The Arsonist in the Fire Brigade: Why the West’s Gamble on Pakistan in Gaza Is a Global Security Risk

Introduction: The Illusion of a Solution

In the scorched landscape of Gaza, where the dust of relentless war settles over a vacuum of

governance, the international community is searching for an answer that promises order without escalation. Washington seeks an exit strategy from an open ended crisis. Tel Aviv seeks security buffers. Sections of the Arab world seek a force that appears legitimate to the

Palestinian street. In this volatile geopolitical marketplace, a familiar actor has re emerged with an old sales pitch Pakistan.

Reports suggest that Islamabad is quietly positioning itself as a potential peacekeeping partner in post war Gaza, presenting itself as a neutral Muslim force capable of stabilizing the territory. To exhausted Western policy makers, the proposition appears tempting. Pakistan possesses one of the world’s largest standing armies, long experience in United Nations peacekeeping missions, and religious credentials that might offer surface legitimacy in a deeply polarized conflict zone.

Yet international security cannot be built on optics alone. When track records are ignored in

favour of convenience, the consequences are rarely confined to one theatre. The uncomfortable but necessary question therefore must be asked. Is Pakistan a firefighter ready to contain the blaze in Gaza, or an arsonist seeking the keys to the fire station.

This is not a debate about intentions. It is a question of structure, capability, and historical

behaviour. When examined through the lens of strategic realism, political sociology, and India’s decades long experience with Pakistan’s military establishment, the answer is unsettlingly clear. Pakistan is not offering to stabilize Gaza for humanitarian reasons. It is offering to lease its military in order to sustain itself. Inviting the Pakistani military establishment into the Israel Hamas equation does not represent innovation. It represents the recycling of a failed containment strategy that has repeatedly produced blowback for the West, strengthened radical networks, and destabilized entire regions.

The Economics of the Gun and the Overdeveloped State

To understand why Pakistan is volunteering for one of the most complex and dangerous missions in the Middle East, one must look not at its diplomatic rhetoric but at its political economy. Pakistan is currently navigating a deep economic crisis. Inflation has eroded public livelihoods, debt servicing dominates fiscal planning, and foreign exchange reserves remain fragile. At the same time, the military continues to command disproportionate economic and political power.

This contradiction is best explained through the framework of Hamza Alavi, who described Pakistan as an overdeveloped state. In such states, the military bureaucratic elite operates autonomously from society, dominating institutions while remaining insulated from democratic accountability. The armed forces are not merely instruments of national policy. They are corporate actors with institutional survival as their central objective.

Within this framework, conflict becomes opportunity. For decades, Pakistan has functioned as a geopolitical rentier. Its primary exports have not been industrial goods or technology but strategic utility and military services. During the Cold War, it rented its geography to the United States against the Soviet Union. During the War on Terror, it rented logistics and access to NATO while playing a double game on the ground.

Since the United States withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, this rent stream has diminished. Gaza now appears as a new arena through which Pakistan can reinsert itself into Western strategic relevance. For Pakistan Army chief Asim Munir, Gaza is not merely a humanitarian catastrophe. It is a financial and diplomatic lifeline. A deployment promises renewed engagement with Washington, leverage with international financial institutions, and external funding that can subsidize a bloated military apparatus without domestic reform.

This is mercenary diplomacy by another name. It mirrors the post 2001 arrangement in which Pakistan received billions in aid to fight terrorism while simultaneously sheltering and enabling militant groups. Hiring Pakistan for Gaza would mean contracting a force whose institutional incentives align with conflict management rather than conflict resolution.

Capability and the Illusion of Exportable Stability

Peacekeeping requires discipline, cohesion, and internal stability. Pakistan currently lacks all three. The idea that the Pakistan Army can stabilize Gaza while struggling to secure its own territory borders on strategic fantasy.

On its western frontier, the Tehrik i Taliban Pakistan continues to mount regular attacks on military installations and convoys. The strategic depth doctrine that once guided Pakistan’s support for the Taliban in Afghanistan has backfired catastrophically, producing a militant ecosystem that now targets the Pakistani state itself. In Balochistan, insurgent groups have grown more sophisticated, striking high value targets and challenging the state’s writ over critical infrastructure linked to the China Pakistan Economic Corridor.

Simultaneously, Pakistan faces an unprecedented civil military legitimacy crisis. The imprisonment of former prime minister Imran Khan and the visible manipulation of electoral processes have shattered the army’s carefully cultivated image as a national guardian. For the first time in decades, the military is confronting widespread domestic dissent.

A force stretched thin by insurgency, political unrest, and legitimacy deficits does not possess surplus capacity for external stabilization missions. Deploying troops to Gaza under such conditions risks importing Pakistan’s internal instability into one of the most volatile conflict zones on earth. Stability cannot be exported by a state that manufactures insecurity at home.

Fungibility and the Threat to South Asia

From a Western perspective, Gaza may appear geographically distant from South Asia. Structurally, it is not. There exists a well documented principle in economics known as fungibility. Resources provided for one purpose free up domestic capacity for other uses. In Pakistan’s case, history demonstrates that military aid is never contained to the theatre for which it is intended.

The most telling example occurred in February 2019, when Pakistan deployed United States supplied F 16 aircraft and advanced missile systems against India following the Pulwama terror attack. These assets had been provided under the justification of counter terrorism operations, not interstate conflict. Yet when opportunity arose, they were redirected eastward.

Any funding or advanced technology provided to Pakistan for Gaza would follow the same pattern. Resources allocated for peacekeeping would reduce pressure on Pakistan’s defence budget, enabling increased focus on the Line of Control in Kashmir. Surveillance tools, urban warfare training, and intelligence exposure gained in Gaza would eventually seep into the South Asian theatre, either through state channels or through militant proxies.

By financing Pakistan in Gaza, Western states would indirectly subsidize the militarization of South Asia and reinforce a military establishment that thrives on the narrative of perpetual conflict with India.

Ideology and the Trojan Horse Problem

Perhaps the most underestimated risk lies in ideology. Effective peacekeeping demands neutrality. Pakistan’s statecraft has long relied on the selective weaponization of political Islam. The distinction between good and bad militants remains embedded in its security doctrine.

There exists a deep ideological overlap between the Muslim Brotherhood ecosystem from which Hamas draws legitimacy and the Jamaat e Islami tradition that underpins Pakistan’s proxy groups such as Lashkar e Taiba and Jaish e Mohammed. This ideological continuum raises serious questions about Pakistan’s willingness to dismantle Hamas’s military infrastructure.

Domestic political realities further constrain Islamabad. A Pakistani force seen disarming Hamas on behalf of Israel would face severe backlash at home. The risk is not merely passive tolerance but active management of militant structures, ensuring they remain controlled rather than eliminated. Gaza, under such an arrangement, would remain a managed conflict zone rather than a rebuilding society.

India, West Asia, and a Changing Regional Order

Pakistan’s assumption that the Arab world will support its Gaza pitch also ignores shifting regional dynamics. India’s engagement with West Asia has undergone a structural transformation over the past decade. Relations with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar are no longer transactional. They are strategic.

India today is a key energy partner, a major trading nation, and a trusted security interlocutor in the Gulf. Bilateral trade volumes have surged, investment partnerships have deepened, and defence and intelligence cooperation has become institutionalized. Over nine million Indians live and work across the Gulf, forming a stable and trusted diaspora.

Cultural confidence has accompanied economic integration. The inauguration of ISKCON temples in Gulf countries reflects acceptance rather than suspicion. These states increasingly view India as predictable, non ideological, and development focused.

Pakistan, by contrast, is perceived as economically fragile and ideologically volatile. Gulf capitals seeking stability and growth are unwilling to import Pakistan’s internal dysfunction into Gaza. They are not buying Islamabad’s narrative.

Conclusion:

The Cost of Strategic Amnesia For over seventy years, Western powers have attempted to use the Pakistan Army as a stabilize for hire force. Each attempt has ended in unintended consequences. The Cold War produced radicalized militias. The War on Terror ended with the Taliban back in Kabul. Nuclear non proliferation efforts were undermined by the A Q Khan network.

Considering Pakistan for Gaza is not innovation. It is repetition. As classical realist Hans Morgenthau warned, states act in pursuit of power, not morality. And as structural realist Kenneth Waltz argued, systems reward behaviour that sustains power, not peace.

The Pakistan Army is an institution that requires conflict to justify its dominance and funding. It does not resolve crises. It monetizes them.

The international community faces a clear choice. It can pursue a difficult but genuine international or Arab led stabilization framework for Gaza. Or it can choose the convenient option of Pakistan, guaranteeing that today’s peacekeeping funds become tomorrow’s weapons and tomorrow’s wars.

India’s warning is drawn from experience, not rivalry. Do not hand the arsonist the fire hose. History shows he will sell the water while the building continues to burn.