PAKISTAN’S internal security threats continue to escalate in complexity and lethality, even as state institutions attempt varied approaches to contain them. Instead of meaningfully reassessing their strategies, these institutions appear to be resorting to increasingly coercive and defensive responses. While coercion has its place, especially when integrated with a broader political strategy, an overemphasis on primitive actions risks undermining hard-won security gains and is counterproductive.

Before unpacking this argument further, it is worth examining how Pakistan’s security apparatus is currently attempting to secure two key capitals: Islamabad, the federal seat of power, and Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan, a province grappling simultaneously with a protracted insurgency and the persistent threat of Islamist militancy.

The key issue is not to contrast London and Paris as Charles Dickens did, but to analyse how two Pakistani cities, despite receiving similar financial and human resources for security, face threats on different scales, one significantly more secure, the other less so. The state expends large resources on intelligence, deployments, and checkpoints. Still, terrorists exploit weaknesses: attacks occur less often in Islamabad and far more frequently in Quetta. The residents of both cities remain dissatisfied with the security institutions’ counterterrorism strategies, as these measures directly disrupt their daily routines and negatively impact local businesses. The security institutions rarely take public grievances into account when developing their preventive strategies.

Recent statistics on terrorist........

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