Abstract
This article examines Pakistan’s use of asymmetric warfare as an instrument of  foreign policy toward India since 1947 and in Afghanistan since the 1960s.
Pakistan’s use of asymmetric warfare, although dating back to 1947, did  not aggressively expand beyond Kashmir until Islamabad acquired first a  covert “existential” nuclear capability in the 1980s and later an overt nuclear  capability in 1998. After describing the complex contemporary landscape of  Islamist militancy in Pakistan and the relationship between these groups and  the state, as well as between religious and political organizations, this article  contends that jihad is sustained by important segments of Pakistani society that endorse “militant jihad” in general and specific militant groups and operations in particular. Given Pakistan’s enduring security concerns about India’s ascent, Islamabad is unlikely to abandon militancy as a tool of policy, even while the government battles former proxies who have turned their guns—and suicide vests—on the Pakistani state and their former patrons.
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