Why Pakistan failed: tribal focoism in Kashmir

The classical repertoire of insurgency types is under-specified, and does not apply well to the case of Pakistan's conduct of insurgency in Kashmir. Pakistan's approach to insurgency has been a consistent tribal variant of focoism, in which there is a reliance on imported itinerant insurgents to conduct raids to stimulate an uprising. This has its basis in the traditional warfare of the region, learned US insurgency doctrine in the 1960s, and an historical disregard for subject populations, which has led to an aversion to fostering grass-roots political movements.     

Pakistan’s response to US foreign policy towards South Asia 1977–1993

Relations between the USA and Pakistan have been tenuous since the 1947 partition of British India and the subsequent creation of the former. The 1979 Soviet intervention in Afghanistan focused the attention of the international community on South Asia. This article will examine the foreign policies of three successive US Presidential Administrations between 1977 and 1993, and how their decisions and corresponding actions were interpreted by the Pakistani government and its people. The key finding is the trend of the ebb and flow of US interest in Pakistan. The primary research conducted for this article shows that Pakistanis recognize this trend and consider it hypocritical of the US government. The current conditions in South Asia are ominously similar to those of 1992 with the drawdown of US and NATO troops from Afghanistan. Policy-makers would be wise to review the events of 1977–1993 so that the cycle is not repeated again.     

Brinkmanship,not COIN,in Pakistan’s post-9/11 Internal War

Politics is critical to making sense of Pakistani successes and failures in dealing with non-state armed groups. This includes domestic political currents; regional political currents; and the global impetus of the post-9/11 era. How these currents overlap renders to any reading of insurgency in Pakistan real complexity. This article engages with this complexity rather than shirking from it. Its hypothesis is that while the insurgency bordering Afghanistan has been an epicentre of Pakistani military efforts to fight the Taliban, this theatre is in of itself insufficiently inclusive to grasp the nature of Pakistan’s security challenges and its consequent responses.     

Explaining the impact of militancy on Iran–Pakistan relations

ABSTRACT

Sectarian militants have for years launched attacks from Pakistan across the border to Iran. Finding sanctuary in a neighbouring country can make the difference between success and failure for militants. Conventional wisdom holds that a lasting transnational militancy challenge would typically create serious interstate conflict. Militancy has triggered armed encounters between Iran and Pakistan. This article argues that despite some tension militancy has resulted in deeper cooperation in the ambivalent dyad. Both states’ overarching security concerns, having exhausted other options, the believed involvement of third-party states, and economic potential, have moderately alleviated negative pressure caused by militancy.     

Pakistan's Relations with Central Asia: Is Past Prologue?

Throughout the 1990s Pakistan sought to cultivate ‘strategic depth’ throughout Iran, Afghanistan and the newly emergent Central Asian Republics while seeking to restrict Indian influence in the region. Chastened by its past failures, Pakistan now embraces more modest regional goals. Despite the diminution in objectives, several factors augur failure including Pakistan's policies in Afghanistan, which diminish the likelihood of a stable Afghanistan, and Pakistan's inability to pacify the various insurgencies roiling both Baluchistan and the Pashtun areas of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas as well as the Northwest Frontier Province.     

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps

The Pakistan Army elicits many concerns about terrorism, nuclear and the coherence of the state. However, very little is actually known about this institution. This article mobilizes unique data to address one important facet: the Army's geographical recruitment base. We find that the Pakistan Army has been successful at expanding the geographical recruitment base while some groups (namely those who are native to Sindh) remain highly under-represented. We also find that the officer corps is increasingly coming from urban areas. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of these important shifts subject to the limitations of our data.     

‘Taylor must go’ – the strategy of the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy

In 1999, rebels rose to oppose the newly elected former warlord Charles Taylor in Liberia. Motivated by a variety of reasons, the minimal common denominator of these rebels, who assumed the name Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), was that Charles Taylor must leave the country. The decentralized nature of LURD though stands out in their struggle, as they don't fit the unitary actor assumed by literature on strategy, nor the alternative conception of decentralized forces fighting for purely local reasons. Understanding such aberrations as LURD is the first step to finding strategies that can incorporate and manage them.     

Can Governments Negotiate With Insurgents? The Latin American Experience

In June 2016, the Colombian Government and the FARC insurgent movement signed a ceasefire agreement, which brings the two sides one step closer to putting an end to over five decades of war. Unfortunately, Latin America has a rich history of insurgent movements, particularly during the cold war era, some of which continue to operate today. Most of these movements disappeared due to military operations, though some did so via peace negotiations. This essay aims to discuss the various ends of Latin American insurgencies to answer whether, indeed, insurgents can be negotiated with.     

Jumma insurgency in Chittagong Hills Tracts: how serious is the threat to Bangladesh's national integration and what can be done?

Bangladesh, otherwise a homogeneous society, confronts a serious tribal insurgency in its southeastern Chittagong Hill Tracts region. Before signing a Peace Accord in 1997, the tribal groups, known as Jummas, who constitute 1% of the nation's population but occupy about 10% of its territory, fought insurgency battles for over two decades demanding recognition of their ethnic identities and autonomy of their region. The highly controversial Accord, however, still remains largely unimplemented, and often it evokes fears of secession. This article argues that a probable secession of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) may not be in the best interests of the Jummas or the people of Bangladesh; and a pragmatic resolution of the issue may lie with granting full functional autonomy to the Jummas in a constitutionally protected reservation area.     

The strategy of the organisation of Ukrainian nationalists in its quest for a sovereign state, 1939–1950

ABSTRACT

The armed resistance offered by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) to the Soviet state was the toughest internal political challenge that the Soviet regime faced from World War II to the 1980s. However, OUN’s grand strategy was based on self-delusion and was, therefore, always irrational. It resulted in misinterpretation of the sentiments of Ukrainians and the international situation, collaboration with Nazi Germany despite incompatible goals, counterproductive ethnic violence and sweeping terror against alleged Soviet collaborators. Local civilians rather than the representatives of the Soviet regime were OUN’s primary target; this alienated most residents of Western Ukraine.