Top Risks of 2011: In Pakistan, things fall apart

Posted By Ian Bremmer Monday, January 24, 2011 - 12:12 PM Share

By Ian Bremmer and David Gordon

Pakistan is experiencing a near perfect storm of political, economic, and social crises, and the Pakistan People's Party-led government is not equipped to manage the fallout. A full-on military coup like the one that brought Pervez Musharraf to power in 1999 is unlikely in 2011, but the government's ineptitude and a worsening security situation across the country could fuel still more unrest, encouraging the army to play a more direct and active role in the country's politics. President Asif Ali Zardari will fight any bid by the army to remove members of his inner circle from power, and even if the military were to install a technocratic administration, it would struggle to reverse the effects of years of weak governance.

Zardari and Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani face challenges on multiple fronts. Gilani is focused on rebuilding the ruling coalition and fighting a Supreme Court and media set on undermining Zardari and other senior PPP members. This political battle will continue to distract the government from addressing pressing problems, like the need for structural reforms to slow the expansion of a fiscal deficit that leaves the government little room to invest in much-needed development projects. It's hard to get accurate statistics on inflation and unemployment, but both are high enough to arouse widespread public anger. Food prices are a particular source of anxiety. Severe flooding has created emergency conditions. The government will continue to struggle to hold together a fractious parliamentary coalition.

The government has no political control in the unstable Federally Administered Tribal Areas and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (the new name for the Northwest Frontier Province). Nothing new there, but the bigger worry is that instability is spreading to the heart of the country and the provinces of Punjab and Sindh. Both have been relatively isolated from the turbulence of the tribal areas, but militants have been increasingly encouraged by the Pakistani government's weakness and the success of allies across the border in Afghanistan. The governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer, was assassinated in Islamabad just three weeks ago. Social upheaval is generating a surge in crime (including kidnappings, extortions, and robberies), protests, and other forms of unrest in Pakistan's large cities --especially Karachi. Further social and ethnic turmoil in the heart of the country might push the military to argue that urban unrest and terrorism are undermining national unity -- and that political change has become an urgent necessity.

These risks have clear implications for U.S. troops across the border. Following a sharp spike in the number of U.S. boots on the ground in Afghanistan, U.S. gains, though limited, are real. But they aren't sustainable without a much more stable Pakistan that can limit the militants' room for maneuver. That will require a political sea change in Karachi, and that's not in the cards for 2011.

On Wednesday, we'll examine Top Risk no. 9: Mexico, where the government's battle against drug cartels continues.

Ian Bremmer is president of Eurasia Group. David Gordon is the firm's head of research.

ASIF HASSAN/AFP/Getty Images

EXPLORE:SOUTH ASIA, PAKISTAN, TOP RISKS 2011
 

ENGINEER DAUD

10:05 AM ET

January 25, 2011

calorie-free content

Sorry, guys, but as a Pakistan-based USG officer, I found this post to be not much more than analytical meringue -- fluff, color, but no actual content. Political ruderlessness? Terrorism upticks? Backsliding on reform? Tell me something new. This article does not make any case why 2011 is more likely than 2010 was to see Pakistan truly melt down.

While there is certainly no shortage of bad news here, there are also some heartening signs, whether it's in the form of devolution of certain authorities to the provinces (governance), or the Pakistani army's resolute moves into Swat, Malakand, South Waziristan, Bajaur, and elsewhere.

One other fact that augurs against a military takeover is this: neither the PPP, nor its closest rival (the PML-N) has much of a love for the Army, and vice versa. So if the "Establishment," as it were, wanted to maneuver itself into politics, it would need to find a new proxy. Musharraf's creation of the APML might be interpreted as a test shot in exactly that direction. If so, then it has thus far failed to gain any traction whatsoever, either with the public or the political classes...

Underwhelming stuff, guys.

 

NICOLAS19

1:36 PM ET

January 25, 2011

absoultely agree

This series of "top risks of 2011" is a huge embarrassment for FP. A bunch of half-thought, half-written, arbitrary pieces which do nothing to elaborate the problems they are about. They could've been written years ago, without any research or thinking, just repeating the exact same phrases one can find in every newspaper.
It's time to bring this series to a premature - yet overdue - close.

 

MARTY MARTEL

2:59 PM ET

January 25, 2011

No worry - Pakistani Army owns & operates Pakistani State

Punjab and Sindh have been just as much terrorist hubs as Federally Administered Tribal Areas and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It is Western news media and governments who continue to spread the myth that they are not.

9/11 Commission report paints Karachi as the gateway to terrorism, drawing an elaborate picture of the 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed using the port city to plan the attack, gather the hijackers there, and put them through their paces. ''Much of his (KSM's) activity in mid-1999 had revolved around the collection of training and informational materials for the participants in the planes operation,” the 9/11 report says. ''For instance, he collected Western aviation magazines; telephone directories for American cities such as San Diego and Long Beach, California (from Karachi flea markets); brochures for schools; and airline timetables, and he conducted Internet searches on US flight schools.'' ''He also purchased flight simulator software and a few movies depicting hijackings. To house his students, KSM rented a safe house in Karachi with money provided by bin Laden,'' the report adds.

As such Pakistani governments - democratic as well as military ones - have created, nurtured, sheltered and supported innumerable terrorist outfits on Pakistani soil, forever changing their nomenclature to run circles around international sanctions and bans. In addition, it maintains seemingly endless supply of freelance non-state actors that allow it the fig-leaf of plausible deniability.

Fact is nobody forced Pakistani government to facilitate relocation of Osama bin Laden from Sudan to Afghanistan in 1996. Democratic government of Pakistan chose to do so of its own free will.

Nobody forced Pakistani Army and Intelligence to create this ‘jihadist Frankenstein’ monster in 1990s. Pakistani Army and Intelligence chose to do so with the full financing provided by Pakistan’s democratic governments at the time.

So these Western apologists have no cause to worry about Pakistan, no matter how much turmoil. All Pakistani leaders - civilian and military ones - know precisely what needs to be done to continue this gravy train of foreign aid. Pakistani Army owns and operates Pakistani state and allows this façade of democracy to exist to continue to milk Western donors with ever-increasing doses of foreign aid after General Musharraf had milked them for more than 10 billion dollars from 2001 to 2008.

 

The Call, from Ian Bremmer, uses cutting-edge political science to predict the political future -- and how it will shape the global economy.

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