Pakistan's NSP fails to address social cohesion

Pakistan's National Security Policy has failed to address social cohesion.

Pakistan is perhaps the first South Asian country that has now a comprehensive national security doctrine in a documented form. The country's friends and foes can interpret it in their own ways and engage with the state accordingly, as noted by Dawn.

For some, the doctrine was needed to remove the persisting ambiguities between the internal and external security paradigms which had emerged after 9/11. While Pakistan's security institutions were struggling to precisely visualize the terrorism threat, which was internal, such ambiguities had also been harming the country's conventional strategic vision.

Others believe that Pakistan needed to understand and define its place in the changing world order, specifically in the context of America's shifting priorities, which compelled Pakistan to become a proactive member of the Belt and Road Initiative club, as analyzed by Dawn.

This has not been an easy transition and a major segment of the country's power elite still believes that hiccups in Pakistan-US relations are temporary and that Islamabad can maintain a fine balance in its relationships with the US and China.

Over the last two decades, state institutions have made multiple moves to fix the issue of religiously motivated terrorism and extremism. Their attempts have included the National Action Plan, Paigham-i-Pakistan, the National Internal Security Policy, and the Counter Violent Extremism Policy. A large part of the emphasis has been on bringing in religious actors as the key agents of the desired change.

It is not certain how NSP will help in addressing the identity crisis in the country when the predominant approach of achieving social and national cohesion is to reduce the space for sub-nationalist movements. Apparently, 'cohesion' has been used as an alternative term for engagement. The state is using the engagement strategy for religiously inspired actors and cohesion for subnational movements, as noted by Dawn.

Over time, the word 'security', has become very sensitive. Political parties and most parliamentarians do not touch any issue with the tag of 'security'. They think this is the exclusive domain of security institutions and their job is only to endorse whatever policy is coming from the establishment.

If the NSP is presented in parliament, it will be endorsed very easily. Parliament is sovereign but it should be truly independent, and all political parties must play a role to make it the country's supreme institution, according to Dawn.

( With inputs from ANI )

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