Daily Times

In the last few years Shuja Nawaz, Distinguished Fellow and Founding Director of the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C, has emerged as one of the most prominent Pakistanis in Washington DC. It is a reputation built on his solid scholarship and his sober commentary especially on the relationship between the US and Pakistan. His latest book, The Battle for Pakistan, is an example of his scholarship and opinions. The sub-title gives a clue to the content of the book: The Bitter US Friendship and a Tough Neighourhood. We talked of his book recently in Washington, DC.

1)Akbar Ahmed – How do you see the future of US/Pakistan relations?

Shuja Nawaz–Given the transactional and rocky relationship of the past, I see no real change until the political systems in both America and Pakistan settle down. The post-American scene in Afghanistan will continue to inform decisions in Washington DC, making this even more a transactional relationship. And the emerging US Cold War with China will force Pakistan more into the China camp, something that does not serve Pakistan in the long run. It values its economic and political ties to China but does not wish to burn its boats as far as America is concerned.

2) How seriously do you take the ongoing shelling on the borders of Pakistan? Generals in India have made threats against Pakistan using words like “annihilation.” Do you see this as serious or is it posturing?

The sturm und drang of Indo-Pakistan politics continues. Economic and political challenges at home are behind much of the posturing and exchanges of fire that occurs on the active Line of Control in the disputed Kashmir region. India has over-militarized Kashmir, leading to similar muscle flexing by Pakistani forces. Both countries need to take a step back and concentrate on economic rebuilding after the COVID 19 crisis and the return of their workers from the Middle East.

The escalation ladder between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan is very steep. Neither can afford a conflict.

3) As a government administrator in Pakistan administering places like South Waziristan and Baluchistan, and in my scholarship, I observed and analyzed relations between the peoples of the periphery and the center based in Islamabad including the problems that can result between the two and how the relationship might be improved. Concerning the methodology of your book, how did you see and analyze relations between center and periphery, did you emphasize the periphery or focus more on the center, and are the people of the periphery represented?

I discuss the challenge facing Pakistan in the shape of centripetal and centrifugal forces. The center must respect and honor the periphery. The divisive centrifugal forces may destroy its fragile federation. Pakistan badly needs to return to the original idea of Pakistan as a federation and create a balanced polity. It must learn to celebrate pluralism and diversity as strengths not weaknesses. Even its name is an acronym of its constituent parts. It must respect and defend that vision of an inclusive Pakistan. But current sectarian, ethnic, tribal divisions are dividing the country. Making more provinces and making them the base for the foundation of a federation will allow Pakistan to remain strong and fend off all adversaries.

4) The US war in Afghanistan has now gone on for nearly 20 years and caused untold human suffering. How do you as a poet respond to this war and the impact it has had on the people there?

I resonate with the ideas of British Pakistani novelist Nadeem Aslam who has a character named Marcus in his trenchant novel on Afghanistan The Wasted Vigil say that “Only the dead have seen the end of war.” The failure of national and tribal leaders in the region and civilian and military leaders of the Western Alliance have contributed to the “forever war” in the region and the continued use of Afghanistan as a cockpit for their battles.

The military high command cancelled my book launches in Pakistan in December 2019 due to their fears that the public launches might give rise to discussions that could adversely affect the extension of the army chief

5) How do you see the civil-military relationship in Pakistan, and also in Washington?

My book highlights the lack of a center of gravity for decision making in both the United States and Pakistan. In America, currently the White House has the ultimate word through whimsical and often uninformed Presidential Tweets, but varied and competing strands of decision making emerge from the CIA, Treasury, Department of State, Defense Department, and Capitol Hill. Inside Pakistan, the serious imbalance between the powerful military and the weak civilian governments has created uncertainty and confusion and made successive governments dependent on military patronage and susceptible to manipulation by an extensive and pervasively powerful intelligence apparatus throughout the country.

6. How did the establishments in both Washington and Pakistan respond to your book?

The military high command cancelled my book launches in Pakistan in December 2019 due to their fears that the public launches might give rise to discussions that could adversely affect the extension of the army chief. His extension had been challenged in the court at that time. The civilian authorities remained mum during this period. I had sent advance copies of the South Asia edition to both the Prime Minister and the Army Chief.

I continue to receive positive comments on my book and frequent writings and broadcast commentaries from both serving and retired officers. A celebrated former army chief, General Jehangir Karamat, gave the book a laudatory advance blurb, as did the former Foreign Secretary Riaz Mohammed Khan. In America, the book received plaudits from leading military and civilian leaders, including Generals James Jones and David Petraeus, former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, and former chairman Joint chiefs of staff of India Admiral Arun Prakash. In sum professional soldiers and sailors have praised the book, as did other well-known commentators. Readers will reach their own judgment.

Interestingly, I did receive a message from a senior military officer early in 2020, after the army chief’s extension had been approved by changing the law in Pakistan. He called me to say that I was welcome to return to Pakistan for my book launch. I declined.

7) Your brother was the Chief of Army Staff of the Pakistan army. Does the example of your brother inspire you? Did it ever encourage you to join the army as a career?

My brother General Asif Nawaz was Chief of Army Staff in 1991-93. We belong to a military family and a Janjua Rajput tribe that has served in the military or fought wars since time immemorial. I was planning to apply to the Pakistan Military Academy when I finished high school in December 1964. My brother advised me against it, encouraging me to pursue my studies instead. He always supported my ventures into journalism and the world of multilateral organizations. But I retained my interest in the military and wrote on military history and politics to help readers develop an understanding of the military in Pakistan.

8) Can you recount the story of your ancestor meeting Babar, the great Mughal warrior king?

In his Baburnama or Tuzk-i-Babari, the founder of the Mughal empire Zaheerudin Babar speaks warmly of my ancestor Malik Hast Khan, the head of the Janjua tribe, and Langar Khan as friends and allies in the Salt Range of the Potohar Plateau. He joined with the Janjua in early 1526 to defeat the Gakkhar rulers of the region.

9) You write that you began working on the book as a Pakistani and ended it as an American. Is this a reference to citizenship or something more philosophic?

I retained my Pakistani citizenship until well after I retired from the International Monetary Fund and when I launched the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council. When I began thinking of and eventually crafting this book, I was still a Pakistani citizen. I was an American citizen when the book was completed. But at a different level, this is a story of my two homelands that need a bridge to bring them together.

Akbar Ahmed is the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at the School of International Service at American University in Washington, D.C. and the former Pakistan High Commissioner to the UK and Ireland