Pakistan’s First National Security Policy Fails Amid Political Instability

News Desk
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s inaugural National Security Policy (NSP), introduced in 2022 under the PTI administration with a heavy emphasis on geo-economics and citizen-centric security, has effectively collapsed as it nears the end of its five-year tenure.
The ambitious framework, designed to pivot the country from traditional geopolitics toward economic security, has fallen short of its strategic objectives primarily due to deep-rooted political polarization and a chronic lack of institutional continuity.
When former prime minister Imran Khan unveiled the landmark document in January 2022, it was heralded as a paradigm shift for the nation’s security architecture.
However, the ouster of the PTI government just months later plunged the strategic blueprint into bureaucratic limbo. Successive administrations have since displayed a profound ownership gap, routinely discarding policy blueprints inherited from their predecessors in favor of partisan agendas.
The failure of the NSP underscores a wider systemic vulnerability within Pakistan’s governance structure, where long-term economic planning routinely falls victim to short-term political volatility.
Analysts note that without a broad-based political consensus transcending individual regimes, critical frameworks aimed at bolstering trade, regional connectivity, and domestic welfare will continue to flounder, leaving citizens bearing the brunt of erratic policymaking.
As the policy nears its formal expiration, stakeholders and policy experts are calling for a bipartisan charter of economy and security to insulate future strategic frameworks from political upheaval.
Without institutional safeguards ensuring policy continuity, subsequent government initiatives risk meeting the same forgotten fate as the 2022 security doctrine.