Countering terrorism in Pakistan: Challenges, conundrum and resolution

Pakistan has achieved significant success in countering terrorism without however, defeating it. The violence thus persists. Not only the countervailing policies have lacked a coherent vision underpinned by a balanced blend of soft and hard approaches, the ongoing mainly the military led effort has also been subverted by important actors in Pakistani state, politics and society. Apart from idiosyncratic national security landscape characterized by a complex set of geopolitical dynamics and foreign interventions, the conundrum resides in a multitude of conflicting viewpoints, policy attitudes and reactions against terrorism. Ironically, the extant terrorism and conflict literature has not systematically sought to understand the causes germinating this peculiar security setting of an important South Asian country which not only deprives critical input to research about non-western responses to terrorism but also hinders in developing objective understanding about sociopolitical conditions and constraints impacting such responses, at times leading to uninformed perceptions. This chapter helps to fill this void.