The Pakistan Army, aptly dubbed ‘a state within a state’, has ruled the country directly for around 33 years and controlled governance from behind the scenes for the remaining time. It continues to dominate the Pakistani polity but today confronts many intractable challenges. Its flawed policies over the years have now come home to roost.
To begin with, the army no longer evokes the extent of fear in the public mind that it once did. To be sure, it has been at the receiving end of public ire at specific junctures, for example, after its crushing defeat in the 1971 war and following Musharraf’s ouster from power.
However, the criticism against it in recent years has been unprecedented. This has resulted from the information revolution since the turn of the century and the army’s consequent inability to tightly control the national narrative, the increasing signs of failure in the policies it has foisted on the country, and above all, its confrontation with Imran Khan, a popular and charismatic figure.
The ongoing sharp political polarisation, which has seriously impaired the capacity of the state to address its complex problems, is the result of the army’s political engineering. It brought Imran Khan to power through a heavily rigged election in 2018 but abandoned him in favour of a PML(N)-PPP coalition in 2022 after he fell out with the then-army chief.
The army’s hope that he would fade away once out of power was belied. Instead, he gained popularity on an anti-army, nationalist plank. His arrest in May 2023 resulted in attacks on several army installations by his supporters. He has remained incarcerated on multiple frivolous charges. Yet his party, the PTI, put up an impressive show in the 2024 election despite several hurdles created by the state.
The army had to step in with massive last-minute rigging to prevent a PTI victory. It has leaned on the judiciary and used strong-arm tactics in an unsuccessful attempt to tame the PTI. An impressive PTI rally in Islamabad recently, despite government restrictions, is an indicator of Imran’s continuing popularity. He has held his nerve by not opting out of the political arena.
Although he has repeatedly said that he would only negotiate with 'the establishment' (the army), the real power centre, he has made it contingent, inter alia, upon the restoration of his ‘stolen’ electoral mandate. The confrontation has been worsened by the bad blood between Imran Khan and the current army chief, Asim Munir, who was shunted out of the position of DG ISI within months of his appointment by Imran as Prime Minister in 2019 to bring in his favourite officer, Faiz Hameed. They are locked in a zero-sum game, with neither side willing or able to blink.
The Imran-Army confrontation has also revealed fissures within the military. Imran Khan was known to enjoy widespread support among retired army personnel. It became clear that this support was not confined to retired officers when some senior army personnel appeared to stand aside as military installations were vandalised during the May 2023 violence. Asim Munir purged nearly twenty senior officers, including a Lieutenant General, to consolidate his position. That he has continued to harbour a sense of insecurity is evident from periodic reports of his sidelining some more senior officers and the recent arrest of former DG ISI, Faiz Hameed. He has been detained by the army, allegedly on charges of corruption and violations of the Army Act, presumably for attempting to stoke anti-Asim Munir sentiment within the ranks. Rather than being a sign of accountability within the army or a redressal of the civil-military imbalance, the arrest stems purely from intra-army rivalries.
Another challenge for the army is that the Pakistani state, which has never managed to mobilise sufficient resources internally, is now increasingly unable to do so externally. Pakistan struggles to secure yet another bailout from the IMF due to its inability to meet the Fund's conditions to restructure its debt, especially with large creditors such as China. Defence spending and debt servicing have exceeded federal revenue year after year. If, as is likely, this situation persists, the army will either have to live with a cash crunch or face growing public scrutiny of the unsustainable burden of the defence budget.
Pakistan’s relationship with India remains at an impasse, necessitating continued heavy military deployment on its eastern frontier. Its western frontier with Afghanistan has become increasingly volatile, drawing in more military resources, while its border with Iran remains unstable. A major flare-up between Iran and Pakistan occurred in January this year.
The biggest conundrum for the Pakistan Army is rampant terrorism, particularly in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which is the result of some of its terror proxies turning rogue. In addition, widespread alienation among the Baloch stems from the oppressive and exploitative policies of the army-led establishment in their resource-rich province. The army radicalised Pakistan’s Pashtun belt during the West-backed Afghan jihad against the former Soviet Union, aiming to gain strategic depth in Afghanistan. Instead, it has ceded depth to radical elements in Afghanistan in that region. Its policy of backing the Afghan Taliban has backfired.
The Taliban neither recognise the Durand Line nor have they controlled the terror activities of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) from Afghan soil. Terror violence in Pakistan has spiked sharply since the Taliban takeover in 2021. The TTP reportedly enjoys operational and logistical support from the Taliban and has developed links with Baloch resistance groups. The sophistication of recent terror attacks in Balochistan, claimed by the Baloch Liberation Army, was unprecedented, with over 70 people, primarily Punjabis, killed. The army has no clear answer to this problem. A new anti-terror operation, Azm-e-Istehkam, announced in June, has faced widespread opposition in political circles and the PTI-ruled Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The solution to these challenges lies principally in a radical revision of the army’s worldview. A senior Pakistani military interlocutor told me in 2011, in the context of the India-Pakistan relationship, that while the then-army leadership recognised the need for change, the institution as a whole would be slow to adapt. Barring flashes of wisdom from time to time, such as former army chief Bajwa’s emphasis on geoeconomics, the army remains fixated on its self-centred, anti-India stance nearly 13 years later. This suggests that Pakistan is likely to continue its messy trajectory.
Asim Munir’s ruthless style of operating through security agencies makes him appear hot-headed and vengeful. Could he be adventurous enough to take over directly in the face of persistent challenges? Few would bet against Pakistan reverting to its past of military takeovers. However, Munir, like his predecessors, is unlikely to assume direct responsibility for a failing system unless faced with widespread turmoil threatening the very existence of the state.
(The writer is a former High Commissioner to Pakistan and author of ‘India’s Pakistan Conundrum: Managing a Complex Relationship’)