Long-time South Asia watchers catalogue the causes of praetorianism and insurgency like folklore refrains: corruption, poverty, tribalism, civil-military disputes, the thwarted ambitions of the underprivileged and the under-served and ranging ambitions of the power-hungry, imbalances between small and large economies, and, of course, the predations of foreign powers. Frayed links between society and polity – whether colonial inheritance or local creation – repeatedly damage the capacity of states and citizens alike to withstand the inevitable uncertainties of poverty and disappointments of missed opportunities. No surprise, then, each conflict-affected government has failed to live up to its promise and deliver promised goods.
And so wars have returned, in all their humanitarian and political complexity, to cut an insidious, broad swath through the region’s governance. Despite armies, police and patrols, every tactically permeable border reflects compromised political authority – for what is the first job of government if not to protect borders and in so doing, create the conditions for economic stability and progress? Exiled Kashmiri insurgents gain entrance to their country through Nepal and bring Pakistani intelligence trailing behind; drug dealers elude sanction-conscious Iran by traversing the mountain passes to Central Asia, thus compromising the Afghan border; arms trans-shipments make their way to Sri Lanka; and of course, Kashmir’s Line of Control separating India from Pakistan turns porosity into artwork. Afghanistan’s Hamid Karzai repeatedly cautions that "terrorism has no boundaries."
War changes everything, and the longer it endures, the harder it becomes to recalibrate the basic equations of governance. The weak hand that state actors have dealt to themselves, of course, makes commerce complicit in conflict. Thirty years of battle fatigue in Afghanistan have turned tribal leaders into warlords whose economic interests are easier to satisfy by eluding legality – trading opium and weapons – than by following the law. Pakistan’s endless disputes between army and politicians have turned the country’s governing apparatus from one big feudal calculus to one big military calculation. Bangladesh, on the cusp of new elections, has once again hardened personal acrimony into a way of political life that leaves the state open to every kind of criticism.