Politicians, military establishment need to have priorities right
The US defence secretary has met the prime minister and COAS. The uncertainty created by the ongoing US-Afghan standoff has added to the dangers Pakistan is likely to face after the US-led NATO troops leave Afghanistan next year. Karzai remains reluctant to sign the proposed security deal and wants his successor to endorse it after the elections next year. Washington has threatened to go for the zero option i.e., exit of all NATO troops if the Afghan President fails to put his signatures on the document before the end of December. While there is little chance of the Taliban overrunning Kabul in case of the withdrawal of all foreign troops, what is certain is a long drawn out civil war in Afghanistan. The least that it would do is to send millions of Afghan refugees trekking to Pakistan through an over 2,500 km long porous Durand Line. Another certainty is that it would provide the Pakistani Taliban strategic depth to launch attacks all over the country. Both would overburden the economy and add to the country’s security risks.
What is needed under the situation is for the army to re-determine the principal source of threat to Pakistan’s security. The developments over the last few years prove that internal security challenges constitute the principle threat to Pakistan’s sovereignty. It is anomalous under the circumstances to concentrate almost all defence assets on the eastern frontier. The unrealistic policy has already led to two major embarrassments: the failure on the part of the security forces to detect the American helicopters that flew from Afghanistan to Abbottabad on May 2, 2011, to kill OBL and the lack of defence capabilities in Salala in November 2011 to stop and repulse the NATO assault on Pakistani border posts, which killed several soldiers. Almost all the countries in the region, and many outside it, consider the militants as the major threat to regional and international peace. As former COAS Kayani put it in his Independence Day address last year: “No state can afford a parallel system or a militant force,” and also that “The fight against extremism and terrorism is our own war and we are right in fighting it.”
What is required is to secure the eastern front through a policy of reconciliation with India which needs to be told that the militancy causes an equally potent threat to New Delhi also. It is time our politicians and military establishment had their priorities right.
