Pakistan is at war, but it is not a traditional one. The battleground lies not just in border areas and established battlegrounds. It is a war of ideas, a war of cultures, and a war about psyches. At the very heart of this struggle is a deliberate corruption of two fundamental systems that comprise the western frontier of the country: Pashtunwali and Islam. This is an equally pressing issue.

Pashtunwali has been co-opted by militants, turning traditional values into justifications for violence.

They have both been used by the militants, politicised sections of Pakistan’s power establishment, and foreign intelligence agencies. This manoeuvring forms a backdrop of a continuing proxy war being waged to destabilise not only the internal integrity but also the external image of Pakistan. At the root of the fight is an organising campaign against the legitimacy of the state by poisoning the very stories of community and faith, meaning and identity.

Pashtunwali is not a legal code but a way of life; the community, not an individual, defines what the code should be. Historically, values such as melmastia (hospitality), nanawatai (asylum seeking), badal (revenge), nang (honour), and jirga (council-based justice) have influenced self-governance where state authority is lacking. This was a flexible and consensual framework rooted in the desire to promote group harmony.

More recently, this code has been co-opted by violent non-state actors. Now, nanawatai is being used as a means to grant sanctuary, for example, to militants and fugitive terrorists. The Badal, which was in the past a system of restorative justice, is now used to rationalise suicide bombing and the murder of unarmed citizens. Tribal councils, called jirgas, which were focused on dialogue and the peaceful resolution of differences, have been replaced by informal courts led by men carrying weapons. These are not organs of our tribe; they are no longer vessels of tribal mores. They’re the punishers and enforcers, the punishers and enforcers who clothe themselves in the garb of tradition.

Islam has suffered due to its terrible distortion through malicious interpretation by factions that aim to create chaos. The likes of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other die-hard proponents of violent thought use provisions of Islam to justify crimes that are contrary to the teachings of the Holy Quran and Sunnah. It is essentially a matter of punitive execution in public, morality police, and religious harassment; Islamic teachings about legal procedure, mercy, and proportionate justice are often disregarded or dismissed.

The use of religion as a tool in politics and war is not new. But now, in the more developed civil war in Pakistan, it has been called a central strategy. The extremists justify their violence by quoting specific religious scriptures, disregarding the gentler legal institutions that surround these scriptures to promote mercy, justice, and the preservation of life. School children are being murdered, along with health workers, and mosques are being blown up; all these are allowed in Islam, but are condemned by all Muslims. Again, this goes against basic human principles.

Extremists misuse Islamic teachings to legitimize crimes contrary to the Quran and Sunnah.

Hijacking of Pashtunwali and Islam does not occur in a social vacuum. It takes place in a broader geo-strategic environment in which Pakistan is a victim of an ongoing proxy war with India. Friendly nations, particularly western countries, and the external intelligence units of less friendly neighbouring nations have been doing their best to capitalise on ethnic and religious impatience to fuel the flames of violence.

The agencies have provided arms, funds, as well as logistics and training support to armed groups operating in Pakistan’s tribal territories and border provinces. They don’t seek political rights or reform; they seek the collapse of the authority of the state and draw legitimacy from contributing to the prolongation of civil strife. Granted, this support has been explicitly directed at Pashtunwali and Islam, in what has been an ongoing proxy war, a war to normalise and entrench the undermining of Pakistani internal and external defences.

Although the Afghan Taliban, when upholding the Pashtunwali code -especially when applying the concept of Nanawatai (granting asylum) are quick to justify hosting TTP militants, this portrayal is both a perverted interpretation of traditional customs and a blatant disrespect for their neighbours’ rights and security.

The TTP is not some displaced tribe people looking for refuge; it is a banned terrorist organisation that has brutally killed civilians, security forces and religious minorities in Pakistan. There is no room for cultural relativism when accommodating actors can abuse cultural traditions to find it. Maintaining Pashtunwali must not be done at the cost of supporting trans-border terrorism on the pretext of honour or brotherhood.

This approach has relied above all else on information warfare, which involves using information and misinformation to achieve strategic objectives. The real ethnicity movements, which have genuine grievances, such as accountability and fair development in the tribal areas, have been infiltrated and radicalised. Those who have something to worry about personally in the matter, and who have spoken, have had to live in terror of the fringes of the extreme Right. This combination delegitimises local forms of protest; it allows anti-local powers to define terrorism and resistance, chaos and freedom.

Information warfare fuels radicalization, undermining local grievances and delegitimizing peaceful protest.

You can feel the impact of this ideological capture. Targeted killings in Pakistan have seen an increase in recent years, including a particular rise in such killings in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Karachi. So the fact is that TTP networks have started regenerating themselves along the border, have a free operational zone on this side and have some enclaves of support on the other side tells you it’s about a systemic failure in border management and diplomatic engagement.” At the same time, state legitimacy, including among the former FATA population, has been undermined by socially unjust development policies and the absence of sustained civilian government.

Pakistan has to devise a multi-pronged strategy to deal with both the ideological and security/governance aspects of the threat. Narrative would be the first requirement; a narrative of the role of Islam, religion and state culture. This is a counter-narrative that goes back to Islamic tradition and challenges the militants’ theological assertions. Religious figures who can convincingly voice this message should be encouraged to do so in mosques, schools and the media. This counter-narrative that Islam is about some throw-back-to-the-past random violence needs to be debunked as the lie it is.

Second, the time has come to reclaim Pashtunwali from those who have sullied it. The elders of the local and tribal councils, community leaders, as well as teachers, have to reinstate the cultural sanctity of this code. We cannot allow Pashtun identity to legitimise acts of parallelised or armed resistance against the state itself. In exchange, state officials need to support and defend these stewards of tradition.

Third, development must follow security. Infrastructure, education, health and economic facilities are to be introduced step by step in the tribal districts. These have been ideological battlegrounds as well as military ones for decades. Now, they require long-term investment that prioritises dignity and inclusion. You can’t have it be responsive or seasonal development.” It needs to be strategic, durable and grounded locally.

Fourth, let’s realise that information warfare is a central national security issue. This requires counter-propaganda tools, media literacy programs, and better policing of digital platforms being exploited by foreign-funded actors. It’s not censorship that we need but a means by which to prevent people from being radicalised and forced into such stories. The state must not permit their ideological enemies to monopolise the state’s intentions or actions by default.

Fifth, terrorist safe havens across borders need to be addressed through diplomatic and coercive tools. No one country can afford to let armed elements plan and conduct attacks from its territory. But there must also be space for dialogue as the instrument of first resort, even as Pakistan demonstrates a preparedness to use force if needed, in response to ongoing violations of its national sovereignty.

Lastly, one also has to recognise that the war on proxy war, ideological subversion and cultural degradation cannot be fought by the security establishment alone. That is a fight we must all carry out, a fight that civil society, political parties and the media need to wage in unison and convergence of fundamental values. We need to send out a clear message that no set of cultural values can reflect one lost life, that no pretend religion can claim the high ground in the murder of innocents.

A comprehensive strategy must combine narrative reclamation, cultural restoration, development, and diplomatic efforts against safe havens.

Pakistan needs to approach things with discipline, clear-sightedness and patience. The enemy is adaptable, dispersed, and understands how to shadow that grey area between dissent and disruption. But the real power of the state lies in being able to reclaim its cultural and religious narrative, bring justice to its citizens, and restore public confidence.

This is not only about defeating insurgents. It is about protecting the nation’s intellectual and moral infrastructure. To win this war, Pakistan has to negotiate terms from a position of strength, and it has to have a vision for the future stability and life of all of its citizens, not only for immediate control and management.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. They do not represent the views, beliefs, or policies of the Stratheia.