Following the release of the Abbottabad Commission Report by a foreign publication, a discourse on national security was kick-started in print and electronic media. The domain of national security has traditionally been handled by armed forces of the country. Pakistan’s politicians and bureaucrats never bothered with the famous quote of Georges Clemenceau, “War is too serious a matter to be left to the generals”.
A much-neglected book that chronicles this imbalance of power is Rethinking the national security of Pakistan: The Price of Strategic Myopia by Ahmad Faruqui (published in 2003). Mr. Faruqui’s book seeks to “re-examine the fundamental premises at the core of Pakistan’s national security policies, and proposes a ‘soft path’ that does not equate military security with national security”.
After partition, the first test of our National Security doctrine arose with the Kashmir Situation. Mr. Jinnah commanded the British General to send regular army troops to Kashmir but his order was defied by General Messervy. In the 1950s, military became a major player in politics and Governor General Ghulam Mohammad was too eager to hand over reins of the defense ministry to the incumbent Commander of Pakistan Army. Since then, every military conflict in our history has been dictated by the generals and not by politicians.
For instance, in 1952, the instructions given by Commander In Chief to Pakistan’s first military Attaché in Washington D.C included the following words: “These Civilians [Ambassador and Foreign Office] cannot be trusted with such sensitive matters of national security”.
The only politician in our history after Mr. Jinnah who could rein in the rogue generals was Mr. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. Unfortunately, he did not embark upon this endeavor and ended up going to the gallows at the hand of a rogue general. At one instance, he had recalled the failure of the military in the following words, “We have spent many billions on defense with the result that the country is bankrupt and mortgaged to foreign debt, but we were unable to fight for more than 17 days in 1965 and for about 14 days in 1971.”
Shahrukh Rafi Khan and Aasim Sajjad Akhtar in their book , The Military and Denied Development in Pakistani Punjab, lamented that “The Bhutto regime was presented with an unprecedented opportunity to relegate the military to a position of subservience to civilian authority. As much as any other regime in Pakistan’s history, the PPP government reasserted the national security paradigm and, particularly, the anti-India imperative; providing a golden opportunity for the military to reemerge as a major actor in a power-sharing arrangement. Defense expenditures increased markedly under the PPP government, while it also initiated the nuclear program, which has subsequently become a major pillar of the national security state.”
Bhutto also employed the military liberally to quell internal dissent against industrial labor in Karachi and urban centers in Punjab, thereby also rehabilitating its complementary law and order function.
While the generals can’t be denied a role in formulating policies regarding national security, civilians should play a leadership role in this regard. Pakistan’s national security paradigm has historically been based on three issues namely the fear of India, optimism (overconfidence?) about allied cooperation and optimism about its military capabilities.
After the events of 9/11 and the emergence of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), another issue was added to the list, namely counter terrorism. In developed countries, counter terrorism is usually the domain of local law enforcement agencies, which are aided by the military. In Pakistan, institutional failures among the law enforcement agencies forced the issue upon the military. From the evidence available, this approach has not been entirely successful. Armies are trained to fight wars with other armies, not with ragtag militias hiding in mountains and using guerilla tactics. Pakistan’s military gained some success in attacking the bastions of terrorist activity but their efforts were not aided by civilian law enforcers. As a result of this disheveled policy, counter terrorism and counter insurgency have been largely ineffective measures.
Civilian ineptitude in this regard cannot be excused either. The OBL operation was an ideal opportunity for the political leadership to wrest back the initiative from the khakis and assert their power. The opportunity was squandered and we are back to square one. The Chief of Army Staff is still the final arbiter of Pakistan’s foreign policy and National Security Policy.
A critical analysis of Pakistan military’s strengths and weaknesses needs to be conducted based on its action in the four Indo-Pak wars and subsequent counter insurgency efforts. Mr. Faruqui attempts to do this job in his book and has detailed tactical and strategic failures and achievements in each of the four major wars. As this book was written before the counter insurgency efforts, that critical aspect was not addressed.
The issue of nuclear deterrence has also been discussed at length in the book. The author argues for an integrated approach towards national security. He writes, “National Security does not reside solely in the military’s combat effectiveness, but in a complementary set of five dimensions that include four non-military dimension in addition to the military dimension. The non-military dimensions are political leadership, social cohesion, economic vitality and a strong foreign policy. One cannot rely on hard military assets to prevail in a strategic conflict; the soft assets pertaining to political, social and economic factors may in fact be the decisive ones”. This paragraph was quoted verbatim in the Abbottabad Commission report.
Reconstituting Pakistan’s national security policy is a must and the policymakers have a wonderful document in form of Mr. Faruqui’s book to look for a way forward. This book needs to be updated and circulated in the garrison libraries.
The writer is a freelance columnist.
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