"Military hardliners called me a 'security threat' for promoting peace in South Asia and for supporting a broad-based government in Afghanistan"

Benazir Bhutto distills the paradox of a militarized political culture: diplomacy and pluralism recast as danger. Her words expose a clash between two conceptions of security. One, held by military hardliners, centers on permanent vigilance against India, influence in Afghanistan, and the preservation of institutional primacy at home. The other, which she championed, locates security in de-escalation, economic interdependence, civilian supremacy, and regional cooperation.

Promoting peace in South Asia threatened entrenched narratives that justify large security budgets, opaque decision-making, and the use of proxy actors. Any opening to India, dialogue on Kashmir, trade, cross-border cultural exchange, was easily framed as softness or capitulation. For a civilian leader to pursue these steps risked shrinking the military’s domain and altering the nation’s identity from siege to coexistence. Labeling her a “security threat” thus served a political function: it disciplined civilian authority and warned against redefining national interests beyond the battlefield.

Her reference to Afghanistan is equally revealing. After the Soviet withdrawal, Pakistan’s security establishment sought “strategic depth,” preferring a compliant Kabul, often through Islamist proxies, to preempt Indian influence. Bhutto advocated a broad-based Afghan government, an inclusive order reflecting Afghanistan’s ethnic and political diversity. Such a settlement would reduce Pakistan’s leverage through favored factions, constrain covert instruments, and prioritize Afghan sovereignty over regional gamesmanship. Treating that vision as a threat illuminated how “security” had come to mean control rather than stability.

There is also a gendered undercurrent: a woman prime minister contesting a patriarchal security ethos, insisting that dialogue and rule of law are not naiveties but safeguards. Her statement indicts the securitization of politics, where dissenting policy is equated with disloyalty. It invites a reframing: real security lies in normalizing relations with neighbors, dismantling militant patronage, empowering civilians, and embracing inclusive governance next door. The greatest danger, she suggests, is not peace, but the fear of it.