Pakistan’s security and political leadership appear to have reoriented their counterinsurgency (COIN) approach in Baluchistan around a central economic imperative.
In the past, COIN efforts were guided primarily by security concerns, particularly those tied to regional stability along the Afghan border as part of broader objectives shared with the United States.
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The Pakistani leadership – from Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif to Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Asim Munir – have all publicly advocated for policies aimed at integrating key mining opportunities and infrastructure development, and they have reframed anti-state militancy in Baluchistan as a direct threat to the country’s economic survival.
The motivation behind this approach becomes clearer when considering how Pakistan managed its security interests in the past.
Through the 2000s and 2010s, Islamabad and Rawalpindi set their sights on stabilizing the Afghan-Pakistan border, both to reinforce national security amid the fallout of the US invasion of Afghanistan, but also, for a time when Washington’s interests required it, to leverage US military aid.
This emphasis was evident through the counterterrorism (CT) and COIN operations across the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), where several insurgent groups, including the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), threatened Pakistani as well as wider Western interests.
In exchange for facilitating American aims in Afghanistan, Pakistan benefited from financial, logistical, and other forms of assistance, which helped shore up its external accounts and provided a buffer for its security operations.
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