Daily Times

Pakistan continues to oscillate between civil and military rule.The country’s last military rule government ended in 2008, yet the threat of a coup hangs in the air. When Imran Khan staged his dharna, many thought the military was behind it. The threat resurfaced when Raheel Sharif was the army chief. His every move was meticulously choreographed and given the kind of media coverage reserved for an authoritarian premier. When the Supreme Court removed Nawaz Sharif from office, it seemed to be the prelude to a coup.

To use historian Stanley Wolpert’s expression, the military acts like a “wolf hound”. It is ready to pounce on its master if it feels threatened; even when it is not in power. It controls the nation’s defence and foreign policies. Most importantly, it controls the nation’s defence budget.

Brookings’ Stephen P. Cohen has called the army the largest political party in Pakistan. In her masterly work, Military Inc., Ayesha Siddiqa has drawn similarities between the military and a mega-corporation. An entity with its tentacles deeply embedded in industries not even remotely related to national defence.

Globally, a “third wave” of democratisation began in 1974 and gathered momentum after 1989. According to Freedom House, there are some 120 democracies in the world, representing 63 percent of the world’s states.Just about all the countries in East Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America have embraced democratic rule. Pakistan remains subject to recidivist militarism. Even its“all-weather friend”, China, is governed by a party and not by the People’s Liberation Army.

So why is Pakistan an exception? It is because the military has successfully injected its narrative into the national psyche. It has convinced Pakistanis that it is indispensable for the survival of the country, during war or peace. Thus, not one or two or three but four self-styled saviours have governed the country.

The military’s narrative rests on a series of carefully crafted myths. First, India is an inveterate enemy that cannot tolerate the existence of Pakistan. The fact that India did not initiate any of the Indo-Pakistani wars remains forgotten.

Second, Pakistan has won all its wars with India.It is forgotten that Pakistan failed to win any of these wars. Indeed, as Christine Fair has said, Pakistan claims a victory anytime it does not lose, saying that the enemy is so much bigger.

Third, Pakistan is incomplete without Kashmir. Since it is a Muslim-majority area, the partition of British India will only reach closure when Kashmir joins Pakistan. Two major wars and a few minor wars have been directed at this goal. Of course, this desire to seek a more complete Pakistan overlooks the fact that Jinnah’s Pakistan was rendered incomplete when East Pakistan, home to more than half of the Pakistanis, broke away. Unlike the reunification of Germany, no efforts are being pursued to create a federation with Bangladesh, perhaps because the letter “b” for Bengal, unlike the letter “k” for Kashmir, never made it into the country’s name.

Fourth, democratic rule is marred by corruption, nepotism and dynastic rule. While some of that is indeed true, the same can be said with even stronger force of military rule. At least the democratic rulers governed with the consent of the citizens of Pakistan. The four army chiefs who turned into presidents cannot make the same claim. They have to justify their intervention on the “Law of Necessity.”

Fifth, civilians are incompetent and unfit to govern. It is stated that economic growth is always better under military rule.

On average, that is true. Between 1947 and 1958, the annual GDP growth averaged 3 percent under civilian leadership. During Field Marshal Ayub’s period it more than doubled to 6.95 percent.

But it dropped to 5.58 percent under General Yahya. And it dropped further to 4.44 percent under ZA Bhutto.

Under General Zia it went up to 6.86 percent and then dropped during the following civilian period to 4.07 percent. Under General Musharraf it rose to 5.05 percent. In the civilian period that has followed it has dropped to 3.55 percent.

But averages hide a lot. For example, the gap between the wealthy and the poor grew dramatically under Ayub, leading ultimately to his downfall. Furthermore, economic growth by itself is meaningless unless it promotes human development. The developmental economist Gustav Ranis found that economic growth under Zia did not translate into much human development.

Furthermore, averages hide significant year-to-year volatility. During the much-touted Musharraf “economic miracle,” the growth rate exceeded 7 percent only twice.

Ayub’s peak economic performance was achieved in the first half of the sixties and began to tank after the war of 1965. By the time Zia’s plane crashed in 1988, the fiscal deficit had risen to 7.1 percent and a foreign exchange crisis was imminent.

Sixth, the military is the only stable institution in the country. Why should that be a surprise? It is a self-fulfilling prophecy since the military, once in power, devours all civilian institutions.

Military rule has several unfortunate consequences for the military and for the country.As Stanford’s Larry Diamond has noted, military rule in Pakistan has damaged “democratic institutions and norms, state capacity, public services, and civil society.”

Military rule also damages the military’s ability to engage in combat. An international study carried out by Reiter and Stam found that “soldiers emerging from democratic societies enjoy better leadership and fight with more initiative.”

The generals who came lacked an exit strategy. Ayub, Yahya, Zia and Musharraf all left involuntarily. The coup makers feared that they will be tried for high treason by any successor civilian government. To divert attention from the resulting domestic disenchantment, some of them resorted to foreign adventures. But its involvement in civilian duties has corrupted the military.Officers were promoted based on loyalty and not merit and soldiers lost their will to fight. Hubris caused the military to underestimate the enemy’s capabilities and to take its allies for granted. When the allies didn’t deliver, and the enemy proved to be stronger than expected, the military failed and its rule ended.

Subsequently, the military’s intervention was condemned by the judiciary, and the former military ruler was declared a usurper. Elections were held and civilians return to power. And so the cycle has continued in Pakistan’s history.

Unless this cycle is broken, Pakistan will not prosper. According to Shahid Javed Burki, the GDP needs to increase by 6 percent per year to hold constant the number of people living below the poverty line. When the growth rate falls to 5 percent, the number of people living in poverty rises by 5 percent.

Since the early nineties, India’s economy, despite being considerably bigger, has grown faster than Pakistan’s. It is in the race for economic growth that Pakistan needs to beat India. Not in the unproductive and dangerous arms race.

The writer has authored “Rethinking the National Security of Pakistan”

Published in Daily Times, September 24^th 2017.