ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the evolution of counterinsurgency in Pakistan and Pakistani counterinsurgency doctrine. Generally speaking Pakistan practices a more population-centric approach to counterinsurgency (hereafter CI) in its core territories of the Punjab and Karachi and by contrast resorts to pacification operations in its dealings with peripheral regions such as East Pakistan, Balochistan, Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkwa (hereafter KP, formerly the NWFP – Northwest Frontier Province) (Gazdar 2006: 1952). (See map of Pakistan on page 228.) In terms of the implementation of CI in peripheral areas, Pakistan has under-emphasized the components of population security, economic development and political strategy because these are costs usually beyond the reach of Pakistan’s treasury (Lalwani 2009: 5). It has relied instead on pacification, with an emphasis on the intimidatory use of firepower, and exploitation of regional ethnic tensions to deter centrifugal resistance. While operations in the Sindh and Balochistan have achieved pacification, the application of military force in East Pakistan in 1971, Karachi in 1992-7, and since 2002 in KP achieved either an unsustainable stalemate, or have an uncertain future. Popular explanations for Pakistan’s failure in regard to pacification centre on its lack of civilian oversight of the military, the lack of political will in a fragmented democracy, and a perceived lack of skill and interest in counterinsurgency by the Pakistan Army (Jones and Fair 2010: 83; Mullick 2009: 1-9). Moreover, Pakistan’s military is reluctant to engage target populations that constitute its Punjabi, Pashtun or Muhajir soldiery. Pakistan consists of a military and political system centred around the Punjab (with a population of 90 million). The remaining 36 million Sindhis, 27 million Pashtun, 13 million Mohajirs, eight million Kashmiris and six million Baloch, play either a semi-peripheral or peripheral role in the state apparatus, and are therefore occasionally exposed to less liberal applications of CI. Pakistan also lacks the finances for long-term socio-economic development outside its core territory of the Punjab, and is reluctant to intervene against nonseparatist regional populations where existing ethnic tensions permit divide-and-conquer rule.
