The only entity permanently exempt from suspicion is the one that has dominated Pakistan’s political life for most of its history: the military establishment itself," Junaid S Ahmad wrote in an opinion piece in London-based Middle East Monitor.
"Pakistan is not merely suffering from militancy. It is suffering from the consequences of a ruling elite that treated militancy as a strategic asset, governance as an inconvenience, and accountability as a foreign concept. For decades, the generals cultivated violence as leverage," he added.
Militants were categorised as "good", "bad", manageable and useful and proxy warfare was justified as strategic depth. Extremism was administered and not confronted. When bomb blasts occur in Balochistan or suicide attacks take place in Islamabad, Pakistan's official statement assembles with almost comic efficiency, which involves cross-border infiltration, hostile neighbours and foreign funding. Pakistan projects responsibility outward with theatrical confidence while it does not introspect.
An opinion piece in Middle East Monitor stated, "Balochistan is not an anomaly; it is evidence. Enforced disappearances, militarised governance, extractive economics devoid of political inclusion — this is not counterterrorism. It is structural alienation masquerading as security policy. Officials call the resulting unrest “foreign-backed.” They rarely acknowledge that treating an entire province as a security problem rather than a political community predictably generates instability."
The same pattern is followed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) areas. Military operations are conducted, displacing communities and increasing distrust, resulting in resentment among residents. The resentment does not evaporate but it accumulates among people, becoming recruitment capital. Pakistani authorities have created those conditions, according to the report.
Pakistan's establishment which once categorised militants into "assets" and "threats" now projects itself as civilisation’s final defence. The same generals who reduced the line between proxy and predator now talk about unity among people. The creators of calibrated chaos now express shock over the chaos that refuses calibration. Pakistan's generals who now project themselves as guardians against collapse, in reality, preside over the accumulated consequences of reckless statecraft.
In an opinion piece in Middle East Monitor, Junaid S Ahmad wrote, "February 2024 sharpened the crisis. When a regime must expend enormous coercive energy suppressing its own electorate — manipulating results, intimidating dissent, shrinking civic space — it diverts institutional capacity from public security toward regime preservation. Intelligence becomes politicised. Citizens become suspects. Trust collapses. A state that fears its own population cannot protect it."
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