Jamal Hussain

Waging of sub-conventional warfare is the option of the weaker side as it attempts to overcome the substantial conventional force superiority of its opponent by resorting to irregular/asymmetric or fourth generation warfare techniques. In the first six decades of the 20th century, sub-conventional wars were generally waged by societies that had been colonised by the […]

Pakistan’s counterterrorism policy suffers from the historical overhang of its earlier close and cosy relationship with non-state outfits whose principal objective was the promotion of their religion-based agenda through militancy. These organisations were once used as proxies to further some of the foreign policy agendas through covert military operations. Having come under intense pressure from […]

This article is neither in support of nor against the current Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) and Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) led agitation and street protests. Instead it attempts to examine the role and effectiveness of such movements in democratic setups. First, street-led protests against dictators have more often failed than succeeded as despots use brutal state […]

Wars, as Clausewitz suggests,are violent clashes of opposing wills, each seeking to prevail over the other. Among the tomes of treatises on warfare by the Prussian General, considered a guru on war strategy and philosophy, this is a simple yet profound observation, one that can be neglected only at the peril of defeat.In the current […]

The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) strongman Hakeemullah Mehsud has been eliminated by a CIA-operated drone in Miranshah on the eve of an apparent breakthrough in the peace negotiations, which the government of Pakistan had initiated with the rebel leader. The government is under pressure to take the US to task for this deliberate subversive act, which […]

Historians might credit the May 1998 time frame — when both India and Pakistan overtly displayed their nuclear arsenal — as the beginning of the nuclear age in South Asia. Realistically however, the dynamics of nuclear deterrence had been set in motion way back in 1985 when both India and Pakistan, through intentionally planned leaks, […]

Yes, it is, would be the answer by a vast majority of Pakistanis, which is hardly surprising given the widespread anti-American sentiments prevalent in society. When quizzed on why the US would destabilise Pakistan, ‘Because they want to manufacture an excuse to defang Pakistan of its nuclear arsenal through a series of military strikes’, would […]

No, I do not mean from a grammatical viewpoint or even the use of street jargon some potential legislators frequently indulge in. I am referring to policy statements that tend to convey a meaning very different from what was intended. For the sake of brevity let me illustrate with a solitary example. “If my party […]

General elections are due on May 11, 2013. Many in the country fear that the elections will be postponed indefinitely because of the deteriorating law and order situation, as the TTP are brazenly able to carry out acts of terrorism at will, especially against the secular parties. My own assessment is that despite the upheavals […]

Introduction: the term administration rather than establishment has been used deliberately since the latter as understood in our part of the world identifies the men in khakis in GHQ, with some elements of the bureaucracy in tow. Administration on the other hand encompasses all major players of the state headed by the directly elected political […]