Pakistan has for long been running with the hares and hunting with the hounds. While it has been a key partner of the international community in the war against terror, elements in Pakistani military establishment have been hand in glove with the very same terror outfits they are supposed to fight. This paper seeks to put a laser focus on the Janus-faced Pakistan and discuss Pakistan’s duplicitous conduct in dealing with the jihadists. A prime example of the Pakistani strategy in dealing with terror outfits is the Haqqani network which has been discussed in depth here.

Pakistan has all the signs and symptoms of an ailing State that may not be able to sustain itself at the current rate of deterioration. It suffers from the crisis of confidence at home. People, an important constituent of the elements that defines a State, are fast losing faith in their governing institutions. The most revered institution in Pakistan, the military, failed to detect foreign forces barging into their territory and executing an operation killing Al Qaeda supremo Osama bin Laden throwing up questions about their competence.

The sense of insecurity created by a regionally preponderant and militarily powerful India is the central catalytic factor that influences the dynamics of Pakistan’s regional security perception. The military-militant nexus in Pakistan, built around army’s misguided obsession with India, pursues strategic priorities in the name of protecting its national interests in Kashmir and Kabul. Sadly, both the Kashmir and Afghan policies of the military have started hurting Pakistan - internally and externally - more than India.

Since the creation of Pakistan, the state has been bedevilled by one crisis after another. Over the last six decades, Pakistan has remained consistently dependant on its armed forces to create a nation state from an entity divided by ethnic, religious and social fault lines. Today, the fissures which divide the country have deepened and Pakistan now is on the verge of tearing itself apart.

The Pakistan navy (PN) is poised on the brink of a transformation. Neglected for long by Pakistan’s political masters and a dominant Pakistan army, the PN was unable to assert its salience and witnessed slow growth. But in the one decade since the September 2001 attacks and the US led ‘war on terror’, it has undergone a striking metamorphosis. As Pakistan realises the importance of having a robust maritime force and commits greater resources for its development, the tactics of the PN and its broader strategy in the northern Arabian Sea too have undergone a shift.

The idea of Pakistan survives on the premise of enmity towards India. This premise came into existence well before Pakistan became a reality. Some in Pakistan believe that the country started incubating the moment the first Muslim stepped on the soil of the subcontinent. That belief originates from the conviction that the Islamic civilisation cannot intermingle with another civilisation because it always seeks to conquer and subjugate.

A division of forces between the proposed Indian and Pakistani dominions and creation of a separate military establishment for the latter was necessitated by the partitioning of British India. An explosion of communal violence, triggered and later fuelled by the impending partition and the ethnic cleansing of the Hindus and Sikhs that preceded it in West Punjab, the mass migration of a very large number of population from and to Pakistan, the outbreak of war with India over Kashmir and the subsequent ‘Crush-India’ campaigns gave impetus to this requirement