Raymond Davis and the Abbottabad raid may be hideous Siamese twins but perhaps they were overdue; not for the horrible way they killed but the way they demolished our self-esteem in a matter of three plus 40 minutes both put together. Our official reaction has been at best halting and less than resolute.
This was so because, for a long time, we have adopted a posture of bluff and bluster, overblowing our offensive and defensive capabilities, a mix of actual and virtual nuclear weapons and missile programmes and the claim of a superior and hard hitting air force. Fortunately, the Navy has not added to this chorus. That is a small comfort as our seashores have also become vulnerable in many ways. Into this general environment of tentativeness, picture our fledgling national leadership that has yet to get a grip on governance, foreign policy and the articulation of national power.
The mother root of this ongoing malaise has mainly been twofold. One, the total absence of a comprehensive national vision, followed by repeated attempts by the army (military takeovers) to monopolise state power and foreign policy. The result is a barren political landscape and tragic loss of national direction.
National vision and the question of ensuing national direction is a function of an energetic national leadership that is thrown up only by the votes of the people. Until then, what needs to be done is to free it from the so-called vigil of the military and reorient the armed forces towards their primary task, which is to defend the country’s geographical frontiers.
The Pakistan Army showed remarkable grit, determination and commitment in eliminating militants from Swat/Malakand and South Waziristan. It also performed commendably during natural disasters. Civic duties notwithstanding, military takeovers have invariably been the most devastating and regressive in their consequences for the country. Our dismal national state of affairs is a result of recurring military rule and intervening wobbly civil administrations that kept looking over their shoulders towards the GHQ.
The military is not a hermetically sealed alien, unaffected by what afflicts the country. The bleak national canvas has affected the minds of the rank and file imperceptibly. Their compelling and sharpened sense of threat to the country is baffled at their collective inability to fully deflect the same despite nuclear capability. This has given birth to a great informal internal discourse within the military and the hum appears to have increased considerably after the defining Abbottabad raid. A strategic opportunity seems to have arisen out of the debris of the Blackhawk in Abbottabad for objective military introspection and corrective action.
There are four major notions that, in my assessment, need to be addressed and rationalised if we are looking forward to a professional and hard hitting military in Pakistan.
First comes the clarity and the will to submit to the parameters of the opportunities and limitations that are outlined by the constitution for the armed forces. The army has had its forays into and out of the constitution a number of times. Each time, both have ended up badly bruised and messier than before. The result had been a serious dysfunction in the political, administrative and social architecture of the country. The entire national construct is leaning awkwardly and quite perilously over the military. The national centre of gravity has shifted into the armed forces, which is an extremely narrow and delicately poised base. The army has become the custodian of patriotism, ideology and security of Pakistan. It has also come to be the arbiter of its political dispensation and strategic direction of foreign policy. The armed forces must debate themselves out of this minefield under their own well-considered determination.
Second comes the Pakistan military’s professionalism, which was seriously jeopardised by the expedient induction of jihadist notions and overplayed religious zealotry into its training handbooks. Both these notions are the strengths of a Muslim army but not at the cost of professionalism and battlefield realism. This political expediency of military rulers to manufacture legitimacy among their ‘home constituency’ soon transformed into an art form in the hands of incompetent commanders. This helped them create false bravado and a sense of divine invincibility. The result has been successive military debacles when pitched against a determined and well-trained adversary. This flawed courtship with faith produced bitter fruits of its own. While it began to embed emotional Islam into military culture at the cost of hard professionalism, it also exposed the rank and file to various shades and influences of militant dogmas. On the other hand, this patronage of violent religious streams not only caused public proliferation of jihadi and sectarian militancy but also severely polarised society on sectarian and communal lines. No good can ever come out of this nest of hornets. It is even more necessary now than ever before to regain a truly national and professional character of the military.
Third is the ever-present bogey of so-called ‘strategic depth’ that was so imprudently floated in the late 1980s. The timing was simply inopportune as Pakistan was fast sliding off the international process of shaping the future of Afghanistan post-Soviet withdrawal. In hindsight, it appears the faulty hypothesis was perhaps a smokescreen for continued leverage in affairs beyond our western borders. No one bothered to pause and consider that Pakistan neither had the political, economic nor technological depth for such a venture. The result has been a massive muddle in Afghanistan and a thoroughly ravaged Pakistan. The other downside of this wild shot has been the label of regional manipulation slapped on Pakistan’s back. This disabling constraint invariably stumps us from playing a genuine role in helping stabilise that unfortunate country. The debilitating notion of strategic depth and the destructive urge to unilaterally shape the regional environment must be ejected out of military calculations.
Fourth is that the military threat from India has been the central theme of all defensive formulations in Pakistan. What started off as preparation to meet possible Indian aggression gradually transformed into an existential, ideological and holy struggle to defeat an enemy who was disproportionately stronger. This escalating romance with war is full of military pitfalls and capability gaps. More dangerously, it seems to factor into strategic calculus dicey faith-based resilience. Performance in war is a reflection of hard training, appropriate weaponry and capable leadership; not romantic notions or far-fetched fancies. Military history shows that fancies have never been the currency for victory. Thus, a review of the possible operational environment ipso facto calls for a dispassionate and realistic reassessment of the threat India poses to Pakistan’s territorial space and what should be done to deter the same to preserve our freedom. A need emerges to clearly visualise the parameters of defence of our country, our resources and options and how we want to engage ourselves with the region and globally, and then sit down to painstakingly chisel a doable military strategy. Fanciful notions of wide and deep strategic sweeps, spectacular conquests and invincibility are misleading and must be shunned. We need to know what we can really achieve and how best to do that.
This is easier said than done. A selective mindset exists that looks for arguments to support such military sentiments. It requires razor sharp intellect and military leadership of a superior kind that can bring about such a dramatic change in the military’s worldview and, more importantly, view of itself. For Pakistan to realise its proper potential and engage with other nations in a constructive and helpful manner, it is necessary that we encourage the signs of a paradigm change within the thinking of the military as a major prelude to evolving a new national paradigm.
The writer is a retired brigadier of the Pakistan Army. He can be reached
at [email protected]