It seems like an absurd question, but it's got people talking. Does this fundamentalist rabble stand a chance of overthrowing a government with a military of one million troops? It depends.

The world received some more horrible news from Pakistan today: Taliban forces apparently have captured another district, the Buner district, after the Pakistani government handed over Swat in February (see map below). Buner is located roughly 70 miles away from the capital, Islamabad, and it remains unclear if the Taliban control the entire region. The Taliban has imposed Islamic Sharia law in Swat, and this latest incident will only renew worries that the country might descend into a fundamentalist nightmare. Sec. of State Hillary Clinton raised some eyebrows when she claimed that the advances of the Taliban represent "an existential threat" to the Pakistani government. Is that claim really true though? Do the Taliban really a stand a chance of taking over Pakistan? Hard to know.

Pakistan has a powerful military that, on paper, could easily crush the Taliban. American officials have urged the government to crack down on the Taliban, but Islamabad has been unwilling to act on those demands. Knowing a thing or two about the complexities of Pakistani politics, however, might yield some clues about why the government can't just send in the military and finish this whole affair. First, the Taliban operates in rather friendly regions populated with fundamentalist and ultraconservative groups. Although it is definitely accurate to view the Taliban as dictatorial, it's not accurate to see them as acting alone. They have support from the local population, otherwise they would have never gained control over these areas. This relative friendliness between local groups and the Taliban makes it very difficult for the Pakistani military to go in there and just "blow shit up." Pakistan doesn't need the Taliban, but it also doesn't need local uprisings against the central government. These fears led to the original concessions to the Taliban two months ago. 

Another problem is that the government simply doesn't trust the military. Pakistan has a dubious history when it comes to military coups and subversions, and the central government doesn't want to embolden the military by giving it an opportunity to score a major victory. At the same time, the military might act on its own if it senses that the central government is refusing to confront the growing influence of the Taliban. From a Western perspective, this is a simple game between the Pakistani government and  the Taliban, but the reliability of the military is questionable, and that's what prevents the government from trying to reassert control in these northwestern regions. 

The odds of Taliban forces gaining power on their own are remote. Almost certainly, they would need central authority in Pakistan to collapse somehow. Only then could they move in and fill the power vacuum. They can't defeat the military and they don't have political support from most of the public. Their best bet is to keep making incursions here and there while hoping for a deterioration in the country's internal situation. Pakistan is a hotbed of political instability, so ruling anything like that out would be foolish. History is replete with examples of obscure and seemingly powerless individuals and movements rising to overthrow whole social orders. The Taliban's chances of taking over Pakistan aren't good, but they are worrisome. Stay tuned....