A Case for Coherence as Analytical Tool: ISI’s Use of Taliban and Pakistan’s Foreign Policy

What Is Coherence Anyway?

Coherence is generally understood as a marker of logic and consistency between thought and action. It also refers to the quality of actions and thoughts to form a unified whole. For foreign policy analysis (FPA), coherence becomes a test of sorts by which a given policy is evaluated to see if it has (a) met its immediate objectives and (b) contributed to the larger national interest. Since coherence of a foreign policy can be determined ex post, that is, when the outcome is available, this generally gives coherence a diagnostic capability.

The concept of coherence has been typically evaluated in the context of the European Union (EU) (Börzel and van Hüllen 2014; Pinelli 2007). An ensemble of states with dedicated regional institutions and mechanisms, the actors-within-actor nature of the EU makes it an interesting case to understand if, how, and when it “speaks with a single voice” (da Conceição-Heldt and Meunier 2014). In evaluating for its “external effectiveness” (Ibid.: 968) which refers to “extent to which international environmental regimes could solve or mitigate the problems that motivated their creation” (Ibid.), the ability of EU to act on the world stage depends on “presence (ability of EU to exert influence beyond its borders), opportunity (the structural context of action), and capability (the internal context of EU action)” (Ibid.: 964).

Tied to coherence, almost always intuitively and by-default than otherwise, a coherent EU is then said to reflect “a higher stage of structural harmonization” (da Conceição-Heldt and Meunier 2014: 963) in which there is “(a) vertical coherence; (b) horizontal coherence; (c) internal coherence; and (d) external coherence” (Ibid.). While particular to EU, these axes of coherence can be abstracted and applied to other multi-layered actors, such as federal states like Pakistan.

On unpacking coherence as a concept one can see that it is composed of foreign policy (as a product and process) and national interest (as the desirable outcome). National interest is used as the background for evaluating if a particular foreign policy aided or eroded it. Foreign policy in itself can also be evaluated for coherence to know if it met its immediate objectives or not. When it does a foreign policy is said to be coherent, and when it does not it is said to be incoherent.

The evaluation of a foreign policy for its coherence then becomes a starting point from which it can be deconstructed as a product and process to diagnose the noises that may have affected its performance (Figure 1). This subsequently allows for the use of coherence as an analytical tool to locate the larger national interests that inform a given foreign policy. Establishing a genealogy of sorts, coherence, thus, helps in tracing the larger values/ideas in which a country’s foreign objectives and actions are moored.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 1.

Source: Author’s own.

Foreign Policy

Foreign policy is more than just a descriptor of a state’s orientation toward external actors. Where at one level foreign policy is a measure of “true independence” (Volgy et al. 2014: 66) of a country, at another it tells us about the structures and agents that animate it. A foreign policy, thus, “is not a residual category to be associated with a dwindling number of ‘diplomatic issues’” (Hill 2003: 3) but is “the sum of official external relations conducted by an independent actor (usually a state) in international relations” (Ibid.). By this token, FPA goes beyond the what of a foreign policy to tell us about how and why that policy took a particular shape. It is here that the use of coherence as an analytical tool becomes evident (Carlsnaes 2016).

The task of coherence begins at the end, that is, coherence starts to evaluate the foreign policy as a product and then goes on to dissecting the process that made it assume the shape it did. Coherence, thus, becomes that overarching framework within which foreign policy can be unpacked for the product that it is and for the processes regulating its content. In doing so, it turns the gaze inward to understand the factors that govern the making of a foreign policy.

National Interest

According to Frankel

if foreign policy is defined as “a formulation of desired outcomes which are intended (or expected) to be consequent upon decisions adopted (or made) by those who have authority (or ability) to commit the machinery of the state and significant amount of national resources to that end,” then national interest describes the desired outcome. (Frankel 1970: 18)

National interest becomes the yardstick by which the actions taken by a state toward the external actors are evaluated. Any deviation from the achievement or reinforcement of the defined national interest(s) is then associated with the lack or absence of coherence. However, notwithstanding the significance of national interest(s) to the nation-states, there is a lack of consensus on what national interest means per se. It means different things to different schools of thought. For instance, for the realist it means military power; for the liberals, national interest is essentially about relative economic prowess, and for the constructivists national interest is what the states make of it.

Adding another layer to it, Rosenau suggests that national interest can be used as an

analytical tool (national interest) is employed to describe, explain or evaluate the sources of adequacy of a nation’s foreign policy. As an instrument of political action, it serves as a means for justifying, denouncing or proposing policies. Both usages, in other words, refer to what is best for a national society. (Quoted in Frankel 1970: 15–16)

If we follow Rosenau, it will be possible to use his description of national interest to understand what it does. For instance, national interest can be used as an ex ante justification for why a foreign policy was made and executed the way it was. However, overall, it does little to explain what national interest is. Still a long way from defining what national interest could precisely mean, Frankel (1970: 31–36), however, notes that national interest can be the following—individually and combined. The first is national interest as aspirational. This perspective treats national interest like a grand strategy of sorts that describes how a country imagines itself in an international order. Much of this has got to do with discursive imagination of the country itself. It is thus, identitarian. The second approach is to see national interest as operational, which is the tactical operationalization of a country’s aspirational goals. Finally, national interest can be seen as explanatory and polemical, which is about using national interest as the go-to justification for an action taken and as rhetoric to quell domestic (and international) opposition.

On its own, national interest is affected by what is colloquially referred to as the “I, me, myself” syndrome. There is both an element of narcissism and self-obsession that slips in in the name of self-preservation. It is here that Vital (1974) notes that foreign policymaking is founded on ego-centricity such that a

foreign policy can only make sense insofar as it is calculated to advance, or at least to defend, the interests of the state concerned. A policy that advances the security and well-being of the state in whose name it is pursued may be adjudged successful; one which does not, a failure. (Ibid.: 22–23)

Since the achievement, reinforcement, and preservation of national interest are at the heart of a state’s foreign endeavors, coherence would, thus, be reflected if the foreign policy in context achieves, defends, and/or reinforces that national interest. In cases of deviation, it is necessary to investigate the causes for the noise, which can be located in either/both external or/and internal environments either/both at the level of creation or/and implementation (Hill and Brighi 2016).

The shape of national interest corresponds with what a state wants for itself and what it does not. Consequently, the loci of its national interest are located both within the nation-state and outside it. The case of Pakistan becomes instructive in this regard as it demonstrates not only the aspirational, operational, and polemical ways in which its national interest(s) have been invoked to justify its foreign policies but that they have also been used by actors that are not ordinarily associated with the foreign policymaking process to justify their control over the polity to perpetuate their rule. One such agency that has usurped the decision-making power as such is ISI.

Intelligence Agencies: More than Just Spymasters

A random search on intelligence agencies on Google throws up results that cover myriad topics. Right from the role of intelligence agencies in international conduct to how they are challenging Trump to leads on a burnt ATM machine, the ubiquity of these agencies and the tasks they perform is hard to miss. But what exactly is intelligence and what do these intelligence agencies exactly do?

According to Meyer (2017), “(good) intelligence is a combination of information and insight. Information is the raw material, while insight is the finished product”. The role of intelligence agencies to this effect is to collect information and sieve it through field and experiential wisdom to provide inputs that can then be acted upon. In this regard, the intelligence agencies can be seen as playing a vital, supplementary role to other actors within the domestic system, providing them pictures of the world (Hilsman 1952).

The functions of intelligence agencies vary depending on the nature of the information needed and the purpose(s) to which these are put. However, Johnson (2012) notes that there are “three major missions” of any intelligence agency (a) collection and analysis, (b) covert and action, and (c) counterintelligence. The role of an intelligence agency is, therefore, to provide a lay of the land for the policy to base itself on, and ideally, that should be about it. In fact, as Hilsman (2017) notes, “an intelligence organization should never suggest or recommend policy”.

Emerging from this, it is not hard to see that while the role of intelligence is central to the making of any policy, domestic and/or foreign, the formulation and execution of policies are clearly not expected to be the intelligence agency’s prerogative. These agencies are essential but not necessarily the determinants of a policy. However, there have been multiple cases where the desired distance between the intelligence agencies and policymaking and implementation has been breached. From the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the USA to the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (KGB) of the erstwhile USSR, the involvement of intelligence agencies in foreign policy has gone beyond the defined ideal parameters.

Having said that, there are also instances where the central intelligence structures were kept at a considerable distance from the civilian decision-making processes, particularly on matters related to the country’s foreign policies. Post-war Japan is one such example where for reasons including, “alliance politics, sectionalism, and the norm of anti-militarism” (Ibid.), along with the nuclear-backed security provided by the USA, the evolution of its intelligence agency into a robust, coherent organization became difficult.

Dominating or otherwise, these cases demonstrate that the role played by intelligence agencies in foreign policymaking and execution is affected by a combination of factors that may or may not be entirely domestic in nature. Their importance or the lack of it depends not only on the intelligence agency’s own structure but also on the stimuli they receive from the environment in which they operate. The role of ISI in Pakistan is particularly striking in this context. Not only does it bolster the control of the Pakistani Army over foreign policy in Pakistan but ISI has on many occasions also been a determinant and executor of Pakistan’s foreign policies itself.

ISI and Its Blue-eyed Boy, Taliban

The preponderance of the Pakistani Army domestically and over Pakistan’s foreign affairs speaks of the commonly witnessed tussle between the military and civilian leaderships in Third World Countries (Kukreja 2016). However, it is the well-entrenched role of ISI in foreign policymaking and execution that deserves attention. A part of what is commonly described as the establishment, ISI is not only responsible for gathering intelligence but also acts on them, at times on its own, by way of making its own foreign policies. It also precedes the civilian authority in terms of relevance and importance in the foreign policy domain.

What is today known for having “the makings of a de-facto government” (Winchell 2003: 381) ISI was established following the “abysmal intelligence performance by Pakistan’s intelligence service, the Intelligence Bureau” during the first Indo-Pak war in 1948. Created by the then Deputy Army Chief of Staff Army General R. Cawthorne, this intelligence agency drew from all the three branches of the Pakistani military and its purpose was to collect, analyze, and disseminate military and non-military intelligence mostly pertaining to India (Ibid.: 375).

Today ISI enjoys a wide range of powers and control that goes beyond its primary, and ideally the only, task of intelligence gathering. The sweeping scope of its operations can be gauged from the fact that it alone does what all the Indian intelligence agencies do when taken together (Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada 1999). Apart from collecting foreign intelligence, ISI also acts on them and takes decisions that mimic foreign policymaking and implementation. In addition to this, ISI also plays a major role in keeping the Pakistani Army in power inside Pakistan by keeping a close tab on political and civic opposition in the country.

Taking off as one of the many intelligence agencies that Pakistan has, ISI’s rise to prominence happened at the cusp of international and domestic circumstances that catapulted its role from being a mere intelligence gatherer to a major determinant and executor of Pakistan’s foreign policy. Apart from the entrenchment of the military rule in Pakistan that has assured ISI of its indisputable status as the country’s primary intelligence agency, it was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan that scripted a new role for this entity.

As a landlocked country that was now in the grip of the USSR, the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 marked the re-initiation of the Cold War between the two superpowers, the USA and the Soviet Union. Flanked by Iran on one side and the Soviet satellite states on the other, Pakistan provided some major land routes (Taylor 2014) for the USA to enter Afghanistan. Sponsoring a religious war against the “godless Communists”, the American CIA and the Pakistani ISI were at the forefront of training and supplying material to the mujahedeen fighting the jihad in Afghanistan. Starting in 1979, this covert support between the two intelligence agencies was particularly beneficial for ISI as it was mobilized both by the then President of Pakistan General Zia-ul Haq and the USA to assist them in achieving their respective goals.

Establishing connections with different ethnic Afghan groups, the treacherous and unfenced border between Afghanistan and Pakistan provided the perfect infiltration points from where the mujaheds could be brought in and out (Westermann 1999). Apart from cultivating its own relationship with different Afghan leaders, which it would use subsequently to assert its role in the Afghan peace process (Frontline 2006), ISI was at the forefront of forming a conglomerate of Afghan mujahedeen, Peshawar Seven (Saxena 2015). Composed of seven major mujahedeen factions, these groups were supported at first to counter the Soviets and then to form a government after USSR’s withdrawal and the collapse of the last communist-backed government of People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA).

The ouster of PDPA and the rise of the Peshawar Seven to power was inconclusive and largely destructive and chaotic. ISI’s favorite client (Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada 1999), Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, was for the most part responsible for the destruction of Kabul and the eventual collapse of Afghanistan into a state of Civil War. With clashes becoming constant in Afghanistan, its ramifications were felt in Pakistan as well. Where Pakistan’s access to Central Asia was disrupted, its own security, political, and economic troubles compounded as millions of Afghan refugees made their way into Pakistan, resulting in domestic social tensions, circulation of small weapons, extremism, and drug-related problems in the country (Saxena 2015; Zeb 2013).

As the situation in Afghanistan continued to deteriorate, Pakistan looked for a solution. The solution was Taliban. The emergence of Taliban has been attributed to legends as well as to the outright role of the Pakistani establishment (Ahmed 2012). However, before Taliban became the establishment’s, particularly, ISI’s play, it grew out of the support it had received from the civilian government under Benazir Bhutto (Ibid.). The centrality of Taliban to Pakistan’s multifarious foreign interests was first envisaged by Bhutto whose government was not only seeking an end to the chaos in Afghanistan but also viable routes of connectivity to Central Asia. Human Rights Watch [HRW] (2001) notes,

support for Taliban under Bhutto resided mainly in the interior ministry…Bhutto’s interior minister, Gen. Naseerullah Babar created the Afghan Trade Development Cell in the ministry ostensibly to promote trade routes to Central Asia but also to provide Taliban with funds. Moreover, the state-owned Pakistan Telecommunications Corporation set up a telephone network for Taliban; the public works department repaired roads and provided electricity; the paramilitary Frontier Corps, a part of the interior ministry, set up a wireless network for Taliban commanders; the Civil Aviation Authority repaired Qandahar airport and Taliban fighter jets; and Radio Pakistan provided technical support to Taliban’s official radio service, Radio Shariat.

Gradually ISI recognized the futility of continuing its support to Hekmatyar and started to take interest in Taliban. What began as a movement of only a handful of people under Mullah Omar in Maiwand slowly seized almost 90 per cent of Afghanistan by 1998, supplied with supporters tutored in the madrassas located along Pakistan’s border (Ibid.). It is interesting to note that the first successful attack by Taliban came in September 1994 in Spin Boldak with the help of ISI supplied convoys (Ahmed 2012). Soon after this, the city of Kandahar fell to Taliban in November 1994 and by 1996 it was able to capture Kabul and establish the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan that was recognized only by Pakistan, UAE, and Saudi Arabia.

Between Taliban’s ascension to power until September 2001, Pakistan looked the other way to the excesses that the Emirate was committing vis-à-vis its own people and by giving shelter to various international terrorist organizations. It is significant to recall here that the hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight 814 in 1999, which allegedly had the backing of ISI, was landed in Kandahar, the so-called spiritual birthplace of Taliban.

With the attacks on the USA, known as 9/11, changing the international scene, the American-led global war on terror made Pakistan a frontline state in its efforts and Afghanistan the country where its fight began. Since Pakistan continued to remain the most preferred transit route into Afghanistan, its importance in the international calculus stayed. In addition to this, the international knowledge of Pakistani’s power over Taliban was well known, and which ultimately allowed Pakistan a degree of control over the many peace processes that have followed in Afghanistan since 2001.

After its expulsion following the American invasion in October 2001, Taliban’s regrouping in Quetta (Bajoria and Kaplan 2011) gave greater leverage to Pakistan over it. This also ensured Pakistan’s greater prominence in international negotiations over Afghanistan often India’s expense (Saxena 2017b). In fact, even as the costs of nurturing this fundamentalist organization has been enormous for the Pakistani treasury, image and its people (Zeb 2013), the establishment’s continuing support to Taliban has helped it in achieving its myopic foreign policy goals.

First, the establishment has been able to keep the rising Indian reach and clout in South Asia under check by keeping the reins to an eventual settlement in Afghanistan in its hand. Second, in assisting Taliban while the establishment became a part of the problem, this also made it indispensable to the solution. Consequently, Pakistan remains central to almost all the peace negotiations that have happened in Afghanistan to this date. Even the current negotiations being led by the US Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation cannot avoid the Rawalpindi–Islamabad circuit while New Delhi has been given a conspicuous miss (Saxena 2019). Third, by backing Taliban just like its old stooge Hekmatyar, who is now a part of Afghanistan’s mainstream politics (Saxena 2017a), Pakistan is preparing itself for an eventuality in which, following the end of the overt conflict, it is able to find friendly partners to work within Afghanistan. Finally, the conflict in Afghanistan has given the Pakistani Army a solid ground for fencing its border with Afghanistan and mark the limits of its territory legibly once and for all. While Afghanistan has taken issue with this initiative, resulting even in border skirmishes, however, passing it off as a measure to curb cross-infiltration of extremists across the border, the Pakistani establishment has skirted international disapprobation on its account.

Currently, the role of Pakistan in Afghanistan is marked by a stark paradox. It is both a troublemaker and a troubleshooter. It is like a necessary evil that cannot be avoided in the course of settling the conflict whether one likes it or not. Pakistan’s support to various mujahedeen factions, to Taliban; its use of extremism and the distinction it draws between good and bad militants; its direct and indirect assault on India’s rising power via the Afghan conflict; and its obsession with spatial control that has manifested variously as strategic depth, boundary-marking with Afghanistan, association of the Afghan conflict with its dispute on Kashmir are symptoms of its larger national interests that are driven by an identitarian and spatial logic that is other-referential.

Pakistan’s National Interests and Their Identitarian and Spatial Logic

The scope of this article does not permit space to a systematic evaluation of Pakistan’s foreign policies as it evolved. It would be sufficient to say that they evolved in response to international, regional, and domestic developments. In the midst of these changes, however, the Pakistani foreign policies have demonstrated a consistent fixation with India. Tangentially or otherwise, Pakistan’s foreign agenda has been wedded to an identity complex that holds India as its enemy other (Ahmad 2018; Bangash 2015).

The military in Pakistan has played a significant role in peddling this image of India as its arch-enemy. Inheriting a “moth-eaten state” (The National Archives 1947), Pakistan’s territorial dilemma was compounded by its internal fissures and a challenging external environment, which left an impact on the prioritization of its goals early on. The absence of a strong political class that could have laid down a developmental vision for the country (Rizvi 1993) allowed the military both a leeway and rationale to take over the reins of Pakistan and align its national interest with the primal goal of survival.

This alignment has, in turn, been affected by the army’s quest for political preponderance, which continues to “set the limits on what is possible in Pakistan” (Cohen 2006: 97). By extension, one can also say that what is possible for Pakistan to do internationally is determined by what is desirable for the perpetuation of the army’s control internally. Exhibiting a circular logic, Pakistan’s identitarian concerns and the army’s desire for power have generated a set of national interests that put state security and survival before everything else. Such a myopic view of security has detracted Pakistan’s attention from other goals that could have alleviated its fears and concerns. Instead, Pakistan’s survival guide is based on perpetual fear-mongering vis-à-vis India, where the exaggeration of its potential fears has made its genuine concerns sound less sanguine.

Pakistan’s national interest, that is, other-referential and anti-India has left a significant impact on its foreign policy objectives elsewhere. Its interest in outdoing India continues to color its foreign pursuits to feed into and bolster the larger national agenda that is afflicted by a “Not-India” paranoia (Cohen 2006). That Pakistan, with its instability, lack of effective democratic order, economic tardiness, etc., is often hyphenated with a relatively more successful country next door does little to lessen its inferiority complex. Instead, it is described as a failing state, an aberrant other in a world order that prizes liberalism, democracy, secularism, etc., Pakistan’s anti-India rhetoric, which is as conspiratorial as it is inspired by genuine occurrences (Ibid.: 103), is what effectively keeps the military and its civilian clients afloat.

In addition to this, the Army’s flirtation with and placation of the Islamic hardliners allowed a combination of regressive, repressive forces to take over Pakistan. It was particularly under the dictatorial rule of General Zia-ul Haq that the use of a doctrinaire version of Islam gained currency both in the framing of domestic laws and Pakistan’s foreign agenda (Delvoie 1995). The achievement of the national interests of Pakistan through the use of externally-projected extremism (Ahmad and Sajjad 2017) was, in particular, legitimized using a parochial interpretation of Islamic tenets. Its support to the jihad in Afghanistan was a product of this world view, which in validating its role in the American-sponsored war against the Soviet Union also helped it in achieving its larger foreign policy objectives of security, survival, and spatial control.

Besides ideology, Pakistan’s existential fears take a territorial form. Right from its birth to its division in 1971, the challenges to its territorial integrity—both real and exaggerated—have animated its policies at home and abroad. In fact, the significance of territory in Pakistan’s national psyche, particularly in that of its army, and its association with the very existence of Pakistan is so evident that Cohen (2006: 101) notes: “India’s occupation of Kashmir, and its forceful absorption of the princely state of Hyderabad and the Portuguese colonies … became part of the Pakistan army’s legacy. For Pakistani officers of all generations, this axiomatic distrust of India is as certain as is the existence of Pakistan” (emphasis added). Security, survival, and space have, thus, become inseparable for Pakistan and which can also explain its search for strategic depth in Afghanistan.

If India is the primary enemy for Pakistan, Afghanistan closes second. Ever since its independence in 1947, Pakistan has found itself troubled by Afghanistan’s irredentist claims. Where it claims its right over a large part of west/north-west Pakistan, Afghanistan’s persistent refusal to recognize the Durand Line as the international border, its initial refusal to recognize Pakistan at the United Nations, and that it has sponsored separatist movements inside Pakistan have been enough to remind the latter of its territorial misfortune (Hussain and Latif 2012). With the invasion of Afghanistan by the deemed India-friendly Soviet Union in 1979, Pakistan’s existential fears were bound to hit the roof, and so they did.

Finding itself territorially trapped with India on the east and the Soviets in the north and the east, Pakistan apprehended a pincer attack (Ibid.) against itself. With the loss of its eastern wing still fresh in its memory, Pakistan’s strategic compulsions, such as the lack of territorial depth and that its main lines of communication ran parallel to the Indo-Pak border without any natural protection, had in part contributed to it adopting a meddlesome stance in the evolving Afghan crisis. The other factors that had reinforced its decision were of domestic and theological making, which on the back of a hardening military rule and increasing Islamic radicalization gave Pakistan both a strategic and religious alibi to embed itself in the many conflicts that have happened in Afghanistan since then. That being said, it has been reported that Pakistan’s reaction to the Soviet entry next door was not all that belligerent in the beginning.

According to Rizvi (1993: 38), Pakistan’s immediate response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was of reaching out to India. As unlikely as this may sound today given how dismissive Pakistan has been of India’s role in resolving the Afghan conflict (Pakistan Today 2019), it is said that Pakistan had “approached India to explore the prospect of adopting a joint posture on Afghanistan” (Rizvi 1993: 38). India, which was then in the midst of an electoral transition, however, could not act on it and the two countries went their different ways. Apart from this initial attempt, there were four other occasions on which India and Pakistan had discussed their concerns vis-à-vis Afghanistan. Unfortunately, these meetings could not alleviate their respective fears, culminating eventually in divergent trajectories that placed India and Pakistan on opposing sides (Ibid.).

Located in the backdrop of a re-intensifying Cold War, Pakistan’s existential fear was then conveniently channeled by the USA in dealing with its own rivalry with the USSR. This is not to say that this relationship did not generate its set of shares and concerns for the two parties involved, such as the American apprehension about Pakistan’s (mis)use of resources and Pakistan’s fear of being run over like Iran (Ahmed 2012). However, their respective requirements, strategic and otherwise, allowed them to tide over their initial hesitance. Therefore, the USA in its desire to give the Soviets their “own Vietnam” and Pakistan because of its real and exaggerated internal and external fears came together to promote and support the (Afghan) mujahedeen in their jihad against the Soviet Union.

The war in Afghanistan continues to this date and Taliban has not only revived itself from inexistence but it has become the party that everyone speaks to. Despite what looked like a turn-around in Pakistan’s foreign policy in the wake of the American Global War on Terror, the Pakistani establishment did not entirely give up on Taliban. In fact, Pakistan used its internal disaggregation to its advantage by opening two parallel tracks (Ibid.)—of peace and support while its clandestine support to Taliban continued as it is. Its internal disunity then became a source for foreign policy coherence as it continued to ensure that its immediate foreign policy objectives and the larger national interests continue to be serviced.

This is not to say that the Pakistani foreign policy has remained as it is. There has been a perceptible acknowledgment of problems that Pakistan’s support to extremism has created for the state and its people and which has prompted the establishment to alter its policies to some extent (Yusuf 2012). However, the much claimed “strategic shift” (Ibid.) in the Pakistani approach does not demonstrate a change of heart—it is simply a change in tactical policies to achieve the same strategic objectives of security, survival, and space. From exporting chaos to supporting the peace process, the actual shift on the ground did not match the shrill of its rhetoric. It was at best a “moderation of (Pakistan’s) traditional policies” (Ibid.: 2)

However, Pakistan did take some enabling steps to facilitate the peace negotiations from time-to-time but only when it suited its needs. A recent example of this was the releasing of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar to facilitate the current round of the USA-led negotiations. Interestingly, Baradar, who was the co-founder of Taliban, was “captured” by Pakistan in February 2010 apparently for doing just what he is doing today—talk peace. It has been said that the Pakistani intention behind his capture was to use him as a bargaining chip to get a seat at the negotiating table (American Embassy in Kabul 2010), and so it did.

Right from Baradar’s capture to his release in 2018, the so-called shift in the Pakistani foreign policy was essentially in service of its grand strategy. By siding with peace and negotiations, the establishment has shown its adroitness in making the most of the changing circumstances in which peace is being actively sought by the international patrons of Afghanistan, chiefly the USA. Not only does the mainstreaming of Taliban give an ally to the Pakistani authorities in Kabul, but it is also expected to blunt the militancy back home. The American endgame, then, has turned the fortunes of the establishment just as it had once in 1979.