The ugly (but least-bad of actual possibilities) scenario I am hoping for is that Pakistan breaks up into a NW Frontier (that probably merges with Afghanistan under the Taliban), Balochistan, and a Kashmir/Punjab/Sind “mini-India” that possibly de-Partitions and rejoins the Indian state.

India can then manage the eastern portion of Pakistan and we can work with the Taliban to prevent Al Qaeda-like groups from using Pashtunistan to launch further attacks against India or the West.

I don’t want the USA to work with the Taliban, and I’m sure that India doesn’t want the headache of managing East Pakistan, but I don’t see survival of the current state as a realistic likelyhood.

There are two worse scenarios. One is that Pakistan breaks up, no one helps them, and the whole region devolves into Somalia on the Indus. The other is that Pakistan’s government loses all control over the territories, no one helps them, and the region devolves into Somalia on the Indus, but no one admits it and foreign aid props of the “Mayor of Islamabad” for years and years. Neither of these scenarios will bring any sort of long term solution.