The two pillars of political power in Pakistan – the military establishment and popular political leaders - are confused about their roles in statecraft. The military establishment has made a mess of the country's political environment with their iron fisted approach towards politics and statecraft. All the political controversies that presently surround the military are partially the making of the military establishment’s own follies.
The roots of the present crisis can be traced back to August 2014, when some influential elements in the military establishment pushed Imran Khan into agitation mode against the Sharif led government. This agitation reached a fever pitch at the ouster of Nawaz Sharif in 2017 through a court order. After the formation of the Imran Khan government, the military leadership started to play a high-profile role in statecraft and on account of their high visibility, paid a heavy price in terms of reputational damage when Imran Khan was ousted from power in April 2022.
This has culminated into a situation where the two major popular political parties, with their base in Central Punjab - a region which happens to provide the largest recruitment base to the Pakistan military - successively launched public mobilization campaigns against military leaders. The military, which places significant importance on public opinion about itself, especially in the region where PML-N and PTI have popular bases, started to view the developing situation as a major challenge. Now, one of these popular political parties, the PTI, is going ahead with their anti-military establishment campaign, while the other, the PML-N is likely to join the foray if they are convinced that they would be the losing party in the forthcoming parliamentary elections.
The events of the past nine years are clear indications that the military establishment has lost any measure of sophistication they could lay claim to in handling the country's politics. Their high-handed role in the country's politics is evident by the way in which they tend to control the coercive machinery of the state against whoever they want towing their line. The ease with which they can instrumentalize the coercive machinery of the state to fulfill their aims is one of the prime reasons that Punjab-centric political parties’ are in public revolt against the establishment dominated hybridity of our political system.
In the post-Zia period, the military’s political clout was primarily composed of a mix of persuasion – the soft power to convince a whole host of political actors to follow their line - and the time-tested coercive mechanisms at their disposal. In status quo however, coercion is the dominant mechanism through which the military acts in the country’s politics. From Nawaz Sharif’s conviction, to Azam Swati’s arrest and many other such stories in between, there is a storied history of the military playing its highhanded role.
Ironically, there is nobody to tell the powers that be what all this has cost them in terms of reputation, both within our society and outside the country. The fact that this extremely dangerous game for the country's social and political stability is being played at a time when there is grave and imminent danger to Pakistan’s security should send shivers down our spines. This is not only a time of potent threats to the country's security emerging on the not-so-distant horizon, but there are opportunities knocking at our doors. Although these opportunities are likely to cost us a not insignificant number of sacrifices.
Here is where the failing of our political class becomes painfully obvious. Five decades ago, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto taught the Pakistani nation how to deploy the military’s manpower in regional politics to the country's political, strategic and economic advantage. The military’s institutional and numerical strength, drawing from deep wells of recruitment bases in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, are advantages that ought to be utilized for much more than petty shooting matches with the Indian army, or playing dirty spy games in Afghanistan.
The military has a role in providing strategic stability to the region. No political leader in the wake of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto had the strategic vision to secure this regional political role for the Pakistani military. Bhutto didn’t send the Pakistani military to any place outside the country to fight or sacrifice their lives in a foreign land. Yet, he utilized the presence of an organized, battle-hardened military in Pakistani society in his dealing with the Arab Sheikhdoms and the Middle Eastern powers. In subsequent years, Zia enlarged this role and committed troops to Middle Eastern countries.
We are on the cusp of an evolving regional, political and military situation – only for the first time in the last 40 years, Afghanistan is not occupied or under invasion by a foreign military. The Central Asian states have just said goodbye to American military presence. The Russians, while not convinced of any enduring strategic interests in this region, have started to develop a soft corner for Pakistan and its military institutions. The Russians fear the rise of extremist Sunni groups in Northern and Eastern Afghanistan. They also have shown or indicated that they don’t see the Afghan Taliban as particularly problematic.
The very presence of an organized military force on Pakistan’s borders could be a source of stability, only if we can convince the Afghan Taliban to broaden the political and social base of their government in Kabul. If this idea appears outlandish to some, consider the following: Russian security officials in their meetings in Islamabad have indicated that they would be willing to share real time information with the Afghan Taliban government to equip them to deal effectively with ISIS-Khorasan and other Sunni extremist groups. According to news reports, the Russian government has provided such information to the Afghan Taliban through Pakistani channels. There is a realization in the region that the Pakistani military’s expertise and experience in defeating a religiously inspired insurgency in the North West of the country offers something valuable to other regional actors as the threat of militancy continues to metastasize in places beyond our borders. The fact that Afghanistan is a gigantic powder-keg on our door step poses a meaningful threat, but also presents a rather lucrative opportunity.
Alas, we don’t have any political leaders with the strategic vision to translate this valuable strategic situation into political or economic capital. The Pakistani political class just see the Pakistan military as a ladder to be used to climb into the corridors of power. They think that the military’s might is only good for coercing their political opponents, and thus the military should only be used as an instrument for seeking political power.
Using the military as a tool of statecraft, without pushing the young men enlisted in our forces into life and death situations outside the country's borders, requires a strategic vision that our political class lacks completely.
Two developing political and military situations will force our hand in making a decision about the strategic role our military will play in the region. The first are brutal and aggressive terror attacks being carried out by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan inside Pakistani territory, and the other is the Afghan Taliban’s policy of allowing Sunni extremist groups, which are planning attacks on their home countries in the region, to seek shelter and create safe havens in Afghanistan.
Our country’s political leadership ought to develop a substantive plan for how our military and foreign policy apparatus ought to respond to these twin crises created by the ascension of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan.
The roots of the present crisis can be traced back to August 2014, when some influential elements in the military establishment pushed Imran Khan into agitation mode against the Sharif led government. This agitation reached a fever pitch at the ouster of Nawaz Sharif in 2017 through a court order. After the formation of the Imran Khan government, the military leadership started to play a high-profile role in statecraft and on account of their high visibility, paid a heavy price in terms of reputational damage when Imran Khan was ousted from power in April 2022.
The events of the past nine years are clear indications that the military establishment has lost any measure of sophistication they could lay claim to in handling the country's politics.
This has culminated into a situation where the two major popular political parties, with their base in Central Punjab - a region which happens to provide the largest recruitment base to the Pakistan military - successively launched public mobilization campaigns against military leaders. The military, which places significant importance on public opinion about itself, especially in the region where PML-N and PTI have popular bases, started to view the developing situation as a major challenge. Now, one of these popular political parties, the PTI, is going ahead with their anti-military establishment campaign, while the other, the PML-N is likely to join the foray if they are convinced that they would be the losing party in the forthcoming parliamentary elections.
The events of the past nine years are clear indications that the military establishment has lost any measure of sophistication they could lay claim to in handling the country's politics. Their high-handed role in the country's politics is evident by the way in which they tend to control the coercive machinery of the state against whoever they want towing their line. The ease with which they can instrumentalize the coercive machinery of the state to fulfill their aims is one of the prime reasons that Punjab-centric political parties’ are in public revolt against the establishment dominated hybridity of our political system.
This is not only a time of potent threats to the country's security emerging on the not-so-distant horizon, but there are opportunities knocking at our doors.
In the post-Zia period, the military’s political clout was primarily composed of a mix of persuasion – the soft power to convince a whole host of political actors to follow their line - and the time-tested coercive mechanisms at their disposal. In status quo however, coercion is the dominant mechanism through which the military acts in the country’s politics. From Nawaz Sharif’s conviction, to Azam Swati’s arrest and many other such stories in between, there is a storied history of the military playing its highhanded role.
Ironically, there is nobody to tell the powers that be what all this has cost them in terms of reputation, both within our society and outside the country. The fact that this extremely dangerous game for the country's social and political stability is being played at a time when there is grave and imminent danger to Pakistan’s security should send shivers down our spines. This is not only a time of potent threats to the country's security emerging on the not-so-distant horizon, but there are opportunities knocking at our doors. Although these opportunities are likely to cost us a not insignificant number of sacrifices.
Here is where the failing of our political class becomes painfully obvious. Five decades ago, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto taught the Pakistani nation how to deploy the military’s manpower in regional politics to the country's political, strategic and economic advantage. The military’s institutional and numerical strength, drawing from deep wells of recruitment bases in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, are advantages that ought to be utilized for much more than petty shooting matches with the Indian army, or playing dirty spy games in Afghanistan.
The fact that Afghanistan is a gigantic powder-keg on our door step poses a meaningful threat, but also presents a rather lucrative opportunity.
The military has a role in providing strategic stability to the region. No political leader in the wake of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto had the strategic vision to secure this regional political role for the Pakistani military. Bhutto didn’t send the Pakistani military to any place outside the country to fight or sacrifice their lives in a foreign land. Yet, he utilized the presence of an organized, battle-hardened military in Pakistani society in his dealing with the Arab Sheikhdoms and the Middle Eastern powers. In subsequent years, Zia enlarged this role and committed troops to Middle Eastern countries.
We are on the cusp of an evolving regional, political and military situation – only for the first time in the last 40 years, Afghanistan is not occupied or under invasion by a foreign military. The Central Asian states have just said goodbye to American military presence. The Russians, while not convinced of any enduring strategic interests in this region, have started to develop a soft corner for Pakistan and its military institutions. The Russians fear the rise of extremist Sunni groups in Northern and Eastern Afghanistan. They also have shown or indicated that they don’t see the Afghan Taliban as particularly problematic.
The Pakistani political class just see the Pakistan military as a ladder to be used to climb into the corridors of power.
The very presence of an organized military force on Pakistan’s borders could be a source of stability, only if we can convince the Afghan Taliban to broaden the political and social base of their government in Kabul. If this idea appears outlandish to some, consider the following: Russian security officials in their meetings in Islamabad have indicated that they would be willing to share real time information with the Afghan Taliban government to equip them to deal effectively with ISIS-Khorasan and other Sunni extremist groups. According to news reports, the Russian government has provided such information to the Afghan Taliban through Pakistani channels. There is a realization in the region that the Pakistani military’s expertise and experience in defeating a religiously inspired insurgency in the North West of the country offers something valuable to other regional actors as the threat of militancy continues to metastasize in places beyond our borders. The fact that Afghanistan is a gigantic powder-keg on our door step poses a meaningful threat, but also presents a rather lucrative opportunity.
Alas, we don’t have any political leaders with the strategic vision to translate this valuable strategic situation into political or economic capital. The Pakistani political class just see the Pakistan military as a ladder to be used to climb into the corridors of power. They think that the military’s might is only good for coercing their political opponents, and thus the military should only be used as an instrument for seeking political power.
Using the military as a tool of statecraft, without pushing the young men enlisted in our forces into life and death situations outside the country's borders, requires a strategic vision that our political class lacks completely.
Two developing political and military situations will force our hand in making a decision about the strategic role our military will play in the region. The first are brutal and aggressive terror attacks being carried out by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan inside Pakistani territory, and the other is the Afghan Taliban’s policy of allowing Sunni extremist groups, which are planning attacks on their home countries in the region, to seek shelter and create safe havens in Afghanistan.
Our country’s political leadership ought to develop a substantive plan for how our military and foreign policy apparatus ought to respond to these twin crises created by the ascension of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan.