INSURGENCY AND GREAT POWER POLITICS: AN APPRAISAL OF HYBRID WARFARE IN THE CONTEXT OF BALOCHISTAN’S INSURGENCY

Abstract

Nationalist-driven insurgency in Balochistan has entered into an era of hybrid warfare. The deep-rooted frustration of the Baloch people being ignited and exploited by the regional adversaries of Pakistan so as to gain politico-economic leverages in the region. Balochistan having excessive reserves of energy and natural resources and geographically contiguous with resource rich CARs and Iran further attract the states to extract share in the crisis. Geo-strategic and geo-economic significance of the province has also multiplied due to the initiation of CPEC and Gwadar port project. However, all these advantages will remain in limbo until nationalist-cum-religious insurgencies in Balochistan are addressed. The situation is going to be intensified as it is perceived that an alliance between TTP and Baloch rebellious groups have been concluded to assist each other in their operational activities to gain settled objectives. In this scenario, the great powers will also settle their scores with active assistance of bordering states to further aggravate the already deplorable security condition in Balochistan. Although, the successive governments are gradually channelizing the genuine political and economic demands by announcing various public-oriented projects to improve the wellbeing of the people of Balochistan, on ground, the challenges are terrifying to deal. The current research focuses religio-nationalist insurgency with meddling of great and regional powers politics by employing the ‘frustration aggression theory’ advanced by Dollard, Doob, Miller, Mowrer, and Sears to understand Balochistan’s insurgency and its possible outcomes.