FACING a two-front situation on the borders has long been Pakistan’s nightmare scenario. That is why its security and foreign policy has, over the decades, been predicated on avoiding having to deal simultaneously with external threats on two borders. This policy was shaped by the exigencies of the country’s formative years when it was confronted with a hostile India and contested borders on both its western and eastern flanks bequeathed by colonialism. An early conflict with India and continuing tensions over Kashmir was accompanied by irredentist claims of successive Afghan governments, who questioned the border with Pakistan, demarcated as the Durand Line by the British.

The tyranny of geography imposed heavy burdens on Pakistan. But the lesson learnt from the country’s early years was the strategic imperative of keeping one front defused as active military engagement on both borders was regarded as unsustainable. This was not something Pakistan could always control, but its security strategy aimed at averting a double squeeze from two hot borders. This is exemplified by Pakistan’s efforts to prevent any flare-up of tensions with India in the 1980s during its long involvement in the US-led military campaign against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan.

It is also illustrated by the post-9/11 decade when Pakistan became a front-line state in the US ‘war on terror’ and cooperated in the US/ Nato effort to defeat the Taliban and terrorist groups based in Afghanistan. India’s military mobilisation along the border after a terror attack on the Indian parliament in 2002 compelled Pakistan to deal with two hot fronts for some time. But US mediation helped to end the Pakistan-India military stand-off. What followed was perhaps the longest period of uninterrupted diplomatic engagement between the two countries in a ‘composite dialogue’. In fact, one of president Pervez........

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