American diplomatic historian McMahon recalls that in 1954, the then-Finance Minister Chaudhry Muhammad Ali (who later served as Pakistan's Prime Minister as well) had told the then-US Ambassador to Pakistan that Pakistan was facing a basic dilemma because of the US military assistance aid package.
In his book, McMahon quoted an August 1954 cable sent by the Ambassador to Washington about his conversation with Chaudhry Muhammad Ali: "As long as current tensions with India and Afghanistan continued, Pakistan could not reduce its existing forces. Yet it was experiencing dire financial difficulties with swelling pay, maintenance, and training costs."
"US aid would only partially solve the problem for Pakistan, in the words of Chaudhry Muhammad Ali, as US aid guidelines governing military assistance restrict the assistance to equipment and training. Although equipment and training were certainly needed, the finance minister said that the expanded force goals permitted by the military assistance agreement with Washington would inevitably necessitate steadily mounting expenditure by the Pakistani government for payroll and maintenance, responsibilities and the various other costs associated with maintaining a sizable defence establishment. Any additional funds for direct or indirect military needs would, unfortunately, have to be squeezed from an already overtaxed budget, and would come at the expense of critical development priorities".
The finance minister demanded special treatment for Pakistan, "otherwise he lamented that the greater the amount of US aid, the greater the cost would be to Pakistan". McMahon noted that these points raised by Chaudhry Muhammad Ali in his conversation with the US Ambassador were exactly in line with the conclusions drawn by the US State Department that the cost of maintaining a huge military establishment would prove devastating for Pakistan at the financial and economic levels of that time. Ali's point was simple: the cost Pakistan would have to pay for maintaining a hi-tech military establishment would be higher than the US financial-military aid, military equipment and training that the Pakistani military would be receiving from Washington.
Cold War and Pakistani military
The US military assistance programme to Pakistan was based on the premise that Pakistani military manpower could be used to slow the Soviet military machine in the oil-rich Middle East and South-West Asia before the US could make a decisive military intervention in a scenario that practically would have meant World War-III.
Newly founded state of Pakistan had inherited a dilapidated military machine from the colonial British Raj. This machine was transformed into a modern fighting force thanks to the training, equipment, and financial resources that the US provided to the Pakistani military during the initial phase of the Cold War
US military leaders and Cold War warriors in Washington were overly impressed with Pakistan's Clark Gable look-a-like Pashtun Commander-in-Chief of Pakistani land forces, General Ayub Khan, and the tough-looking Pakistani soldiers in uniform. The soldiers from the region, which now formed parts of Pakistan, had played a crucial role in winning the British much-needed victories against Hitler's Army in Europe, Africa and the Far East. Americans were late entrants in the Second World War, but they were familiar with the military lores about the toughness of the Punjabi and Pashtun soldiers in the Royal British Army during the First and Second World War.
The newly founded state of Pakistan had inherited a dilapidated military machine from the colonial British Raj. This machine was transformed into a modern fighting force thanks to the training, equipment, and financial resources that the US provided to the Pakistani military during the initial phase of the Cold War. The two wars with India of 1965 and 1971, however, saw Washington impose military sanctions on Pakistan.
The second phase of US military assistance to the Pakistani military covers the era of General Zia-ul-Haq's military rule. It would not be wrong to state that the Cold War shaped Pakistan's military structures and strategic perceptions. We had always been entangled in superpower rivalries during the Cold War, always playing a secondary role to the superpowers. Over several decades, Pakistani military leaders came to expect and receive military hardware that they thought was needed to bolster defences against the much larger India. In more than 75 years of existence, we never had the financial muscle to buy the weapons we boast of in our inventory. These weapons proved to be 'toys for the boys'—military and military men became the harbinger of modernity in our society with the possession of state-of-the-art technology, and from here, the military ascendency in the social and political life of Pakistani society became an established fact. The military leaders quickly grasped the opportunity when they started to use their international connections—Ayub Khan and later Zia and Musharraf not only endeared themselves to Washington but became the darlings of Western Europe and pro-American Muslim rulers of the Middle East. This resulted in multiple problems back home on the political and economic front. The situation of Pakistan, becoming a front-line military state against Soviet Communism, reduced our choices for economic growth-oriented development policies. Pakistan, as a state, became obsessed with military strength and defence capability at a time when our society needed socio-economic development and political stability based on a political structure that should have been representative at least. Instead, four military governments within a span of 50 years became our fate where, in one way or another, the military was serving as a front-line organisation of superpower interests in the region.
When the Cold War ended in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union, it left a deep imprint on our political structures and the shape of our state machinery. The Pakistani military— which established its dominance over the power structures in Pakistani society because of the Cold War dynamics of international politics and because of the international connections our military had developed with the security establishments in some of the most important global power centres because of the peculiar situation created by the Cold War—continues to dominate the country's politics and state structures to date. In the post-Cold War world, a new intellectual trend has started to creep into governance cultures of important world capitals. Trade and free interaction between states, especially between neighbours, even if they are rivals or enemies, became a fashion. The world started to learn and realise that military power, without financial and economic muscle, is simply untenable. Hence, countries around the world started to focus on economic and social development with growth-oriented economic policies. Trade, liberal economic policies and openness of the political and intellectual environment started to creep into important world capitals. But all these trends passed us by and left us untouched. Our state machinery continued to display a fossilised mindset and behaviour.
The Pakistani state machinery has no capacity or resources to deal with the flash floods—most likely caused by climate change—in the country's northwestern, southern, and western parts
By the time we entered the second decade of the 21st century, Pakistan's military's dominance of the power structure was complete. As the Pakistan state gradually lost its ability to deliver services and it became only a structure with the sole ability to coerce its population, we also saw the growth of mainstream political forces with no ability to bring any political or social change. The political forces became electoral machines with the ability to attract voters with the help of rhetoric and political acrobats. These mainstream political forces are in a kind of cooperative relationship with the security apparatus, which makes them occupy seats of power and then throw them out, one by one, just like a game of musical chairs. And thus, these forces are in no position to keep a check on or subject the security apparatus to any kind of public or parliamentary scrutiny, what to talk of giving new directions or re-orienting the security apparatus or Pakistani military, to be precise, towards meeting the challenge of new, non-military security threats that are emerging on the horizon.
Climate change, its impact and Pakistani military
Climate change, because of global warming, is one such non-military security threat that could potentially derail weak and vulnerable states in the face of highly unstable climate conditions that will accompany global warming. As we amply witness in every monsoon season, the Pakistani state machinery has no capacity or resources to deal with the flash floods—most likely caused by climate change—in the country's northwestern, southern, and western parts. These floods cause losses worth billions of dollars to private and public property. Yet, the Pakistani state acts as a silent spectator to what are expected natural calamities. Thousands of people are rendered homeless, agriculture becomes impossible in calamity-hit areas, and people must live a life of misery and absence of livelihood. Some experts believe that if climate change causes disruption in seasonal agriculture systems in Pakistani society, it could prove disastrous for Pakistan's economy. This could bring a situation where economic and social chaos and anarchy would be an outcome.
What is the role of the Pakistani military in such a situation? Can it prevent the derailment of the Pakistani state in such a situation? An economic collapse caused by changes in the seasonal agriculture system of Pakistani agriculture because of climate change would be an event that would require something much more than simply providing relief to 20 villages or maybe 200 villages. This would be an event with consequences that are too horrendous to contemplate. I am sure no organisation has carried out any study of what would happen after the 11-year warning was issued by a panel of climate experts of the United Nations expires. UN experts believe there is still a window of 11 years to reverse the process of carbon emission into the Earth's atmosphere and stop the process of global warming before climate change becomes irreversible. Some experts go to the extent to predict that in some parts of the world, sustaining human life will become impossible. In other words, some parts of the world would become uninhabitable.
I have researched for weeks, and I have not found a single study which has been conducted by any government department that could tell us what would be the fate of Pakistan—a country, which for the past ten years has been included in the list of top ten countries that would be worst affected by climate change. I have, however, come across a research report by two scholars--Faraz Haider and Adil Sultan from Air University Islamabad—who predicted in their report the possible impact of climate change on Pakistan's military security, "Sea level rise and cyclone risks impact naval assets and infrastructure while warming patterns and glacial melting affect troop movement, deployments, and logistics. Resultantly, military training, force capacity, and operational readiness are affected. Threats are more potent in strategically significant locations (Siachen, Sindh, and Punjab) which house important forward military bases. The paper provides actionable recommendations that create foundations for future steps as well," reads the gist of their report, which was published in the Journal of Contemporary Studies, in 2022.
Predicting quite straightforwardly that Pakistan could go off the rails before any state in the West could derail us because of climate change, Anatol Lieven puts forward, very strongly, the suggestion that militaries and security establishments around the world should be mobilised in the cause of preventing global warming and climate change
In, let's say 200 years from now, when Pakistan's historians look at the story of the Pakistani state and its military, they would describe the Cold War as a process that shaped the Pakistani state apparatus and Pakistani military structures. However, he/she would certainly not ignore the impact of climate change on the structure, perceptions, and organisational integrity of the Pakistani military. That is only if we succeed in putting our acts together and meet the challenge of climate change. In that event, and several international experts are very pessimistic about the possibility of humanity surviving the calamity of global warming as a species, we only have 11 years left.
Climate change and future of Pakistani state and military
Anatol Lieven is a British journalist who has spent some good ten years reporting for a British newspaper from this part of the world. Recently, he authored a book titled, "Climate Change and Nation State" published in 2020. Predicting quite straightforwardly that Pakistan could go off the rails before any state in the West could derail us because of climate change, he puts forward, very strongly, the suggestion that militaries and security establishments around the world should be mobilised in the cause of preventing global warming and climate change. He specifically mentions the Pakistan military in this regard while suggesting that mobilising the military establishment in Pakistan and other countries, including the Western world, would be the only viable way of enlisting the support of forces of nationalism in the cause of climate change prevention.
The Pakistani military is a conventional fighting force, and its training to this day does not include anything related to educating its officers and Jawans about climate change or global warming. Since 9/11, training in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency has entered the military's training manual. But nothing is organised about climate change. What role can it play in this connection? American and British militaries are training their cadets in subjects related to climate change. At present, the climate change ministry in Islamabad is a sideshow, but those who think that ten years from now, it will continue to be a sideshow are living in a fool's paradise. For the Pakistani military, the time to come out of its Cold War slumber is now. I have not seen any substantial support among Western intellectuals for Mr Lieven's proposal to enlist the military establishment for the cause of climate change. But this proposal suits as well, especially in a situation when the voices criticising the military for getting the lion's share of the national budget are getting stronger and stronger. Time is, in fact, running out. We should quickly resolve our terrorism and militancy problems and start getting down to the real work related to the biggest challenge awaiting us in the shape of climate change.
The problem of the fractured nature of Pakistani society cannot be ignored at this stage. A society in which people do not get three meals a day regularly, it would be hard to create a consensus on issues of climate change—an issue which is considered, even among the educated people, a luxury that only the rich West could afford. Pakistani society is a deeply fractured society at the political, religious, sectarian, and social levels. We do not even agree on basic things, like rules for the political game played out daily in our society. Without resolving basic political problems like issues related to putting one popular political leader behind bars after another, we would not be able to tackle the problems of climate change and global warming. This is the time to resolve our political problems and get down to work. The military could play a crucial role in this regard.