Since its creation in 1947, Pakistan's security perception remains India-centric. The interminable rivalry between the two South Asian neighbours resulted in three and a half wars, costing Islamabad the eastern wing during the 1971 war. The popular perception amongst the decision-making elite makes the rivalry sound like a battle between good and evil with the Indian 'Goliath' forever trying to vanquish the Pakistani 'David'. The use of this peculiar metaphor is deliberate, indicating the ideological undertones of the rivalry between the two states, as perceived by key segments of the policymaking elite in the country.

Despite the overtones of the conflict being territorial, the key players link their hostile relations with their religious ideology: Pakistan - an Islamic state's urge to survive with honour, against a predominantly Hindu neighbour that is also perceived as having hegemonic designs. Although it would be premature to term the hostility primarily as ideological, this is the manner in which the establishment tends to view the nature of bilateral relations. Unfortunately, this linearity has kept Pakistan away from developing a strategic approach that extends beyond India and defines a more wholesome role for Pakistan in the comity of nations.

The conflict has also led to Pakistan's progression from conventional defence to nuclear deterrence in the past couple of decades. The up-gradation of military capabilities was considered necessary to ward-off India's hegemonic designs and allow Islamabad the capacity to pursue the Kashmir issue. Despite the acclaimed enhancement of capabilities, Pakistan remains far away from gaining its military-strategic objectives. Furthermore, the question of whether Pakistan is secure remains largely unresolved. During the period that the country was taking steps towards gradually strengthening its military security, there was a proportional increase in internal security problems.

More than being a mere coincidence, this was directly linked to the way security policy was being managed by Islamabad. The augmentation among the number of militant organisations, a direct repercussion of a peculiar approach of the state to deal with India, did not bode well for the country's overall security scene. While helping the military in terms of increasing the cost of conflict of the adversary and bogging it down in Kashmir, this policy also increased internal threats to Pakistan. Resultantly, the increase in sectarian violence appears to be a greater threat in the past 10-15 years than the external enemy.

Unfortunately, the military establishment appears less inclined to view the problem as arising from an incoherent policy framework. The authorities tend to see internal insecurity largely as a consequence of the external threat. Clearly, the mindset in the policymaking circles and the resultant security policy suffers from the problem of linearity that, in turn, is grounded in a strong tradition of the bureaucratic-organisational imperative. While the fixation with the external threat posed by the traditional rival, India, is understandable to some extent, one also finds flaws with this construct. The monotone of the security policy is almost mind-boggling. This study aims at understanding the phenomenon of linearity in the context of the development of Pakistan's security perception. It will examine factors behind this peculiar structure as well as its implications for the country's security.

A Linear Security Perception
The most noticeable feature of the design of Pakistan's security perception is its rather simplistic linearity which identifies security and national interest mainly as response to an external threat. Moreover, this external threat is mainly identified as from India. Interestingly, such a view is held despite the fact that Islamabad is itself keen on pursuing its interests without creating space for others. Such an orientation, in turn, has led to an approach based on two opposing ends of the spectrum: Confrontation punctuated by short spells of rapprochement and seeking extra-regional partnerships that could provide Islamabad with relative strength to counter its traditional adversary. In other words, the continuously high threat perception has resulted in either producing confrontational linkages or alignments that have been sought by design, primarily to offset problems of military inferiority versus its main adversary India. Hence, Islamabad's alignments have never been proactive and, in fact, have been limited to seeking military or diplomatic assistance that could bolster Pakistan's position vis-à-vis New Delhi.

Despite claiming an extra-regional identity (greater cultural and religious affiliation with the Middle East), Pakistan has never ventured to extend its security vision beyond India. In fact, Islamabad's view of the entire world appears simplistic, with the world divided between states that are considered important for their ability to provide any direct or indirect help in strengthening Pakistan against India and those that are of no relevance in this regard.

Unfortunately, it is this posture that contributed towards the peculiar makeup of Pakistan's Afghan policy and later in framing the response towards the post-September 11 (9/11) U.S. Indubitably, such classification is convenient from the standpoint of the civil and military bureaucracy that seems to have greater control over policymaking. This is because the existence of a formidable threat allows decision-makers to adopt a linear and less complex approach towards policymaking, especially security planning. Furthermore, this slant in policy provides greater room for sustaining bureaucratic-organisational interests since it keeps military security on top of other agenda.

Linearity is not a coincidence. This can be attributed to the influence of the military bureaucracy in policymaking. Pakistan's military, like any other, has found the heightened threat perception as being congenial to its interest and survival as an organisation. In fact, the inclusion of threat as part of the nation-building exercise has allowed the armed forces a key position in the affairs of the country. This is a concept that is not subscribed to by military personnel. Such a view does not explain the fact that defending the ideology has been a raison d'etre of the military, an image that is also used to gain popularity.

Some would like to argue that the focus on a single source of threat is a position normally adopted by the political governments as well, particularly to gain popularity at home. It is also true that the primacy of a narrowly-designed security policy can be attributed to the whole issue of the lack of political legitimacy in the country. However, it would not be fair to assess the attitudes of political governments in Pakistan towards India through applying this traditional notion of the linkage between threat perception and domestic politics. Civilian governments, especially those that came to power after 1988, were more inclined to set the India-Pakistan relations on a better footing. The dialogue between the Rajiv-Bhutto governments and the Lahore process initiated during the second Nawaz Sharif government bear witness to this fact. In fact, sources were of the view that it was the army that was less inclined to engage in a bilateral dialogue even prior to 1988. The reference was to the period after the Simla Agreement, Tashkent Declaration and the Lahore process.

More specifically, security is defined as the ability to stave-off a military threat from India. The two supporting pillars of this peculiar approach are: (a) building national military capability with the objective of challenging India's military might and providing for an effective defence, and (b) searching for military-oriented alignments that can assist primarily in dealing with New Delhi. This framework does not seem to have changed, despite the developments after 9/11 in which threat posed by internal non-state actors appears to be a new and far more serious problem.

One of the explanations for Islamabad's supposed negligence of the threat posed by non-state actors or the large number of militants is that such elements were raised and nourished by the military establishment to fill the conventional military gap, vis-à-vis India. While not being able to force a military solution of Kashmir on New Delhi, the militants were viewed as a cost-effective option. The policy did go out of control because of the involvement of militants in Afghanistan and their engagement in sectarian killings inside Pakistan. However, it was only this portion of the policy that the government led by General Pervez Musharraf aimed at changing after 9/11.

Structure of the Security Perception
Due to the weak political process in the country, security policymaking has always remained the forte of the military bureaucracy. So, when one speaks of the security perception, it is really about the perceptions of the military which has traditionally defined security to cater for its interests. Resultantly, the security perception has been deeply linked to a single threat emanating from India. Not that it has been a comfortable existence for Pakistan, located next door to a large neighbour that has the objective of projecting itself as a regional power, but the perception of Pakistan's policymakers to challenge rather than cooperate with India has led to a confrontational policymaking.

India: The Fundamental Image
The image of India in Pakistan is that of a hostile nation and the primary threat to Pakistan's security. The country's policymaking elite tends to define threat to national security mainly in terms of the peril perceived from New Delhi. India's hegemonic policies and attitude are considered as the most imposing danger to Pakistan's survival. In fact, the greatest concern is regarding the survival of the state. Over the past 50 years and more, the dominant school of thought that has influenced policymaking believes that the Indian leadership has never been comfortable with an independent homeland for the Muslims and would not lose any opportunity to destroy or invade Pakistan. Policymakers are equally uncomfortable with India's urge to gain regional or global prominence. Any reference to India acquiring a prominent role, especially due to comparatively greater military capacity, is seen as a potential threat and as inherently antithetical to Pakistan's security interests.

A popular belief amongst the elite is that any increase in India's military capacity would eventually be used to dominate other smaller South Asian states, a situation that would be totally unacceptable. There is little room for New Delhi's aspirations of becoming a significant force in Asia. Hence, restoring peace between the two neighbours is viewed as a responsibility that must be shared squarely by New Delhi. There are those who also believe that internal political developments in Pakistan, such as correcting the civil-military relations imbalance, depend on restoration of peace in the region that, in turn, depends on India. Moreover, the feeling of insecurity emanating from India was the hallmark of all regimes irrespective of whether these were military, military-dominated or civilian.

In some regions, as opposed to others, the anti-India sentiment seems to be less, due to the difference in political perceptions. For instance, a number of people interviewed in the provinces of Sindh or Baluchistan did not attach a similar significance to the Indian threat as is done in Punjab or parts of the North West Frontier province. However, there is a consensus amongst people regarding India's image as a hostile neighbour. The image tends to sharpen particularly in Punjab and near the seat of power of Pakistan's establishment. The constant reference to India's hegemonic designs in South Asia and the bid to dominate the region diplomatically and politically is an issue that is entirely unacceptable to the political and military elite of the country.

What seems to be the basis of this negative image formation is the Kashmir dispute, which is flagged by the establishment as an issue on which Islamabad prefers to take a moral position of supporting the Kashmiri people tormented by Indian oppression. While New Delhi's poor human rights track record in Kashmir gives strength to this notion in Pakistan, the fact remains that the publicity is aimed more at building support among the public for the military's position. In the words of the famous historian, Ayesha Jalal, '….there is hardly any cause for surprise that realpolitik is justified in the rhetoric of moralpolitik.'

Similarly, one can also find two clear trends in the defence policy: (a) attain capabilities that could be used to force the adversary to negotiate and (b) build a capacity for credible defence. However, the basic posture has remained offensive with several variations such as the offensive-defence policy propagated under Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg's command during the end of the 1980s. The sceptics would argue that considering the conventional military imbalance vis-à-vis India, Pakistan's policy can never be offensive. This standpoint, however, does not differentiate between capabilities, intent and posture.

Even if the capabilities do not allow for an offensive option, the very fact that the various war directives, especially the war directive Five which highlights the resolution of the Kashmir issue as a military objective, denotes the 'intent' to use force in whatever manner possible to manage a political solution to the dispute. It is, incidentally, the capabilities that do not allow for an all out 'offensive' military scheme to work. In any case, an 'offensive' approach is understandable for a country that is forever anxious about the adversary's intent, and always assumes that losing an opportunity to launch a counter-offensive would result in greater political mileage for the other side.

It must be reiterated that such an approach is also deeply linked with domestic political factors and environment. For instance, an offensive approach becomes necessary for a military that opts to become a key political player. In such a case, the element of political legitimacy is dependent upon maintaining a positive image, which, in this case, is built through propagating an aggressive intent. Sadly, this approach has cost Pakistan its ability to devise a greater strategic goal. The role that Islamabad could play in the region, as a Muslim country, or even in relation with Central Asia, could never happen because of the linear design of the strategic perception. This proposition does not entail a 'hegemonic' role, but a far more significant role that would entail a greater capacity to manoeuvre diplomatically or militarily.

Considering this mindset, it is not surprising that Pakistan's foreign policy has always been an extension of its defence policy. Islamabad has always viewed relations with other countries, especially its neighbours or states with greater military strength than India, as a source for improving Pakistan's overall capacity to respond to India. A case in point is Pakistan's relations with neighbouring Afghanistan. Again, the inability to improve relations with other neighbours like Iran can be attributed to the gap that Islamabad finds in terms of lack of any perceived dividends for India-Pak relations resulting from improved linkages with Tehran.

The India-centricity of the security perception can be found in other areas as well, such as the official position on internal security which is inherently seen as an extension of the external threat. The rise in ethnic and sectarian violence in the country is a development that can be attributed to the covert and nefarious activities of India's intelligence agencies. A popular notion is that unless provoked and funded by external actors, especially New Delhi, the various ethnic and sectarian groups would not be able to cause violence in the country. Just like India, little attention is paid to erroneous policymaking and inequitable bad governance that is directly responsible for domestic unrest and socio-political fragmentation.

The nature and direction of India's domestic politics and the aggressive political statements of its leadership do not help in changing this perception. Any hostile statement from across the border reminds the people and policymakers of their deepest fear of India wanting to eliminate Pakistan. The various conflicts with New Delhi, especially the 1971 war that led to the dismemberment of Pakistan, have left scars that are not easy to erase. This fear had diminished somewhat during the 1980s and part of the 1990s. However, it regained its prominence after the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) rise to power in India. A popular thinking amongst the policymakers is that a party driven by historic and religious visions of Hindu dominance is antithetical to a Muslim Pakistan's existence. The fear amongst Pakistan's armed forces regarding India's intention seems to have intensified after the communal violence in Indian Gujarat. Such unfortunate occurrences convince the establishment in Pakistan of the communal intolerance in India towards a Muslim Pakistan.

Of course, this rivalry and threat has a physical manifestation as well, in the form of the on-going Kashmir dispute and other boundary issues. Control of territory, in fact, is central to the bilateral hostility and competition with India. However, no other issue has gained the kind of significance that the Kashmir dispute has, which makes it essential to understand the significance of Kashmir for Pakistan's policymakers. First, control of the Indian-administered-Kashmir is considered vital for Pakistan due to ideological reason intertwined with the logic of the Pakistani state's existence itself. In the words of Pakistan's President and Army Chief, General Pervez Musharaf, 'Kashmir runs in our (Pakistanis) blood.'

Second, the control of Kashmir is held as being strategically important for the country. The water resources and the territorial security of Pakistan can be better ensured through controlling the entire disputed territory. The recent claims by the Indian leadership regarding the possibility of stopping water to Pakistan tend to heighten the fear regarding India's intent or capability to make life difficult for Pakistan, a situation that must be avoided at all costs. People in the government mistrust India's intent of honouring the Indus water treaty of the 1960s. More than the Wullar barrage issue, it is the Baghliar dam proposal of New Delhi that makes Islamabad sceptical of India's designs. The plan envisaged by India for the construction of a dam is seen as altering the flow of River Chenab in contravention of the Indus Water Treaty of 1960s. Such issues strengthen the establishment's will not to compromise on Kashmir.

However, it would not be fair to say that Kashmir is the only source of contention between the two countries. There are other disputes as well, including the still un-demarcated maritime boundary issue. The absence of a sea boundary is linked to the border dispute of the 60-mile-long estuary of Sir Creek in the marshes of the Rann of Kutch. The neighbours have fought a limited war over this disputed territory in 1962. This area lies on the border between the Indian state of Gujarat and the Pakistani province of Sindh. Islamabad contests its claim over Sir Creek based on the map drawn out in 1914.

This map places the boundary on the east bank of the creek. India, on the other hand, insists on treating the line in the middle of the creek as the boundary. On several occasions, negotiations were conducted to resolve the issue, especially in the 1990s. In 1994, New Delhi offered to delineate the boundary seawards, an offer that was rejected allegedly because of other political disputes such as the Siachen glacier. The actual reason for rejection, as stated by the Pakistanis, is that the plan was unacceptable to Islamabad. The acceptance of an Indian plan, it was feared, would have led inadvertently to the acceptance of a boundary without really solving the dispute.

There appears to be little inclination on both sides to solve the boundary issues. However, one can also identify a number of people that believe that the boundary disputes are not the main issue. Rather it is the divergent ideology that would never allow establishment of normal neighbourly relations between the two countries. The division of India, the massacre that took place during partition of the subcontinent in 1947 and the Two Nation Theory are factors which cannot be excluded from the bilateral relations equation. Resultantly, one is still unclear whether the rivalry with India is territorial or ideological in nature.

Interestingly, Pakistan's Kashmir policy appears to have inverted Islamabad's case that Indian actions and policies are the main source of insecurity in the region. The increase in the security temperature, caused due to this dispute, almost gives an impression that a solution of the problem would automatically restore peace between the two traditional rivals. This is despite the thesis of the ultra-conventionalist that a solution will not eradicate the core of hostility. Perhaps, the ideological confrontation tends to manifest itself in the form of territorial disputes, with both sides refusing to find a solution due to the ideological divide clearly established at the time of partition.

The Politics of Insecurity
The internal political dynamics of Pakistan after 1947 compelled the leadership to seek a confrontational relationship that could form a solid justification for a linear policy approach. The fact that soon after independence, the country's leadership slipped into the hands of the civil and military bureaucracy is one of the reasons for Pakistan to have embarked upon such a focused security perception. Not only was it in the interest of the bureaucracy to continuously prop up the single-source threat factor, such an approach was also the logical course to have been followed by this bureaucracy. A military threat allows policymakers to follow a simpler and less complex linear trajectory that is certainly easier for a bureaucratic-administrative state structure to comprehend and support.

The India-centricity of the security perception has also proved beneficial for the bureaucracy, as opposed to the political leadership, in claiming a larger chunk of the state resources. The consistently high military expenditure and all benefits claimed by the military are directly linked to the linear projection of threat. The military's dominance of the country's power politics has resulted in maintaining the linearity of the security perception. It is the army's preponderance in domestic politics that has also forced the political leadership to maintain the specified course of action.

Over the past 50 years, the India factor has gained such prominence in the national psyche that it is considered politically risky to make any changes in the foreign and defence policies that would have some semblance of a compromise with India. This makes it very difficult for the politically elected governments to make significant changes in the security policy or change the structure of relations with India. The ouster of the Nawaz Sharif government in October, 1999 bears witness to this fact. The fate of the Sharif government is not just a random event but symptomatic of the marginal space that the political leadership has in dictating the course of policies in areas that are of direct interest to the armed forces.

Some academics see other patterns in Pakistan's policymaking as well. For instance, Samina Yasmeen has identified three distinct groups that influence the security discourse: (a) surrender group advocates reliance on the U.S., (b) independence group advocates building linkages with other countries on the basis of the economic imperative and (c) Muslim group proposes political and security alignment based on religious ideology. This is quite a pertinent analysis. Nawaz Sharif was certainly moved by the economic imperative to negotiate peace with India in 1999 that provides credence to the presence of the second group identified by Yasmeen in her article. However, the military that overturned the peace initiative through launching the Kargil campaign was clearly averse to Sharif's approach. Ultimately, after the October 1999 coup, policies were again controlled by the bureaucracy that saw the world through its prism of threat only. The military would not have allowed any political leader to sacrifice Kashmir. At the end of the day, the issue has become the core of military's standpoint and the issue through which it maintains its prominent position in the country's power politics.

As opposed to Yasmeen's categorisation, one can identify three other classifications: (a) ultra-conventional, (b) conventional and (c) progressive-pacifist. The ultra-conventional denote the segment of the decision-making elite that holds an extreme view of Indian policies. Incidentally, a large number of the civil and military bureaucrats, the religious and political elite belong to this school of thought. The second group (conventionalist) believe that India's agenda is not to destroy Pakistan but to influence it into subordination. Even this formulation is highly unacceptable. In fact, this is a common thread between arguments made by the ultra-conventionalists and the conventionalists. For the military, which forms part of both schools, the idea of any Indian influence is unacceptable. This was obvious from the statement made by the Chairman Joint chiefs of Staff Committee (JCSC), General Aziz Khan recently. He was of the view that the problem was not Kashmir but India's attitude towards its smaller neighbours that it wanted to dominate.

The progressive-pacifist group represents, for the most part, the non-conventional liberals (in sociological terms). One can find members of this group mostly amongst the upper or upper-middle classes. In fact, where there is an issue of threat assessment, there is not a major difference between the thinking of all groups falling under these two different categories. Perhaps, the only difference relates to the thinking of people belonging to the 'Muslim' group who are known to attend to the issue of gaining power, not only as a counter balance against India, but as leaders of an independent Islamic block. This group, denoted by people like Lt. General (Retd.) Hamid Gul, owes its emergence to the war fought in Afghanistan during the 1980s. Although such people are limited in number, the experience during the Afghan crisis convinced them that Pakistan's purpose was greater than its current existence as a medium-sized military power that could not project its strength beyond South Asia.

These people from the military, especially those who came in contact with militants fighting in Afghanistan and later, Kashmir and other fronts, saw unconventional military means as a mode of averting the politico-economic power balance that was tilted in the favour of western states like the U.S. However, even these people refuse to de-link Pakistan from the Kashmir issue. Another fact worth mentioning is that the entire philosophy of installing a pro-Pakistan government in Afghanistan, which formed the basis or the starting point for the thinking of the 'Muslim' group, was directly linked with the military logic of gaining territory that could provide Islamabad with strategic depth in its future wars with India. The India factor was obvious even in this segment of strategic thinking. However, this conformity to the single-source threat perception can also be attributed to two factors: (a) military personnel (retired or serving) would never risk propagating a change in policy for the fear of losing access to the perks and privileges provided to them as part of the armed forces, and (b) the non-state actors or the jihadis, who are their associates, are of the view that Kashmir could prove a vital launching pad.

This perception of Pakistan as the strategic hub of the Islamic world was ridden with two peculiarities that are worth mentioning. First, this identity was closely linked to the sunni orthodox religious school that cannot co-exist politically with other sects. This was one of the reasons for the acute discomfort with countries like Iran. It was a Muslim state but subscribing to a different Islamic sect. Also, Islamabad's engagement with the Taliban regime put it at cross-purposes with Iran. The Afghan policy proved detrimental for the bilateral relations between the two neighbouring Muslim states. Second, the Islamists developed, what I would term, a mild anti-Americanism that one finds contradictory to the basic philosophy pursued by the state. While a limited segment saw the U.S. as a symbol of western capitalism and exploitation, it could not think of adopting an independent course due to the state's excessive dependence on America for its security.

Strengthening Security
The continued dependency on the United States has three dimensions. First, from a bureaucratic-organisational standpoint this can be viewed primarily as an issue of vested interests. Since the end of the 1950s when Pakistan joined the military pacts, SEATO and CENTO, Islamabad's bureaucracy was attracted to the financial and other resources that were provided by Washington. The military establishment has a strong bias in favour of America as a source for weapons acquisitions. Second, the bureaucratic-organisational imperative is extended to the military's dependence on the U.S. to gain legitimacy. The support and acknowledgement rendered by the U.S. to military regimes provides for a strong bond between the two countries. In the current political scenario in Pakistan, there are some who even suggest that an increased sense of insecurity at home would push General Pervez Musharraf deeper into the American lap.

Third, a politico-strategic perspective, alignment with the U.S. has suited Pakistan for acquiring quality weapons and in counter-balancing India. Convinced of the fact that New Delhi would never negotiate a final settlement of the Kashmir dispute, Islamabad has always wanted to use a multilateral approach by bringing the U.S. in the middle of this bilateral conflict. It is believed that it is only the U.S. that could talk to India from a position of strength. The U.S. is seen as part of the 'security' network required to keep India at bay in more than one way. Traditionally, Washington is also viewed as an essential source for acquiring the necessary technology that Pakistan is unable to due to its limited economic capacity to buy weapons 'off the shelf.' In fact, Pakistan's major foreign alignments or relations with other states are primarily driven by the singular agenda of acquiring military technology that could bolster Islamabad's military capacity in responding effectively to a potential Indian threat. This is the strategic picture in which the U.S. becomes significant.

Incidentally, Pakistan's policymakers have never taken a holistic view towards security whereby political, economic and social securities are strengthened to guarantee better military security. The fact is that the country's economic backwardness that has resulted in its dependence on foreign sources for economic survival has never allowed it to build a strong defence against external forces. The absence of political stability, for which the army is equally responsible, has not allowed sound economic progress. However, the military leadership persists in pursuing the goals of its organisation's dominance in the political system.

Pakistan's military views America as a potential source for the acquisition of superior quality conventional weapons. Weapons procured from America during the 1950s, the 1960s, and the 1980s had considerably strengthened the military's position in not only standing up to the perceived threat from India, but also challenging it. This was apparent in the 1962 limited conflict in Sir Creek and later during 'Operation Gibraltar.' The convergence of views between Islamabad and Washington has never been easy. In fact, towards the end of the presidency of Bush (senior), there were serious problems due to Islamabad's nuclear proliferation activities resulting in the U.S. arms embargo in October, 1990.

Washington had used carrot and stick policy to dissuade its South Asian ally from proliferation. The approach did not work primarily because: (a) the U.S. was, at best, seen as a temporary ally that would not offer any security guarantees against India, (b) Pakistan's policymakers were conscious of the growing American interest in India, (c) Pak-U.S. views were divergent on India, and (d) an independent military capability was necessary for solving the Kashmir issue and standing up to New Delhi's 'hegemonic' designs. The general feeling amongst the military top brass is that the U.S. would never put sufficient pressure on India to solve the issue unless there was reason for Washington