Because the Political Culture is That Dysfunctional

Matthew Yglesias wonders why we have to beg the government in Islamabad to take action against the Pakistani Taliban as opposed to their begging for help, when it is clear that they are an existential threat to their government.

First and foremost, I think that the level of threat is exaggerated, but more importantly, the political culture of Pakistan is amongst the most profoundly dysfunctional in the world.

It has much to do with its founding as a nation, which was not so much born in nationalism, but British colonial tactic.

Simply put, the British maintained control in many of their colonies, particularly in what is now India and Pakistan, was to encourage ethnic rivalries, and so as movements for autonomy, and later independence, grew in India, the British authorities encouraged Muslim leaders to agitate for a separate state, which they believed would make the independence less likely.

This was followed by the war over Kashmir in 1947-8, in which the British, particularly Mountbatten, continued to meddle in South Asian affairs.

When combined with the later wars, particularly the humiliation suffered in the Bangladeshi war of independence, it left the state security apparatus, particularly the ISI, focused on one goal: to win the next war against India, and secure all of Kashmir.

This is not going to happen. India and Pakistan both have something on the order of 50 combat militarized nuclear warheads, and as such a full out shooting war would result in horrific losses to India, and something very close to the complete elimination of the Pakistani state.

Even so, there remain elements in the military, and the Pakistani intelligence service, the ISI, that remain exclusively focused on the prospect of a final apocalyptic battle with India.

As such, they support extreme Muslim fundamentalists on both sides of the border with Afghanistan, even though these are the same people who are a threat to the stability of the state, because they believe that the conflict with India is the primary focus of the state, and that by supporting these the Taliban, they can minimize India's influence in Afghanistan.

Personally, I think that it's nuts, and a does much harm to Pakistan, but that is what the mind set is.