Pakistan - Afghanistan Security Perceptions and Relations

Ijaz Khan*

Abstract

The security relations of Pakistan and Afghanistan have fundamental implications for the ‘War against Terrorism’. These relations are based on perceptions of traditional conception of security, which has tied them in adversarial relations. For a change in their security perceptions of each other a change in the understanding of security itself is required. It is argued that their mutual disputes cannot be resolved as long as their ruling elite views security in its traditional State Centric and Territory oriented understanding. Change in their perceptions of security, and policies thus made can only come if there is a fundamental democratic change in the nature of Pakistani State. Change in perceptions can best come through democratic process. In case of persistence of non democratic regimes change is only delayed and when it comes it is abrupt and often violent with unpredictable results.
History, Geography, Sociology and Economics has made the region occupied by Afghanistan and Pakistan so intertwined making the former US special representative, the late Richard Holbrook coin the term Af-Pak. The security situation of Af-Pak has implications for regions beyond them; making others to pursue policies taking this fact in account. Both states have interests tied with each other and so while making security policy take each other into account. Understanding their bilateral security relations and perceptions of each other in their security calculus is vital to peace, stability of the region and the success of ‘War against Terrorism’. Their bilateral security relations are fundamental to the successful planned drawdown of International Forces from Afghanistan by end 2014.
This study starts with discussion of the concept of security, followed by identifying the place of one in the Security Calculus of the other and its impact on the security situation of the region. The study concludes with attempts to find policy alternates that will change the status of each other in their security calculus from adversarial to cooperative. This study also proposes changes that will make possible policy changes.
Pakistani state continues to with the traditional state centric, territory oriented militarized concept of security. Afghanistan due to its circumstances has a less developed security paradigm, some would say no security paradigm, but one can discern attitudes, situational needs and thus policies based on them to understand its security perceptions. It is argued that if both states understand and incorporate in their policies the newer conceptualizations of Security, their policies towards each other will also change. However, attitudinal changes or changing understandings of concepts and thus policies based on them is not just a question of convincing the decision makers. Such changes can only come through addressing the whole process of decision making that creates and sustains perceptions in the whole or dominant section of the state and society. That requires fundamental and far reaching changes. In democratic States changes of such level come through long continued debates and engagement of alternate opinions. However, in non democratic societies, where alternate opinion is suppressed, changes mostly come abruptly when consequences of continuation become untenable or visible through some catastrophic result.
While the traditional Security concepts place the two neighbors against each other, re-identification of their threat perceptions in the light of re visiting their understanding of security may lead them to view each other as partners not enemies.
The way a situation is perceived goes a long way in choosing responses to it. The system that you are making choices in puts certain limits on you. The realists interpret international system as based on State Sovereignty and territorial exclusivity and anarchic made state behave in a certain manner. In that system security of the territory was the focal point around which all State behavior revolved. It was that particular situation that shaped particular attitudes and perceptions and in turn those perceptions or that social construction of reality shaped that system.
In the post cold war era, a multiplicity of processes, interests, forces and factors has lowered and made penetrable the solid Westphalian wall of Sovereignty around States. While calculating security threats and formulating security policies states cannot ignore these systemic changes. However, these changes must not be exaggerated. The state system has weakened and new entities have started vying with it for public sphere, but have not been totally been replaced.  The strict division between the so-called ‘High Politics’ and ‘Low Politics’ has diminished, creating a new mix with no hierarchy. The object of security from exclusive control of territory has changed to the ‘responsibility to protect’ the people. This responsibility to protect determines the claim to legitimate sovereignty. State remains the primary but not the exclusive responsible for security of the people. International Community is increasingly accepting its share in the responsibility towards individuals. This changed environment demands change in security policy. Crisis is the logical result, when and where it does not do so. Most of the crises are result of failure to adopt and adapt.

Security

“The Westphalian State Centric International System reinforced by Cold War made Territorial security as the most important and at times the only security and military as the most important means to guarantee it. The Human dimension of security was completely over shadowed by military security. However, with the approach of the end of Cold War, other than military elements of security started getting noticed and with its end the whole concept of Security was re defined.”  The particular understanding of security and the sources of insecurity have a direct bearing on means and methods of achieving security. Who and what is being secured is the most focal point that determines policy. Who and what you want to secure depends on what you consider to be more important. And your consideration of the most important varies according to your perceptions of reality which is always colored by your World view.
The increasing space that human security is occupying at the expanse of State security is changing the referral point of security from State and its territory to the individual and the society. Domestic political concerns or deepening of security, the system and division of power within states determines foreign and security policy much more than earlier acknowledged. State is getting squeezed between the global and the local as they interact more, bypassing the State. The concerns for Human Rights, Environmental Protection, freedom from want and disease, street crime and also the new type of war that is the global terrorism which is not limited to one state, or targeting one state has fundamentally altered the understanding of Security and the means required to achieve it.
Taking a social constructivist and critical theory view of Security, the dominant perceptions of state elites matter what security is and what policy is appropriate to achieve it. Social constructive approach means policies are made by perceptions of reality; perceptions can change, resulting in different view of the reality, thus policies are prone to change. Historical experiences, Facts of Geography, Culture, Economy and Political System combines to create perceptions of the self and the surroundings. These perceptions help create a class or an elite group that protects those perceptions, developing a vested interest in their conservation along the way. In democratic societies the dominant perceptions are a result of participation of most if not all the various divisions of a society, thus changing in very subtle ways responding to the changing needs and evolution of the socio political order, thus we say policies are ‘prone to change’.  However, it is argued, prone to change does not mean they always change. What is actually meant, where the forces of status quo are very strong as in undemocratic societies where ruling elite or the establishment is able to resist change can do so and may not change; however, such resistance may only delay change; such delay is not without cost to the States they control and the regions they are in. We note abrupt and sudden changes and collapses of the status quo in such cases. The perceptions of those in control also referred to as establishment or ruling class forms the substance and direction of security discourse in a particular state. This in turn creates and sustains the establishment mind set and the established or dominant perceptions which set the direction and substance of security agenda and priorities. In the post colonial states of third world where modern state arrived from above unlike developed states where it developed from within a number of factors contribute to strong attachment with territorial sovereignty as the center of security. "Third World states are also vulnerable to changes in international norms that guarantee their juridical statehood and territorial integrity. Unlike the states of the industrialized world, many Third World states, which Robert Jackson has called 'quasi-states,' depend upon international norms to preserve their sovereign status. Their sovereignty and integrity are guaranteed primarily by the recognition they receive from the international community rather than by their effectiveness at home. ----- the elites who make and implement domestic and foreign policies in the Third World are preoccupied, if not obsessed, by state and regime security, and they shape their policies accordingly." In Third World mostly made up of postcolonial undemocratic states, where Modern State has arrived from the top, rather than evolved from within, security of state also includes survival of the rulers. Thus security discourse that references from territory and military threats becomes a ‘self fulfilling prophecy’ creating and furthering ‘security dilemma’.
Barry Buzan developed a framework for analyzing security in regions. His Regional Complex Security Theory (RCST) provides a framework for ‘organizing empirical studies of regional security. The theory specifies what to look for at four levels of analysis and how to interrelate these. The four levels are’: 1. The domestic vulnerability of the States of the region under study.  The specific vulnerability of a state defines the kind of security fears it has at times these have implications for other states of the region,  2. State-to-state relations 3. The region's interaction with neighboring regions, and 4. The role of global powers in the region (the interplay between the global and regional security structures).” Though Buzan does not necessarily has put it in order of significance, the domestic vulnerabilities play a stronger role in the security relations of the states in the Regional Security Complex (RCS) especially determining the second and third level, however, the fourth level may at times become quite significant.

Pakistan’s Security Perceptions and Policy

Pakistan a deeply entrenched post colonial state, with dominant narratives of threat from India and Cold War era helps the sustained dominance of realist arguments couched in religious terminology has become security state. The dominant mindset feeds and feds on the security threat perceptions from India. “The primary reason for military’s emergence as the most influential element in defence decision–making lies in its significance in the country’s power politics. It assumed the responsibility of guarding the Islamic ideological identity and frontiers of the country. The threat perception from India, viewed as a Hindu power which cannot bear the existence of an Islamic Pakistan, has provided a certain ideological justification to the argument that it is only the military establishment that can provide security to this ideological state. Projection of threat from India is fundamental to the survival of the Pakistani establishment that even views internal insecurity as a continuation of the external threat. Islamabad has always looked at the internal political turmoil as the doing of a ‘foreign hand’ (insinuating India). It is in this back ground that Army has always kept the Kashmir issue on the hot burner.” This sustains the militarized security perceptions and policies whether towards India or through the prism of this India centric security mindset, policy towards Afghanistan.
History of relations with India, its size and the internal vulnerability of Afghanistan due to the continued insurgency there have helped in giving particular shape and content to Pakistan security paradigm. The cold war experience of being on the side of the US also left its imprint.

Afghanistan’s Security Perceptions and Policy

Afghanistan on the other side is undergoing a process of modern state construction at a time when the World is going beyond it. The memories of Durand Line as a colonial legacy that had taken away more than half of Pashtuns persist due to absence of any governance (good or bad) and continued insurgency. Due to Pakistan’s own security predicament, Pakistan’s role in that insurgency feeds Afghan security threat perceptions from Pakistan. This insurgency also sustains the vulnerability and controversial status of Durand Line.
Afghanistan’s main security concern is from the threat posed by internal armed insurgency that has mainly non state international backing. Its threat perceptions also take note of the different regional states, vying with each other for a resolution of the Afghan insurgency that suits their interests. The problem is compounded as these interests are mutually contradictory and are calculated in zero sum terms; gain of one is directly translated into loss of another. Thus we see the main contenders to be Pakistan and India, with Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Central Asian states all vying for influence. Amongst all these Afghans perceive Pakistan to be the most intrusive having sympathy towards the insurgents, permitting the use of its territory against it.

Afghanistan in Pakistan’s Security Calculus and Policy

Pakistan continues to define security in traditional territorial sovereignty terms and stresses the over arching role of military preparedness as central to its security. It continues to view India as the focus of its security threat perceptions, which it believes must be balanced militarily. Pakistan’s Afghan Policy emanates out of its India centric security policy. Pakistan policy towards Afghanistan since the resistance to the Soviet Intervention started has been dictated by mainly two policy goals of a) eliminating any Indian influence in Afghanistan b) resolving the Durand Line issue through a policy of propping up religious alternate to the secular Pakhtun nationalist leadership and narrative. Since the Soviet (and western also) withdrawal from Afghanistan, in order to keep India out of Afghanistan Pakistan policy aims to have a friendly government that guarantees its above mentioned goals.
Pakistan had never enjoyed good neighbourly relations with Afghanistan. The story of Pak–Afghan relations fills the mind of the average Pakistani decision maker with mistrust, to say the least. It must be added quickly that this mistrust was mutual. There have been many ups and downs in Pak–Afghan relations. The relations reached an all time low during the prime minister ship of Sardar Daud in Afghanistan (1953–1963) in 1961, when Afghanistan broke off diplomatic relations with Pakistan and Pakistan imposed a ban on transit facilities to the land locked Afghanistan. The breakdown was brought by Afghanistan’s heightened activism in support of Pashtunistan during Sardar Duad tenure. They were resumed in 1963 after the resignation of Sardar Daud. However, to correct the historical record and get a balanced perspective, it must be pointed out, that Afghanistan had remained neutral during all the military conflicts Pakistan had with India [1948, 1965, 1971], which should have set aside Pakistani apprehensions of having to worry about northern frontiers in its conflicts on the southern borders. That did not happen and Pakistani attitudes towards Afghanistan did not change nor did Pakistani establishment’s relations with Pashtun Nationalists and dealings of the ethnic issues change, with serious implications for Pakistan’s Afghan Policy specifically and international relations generally.
The Pakistani decision makers mindset that believed in a strong centralised state and mistrusted India or anything or anyone having the remotest link with India, could not take the secular, more specifically nationalist Pashtun as an ally. Pakistan’s worries in Afghanistan were twofold; An Afghanistan friendly with India would always be a source of threat during Pakistan’s conflict with India and the issue of Afghan claims over Pashtun majority territories of Pakistan. The nationalist Pashtun in Pakistan is the heir to the Pashtun that was part of Indian National Congress in the pre partition days. The relationship between Afghans, Pakistani Pashtuns and their relations with India fills the Pakistani establishment mind with suspicion.
A recent study documenting the views of Pakistan’s Foreign Policy Elite is a very instructive guide to the mindset that formulates Pakistan’s policy towards Afghanistan. Pakistan Foreign Policy elite in a rather supposedly quite subtle manner first argue that USA must not abandon Afghanistan. They are repeating continuously what was said after 9/11, to separate Taliban (good Taliban/ Pashtuns understood as Taliban) and Alqaeda. The Americans are being offered the ouster of Al Qaeda from Afghanistan in return for a major say/control in Afghanistan through its demands for a friendly government/ broader government/ representative of all ethnic groups/ representing good Taliban etc and from the ideal of total ouster of India from Afghanistan to limiting it to economic development only.
They also want the right to monitor all Indian activities in Afghanistan and be informed of it. This elite now avoids rather criticizes the use of the term ‘Strategic Depth’. However, they continue to equate Taliban with Pashtuns, something evident from the argument that Taliban must be given representation in an Afghan arrangement to avoid negative reaction from Pashtuns on this side of the Durand Line. They also want a say in the size of Afghan Army.
 Pakistani establishment’s evolution with a strong sense of security threat perceptions emanating from India, with the historical experience of partition and pre partition politics , its centrist post colonial state structure, resulted in a perception that India must be countered and a unitary identity is a must for survival, Civilians do not understand, are corrupt and inefficient to a level of not being true patriots. Very soon it also learned that religion can be a useful tool of policy, both against domestic democratic dissent and more importantly Foreign / Security Policy. That lesson had been learnt before Afghanistan and before Zia Ul Haq. Quick examples are Al Badar and Al Shams in the then East Pakistan (1971–against Bengali Nationalists) and hosting of most of the Afghan Muhahideen leaders since 1973–4. During Zia Ul Haq’s period these religious forces/ extremists graduated from tools of policy to partners in policy making.
The Soviet intervention, resistance to it, and US/Western and Saudi support to it provided Pakistani State with an opportunity and capability to influence the situation in line with its security perceptions. Pakistan’s policy has a certain level of continuity that can be discerned throughout its history. This space is too limited to deal comprehensively with that, so it will only do a summary of this continuity since 1978 – 79. Pakistani policy makers have made adequate tactical and semantic changes and adaptations according to changing regional and international environment; however, a fundamental continuity is clearly visible.
During the decade of Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, Pakistan clearly supported groups and channelized all international aid to the resistance to religious groups, ignoring non religious nationalist / secular resistance groups. Even among the religious groups Pakistani establishment made choices. The religious groups were preferred for both the above mentioned considerations.
During the early 1990s, Pakistan continued with the same policy objectives. Pakistan felt more confident as it was left unchecked by the west / US to pursue its goals through the influence it had gained in Afghanistan in the 1980s. First it tried to install Gulbadin Hekmatyar in Afghanistan. But when that failed, it banked on the Taliban in second half of 1990s. The purpose remained the same, deny Indian influence in Afghanistan and undermine secular Pashtun National movement on both sides of the Durand Line. Taliban being ‘traditional Sunni Muslims’ were expected to stop Iranian influence, as well as have no truck with Pan Islamists (or Political Islamists). The last two points made them acceptable to Americans as well.
Pakistan after 9/11 adjusted its semantics and policy tactics in Afghanistan to the new realities though the broader policy remained the same. Pakistani state continued to argue for a broad based government in Afghanistan with emphasizing the representation of Good Taliban and/ or Pashtun representation. Pakistani commentators also started decrying the increased influence of India. A number of Pakistan’s ‘Foreign Policy Elite’ started repeatedly saying a few things; Indian Consulates (the number they quoted was staggering and false) in Afghanistan are involved in Anti Pakistan activities, Karzai as a ‘Mayor of Kabul’, US is about to leave Afghanistan, Karzai government is actually the government of non Pashtuns, Action against Taliban in Afghanistan has alienated and turned Pashtuns on this side of the Durand Line against Pakistan etc. etc. Pakistan still wants to dictate the terms for a settlement in Afghanistan. A subtle change can be detected as the deadline for US withdrawal from combat in Afghanistan nears. Pakistan wants US to ensure a peace settlement before 2014 planned US/NATO drawdown. This policy is the logical outcome of statist, territorial perceptions of security from a traditional realist interpretation of the situation.

Pakistan in Afghan Security Calculus

Afghanistan views Pakistan as a State that is undermining its sovereignty by interfering in its ongoing insurgency. Afghan perceives Pakistan to have a hegemonic policy towards it. It considers Pakistan had made it clear through actions, statements and various diplomatic and non diplomatic, both covert and overt means that it wants to dictate Afghanistan’s relations with other States, especially India. For that end, Pakistan wants to influence the makeup of Afghan government. It is for this reason that, Pakistan is supporting or tolerating Taliban or other groups trying to change the government in Afghanistan. In short, the above presented Pakistan’s policy towards Afghanistan is considered as against its sovereignty and independence. Pakistan’s avowed position that it wants a friendly government in Afghanistan rather than a friendship with the state of Afghanistan is considered a very clear evidence of Pakistan’s hegemonic policy.
Afghan memory is also filled with a mistrust of Pakistan against which it had territorial claims. Afghanistan border with Pakistan was marked by the British in 1894, known as Durand Line, after the Englishman Sir Motimer Durand who demarcated it. The Afghans raised the issue of Durand Line on the eve of British departure from the Sub Continent. They claimed that as the agreement was with the British and they are leaving, so they must return the territory it took as a result of the Durand Line Agreement.  It became the only country that objected to Pakistan’s UN membership in 1947, demanding that unless the issue of Durand Line is resolved Pakistan cannot be recognized as a State with the territory that it had inherited from Britain. Afghanistan has retained that claim to date. No government, even Taliban, the closest any Afghan government had ever been to Pakistan, accepted the legality of the Durand Line.
Afghanistan is a landlocked state. Perceiving the World in traditional Westphalian system based on territorial sovereignty, it considers access to International Waters as a vital element of its security. These considerations augment the political / historical and ethno linguistic arguments for claim on Pakistani territory. These relations have been made more complex by certain facts of history; the Pashtun ethno linguistic nationalist movement of Pakistan was historically connected with Indian National Congress. The Afghan espousing of Pashtun concerns within Pakistan has made Pashtun cause and its supporters of suspect loyalty to the post colonial centrist State of Pakistan. The Durand Line issue, along with Afghanistan’s Non Aligned Policy during the cold War, and Pakistan’s becoming part of the western alliance system in the 1950s made Afghanistan drift closer to India and USSR.
Pakistan, with US agreement and support, considered religious opponents of Soviet intervention as its best bet in Afghanistan. Pakistan’s support for Mujahideen in the 1980s and much more, its current perceptions of and policies with Afghan Taliban has added to the perception in Afghanistan of Pakistan’s hegemonic designs towards it. These perceptions have pushed Afghanistan closer towards India. The closer relations between USA and India in the post cold war era, the contradictions in Pakistan and US perceptions of Peace in Afghanistan, as well as other regional issues like Iran and Syria and also on Pakistan’s Nuclear Program, is gradually making USA part of an emerging Afghanistan, India and US grouping. Its mainly Pakistan’s location and Cold War era relations (probably to a lesser extent) that slows down this new alignment.
In Afghan security perceptions, Pakistan has become the main source of destability. Afghans, for whom today the foremost challenge is end to the Taliban insurgency, perceives Pakistan is backing them or at least is not denying/permitting the use of its territory by Afghan insurgents. It believes by providing/tolerating sanctuaries of Afghan Taliban, as well as being a route for Taliban’s international support whether emanating from Pakistan itself or elsewhere, Pakistan is playing a key role in destabilizing Afghanistan. 
Moving towards Change in Security Perceptions, Definition and Policy

The inability of Afghanistan and Pakistan to adopt and adapt to the changing International Relations is the key to the continuous crisis in their bilateral relations. In accordance with statist, thought that dominates the policy makers mind set which perceives every neighbor as a potential threat; conflict taken as the normal situation. Military, weapons and spies are considered the best and most vital tools of security. People security is considered at best a concept that is appropriate for NGOs. Anyway, People can only be secure if the State is secure. In short, this conceptual mind interprets the facts of geography and relations. Most studies and arguments revolve around mostly irreconcilable historical, legal and political claims and counter claims over territory.
Afghan claims over territory under Pakistan sovereign control, Pakistan claims over Kashmir and Afghanistan relations with India all work to limit the scope of solution in an atmosphere as perceived by security policies made by the statist mind. In a State Centric International System, most conflicts historically have been resolved through the total victory of one side. The two World Wars and the Cold War ended in collapse of one side. Does this means that is the only way conflict can end. This may be true of a state centric anarchic International System as explained by the Realist paradigm. In such system, total peace cannot be achieved, however relative avoidance of use of arms is possible through a balance of power, if one party cannot be totally defeated. However, there have been instances where states have outgrown from their conflicting claims, rather than their resolution one way or the other. Time and changes in international / regional governance have led to states out growing from a number of territorial disputes that had been the cause of many armed conflicts.  The evolution of European Union has overtaken various territorial and ethno linguistic claims and conflicts.
Territory continues to be a vital element of State, however, disputes over them, whatever their historical / legal legitimacy may be are consequence of an international system that depended and stressed on territorial exclusiveness and separateness and insisted on absolute loyalty of the people to the territory. The end of Cold War has unleashed forces and processes that were leaking out even during the hay day of Cold War. These forces and processes have undermined the strict division of people on the basis of citizenship, nationality or sovereign territory. The post cold war international system has also undermined the sanctity of International Borders as witnessed by the creation of many new states on the Sovereign Territory of various states and the increased and relatively easier flow of capital, people, ideas, movements and internationalization of production.
This process has also resulted in decrease in urge to secede when coupled with certain policies and changes in governance, thus while giving increased international recognition to people over territory it has reduced the significance of holding territory, which means also a decrease in the urge to acquire territory or secede. The Germans of Bozen/Bolzano continue to be as Germans as they always were, but the urge to secede and return to German State has also been decreased by the lowering of the Sovereignty wall that separated them from their fellow Germans. An important element of that is the Italian policy of accepting the diversity and very important the capability of Italian state to economically handle the economic cost of that diversity. There can be a lesson for Pakistan and Afghanistan in that too.
Interests continue to drive state and human behavior. Pakistan and Afghanistan needs to pursue security policies that create interests in peace and stability. They have to give priority to the security of their people equal to if not more than the security of the territory. Currently policies seems to be considering the economic meltdown, and the domestic law and order situation, that can be directly connected to their security policies, of least concern. Some may say these are considered acceptable price of territorial security. Their budgets must reflect the change in priorities. Currently budgets show the low priority given to the people. Pakistan’s economic crunch has not affected its military spending in any manner, thus transferring the entire burden to the people. Health, Education, Environment, Civilian infrastructure receive the minimum of budgetary allocation. Pakistani decision makers have to understand these domestic and non-military threats to the State including its territory are more serious than India may be posing.
Adjustment of State policies to conform to the increased people to people interaction through broader globalization, from which these two cannot escape, and also due to the experiences of the history, both recent (since 1980s) and much earlier can go a long way in correcting the security situation. Policies of open or very loose borders will lead to securer borders than closed or hard to cross borders. Although, the Pakistan Afghanistan border is extremely porous for illegal crossing, but legally the situation is totally the opposite. Both need to legalize the fact of their loose borders.
Desiring friendship with your neighbors is one thing and influencing through covert or overt demands that the neighboring government must be of your choice is another. Pakistan’s wish to have a say in the size of Afghan Army or demand to monitor its relations with India is simply not compatible with new International Relations. Having such aims as part of security policy belongs to the State Centric Territorial based security power politic mind, no more relevant to interpretation of current International Relations. Pakistan rather than demanding Afghanistan’s relations with other states to be determined by it, must follow policies leading to mutual interdependence and trust to a level that increases its space in Afghanistan.
Pakistan’s security relations with India are an important factor in Pakistan’s security policy towards Afghanistan. The security concerns of Pakistan will always be there when it sees India and Afghanistan getting closer. They will always be justified by the realist state centric assessment. Unless that view of interstate relations changes Pakistan’s security policy towards Afghanistan will not change. In the loose / easy borders arrangements between Afghanistan and Pakistan, India has to be included, if one is to find a viable way forward. For if it excludes India, then India will not accept it and so the tug of war between India and Pakistan will continue impacting Pakistan’s security relations with Afghanistan.
Afghanistan had traditionally followed a Non Aligned Foreign Policy as means to maintain its independence. Non Alignment for Afghanistan meant keeping everyone out and can be termed isolationism, which worked for a very long time. However, during the past three decades this policy collapsed and Afghanistan became almost an ungoverned space where everyone from different parts of the World can come and fight their ‘Wars’ – a Global Battleground. Afghanistan cannot return to the original Non Alignment meaning isolation, so, it needs to follow a policy of engagement as a new form of its traditional Non Alignment – become a meeting point for outsiders. Afghanistan must start with internal cohesion first - minimizing space for external interference whether it comes from Pakistan or elsewhere.
Both sides must understand the World has moved ahead and Military means, spies and politics is no more dominant themes of International Society. Power, Politics and Military (including covert and non covert means) are not the only or even the most dominant instrument of Foreign Policy. Security includes Economics and other parts of Human Life as well. Both needs to start promoting Economic Relations, More People to People Contact in different fields, use non formal innovative diplomatic means alongside the formal traditional ones. With an approach that aims at creating a positive image the large number of Afghans in Pakistan can become Pakistan’s asset. Both must let the logic of Geography, Economics and People interaction determine Politics and Security and not vice versa.

Conclusions

This study consciously avoids using the term resolution of disputes between the two (or three). It suggests growing out of the disputes. By lowering the sovereign territorial divisions the claims on territory will lose its sting. With time these claims will just be part of very formal routine public statements or may be cricket matches.
But the million dollar question is will the decision makers change their perceptions as result of reading some academic arguments or demands from some peace activists? Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by them, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living.   Environment may permit and provide conditions for some action to achieve something. To act accordingly will however depend on the potential actor’s capabilities, motivation and priorities or perceptions of what needs to be achieved at what cost. That in turn will depend on the personality of the entity in question. Therefore, to change perceptions, the personality of Pakistan and Afghanistan has to change. Ayub argues, “The problem for most Third World states has been compounded by two further factors. The first is the weakness of civil society and of political institutions, which precludes the emergence of strong checks on the security apparatus’ proclivity to usurp state power and resources. Second, the telescoping of the phases of the state building into one phase, and the curtailment of the time available to complete the process, enhance the political importance of the coercive functions and of the agencies that perform these functions." Decision making system in both Pakistan and Afghanistan have to undergo a fundamental change for their understandings of security and the state system to change leading to change in their security policies. Decision makers undergo change only when they see the full destruction of the policies they pursue. They keep clinging till the last straw is available or revert whenever they perceive a chance exists or has arisen. Mindsets and strategic cultures are not changed through academic papers or arguments. The alternative to changing strategic culture through total collapse with unpredictable results is through a fundamental change in the decision-making system, which means the sources of inputs in decisions must undergo a fundamental change through strengthening of the democratic system of governance. The crumbling of various Middle East regimes, having secular trappings but undemocratic is one outcome of situations where regimes are resistant to change and evolution. Without going into the ‘Democratic Peace’ debate, the case for democratic governance for peaceful security relations and an RSC defined by cooperation rather than enmity is made due to it being the only system which guarantees and provides for a plurality of inputs in decision making and a continuous system of assessment and re assessment of policy. Democracy provides for evolutionary change and adaptation rather than fixation and abrupt changes. This change has to start in Pakistan as Afghanistan is undergoing a State (re)construction and a changed Pakistan can dilute and help gradually change the Afghan State memory of an adversary Pakistan. A democratic Pakistan, whose structure reflects its ethno linguistic and cultural diversity and where people control policy making can be the harbinger of such change in the region.
This study considers the transformation of security relations from enmity to cooperation will be a long process. The ability of terrorists from outside the region to find space in the Af Pak region and the involvement of elements from within in local, regional and global terrorism is intertwined with the security relations of the region. Traditional diplomatic processes along with new methods and use of force will continue for a while as these are required for containing the violence but cannot eliminate it. Continued engagement of global powers with the region’s security is vital for the protection of weak and vulnerable democratic state systems as currently they are in danger of collapsing into violent mayhem, creating a security nightmare for global peace and security. It is from within these states that the road to regional peace stability and denial of its use by external non state actors starts. It must be emphasized that mostly the internal weaknesses and incomplete process of state building that finds its way in interstate conflict.

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