- The need to adjust
The army chief could not have been more right when he said, “A superior narrative needs to be propagated to deal with attacks in the cognitive domain.” Addressing the passing out parade of 110th Midshipmen and 19th Short Service Course at the Naval Academy, Gen Bajwa also highlighted the dangers to the country’s youth when it is “misguided by ambition, blinded by hate, ethnicity or religion or simply overawed by social media.” He also admitted that sometimes protagonists targeting the youth are our own people, not some outside enemy trying to bring us down.
Indeed the construction of a cohesive national narrative has been an urgent need since well before the war on terror crossed our borders. That is why it was placed so high in the National Action Plan some years ago. Regrettably the government was soon overtaken by political survival and the narrative never got the attention that it needed. Now, with the military also weighing in on the need to improvise and evolve to deal with the type of hybrid war forced upon us, hopefully all relevant organs of the state will turn their attention to the narrative.
Put simply, it means that as much as bombs and bullets our great problem is the mindset that propagates violence, mainly in the name of religion. And it is time we admitted that part of the problem has been institutional brainwashing that no external enemy is responsible for. Of course, countering it will not be as easy as simply announcing a new strategy. This problem has grown, steadily, over decades. So much so that it has seeped into mainstream social society itself. Putting together a fresh national consciousness will take equally long. That is why setting the direction, now, is of the utmost importance. Lately the civilian and military leadership has clearly been on the same page. This moment must be leveraged to put the fight for the country in the right long term direction.