Media reports suggest that Pakistan’s military is reviewing its doctrine in order to give priority to the creation of a sub-conventional warfare capability to fight domestically against non-state actors posing a threat to Pakistan’s internal security.

Someone may call this exercise as better late than never. However, in my opinion it is too late to be effective. Now it’s no more India, the conventional enemy, which had been termed as the topmost threat for decades, but the real threat is from an amorphous and shapeless enemy who is part of this society but is bent upon endangering its very existence.

Though India and Pakistan didn’t wage a war for last four decades, India remained the conventional enemy. The problem started from 1980s onward with the production, training and equipping of non-state actors to fight proxy wars in neighboring countries. After the Pakistani military’s U-turn in the post-9/11 world, these non-state actors went on auto-reaction mode targeting the state. Therefore, just declaring the religious extremism as an imposing threat of higher degree won’t do anything as this war is not limited to Pakistan’s tribal areas. The war has spread all over the country — Karachi, Peshawar, Quetta and other urban centers are under threat from these extremists.

It may not be the military taking the front seats but several religious, political groups and madrasas are providing the required support for extremist to run the show. Therefore, until we defeat the militants on ideological front and dry out their financial resources, mere a military action would prove to be a futile exercise. Pakistan’s government, military, judiciary, civil society and the media need to arrive at a common page to root out the scourge of terrorism in the country. — Masood Khan, Jubail