Pakistan Fractured and Failing

PAKISTAN FRACTURED AND FAILING: UNITED STATES POLICY OPTIONS By Dr Subhash Kapila
Introductory Observations
Pakistan presents the picture of a fractured nation and a failing state in mid-2011. Pakistan has presented this picture in the past many times over but was pulled from the brink by the United States by a providential coincidence of Pakistan Army reinventing its strategic utility to serve United States strategic interests and the United States readily exploiting the mercenary instincts of the rentier Pakistan Army.

The strategic utility of the Pakistan Army to serve United States strategic interests in the region has frayed particularly since 2007 and the United States going by the record of Pakistan Army’s duplicitous performance has belatedly realized that its policy formulations on Pakistan Army were grievously misplaced.

For far too long the United States policy establishment had labored under the misimpression that the key to handling and managing Pakistan to serve United States interests was the Pakistan Army and its Generals. This took place despite all the damning evidence to the contrary.

Whether the United States in mid-2011 cares to admit or not the ground realities in Pakistan suggest that the United States has been using the wrong key to manage Pakistan through the Pakistan Army. The Pakistan Army today has fully emerged in the open as not the solution to bring stability in Pakistan but it is the predominant part of the problem.

If Pakistan today is a fractured nation and a failing state then the full onus for Pakistan’s national failures rests squarely on the shoulders of the Pakistan Army. This is a hard reality that the United States policy establishment must realize and factor-in in their examination of options.
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