CIAO DATE: 12/2011
November 2011
United States Institute of Peace
The emerging danger to Pakistan today emanates not from its traditional external adversary to the East—India—but from homegrown insurgency and militancy. No less than the incoming head of Inter-Services Intelligence, Lieutenant General Ahmad Shuja Pasha, told Der Spiegel in a 2009 interview that “we are distancing ourselves from conflict with India, both now and in general,” adding concisely for emphasis, “We may be crazy in Pakistan, but not completely out of our minds. We know full well that terror is our enemy, not India.” The danger should shift the focus of internal security from the military to the ministries of interior and defense, the institutions that should be the backbone of security sector governance in Pakistan. This shift highlights the new, more complex environment that Pakistan’s security forces face: what a thoughtful senior military officer described to the author as “no war, no peace” with India, alongside a continuing war inside Pakistan. The author’s analysis of the situation inside Pakistan yields the strong view that its security sector is not as well equipped and coordinated as it could be to fight the wars within the country, and that the forces of militancy and terror have owned the agenda.
Resource link: Who Controls Pakistan's Security Forces? [PDF] - 254K