“The Hammer State: How Pakistan Is Breaking What It Should Be Fixing.”

In recent months, Pakistan’s political climate has once again been defined by confrontations, clampdowns, and a familiar reliance on state force. From protests to press freedoms, the establishment’s response often appears uniform: tighten control, restrict space, and neutralize dissent. The pattern raises a pressing question — is the country still trying to govern, or merely trying to contain?

Abraham Maslow’s old warning, “When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail,” captures Pakistan’s dilemma with unsettling accuracy. For decades, successive governments and the security establishment have leaned on coercion as the default solution — a hammer swinging at every problem, even when the problem requires a completely different tool.

---

A State That Governs by Reflex, Not Strategy

Pakistan’s establishment has developed a habit of treating political disagreements, public frustration, and civic expression as matters of national security. Instead of interpreting unrest as a sign of deeper governance failures, it often responds as if it is dealing with hostile actors rather than its own population.

Protest movements are met with arrests.

Political disputes with bans.

Media criticism with pressure campaigns.

Student activism with surveillance.

These are not signs of a confident state — they are symptoms of a system ruled by reflex.

---

The Security Lens That Distorts Reality

The dominance of the security apparatus has created a political culture where security logic bleeds into every domain:

• Economic grievances are framed as destabilization attempts.

• Political competition is treated as a threat to “order.”

• Public criticism is interpreted as disloyalty.

This mind-set collapses the distinction between dissent and danger, pushing Pakistan into a perpetual cycle of crackdown and backlash. It’s an approach that might manage symptoms temporarily, but never addresses root causes.

---

The Cost of Ruling with a Hammer

Force may create silence, but it cannot create stability.

Pakistan today is witnessing the consequences:

• A frustrated youth population facing shrinking freedoms and opportunities.

• Polarized political forces unable to find space for dialogue.

• Reluctant investors wary of a system where unpredictability outpaces policy.

• A shrinking civic space, where journalists, activists, and citizens work under quiet threat.

These outcomes aren’t incidental — they are the natural result of substituting governance with enforcement.

---

Missing: The Tools Actually Needed for a Modern State

Pakistan is not short of talent, ideas, or energy.

It is short of political imagination.

A durable way forward requires tools the state rarely uses:

• Negotiation

• Institutional reform

• Economic planning

• Political inclusion

• Transparency

• Public participation

But each of these tools demands patience, accountability, and humility — traits that cannot flourish in a climate dominated by coercion.

---

The Question Pakistan Must Confront

As the country faces economic uncertainty, regional instability, and internal polarization, the establishment’s instinctive return to force feels less like strategy and more like habit.

Pakistan must decide whether it will continue to approach every challenge with a hammer — or finally build a toolkit worthy of its complexity.

Because no nation has ever secured stability by treating its own people as suspects.

And no society has ever progressed by silencing the conversations that could save it.

Nations grow when power is exercised with wisdom, restraint, and imagination.
Pakistan deserves no less.