In today’s world, the nature of national security has changed fundamentally. While territorial integrity and military preparedness remain indispensable responsibilities of the state, they no longer provide an adequate basis for ensuring national security. Globalisation, transnational terrorism, technological disruption, cyber warfare, economic interdependence, climate change, pandemics, and irregular migration have expanded the meaning of security beyond conventional military threats. Increasingly, the resilience of states depends not only upon their capacity to defend borders or ‘Ideology’ but also upon the strength of their institutions, the legitimacy of their governance, the resilience of their economies, and the confidence of their citizens.

Pakistan exemplifies this transformation. Since independence, its strategic outlook has been shaped primarily by interstate rivalry, territorial disputes, and geopolitical competition in South Asia. National security was therefore understood primarily in terms of military capability, deterrence, and external defence. Yet the events following, Soviet intervention in Afghanistan and Islamic Revolution in Iran,1979 and particularly, 9/11, 2001, profoundly altered this strategic landscape. Pakistan's participation in the Global War on Terror (GWT) transformed internal militancy into the country's foremost security threat. Terrorist violence spread across the country, targeting civilians, security forces, educational institutions, places of worship, and public infrastructure. Internal insecurity became inseparable from regional instability, particularly developments in Afghanistan.

Pakistan's response to this challenge has been both costly and occasionally muddled but dogged. Thousands of civilians and members of the armed forces lost their lives in the struggle against terrorism, while the country's economy suffered enormous financial losses and social disruption. Successive military operations significantly weakened terrorist organisations and restored the state's authority over areas previously beyond effective governmental control. These are significant achievements.

Yet Pakistan's experience also demonstrates the limitations of an approach driven predominantly by kinetic operations. Military force can dismantle terrorist networks, reclaim territory, and disrupt organised violence. It cannot, by itself, eliminate the structural conditions that enable extremism to persist or re-emerge. Weak institutions, uneven development, inadequate educational opportunities, youth unemployment, governance deficits, ideological polarisation, and deficiencies in civilian law enforcement continue to undermine the long-term sustainability of security gains. The resurgence of terrorist violence after 2021 underscores this reality and highlights the need for a more inclusive understanding of national security.

Recognition of these changing realities informed the adoption of Pakistan's National Security Policy (2022–2026), the country's first attempt to articulate an integrated vision of national security. The Policy rightly recognises that economic resilience, human development, social cohesion, and institutional effectiveness are indispensable components of national power. It represents an important conceptual transition from a narrowly state-centric conception of security towards a broader framework that links economic development with national security.

National security is increasingly determined not only by military capability but also by the quality of public institutions and their ability to anticipate, coordinate, and respond to evolving threats

National security is increasingly determined not only by military capability but also by the quality of public institutions and their ability to anticipate, coordinate, and respond to evolving threats

However, conceptual innovation must be matched by institutional transformation. The Policy broadens Pakistan's understanding of security but leaves unanswered a central policy question: how should the state organise itself to address contemporary terrorism and violent extremism in an increasingly complex regional environment? The return of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan, the resurgence of the TTP, evolving patterns of great-power competition, technological change, and continuing economic uncertainty demand a more integrated and operational approach to national security than the policy propounds or currently exists. 

I would argue that Pakistan's........

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