Since Pakistan was founded in 1947, its army has dominated the state. The military establishment has locked the country in an enduring rivalry with India, with the primary aim of wresting Kashmir from it. To that end, Pakistan initiated three wars over Kashmir-in 1947, 1965, and 1999-and failed to win any of them. Today, the army continues to prosecute this dangerous policy by employing non-state actors under the security of its ever-expanding nuclear umbrella. It has sustained a proxy war in Kashmir since 1989 using Islamist militants, as well as supporting non-Islamist insurgencies throughout India and a country-wide Islamist terror campaign that have brought the two countries to the brink of war on several occasions. In addition to these territorial revisionist goals, the Pakistani army has committed itself to resisting India's slow but inevitable rise on the global stage.
Despite Pakistan's efforts to coerce India, it has achieved only modest successes at best. Even though India vivisected Pakistan in 1971, Pakistan continues to see itself as India's equal and demands the world do the same. The dangerous methods that the army uses to enforce this self-perception have brought international opprobrium upon Pakistan and its army. And in recent years, their erstwhile proxies have turned their guns on the Pakistani state itself.
Why does the army persist in pursuing these revisionist policies that have come to imperil the very viability of the state itself, from which the army feeds? In Fighting to the End, C. Christine Fair argues that the answer lies, at least partially, in the strategic culture of the army. Through an unprecedented analysis of decades' worth of the army's own defense publications, she concludes that from the army's distorted view of history, it is victorious as long as it can resist India's purported drive for regional hegemony as well as the territorial status quo. Simply put, acquiescence means defeat. Fighting to the End convincingly shows that because the army is unlikely to abandon these preferences, Pakistan will remain a destabilizing force in world politics for the foreseeable future.
Industry Reviews
"In this painstakingly developed and brilliantly argued book, one of America's leading South Asia scholars examines Pakistan's chronic insecurities and grand ideological ambitions that generate high levels of conflict for itself, the region, and the world. Using extensive primary and secondary sources, Christine Fair shows conclusively that Pakistan is insecure not only for its inability to obtain Kashmir, but due to a civilizational notion that it ought to be
a co-equal with India and that it should employ all means, including Jihadist violence, to obtain strategic parity with its larger neighbor. Her findings have far-reaching consequences and immense
policy implications." --T.V. Paul, McGill University, and author of The Warrior State
"Provocative and essential: this book will make you think seriously about one of the world's newest danger points." --Stephen P. Cohen, Brookings Institution, and author of Shooting for a Century
"Pakistan is at an historical crossroads yet again. It needs to clearly define its future by ending the ambivalence about good and bad militancy. Either it becomes a successful democratic entity with a thriving economy or it heads into debilitating internal and external conflict. Fair's penetrating critique of its mid-level military narratives, often charged with Islamist dogma, is a must-read for both civilian and military leaders, as they seek a course
correction in their domestic governance and relations with friends and foes." --Shuja Nawaz, Director, South Asia Center, Atlantic Council, and author of Crossed Swords
"Pakistan's dominant institution, the army, has embraced an anti-Indian Islamo-nationalism that alone can explain some of its less professional institutional decisions. In her well-researched book, Fair analyzes the ideological underpinnings of the Pakistan army's strategic culture. It is a valuable addition to the literature on the subject with original material often overlooked by scholars in the past." --Husain Haqqani, former Pakistan ambassador to the US,
and author of Magnificent Delusions
"In this book, Fair combines a deep knowledge of South Asia with insights from international relations theory. It provides a compelling assessment of Pakistan's strategic behavior focused on the preferences of the most important institution in the country -- the Pakistani Army. The book is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the security environment in this important region of the world." --S. Paul Kapur, U.S. Naval Postgraduate School
" Dr. Christine Fair, in this scholarly and well researched masterpiece of Pakistan's defense literature, brings out the strategic culture of the Pakistan army... This book is a must read for all policy planners in India and the United States. This would help them shed many of their illusions and accept realities howsoever uncomfortable." --Maulimuses
"Professor C. Christine Fair, a security studies expert at Georgetown University, has produced a formidably comprehensive evaluation of what keeps the Pakistan army ticking, to what end and through what means... Professor Fair's solidly academic account should have no difficulty finding its way to the top of the charts and the hands of both the Pakistani and non-Pakistani civil and military planners, where it rightly belongs." --Daily Times
"Fair, a well-known American scholar of the subcontinent, offers powerful insights into the sources of the army's dominance and examines the prospects for a potential change in the coming years... By poring over its official publications, examining its self-beliefs and tracking its evolution as an institution, Fair comes to some definitive conclusions that compel all those who have business to do with Pakistan to rethink their assumptions." --The Indian
Express
"Fair's excellent scholarship makes it amply clear how dangerous Pakistan's deep-rooted contradictions and convictions are." --Live Mint
"Fighting to the End breaks new ground in scholarship on Pakistan. It provides revealing insights in to why Pakistan is hell bent on pursuing such strategic policies which hurt it the most." --Indian Defence Review
"Professor C. Christine Fair, a security studies expert at Georgetown University, has produced a formidably comprehensive evaluation of what keeps the Pakistan army ticking, to what end and through what means... Professor Fair's solidly academic account should have no difficulty finding its way to the top of the charts and the hands of both the Pakistani and non-Pakistani civil and military planners, where it rightly belongs." --Pakedu.net
"Fighting to the End is an exhaustive, illuminating and empirically rich work. It is a valuable book because the author carefully interprets the role Pakistan plays in its region, which has broader international ramifications. For these reasons, this volume is likely to become an indispensable read not only for students and academics interested in deepening their understanding of Pakistan, but also for policymakers in Europe and the US alike."
--Commonwealth & Comparative Politics
" ... a very well researched and insightful book that draws upon on years of interaction with the Pakistani military, and a deep immersion in the professional literature by which it educates its officer class." --Mike Markowitz, StrategyPage
"Christine Fair's incredibly well-researched book, the product of decades of engagement with Pakistan, pulls no punches. She analyses the role of the Pakistani army in the internal politics of Pakistan, but unlike Ayesha Siddiqa's similarly excellent work Military Inc.: Inside Pakistan's Military Economy (Pluto Press, 2007), she concentrates on the international dimensions of the policies pursued by the Pakistani army and the implications that this has
for regional and international security." --Political Studies Review
