Pakistan’s War at Home

Pakistan’s leaders are once again congratulating themselves for killing militants in Balochistan and launching new operations in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Press releases fly. Body counts are celebrated. The script is familiar: more force, more displacement, more declarations of “success.” What is never mentioned is the inconvenient historical detail that Pakistan’s problem in Balochistan did not begin with terrorism. It began with an invasion.

In 1947, as the British packed their bags, Balochistan was not destined to be part of Pakistan by default. Under the partition arrangements, the Khanate of Kalat had a distinct status and had declared independence. Pakistan’s response was not negotiation but coercion. In 1948, Pakistani troops marched in and absorbed Balochistan by force. The modern insurgency is not some mysterious foreign plot; it is the longest-running consequence of that original act of annexation. Islamabad now calls this “counterterrorism.” History calls it unfinished business.

Fast forward nearly eight decades, and Pakistan still governs Balochistan the way empires govern colonies: extract the resources, ignore the people, and send in the army when they complain. Gas flows out of Baloch soil. Copper and gold are dug up. What flows back in are checkpoints, disappearances, and development slogans printed on billboards. If neglect were a natural resource, Balochistan would be a superpower.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s economy is a case study in how to bankrupt a state without technically declaring bankruptcy. The country survives on IMF life support while its elite lives in gated bubbles untouched by inflation. The same state that claims it has no money for schools in Balochistan somehow always finds money for new security operations. Apparently, fiscal discipline applies only to the poor and the provinces, not to the power structure.

Corruption is not a bug in this system; it is the operating system. Political dynasties loot with parliamentary cover, and generals run business empires with uniforms on. The result is a state that cannot provide basic services but can still produce endless enemies. When people revolt, the leadership blames “foreign hands.” When budgets collapse, it blames “global conditions.” When provinces burn, it blames “terrorists.” Accountability is the one thing Pakistan truly refuses to manufacture.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa now mirrors Balochistan in tragic form. Entire populations flee in fear of military action, caught between militants and the state. This is what Pakistan’s famous “strategic depth” has come to: shallow control at home and deep chaos on the periphery. The same country that once lectured others about security cannot secure its own northwest without displacing tens of thousands of its own citizens. That is not strategy. That is systemic failure with a flag on it.

What makes this farce darker is Pakistan’s habit of confusing repression with governance. Every few years, the state announces it has crushed the insurgency. Every few years, the insurgency returns,  angrier, younger, and more desperate. Islamabad treats symptoms with bullets and ignores causes like political exclusion, economic theft, and historical betrayal. It is like trying to cure an infection by smashing the thermometer.

Even worse, Pakistan’s strategic culture helped create the very monster it now claims to fight. For decades, militant groups were cultivated as instruments of regional influence. Some were “assets,” others were “bad terrorists.” Over time, the distinction collapsed. Blowback replaced leverage. The Frankenstein policy came home, armed and ideological. Now the state that once sponsored militancy markets itself as a victim of militancy, demanding sympathy for fires it helped light.

The tragedy of Balochistan is that it exposes the lie at the heart of Pakistan’s national project: unity without consent. You cannot build a stable state by absorbing unwilling territories, draining their wealth, and silencing their politics. You cannot preach nationalism while ruling provinces as occupied zones. And you cannot demand loyalty from people whose first encounter with the state was at the barrel of a gun in 1948.

Pakistan today is not merely fighting militants. It is fighting history, geography, and the consequences of its own design. A state born in insecurity chose militarization over inclusion, secrecy over citizenship, and force over federalism. The result is visible from Quetta to the tribal belt: a country that cannot stop fragmenting because it never truly integrated.

If Pakistan’s rulers were honest, they would stop calling Balochistan a “law and order problem” and start calling it what it is: the price of an unacknowledged invasion and decades of colonial-style rule. They would admit that their economic collapse, political decay, and internal wars are not separate crises but one continuous failure.

Instead, they will do what they always do: announce another operation, arrest another batch of activists, beg for another bailout, and blame another conspiracy.

And so Pakistan marches on,  a state that cannot afford itself, cannot trust its own citizens, and cannot escape the shadow of 1947, when it chose force over consent and has been paying interest on that decision ever since.

 

 

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