On December 16, 2014, the brutal massacre at the Army Public School (APS) in Peshawar shattered a decade-long strategic paralysis. In the lexicon of politics, specific events are often categorized as critical junctures. Moments of fluidity where established institutions and policies are abruptly upended, allowing for a radical divergence from the past. The APS attack was precisely such a juncture for Pakistan. It marked the definitive transition from a state of cognitive dissonance regarding terrorism to a posture of total war.
Before 2014, Pakistan’s counter-terrorism narrative was plagued by a profound confusion. For years, the discourse was dominated by what can be called externalization. A significant portion of the political and societal elite viewed domestic terrorism not as an organic, ideological threat, but as blowback to state policies or foreign intervention (specifically the US war in Afghanistan).
States, like individuals, need a consistent sense of self to function. For decades, Pakistan’s strategic identity was constructed around the notion of resisting external hegemony. Admitting that the existential threat was actually internal and ideological threatened this stable sense of self. The blowback argument served as a convenient shield. If terrorism was merely a reaction to drone strikes or military operations, then the solution was appeasement or disengagement. This logic led to the stasis seen in early 2014, where peace talks were prioritized even as the Taliban encroached on state writ.
The Catalyst
The APS attack fundamentally altered this dynamic by forcing a consensus that politics could not. The Copenhagen School of security studies, argues that for a society to accept extraordinary measures (like military courts or total war), an issue must be elevated above normal political debate, a process known as securitization. Usually, this requires political leaders to convince the public through rhetoric.
In the case of APS, however, it wasn’t a speech or a state narrative that shifted the paradigm, it was the undeniable horror of the event itself. Prior to APS, the state had struggled to convince the public that the TTP (Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan) was an existential threat. There was always a counter-narrative of sympathy or justification. The brutality of December 16, targeting children in a school, bypassed all political filters. It targeted the most vulnerable part of society.
The tragedy cut through the blowback justification instantly. One could argue about foreign policy or drone strikes when soldiers were attacked, but there was no theoretical framework in the world that could frame the mass execution of children as a legitimate reaction to state policy.
The audience (the Pakistani public) unanimously accepted that the threat was absolute. This organic consensus forced the state to implement the National Action Plan (NAP), which included extraordinary measures like military courts and the resumption of capital punishment, actions that would have been politically impossible just weeks prior.
Othering of the Terrorist
Interests of states are defined by identities. Post-APS, Pakistan underwent a rapid reconstruction of its national identity vis-à-vis religious extremism.
Before the attack, the terrorist was often viewed through a confused lens of religious kinship or anti-imperialist resistance. After APS, the terrorist was successfully othered. The media, civil society, and the state apparatus found themselves aligned in constructing a new identity for the militant: the Khawarij (an outcast sect in Islamic history known for violence). By using religious terminology to condemn the attackers, the narrative shifted naturally.
The songs like “Bara Dushman Bana Phirta Hai” were not just songs, they were a cultural artifact of this shift. They re-framed the terrifying insurgent not as a holy warrior, but as a coward attacking children. This stripped the TTP of their ideological legitimacy. This delegitimization is as crucial as kinetic military operations. Insurgencies survive on popular support or apathy; by killing the apathy, the society cut off the insurgency’s oxygen.
The Resurgent Threat
The legacy of APS was the transition of Pakistan from a soft state, unable to enforce its will, to a hard state willing to employ maximum force to ensure survival. However, this victory is proving to be cyclical rather than permanent. While terrorist incidents hit a historic low in 2020, the strategic environment has deteriorated following the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan in 2021.
The threat is mutating but echoing its dark past. Recent attempts to replicate APS-style complex attacks in Wana, alongside the blowing up of empty schools in border regions, serve as grim reminders that the ideology has not been defeated, only displaced. We are facing a threat that is the same but different, emboldened by external sanctuaries yet driven by the same internal hatred.
Scholars of the Security-Development Nexus argue that security cannot be maintained solely through kinetic gains; it requires constant political vigilance. The consensus forged in the grief of 2014 is fraying just as the enemy is regrouping. To counter this, Pakistan needs more than just military operations, it requires a renewed, nationwide resolution, a fresh social consensus that recognizes this second wave of terror cannot be fought with the fatigue of the past.
