Here are a few legitimate questions that your buddies left out:
Its a proxy war that Pakistan fights with US.
Americans never really cared for Pakistan, but they stepped into the mouse-trap when they accepted Pakistan’s proposal to help out in war on Afghanistan. Right now Pakistan has the US & Coalition by the balls, in Afghanistan. This is why a proxy war is being fought - if it was conventional, Pakistan would halt all supplies to US-Coalition in Afghanistan, and common sense would tell you about who would be the loser in that scenario.
Was it this “little practicle control” over people & territory that kept Indian generals from sipping tea in Lahore? Or was it something else? Pakistan’s authorities has full control over the country & people. I would call it a failed democracy, not a failed state.