The attack on the school in Peshawar in December shocked the world. In Pakistan, the upshot is a growing military shadow once more looming over a fragile democracy.
The Peshawar atrocity did not come out of a clear blue sky—the foreboding context an inert, corrupt state ambivalent towards violence, hardly functioning public institutions and unregulated madrasas.
The Federally Administered Tribal Areas touching Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan suffer a toxic mix of state and non-state violence and neglect. The consequences are unlikely to be good.
Attacks by US drones have often been presented as forensic, yet only one in 25 victims in Pakistan were identifiably associated with al-Qaeda.
Drones may offer an appealing alternative to the US after Iraq and Afghanistan but they don’t provide genuine security.
Little is clear about the US renewal of drone strikes in Pakistan—except that they won’t be the last.
The government in Islamabad will face opposition in the coming week to its Protection of Pakistan Ordinance. Is it about protecting the citizen—or the state?
No one should expect progress in Afghanistan anytime soon, enmeshed as it is in a complex web of interaction among state and non-state actors.
The announcement of talks between Islamabad and representatives of the Pakistan Taliban surprised many. Few will however be surprised if they fail.
The Pakistani military and intelligence service will not easily break the ties with Islamist terrorist groups in Afghanistan like the Haqqani network. Islamabad wants to keep a foothold in Afghanistan when western troops leave and use Islamic extremism as a counterforce to ethnic conflict and inco
Peace in Pakistan and the entire region can only be achieved by the creation of genuine democracy in Pakistan, with its military institutions accountable to its elected bodies. Pakistan’s army consumes 38% of Pakistan’s budget without accounting for most of it.
The gap between the logics of security (clear) and development (hold, build and transfer) remains stark
