Army vs. Civil Hierarchy

Penetration of Civil Society

Another visible manifestation of military domination of the civil sector during the Musharraf period was the re-employment of retired or even serving officers in civil institutions and in the host of military-owned enterprises that provides a longer term of employment for army officers.

Even today, military officers head education and training institutions in the civil sector.

All the major civil service training establishments, for example, are now under retired army officers.

Under Musharraf, they also headed universities and state-owned corporations. Some 1200 army officers were inducted into key civil slots during the Musharraf period. While military rule or military-dominated rule has something to do with this, the role of 101the civilian rulers cannot be downplayed, for they have allowed the military free ingress into their domain over the years and have elevated the military presence to the detriment of the civil sector.

The earliest moves by General Kayani to withdraw some 300 serving army officers from civilian positions was a good sign of changes in thinking on this front. But many still remain in the civil administration, especially dominating the Ministry of Defence.

Defending the Homeland

Pakistan’s lack of national cohesion on the one hand and its location in a tough neighbourhood dictates that it should maintain a strong defence establishment.

However, as assessments by the Army itself have shown, there are different ways of achieving security without making the Army so large and burdensome that it dwarfs and stifles economic development.

There are sound military reasons for re-evaluating the nature, size, and organisation of the Army too.

Today, Pakistan has a large conventional army, tasked with defending every inch of its borders: a hostile one on the east against India and in the west against Afghanistan, with a potential for unrest on the Iranian frontier, if the internal insurgency situation in that neighbour’s Balochistan province becomes a cross border issue.

Internally, the Army needs to reorient its training and force structure not only to cope with external threats but also to combat internal insurgencies, starting with the current situation in FATA. It needs specialised units and training in low-intensity Fourth Generation warfare and to indoctrinate officers and soldiers both in the principles of such warfare, where ideas not weapons alone matter.

Looking Ahead

The Army should help create a stable national polity by subjecting itself to civilian oversight and control. It needs to ensure that it does not become the instrument of civilian dictatorship by subjecting itself to wider parliamentary controls and oversights of its operations.

This should extend to ratification of senior appointments of the service chiefs, the proposed regional commanders, and the Chairman of the JCSC. It must also be prepared to expose more of its expenditure details to scrutiny by government and parliament.

On its side, civilian government needs to ensure that it follows the constitution fully and does not involve the military in political disputes. As past experience shows, when politicians run to the Army Chief for help, it upsets the balance of the civilian system of government and eventually brings the Army into power.

While the military has an advantage over the civil in employing force, it has a comparative disadvantage in building political loyalty from a civilian base. The reason is their lack of ability to foster and sustain open debate and discussion on key issues. The culture is still largely top-down.

Few military regimes have succeeded in constructing mass political; when they tried, they had difficulty in adjusting to open participation by the masses. The military system of orders and obedience does not easily adjust to the noise of democracy and dissent.

The Pakistani experience certainly supports these views, although successive military leaders, including Musharraf, have felt that they can buck this trend.

In the face of hostility, Pakistan’s defence lies in a smaller, highly mobile, and powerful military, relying on a nuclear and conventional weapons system, and the capability of delivering a damaging riposte.

But an even better defence lies in creating a powerful, pluralistic polity residing in a strong economy, built on a society that values education and the welfare of its population.

The Immediate Challenges

The army chief’s main focus will remain the counterinsurgency campaign and its follow-up in the frontier badlands bordering Afghanistan and in Swat. By all accounts he has pressed his colleagues to move quickly to prepare the logistical ground for anti-terror operations in those areas.

But it will be important for him to allow the civilian government to make the political decisions on the use of the Army in that mode and to define the collaboration with the Afghan and United States governments.

This will be a hard transition for an army that has been used to independently working with its foreign partners under Musharraf. Equally important will be the need for Kayani to recognise what the US under the thinking General David Petraeus has come to learn the hard way in Iraq that counterinsurgency operations are 90% political and economic and only 10% military.

Ultimately, counterinsurgency campaigns are won by strong policing and the isolation of militants from the population by good governance and protection from within communities by strong and dedicated police forces.

The military can only address the symptoms not the causes of insurgency. Nor is it equipped for counter-terrorism. The civilian government failed in its first few years to set up an adequate National Counter Terrorism Authority.

It will need to make up for lost time. Moreover, a strong civil-military partnership will be needed for post-military operations in FATA and Swat and Malakand. None is evident as yet.

Without the Army’s support, given the current power balance in Pakistan, the civilian government will not be able to move quickly on resolving issues with a dominant and potentially hegemonic India to the east.

Kayani recognises the need for peace and open borders but he is also aware that he cannot move too far ahead of the general public sentiment.

India too will need to show an open-mindedness that has been absent in its public discourse on Kashmir or open borders. For many in Pakistan, there is deep-seated fear of India swamping Pakistan economically and culturally. However, Kayani appears to be a man of inner confidence, hence the quiet that marks his demeanour.

Unlike Musharraf’s one-step forward, two-steps back approach on key issues relating to India, he could well leapfrog history by taking those bold steps forward that matter most and stick to them. This would help the civilian government gain confidence in dealing with India and opening borders in due course.

With a civilian government in charge again, the role of the ISI will need to be tempered. The Army High Command will want to favour greater oversight of the ISI by the civil authority and even parliament, with the involvement of the military.

If Kayani’s studied silence in the episode involving the browbeating in Army House in March 2007 and subsequent arbitrary removal of the former Chief Justice by Musharraf is any indication, he could end up favouring a reduced political role of the ISI, allowing it to concentrate on important counter-intelligence operations. His main focus though will be returning the Army to its professional roots and keeping it out of politics.

The composition of the Pakistan Army today better represents the society in which it operates than the Army at independence.

It is also more professional and better trained than ever before. As it expands its membership into other less represented areas and provinces, it can become a true national army and regain its position of trust and devotion. If it does not, and if the civilian politicians also fail to pay heed to the changes around them, then the rising tide of conservatism may be transformed into a radical Islamist wave that will sweep both civil society and the Pakistan Army, with results that are entirely predictable and not what Pakistan nor its neighbours and friends desire. The longer the country remains under military domination, the greater the chance of state failure.

The latest recruitment statistics indicate that Pakistan’s Army today is no longer the same homogeneous force of the past with its limited recruitment base. It now reflects a broader range of the country’s rapidly urbanising population. The emergence of new media and public discourse has also challenged the military’s ability to control life in the country with an iron hand.

While the Army remains a conservative institution at heart, it is not yet a breeding ground for large numbers of radical Islamists that many fear. Islam though remains a visible force in Pakistani society and in the Army today. Keeping the Islamists at bay remains a daunting task but it need not be used only as a scary scenario to gain Western support. A progressive Pakistan needs to provide opportunities for its citizens to lead their lives without fear of the radical forces of Islam that are vying for power today. More important, given the dominant role of the Army in Pakistan’s polity, if Pakistan is to mature, thrive, and survive as a successful state and a nation, the Army needs to take a back seat and allow the politicians and civil society to make their mistakes and allow the other critically important elements of society: media, businesses, professionals, lawyers, etc., to function unfettered. These are the challenges that both the Army and civil society in Pakistan must surmount through a return to democratic norms so that they can fulfill their promises to the country and win the long war 105against insurgents and terrorists.