Pakistan’s armed forces plays with fire

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Roula Khalaf, editor of the FT, selects her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.

The writer is Senior Fellow am King’s College London

On May 7th, Indian jets aimed deeply in Pakistan at several locations and killed 31 people to Islamabad. The attack was expected, especially in view of the fact that the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised to punish the perpetrators of the April attack, in which 26 civilians were administered within Kashmir in India. Now Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has authorized his army chief for retaliation.

However, another reaction consists of the risk of escalating the tension into a boiling point between the two nuclear. This happens at a time when geopolitical alliances are in the flow. Unlike in previous India Pakistan, when great powers held the warfare parties back, nobody tries to hold them back now.

The United States does not act easily to lower the temperature between Neu -Delhi and Islamabad. Although Donald Trump has offered his mediation services, there is no rush from high -ranking US officials to the region. The Rowdy Boys were allowed to fight alone without the headmaster marching at their respective corners. Other actors such as Saudi Arabia and Great Britain can ask for de-escalation, but that does not have the same effect as pressure from Washington.

In Pakistan, the public demands that the militant training camp in the middle were not aware of seeing Pakistan as a victim – before retribution. Whatever happens next depends on a man: the country’s army chief, Asim Munir. Munir controls the strategic decision -making process in Pakistan much more than the government elected by Sharif. And he is not a figure known for his reluctance.

One of the reasons why Neu-Delhi believes that militants were based in Pakistan is a speech that Munir gave a week earlier. In it he described Kashmir as “Yugular veins” Pakistan and swore not to leave Kashmiris only in their struggle for independence from India.

He also expressed the polarizing view that Pakistan was created in 1947 because the Hindus and Muslims of the subcontinent could not live together. In this way, Munir dramatically deviated from the prospects of his predecessor Qamar Javed Bajwa, who spoke in 2021 about burying the hatchet with India, especially because, according to estimate, it could not afford to wage a war.

Munir was once Bajwa’s head of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the first-class intelligence agency of the military. At that time he didn’t contradict his boss. Now that he is responsible, he seems to be intended to bring the military back to his old attitude in order to compete with control over cashmere and to treat India as the main enemy.

Munir has the reputation of having challenged his religious and ideological beliefs and weaning. In fact, some of his older colleagues remember that he left the room when he contradicted, even during informal discussions between officers.

He is now trying to play the role of the strong man in a country that has been controlled by political divisions in recent years. Many Pakistani voters suspect Munir to manipulate the 2024 elections and force the cricket player politician Imran Khan out of power. The continuing conflict with India may have temporarily rehabilitated its image, but given the dominance of the country’s institutions, he will also put pressure on him to prove the power of the military – in a real conflict against a larger neighbor at a time when the country is under great economic pressure.

If you control everything from politics to business, Munir is a mighty man, but he is not a magician who can save Pakistan from his economic problems. A war that appeals to Narendra Modi, another nationalist stronger, will make the matter even more difficult. The decision that Munir now has to take is whether you should search for a dialogue with India to end the conflict – or to suck in a larger strategic abyss.