Abstract
The Obama administration considered Pakistan ‘the most dangerous country in the world’ and the US Joint Chiefs of Staff worried about insurgents gaining control of nuclear weapons. One of the challenges of thinking and writing about Pakistan is to understand how the scar tissue of its short history influences policy today. The traumas of Partition are well known, but several other historical events helped shape modern Pakistan. The India–China war of 1962 led directly to China becoming Pakistan’s ‘all weather friend’. The loss of East Pakistan in 1971 was a crushing blow and prompted the Army to adopt the role of guarantor of territorial integrity. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 led to the terrorism and Kalashnikov culture in Pakistan. Is Pakistan at a crossroads or does it remain on an inexorable path towards disaster? Was the Army Public School massacre of 2014 really the moment, when the army decided that ending internal subversion was the main national security priority, ahead of countering India? This book helps to answer these questions.