ABSTRACT
The events of September 11, 2001, transformed almost overnight the security circumstances of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. In fact, it can be argued that no country's security orientation was more drastically altered in the period following the terrorist attacks on the United States. This dynamic has historic roots. Born of the same colonial entity as the Republic of India, Pakistan began as a geographical oddity at both the northeastern and northwestern reaches of British India, created as a homeland to the Muslims of the Asian subcontinent. Partition became official on August 14, 1947, and the ensuing communal turmoil brought about the violent deaths of up to one million people and the forced migration of millions more. Within two months the new countries were fighting a war over the disputed princely state of Jammu and Kashmir in the northwest. Nearly six decades later, bitter ethnonational, communal, and territorial conflicts remain unresolved and continue to haunt South Asia and the global community. These conflicts also have shaped Pakistan's strategic choices and involvement with regional Islamic militancy in ways that have direct bearing upon the new century's global War on Terrorism and upon Pakistan's leading and controversial role within that framework.
