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. Militants were categorized, repurposed, differentiated — “good,” “bad,” manageable, useful. Proxy warfare was rationalized as strategic depth. Chaos was curated. Extremism was not confronted; it was administered. The assumption underlying this grotesque experiment was breathtaking in its arrogance: the state could manipulate instability indefinitely without being consumed by it.
That assumption has collapsed.
When bombs explode in Balochistan or suicide attacks strike Islamabad, the official narrative assembles with almost comic efficiency. Cross-border infiltration. Hostile neighbors. Foreign funding. The script is delivered before the debris cools. Responsibility is projected outward with theatrical confidence. Introspection remains forbidden.
Yet the truth is brutally simple: Pakistan’s insecurity is overwhelmingly self-authored. It is the residue of decades in which the state believed it could weaponize militancy, hollow out politics, and still command loyalty.
Balochistan is not an anomaly; it is evidence. Enforced disappearances, militarized 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 repeats in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the former FATA regions. Military operations cycle through the landscape, displacing communities, deepening distrust, leaving behind resentment disguised as collateral damage. That resentment does not evaporate. It accumulates. It becomes recruitment capital.
To be clear, groups like the TTP and ISIS-K are vicious and destructive. But to pretend their resurgence is primarily foreign orchestration is analytical fraud. Militancy thrives where governance is corrupt, justice politicized, and political expression criminalized.
Pakistan’s rulers have meticulously cultivated those conditions.
The hypocrisy is staggering. The same establishment that once parsed militants into “assets” and “threats” now positions itself as civilization’s final defense. The same generals who blurred the line between proxy and predator now lecture the public on unity. The same architects of calibrated chaos now express shock that chaos refuses calibration.
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 politicized. Citizens become suspects. Trust collapses.
A state that fears its own population cannot protect it.
Meanwhile, Islamabad performs geopolitical balancing acts, assuring Washington of counterterror reliability, promising Beijing strategic permanence, navigating Gulf rivalries with anxious opportunism. This is not strategy; it is insecurity dressed as diplomacy. External alignments, layered atop domestic illegitimacy, become leverage points rather than assets. Suspicion flourishes. Credibility erodes.
Then comes the ritual after each attack. Detailed narratives appear with suspicious speed. Foreign linkages are mapped. Culprits identified. Yet prevention remains elusive. The state seems omniscient after the explosion and perpetually blindsided before it. Skepticism is not cynicism — it is survival.
Simultaneously, dissent is securitized. Journalists are harassed. Activists detained. Political movements framed as existential threats. Peaceful politics is policed more aggressively than insurgent violence. The regime has inverted its priorities: criticism is treated as more dangerous than extremism.
The contradiction is fatal. By hollowing elections and criminalizing dissent, the establishment narrows the channels through which grievances can be expressed nonviolently. It then acts astonished when instability intensifies. Violence does not emerge from a vacuum; it emerges from suffocation.
Security is not sustained by checkpoints and press conferences. It requires legitimacy. It requires citizens who believe participation matters. When participation is rendered cosmetic, the social contract fractures.
Pakistan’s generals now present themselves as guardians against collapse. In reality, they preside over the accumulated consequences of decades of reckless statecraft. The more they securitize politics, the less secure the country becomes. The more they centralize power, the more unrest diffuses. The louder they blame outsiders, the more hollow their authority sounds at home.
States rarely unravel because enemies are unstoppable. They unravel because rulers refuse accountability and mistake coercion for competence.
Pakistan’s establishment has mastered the art of accusation. What it refuses to master is responsibility.
Until that changes, the violence will not be a foreign invasion.
It will be the predictable invoice for decades of arrogance finally coming due.
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