Understanding the nature and enormity of terrorism and counter-terrorism in all its configuration is very important, it poses one of the primary security threats to a state. Terrorists use violence as a tool to create unrest in a society which helps them to gain social space. To achieve their objectives, they use the social space to translate their strategic interests, media particularly social media provides them with ample space among the masses to introduce and reinforce their narratives. The narrative plays a pivotal role in the warfare against terrorism. Violent acts, blasts, and other extremist activities are the means to achieve their cold-blooded objectives. In terrorism, at times there is no informed force to fight, instead, the state machinery has to face the faceless factions. International structure, such as major powers poses a significant impact on terrorism. In the era of transformation, terrorist organizations were and are still used as policy tools by major powers to secure their foreign policy objectives, and even sometimes small states behave alike. The role of geopolitics cannot be underestimated in this regard, India supports the anti-state insurgent groups and other terrorist organizations to destabilize Pakistan and also buoyed the insurgency in Baluchistan for their political and geopolitical scoring.
Fighting terrorism requires a huge sum of capital, Pakistan has invested more than 100 billion dollars in the war against terrorism. Apart from this, the cost of human lives is unmeasurable because more than 80000 civilian and armed personnel have lost their blood to this fight and even after this the world is suspicious about Pakistan and its stance against terrorists. Pakistan has gained very impressive success in its kinetic engagements against terrorists, but there is a need to translate these successes on the political and societal level. Similarly, People are the center of gravity to defeat terrorism, the environment within which the masses exist is very significant. Pakistan is at a stage where it needs to address its masses immediately because the solution to this problem lies in the socio-economic stability and if the state wants its citizens not to be played by foreign sources then immediate reforms in the judicial system and distribution of resources and power at the local level through the political institutions is required, as in the words of David Galula, the issue of terrorism is 80% in political and 20% in the military domain.
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