by Shuja Nawaz
Other Challenges for Pakistan’s Army
Over seventy years after the birth of Pakistan and the reduction of the size of the country to what used to be West Pakistan, Pakistan today has an army that is roughly the same size as the regular US Army, if not marginally larger. And its structure has undergone some changes. It is still a heavily centralized command system that does not allow devolution of command to forces close to the action. Nor does it allow optimal and well-coordinated use of air, land and (in the south) sea power against external enemies at the sector level. Since there has not been much public discussion of this situation in Pakistan, particularly in parliament, it is difficult to offer specific commentary on what needs to be changed and how. But some issues can be identified.
Under President Musharraf, some new command structures were announced. Main among these was a Southern Command encompassing XII Corps and V Corps, the former facing west to Afghanistan and the latter facing east to India. But all the commanders of these new regional commands were the same rank (three-star lieutenant generals) as the corps commanders. In the hierarchical model of the military, this is a recipe for confusion during war, when instant decisions need to be taken. Pakistan missed an opportunity to reassess its higher defence organizational structure that had been originally envisaged in the unfinished plan presented during the elder Bhutto’s tenure, when the JCS Committee was first set up under a four-star. Lack of follow-up on that plan effectively left the JCS set-up without real power, and the centre of gravity remained with the army chief. Moreover, by not elevating regional commanders to four-star rank, the civilian authorities (both government and parliament) missed a real opportunity to participate fully in selection of the four-star officers, even if they were based on the army chief ’s recommendations. Ideally, the creation of a more powerful JCS or Chief of Defence Staff position would allow better coordination of all services during peace and war. But, given current dynamics and in the presence of a fledgling civilian government and an all-powerful army chief, there is likely to be little movement towards this goal.
In the waning period of Gen. Kayani’s tenure, a Central and Northern Command was mooted, one facing east and the other primarily facing west. This was seen as a response to India’s Cold Start strategy that was premised on a rapid Indian thrust into Pakistan to capture and hold key territory and make Pakistan sue for peace. Strategically, the creation of the Central Command comprising of I and XXX Corps, accompanied by the provision of an armour division from Kharian to XXX Corps in Gujranwala, effectively blocked any Indian move into the Sialkot and adjacent sectors. Meanwhile, the Northern Command (a name shared by the British formations headquartered in Rawalpindi in pre-Partition India) would comprise of X and XI Corps with their headquarters in Rawalpindi and Peshawar respectively.
Despite some criticisms for Gen. Kayani near the end of his term as army chief, those who served with him continue to laud him, even well after he had left the scene, for transforming the army. In the judgement of Lt. Gen. Asif Yasin Malik, who served as a corps commander under Kayani and later as Secretary of Defence:
Transformation of Pakistani Armed Forces cannot be discussed without a reference to Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani. In my opinion all the alleged controversies aside, the General will be remembered the best chief this Army has ever had. First of all his personal competence is just beyond comprehension of a common man. His clarity of Operational Thought and Strategic Concepts is very unique and sharp. His print on the military is very dark and very long lasting. I have used the term military intentionally instead of Army as he gelled the three services in operations as well as on the Strategic Plane . . .
Apart from that he touched every big or small domain starting from uniform to accommodation to rations to physical fitness to firing standards to LIC training to pension to post retirement benefits to welfare of dependents of shaheeds [martyrs] to rehab of injured . . .
Overall probably this was the most meaningful transformation of the Army after the setbacks of 1971, Siachen and Kargil. Also the poor public image during the last year of Musharraf era was not only restored but a national pride re-emerged within the military. The Officer to Jawan causality ratio reflects the sky rocketing morale and highest standard of leadership along with dedication and devotion. Most of all the complete depoliticizing of rank and file was a major step too. The support for democracy was critical during his tenure and he withstood tremendous pressures to intervene in the political arena. 16
While one may debate some issues related to increasing political influence of the army, it is rare in the culture of Pakistan and the army for a former chief to receive such praise from his contemporaries. In many ways, Kayani’s ability to reshape thinking inside the army helped prepare the foundation for action by his successor Gen. Raheel Sharif to move against the militants in FATA under Operation ‘Zarb-e-Azb’, and for Gen. Qamer Javed Bajwa to build on that clean-up operation with his own Operation ‘Radd-ul-Fasaad’, the well-intentioned but still unfinished effort to eradicate militancy and terrorism from the hinterland via deweaponization and deradicalization
Other issues still remain. More needs to be done to turn back the forces of religious obscurantism and ritualism that have crept into Pakistani society and even the military. And, despite protestation by both sides to the contrary, the communication gap between the civil and the military remains. A battle of tweets or statements from media spokesmen for either side does not reflect well on either. The performance gap both reflects this chasm and affects it. Also, the enhanced ability of the army to shape public opinion directly through liberal use of funding for contractual services by media firms and indirectly by exercising censorship directly or by using the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority to exert pressure on recalcitrant media has led to charges of self-censorship by media from the Musharraf period onwards. 17
The ISPR has also been accused of drawing a sharp line between journalists and scholars who are seen as cheerleaders and those who are prone to being critical at times. It needs to win the confidence of international media. It could do this partially by improving its outmoded website with its twentieth-century bulletin-board approach to pushing information, by allowing media and scholars to pull well-presented, verifiable and updated data, information and analyses on current operations and issues, and better search functions. The use of Twitter as a substitute for fuller, well-thought-through and well-crafted briefings, commentaries and press releases has also been detrimental to its objectives. ISPR effectively functions as the media office of the Pakistan Army. Its equivalent in the Pentagon is headed by a chief spokesperson of the rank of colonel.
Since ISPR is a joint service, its operations could be better placed under the chairman of the JCS, as could the work of the ISI, another joint service. The public face of the military would then be better located within the MoD rather than as an enormous and autonomous enterprise that can and does produce conflict between the civilian government and the military.
Finally, the ability of military institutions, such as the ISI and Military Intelligence, to transgress their remit by undertaking functions of arrest has been enhanced by political cover provided by changes in the laws of the land, often ex post. A glaring example of this was the retroactive application of laws passed by the Zardari government to cover the actions of the Pakistan Army in Swat and Malakand against suspected militants and the expansion of the remit of military courts, ostensibly to expedite the processing of terrorism cases. The military continues to be under pressure by the courts to answer for hundreds of persons who have disappeared and who are suspected of being held by the army. ISI and MI have also been accused of harassing and manhandling journalists who do not toe the official line.
According to the US Library of Congress research report:
On February 7, 2014, the National Assembly of Pakistan, the lower house of the country’s legislature, passed a resolution to extend three anti-terrorism ordinances for a 120-day period, including
the controversial anti-terrorism law, The Protection of Pakistan Ordinance (PPO). Among other measures, the PPO grants extensive arrest and detention powers to security agencies in the context of military- and terrorism-related operations. (Ordinance No. 9 of 2013, GAZETTE OF PAKISTAN [Oct. 21, 2013].) The PPO has come under heavy criticism from human rights groups and opposition political parties. (Nasir Iqbal, Indefinite Detention Gets Legal Cover, DAWN.COM [Jan. 23, 2014].) . . .
Some of the controversial clauses in the newly amended PPO include:
granting security agencies extensive powers of arrest, search, and seizure without a court-ordered warrant (PPO . . . 3(2)(b)—(c));
allowing the government to authorize preventative detention of a person for up to 90 days ‘if there are grounds to infer that such person is acting in a manner prejudicial to the integrity, security, [or] defense of Pakistan . . .’ (id. . . . 6(1));
permitting indefinite detention for a person who is designated as an ‘enemy alien’ or ‘combatant enemy’ (id.);
giving power to military and civil law enforcement forces to establish internment camps to ‘detain any enemy alien, combatant enemy, or any person connected or reasonably believed to be connected with the commission of a Scheduled Offence . . .’ (id. . . . 6(2));
providing legal cover for past arrests and detentions by security agencies, stating ‘any person arrested or detained by the Armed Forces or Civil Armed Forces and kept under arrest or detention before the coming into force of this Ordinance shall be deemed to have been arrested or detained pursuant to the provisions of this Ordinance’ (id. . . . 6(5)). This provision is particularly controversial because it attempts to provide legal protection for alleged enforced disappearances of terrorism suspects during past military and anti-terrorism operations, disappearances that are currently subject to being handled as missing persons cases; 18 and
establishing separate special anti-terrorism courts and a separate prosecuting agency (PPO . . . 8). 19
In the period leading to the end of the PML-N government’s tenure, the broad assumption in Pakistan was that the army silently influenced the political balance against the sitting government with a view to affecting the election results. In the face of groups like the Pakhtun Tahafuz Movement launched by Pakhtun youth and other civic groups, the abduction and manhandling of journalists and civic activists by ‘unknown persons’ (Na maloom afraad according to the vernacular description) places the military in an adversarial position to civil society in Pakistan. This does not help to create the conditions of public support that it needs to operate in crises. Why is the ISI feared? According to a former DG-ISI, as reported in the deliberations of the Abbottabad Commission report, words to the effect that the only people who are afraid of the ISI are those that need to fear it.
The power and expanding role of the ISI could well be turned to its professional pursuits and away from concentrating on domestic spying and enforcement activities, by reverting its command and control to the chairman of the JCS Committee, since it is an Inter-Services body, truly removing it from political engineering. This would allow it to concentrate more effectively on CT as well as external-facing counter-intelligence activities. A trend that needs to be monitored carefully is the movement of purged or superseded intelligence officers towards militant Islamist organizations, whom they previously had been tracking or managing. Placing these joint services bodies under civilian scrutiny via parliament and adding transparency in handling of their affairs would make their work more credible. The military needs public support to be effective. It also needs public scrutiny to become more efficient, especially as it fights the Long War against militancy and terrorism at home and faces expanding threats on its international borders.
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Pakistan’s Military Dilemma
Understanding the dynamic behind Pakistan’s security fears and its defence strategy is critical for US policy-making in South Asia, since Pakistan remains a powerful regional player and sees itself often as a counterpoint to the US interest in developing stronger ties with India. In dealing with the region and Pakistan specifically, the US sometime appears to push to the background the doctrinal and existential issues that Pakistan faces, and which continue to shape its thinking and actions. It needs to better understand Pakistan’s fears and capabilities.
The emergence of Pakistan’s military doctrine in this current precarious stage of its political and economic development needs careful consideration in order to delineate its approach to a conventional war with India and how India’s emerging and as yet publicly unstated nuclear doctrine affects its stance. It will emerge in light of the historical context of the India–Pakistan rivalry and Pakistan’s current economic and political condition.
Broad guidance comes from its own constitution. ‘The Armed Forces shall under the direction of the Federal Government defend Pakistan against external aggression or threat of war, and, subject to law, act in aid of civil power when called upon to do so,’ states the constitution of Pakistan. So much for the theory. In practice, ‘Pakistan’s defence budget is made in India,’ said former Pakistan ambassador to the US, Jamsheed Marker, an astute observer of the domestic and foreign scene for his country to the author. His comment to me a couple of decades ago encapsulates Pakistan’s perennial conundrum. Must it forever remain imprisoned by the prospect of hostility or active war with India and can it afford to match India’s rapid economic growth and military strength?
Answers to these questions will help clarify Pakistan’s relationships in the region and beyond, particularly with the US. As the US National Intelligence Council Global Trends 2030 report and other analyses have clearly pointed out, the current trajectory has the Indian economy rising from seven to nine times Pakistan’s size to sixteen times by 2030. Both the absolute and the relative costs of defence spending by Pakistan will become a heavier burden over time, requiring a smarter strategy going forward. Added to the difficulty of this calculation vis-à-vis India is the increasing danger of internal militancy and an insurgency in its western marcher regions, a spillover from the seemingly forever war in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s own tardiness in fully assimilating the FATA since its birth in 1947.
Not only is the opportunity cost of conflict with India high, but also the opportunity cost of those expenditures on the Battle for Pakistan raging inside the country remains a huge challenge. Pakistan’s military doctrine, such as it is, is caught between the rock of India and the hard place of its growing internal threats and economic difficulties. It is not clear if there is as yet a coherent and consensual national view on how it must proceed, although the Pakistan Army has produced a doctrine that may be used as a proxy for a national definition of threats and likely responses.
Pakistan Today
Pakistan remains a fragile and dysfunctional polity, still not recovered from the lingering effects of extended military rule under Gen. Pervez Musharraf and the detritus of previous military regimes that have left civilian administrations and the political system stunted, unable to exercise the control that the constitution devolves upon them. The military, and especially the all-powerful army, pays ritualistic obeisance to the concept of civilian supremacy, as evident in numerous statements from its headquarters over the years, but actual decision making on defence matters tends still to be largely in the hands of the men in uniform rather than a truly civilianized MoD or the national government.
The national economy is in dire shape. Annual growth has plummeted from the heady 6–8 per cent of the early Musharraf days to around 3-4 per cent today. Foreign reserves and foreign direct investment are shrinking. (A rise of one per cent in growth would enormously increase the GDP of the country each year.) Repayments to foreign debtors will present the prospect of a fiscal cliff in the short run, as large outflows deplete the state’s coffers. The prospects of governmental instability emerging from the 2018 elections makes the role of the army even more powerful, given the general perception that the military collaborated with
the judiciary in eliminating the major political parties on the national scene to allow Imran Khan’s party to become ascendant. If the new government falters or fails, there is the perennial spectre of the much-discussed Soft Coup of the military being followed by a Hard Coup to establish an ‘Egypt on the Indus’; especially if the army calculates that the US is distracted by crises elsewhere in the world and discounts its ability to react to the emergence of a Sisi-like dictator in Pakistan.
State Bank reserves are on a downward path. Of these reserves, a substantial amount is due for paying the IMF and other foreign debts. By 2018, the situation had become much worse, with a potential $25 billion financing gap looming, prompting recourse to Saudi Arabia for short-term relief, as a precursor to a fresh IMF programme. That robust IMF programme was agreed in July 2019, designed to stop the rot of the economy, improve tax administration and revenues, and restore growth over time. It brought in $6 billion, provided Pakistan met its terms over time.
However, the inflows from the CSF of the US for operations of the 140,000-strong Pakistan military on the Afghan border had begun to dwindle as US military operations in Afghanistan began winding down. These were eventually halted by the Trump administration. Only two options remain in Pakistani hands: either draw down those Pakistan military operations, allowing the domestic insurgency to gain the upper hand, or finance them with inflationary deficit financing and dig a deeper economic hole for the country. Or, President Trump restores US funding and pays arrears on the CSF, withheld since 2018.
