Our Generals, politicians etc come from the same stock i.e. the Pakistani population. Now, I have not lived in Pakistan but living outside and working with a range of people, including Indians, I have made some very key observations.
As individuals or as a nation, we often look at the end state first and what needs to be achieved. This is a plus but the flip side is, we immediately become defeated and fill ourselves up with pessimism, at least in the immediate term. We then try to fill others with pessimism and speak of doom and gloom that this long-term goal can not be achieved. If we have a choice, we would take the easy way out. However, once we realise there is no other option and this is the only that is the only time we settle in, still with our pessimism, and get to work and progress. Naturally, no path is without hurdles and obstacles, and we keep pointing out how bad of an idea this end state is and how we are now facing these new problems. But we keep working and solving the problem slowly and progressively and try to deflect the problems onto others. We keep labouring towards the end state. On the outside, people see us as quiet, secretive not because this is who we are but because we don't believe in what we do and doubt if we can accomplish it. So, when it does happen and we do achieve the end state, we become amazed at our achievement and start congratulating ourselves and the outside world is bewildered because they see a failing nation that just has achieved the unexpected at times even when the experts believe the end state is against all odds for the Pakistani people. We indirectly sell that perception either knowingly or unknowingly.
In contrast, the Indians simply jump in with short term goals, living day to day, hour to hour. You can't really blame them, it is a country of at least a billion people who are struggling to make ends meet and so it is the survival of the fittest. They would jump in, try to win even if they have to be dirt cheap (I see quotes from US and Indian companies and the price difference is often breathtaking). However, once they win (early victory), they don't usually have a strategy as to what to do with that with the exception of a primal view of things. This is why so many of their projects struggle because they don't have the far sight of the resources they need to deliver and because they have performed so much of cost cutting right inception, they struggle to get resources. They focus on the early victories and don't have much contingency planning. But they make up for that shortfall by having a massive talent pool that is cheap and willing to do it at very cheap rates. But then they trip themselves by taking massive shortcuts such that the end result is a poorly designed and barely functioning outcome.
Now, we can see that in the regional politics too. Let us take the War in Afghanistan, right from day one in 2001, we knew that the Americans would have to leave one day. That was the end state. However, we were already pessimists and saw that with the arrival of the US and further warming up to India, we saw this to be a losing game and came close to accepting that fact. However, we continued to work in the background, continued to accept losses, continued to take casualties because all the while we were aware of the end state. During this time, the whole world went against us, we had no where to go but we worked out our options the best we could and changed the geopolitics silently. During this time, we continued to throw our pessimism onto the overly optimistic US by making them second guess their goals and objectives in the region. I guess, eventually, this may have been a contributing factor due to which the US finally accepted to leave the region and the recent events are now seen as a bewildering achievement. We feel this sense of being vindicated that we were a failed state but we came out on top.
During this period, the US and India got close and India thought that this was it for Pakistan. This was the early victories based on which they built their foreign policy towards Pakistan. They decided to invest in Afghanistan to establish that goodwill with the Afghan government and did not have the view of the end state. Then, as the US decided to pack its bags and run off and at the blazing speed it is, the Indians were left clueless and shocked and their short term strategic planning at peril. The collapse of the Afghan government further added to their woes. They thought the US would be around forever and they would continue to be merry the way they are. Now, they are backing the wrong horse again in Panjshir, as soon as they heard of a resistance to Taliban, they started running and shouting like banshees and claiming the same early victory. However, like before, it is increasingly looking like it will fall flat on their face.
The same thing with 2019 airstrikes. The Indians came along on the 26th of Feb, bombed Pakistan, and till the 27th of Feb, claimed victory and was celebrating. However, the whole thing flipped upside the next day leaving them clueless on what to do next and went on a campaign of lies and deceit mostly for their own public consumption.
The Chabahar port is another story from which the Iranians kicked the Indians out. They poorly managed that project and lost the goodwill of the Iranians.
The Indianās projects for LCA Tejas and Arjun are another glaring example of poor and limited planning.
Have a look at cricket, Pakistan does the very same. We doubt ourselves but continue and suddenly end up in the top spots of the tournament. We are a wild card. India in contrast, are always claiming early victories, overly confident, become favourites but then fall flat horribly. However, this is a game so there is always an element of chance but this line of thinking is quite visible if you can see it.
So, this individual thinking then builds up into a national thinking and we can see why different state actors make decisions the way they do.
