Conducting guerilla wars is costly and time-consuming. The nation must prepare for a 'long war' instead of wishing for a quick victory.
As I write this, Pakistan army has begun their ground operation on the unforgiving terrain of North Waziristan to end an evil that many allege our authorities have helped evolve. Like a Frankensteinian nightmare, the bogeyman has run amok over the country and any efforts to pacify it have met only with more violence.
Perhaps, the single most important reason for the peace talks failing was the absolutist agenda the TTP clung to: they wanted to be the state instead of being accommodated within it. Despite many provocations, the military restrained itself from a full-scale offensive and instead awaited parliamentary approval. Meanwhile, years of economic stagnation and power crisis have left the economy in a fragile state, leaving it too ill-equipped to foot the bill of an expensive and long, drawn-out war.
Outside, a new crop of Jihadist outfits are claiming ascendancy. Boko Haram and Al-Shahab have scaled up their attacks on civilian and state targets in Africa. ISIS has taken over the Iraqi city of Mosul in a lightning raid and rapidly advancing towards the capital Baghdad. A new nexus of terror seems to be emerging in the region. Conventional armies will face difficulty in combating the guerilla tactics that these outfits employ.
It is in this precarious scenario that the Pakistani military finds itself as they embark on Zarb-e-Azb. As much as we'd like a complete and swift end to this menace, one must realise that guerilla insurgencies take a long time to neutralize.
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Attritional in nature, it lasts years if not decades. The enemy moves nimbly into local populations, stages attacks and vanish s back into its adopted refuges. Instead of operating through military garrisons or commissariats they operate discreetly through a dispersed network of sleeper cells.
Large field armies are drilled in conventional infantry warfare. Guerilla fighters exploit this weakness by inflicting death by a thousand cuts to exhaust the state in the passage of time instead of opting to engage in decisive field battles.
Despite being the sole superpower, America has had to face humiliating setbacks in Vietnam, Somalia, Lebanon and more recently Afghanistan and Iraq due to guerilla resistance. More than a decade after 9/11, the Taliban have held their ground in its strongholds in the Helmand province and portions of Iraq have been annexed by ISIS — an outfit so ruthless that even Al-Qaeda has deemed it too 'extreme'.
As the conflict drags on, it will test the mettle of our army and security forces on multiple fronts. Besides North Waziristan, the urban enclaves of Karachi and other metropolitan cities will face the backlash, as will other soft targets and military apparatuses.
Against all this, public debates over the parameters and ethics of the way authorities are conducting things will also make this business tricky. The longer this operation draws out, the more public opinion and the political landscape is prone to shift. It remains to be seen if the fractious world of Pakistani politics will act maturely enough in this grave scenario, and if the nation has committed itself to the military's support in the long haul.
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So far, authorities have not emphasised the longevity of this war enough. Conditioned by our consumerist habits, most of us are only appeased by quick-fix solutions.
While armed conflict does not operate by the rules of the market place, the causes behind it often take a long time to sort out. Plus, the issues of IDPs, reprisal attacks and the mounting costs incurred on a depleting economy may further dampen public support in the days ahead. In such times, stirring patriotic hysteria does not always work, and can, on the contrary engender widespread public discontent.
As seen in the foretold example of the Vietnam War (and the eventual American withdrawal from Saigon), public support is as essential as military prowess in democracies. As it happens, ours is a nation with an ever-shrinking memory and attention span.
All authorities must realise this, and be prepared to tackle the barrage of questions and scepticism likely to face them in the longer run.