Tag Archives: military

Nuclear explosions and elections

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Interestingly, issues related to India and Kashmir are completely absent from political parties campaigning for the 2013 election. This could be perceived in both, a positive and negative manner. Positive because we appear, finally, to be out of that antagonists mindset, where India has to be rivalled at every cost and in every situation. And negative because we seem to be missing out on important developments in our neighbouring country and these developments are going to affect us in the long run.

Ironically, we do witness some glimpses of the nuclear energy issue in the campaigns, but even in this respect, the assertions of our political leaders do not appear aligned with latest developments. The developments have bypassed our political class and therefore have reinforced the perception that our political elite are ignorant and do not contribute to the strategic debate. In fact, watching these political leaders prattle uselessly on nuclear issue compels one to be believe that we don’t have informed debate on the nuclear energy issue in our society and in the process they have left the leave the field open for an obscure and limited group of military officials to make the decisions regarding nuclear energy — and this has fateful consequences for us as a nation.

The glimpses of nuclear issues presented by Rehman Malik, the former interior minister, who, while, addressing a press conference in Lahore (reported by Urdu newspapers) said that it was the military which conducted the nuclear tests in May 1998 and when Nawaz Sharif, the then Prime Minister, was informed he felt very scared. Apparently, Malik’s statement was meant to blunt the affects of Pakistan Muslim League–Nawaz’s (PMLN) elections campaign, which prominently features Sharif as the statesman’ who conducted the nuclear tests and ensured Pakistan’s entry into nuclear club.

The fact that Malik made this statement after presiding over a meeting of party-ticket holders in Lahore, clearly indicate that Pakistan Peoples Party doesn’t want to let Sharif take credit for five nuclear explosions which were carried out by Pakistan on May 28, 1998. Sharif, on the other hand, has made it a point to include the visuals of nuclear explosions at Chagai in each of his campaign advertisements that are being show on television.

All this clearly reflects one thing: that Pakistan’s political class is still bogged down by the mindset that nuclear explosions are a capability of great jingoistic value. Malik’s statement assumes that carrying out nuclear explosions is a great act of valour which only Pakistan’s military is capable of. At the same time PMLN’s campaign advertisements want to pin this badge of bravery on the shoulder of their leader. It’s true that this is what the Pakistani public – especially the people in the urban areas of Central Punjab – would like to hear from their leaders before they decide who to vote for on May 11. But the character and style of politicians should be different from people from the performing arts (no offense), whose primary purpose is to attract an audience.

A general overview of nuclear developments in the region and in the country will show how out of touch with reality all this prattling is. When Pakistan carried out the nuclear explosions the mantra coming out of corridors of Pakistani security establishment was about how the nation has now attained a weapon which has made its defence “impregnable”. This has now changed. Now many a times will you hear the refrain that Pakistani nation and armed forces are ready to sacrifice their lives for defending their country’s “strategic weapons”. General (retd) Pervez Musharraf was the first Pakistani leader who started to “treat the nuclear arsenal as the vital interest to protect rather than the means to protect the Pakistani people.” This was the natural consequence of a situation where Pakistani nuclear weapons were facing twin threats from extremists from within the country and from ‘friendly’ US military forces stationed in Afghanistan, which (as reported by the American media) have carried out mock exercises to snatch weapons from Pakistani strategic forces. If the situation is so grim can the Pakistani political class afford to remain bogged down in the jingoistic mindset of 1990s?

The second and more depressing prospect with regard to our nuclear capability is related to our relations with India. Brigadier (retd) Feroz Hassan Khan, a former eminent member of country’s nuclear establishment, writes in Eating Grass, his latest book, that after coming under military pressure from India in the last 10 years, Pakistani armed forces have started integrating nuclear weapons into conventional war plans. “By the time the second peak of the crisis occurs in May 2002, the Pakistan military had finalised plans for integrating its conventional and nuclear forces … the crisis accelerated the pace of force planning and integration,” writes Khan in his book.

Now both the regional and international security experts are saying that Pakistani and Indian militaries are flirting with very dangerous military concepts and doctrines. Repeated flight testing of short-range tactical missiles, which can be used in the battlefield, by Pakistan clearly indicate its intentions to respond to India’s conventional attack with tactical nuclear weapons. Indian military planners, on the other hand, are flirting with a more dangerous Cold Start doctrine, under which they harbour the belief that they can punish Pakistan with their conventional military superiority and yet stop short of invoking Pakistan’s nuclear response. Indian military, in fact, tried to implement part of this concept in their military exercises close to Pakistan’s border in 2011. On the other hand, it was precisely at this time that our military conducted flight tests of its short range tactical missiles.

Now the question is that if the situation is potentially so unstable then can we afford to remain bogged down in our jingoistic mindset? Can we afford to feed Pakistani public on the same jingoistic jargon that could be so destabilising? Can we afford to leave this issue in the hands of obscure military officials, who rarely share their thoughts with the public? The answers to all these questions are in the negative. Instead, we should be engaging in an informed debate — a debate which can open avenues for making Pakistan more secure and less jingoistic.

And it is because of this reason that I argue that the complete absence of India from our election campaign is not a positive development. In fact I remember the 1997 election campaign when both PMLN and PPP used ‘bettering relations with India’ as the central issue of their election campaign. And it was because of this that the then prime minister gained enough confidence to initiate the normalisation process with India, which brought Atal Behari Vajpayee, the Indian prime minister, to Lahore and Islamabad. Ironically, in the wake of the Lahore Summit, Pakistani and Indian experts were expected to meet regularly to exchange nuclear doctrines and concepts to avoid nuclear brinkmanship.

Unfortunately this process was disrupted as a result of military takeover in Pakistan.

Live discussion on Pakistan’s military doctrine – 1

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Is the shift in Pakistan’s military doctrine a case of too little, too late?

For the last 66 years, India has been Pakistan’s enemy number one — but this now seems to be changing, with military leaders and policy makers suggesting that internal security threats such as religious and ethnic militancy and the worsening law and order are posing a greater challenge to the country. Even the Green Book, which sets out the Pakistan’s Army’s strategic doctrine, has – for the first time – included a chapter titled “sub-conventional warfare” in its latest edition. On January 16, at 7:30 pm, the Herald invited two panelists to discuss the consequences of this ostensible change in doctrine.

stephen-detailed

A renowned researcher on South Asian political and security issues, Stephen P Cohen is the editor of The Future of Pakistan, a collection of analytical essays.

shaukat-qadirdetailed

Brigadier (retd) Shaukat Qadir is an analyst who writes frequently on security issues.

You can join the discussion or post your questions below this post.

A textbook case

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Pakistani soldiers during the 1965 war

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori — “It is sweet and right to die for your country.” The centuries-old Latin line popularised in modern times by Wilfred Owen – in a poem written near the end of the First World War – as “The old Lie” told “with such high zest” to “children ardent for some desperate glory”. A century later, this ‘old lie’ continues to be seen as useful and necessary to the modern nation state, especially in times of war and conflict. Although the armed forces are romanticised to a certain degree in most countries, through celebration of veterans, construction of monuments to heroes and rousing displays of martial strength through military parades, an excessive valourisation of the military in peaceful times, especially in school textbooks, can be interpreted as war-mongering.

In Pakistan, where the military has been involved in four wars, not to mention several internal conflicts, school textbooks have been criticised for attempting to militarise students by glorifying war and martyrdom. Several reports on the state of education have pinpointed government textbooks for Pakistan Studies and Social Studies, used in most schools, as being a particular cause for concern. The Subtle Subversion – one of the most recent, prominent reports in this regard, co-edited by scholar and archivist Ahmed Salim and physicist and nuclear activist A H Nayyar in 2003 – became the subject of fierce debate in the media as a result of its assertions that the public school curricula glorified war, incited militancy and violence, and contained hate material which promoted prejudice and discrimination against non-Muslims. The report affirmed what other scholars had long been arguing — Pakistan’s history textbooks promote a partial and biased view of history and are full of blind spots and factual inaccuracies, especially where the country’s relationship, and its wars, with arch-enemy India are concerned.

This was not always so. Despite the violence and acrimony amidst which Partition took place in 1947, Pakistani history textbooks bore little sign of hatred towards India for the first couple of decades. Books from the 1950s and 1960s are generally described as more “inclusive”, “secular”, “tolerant” and “open”. According to Salim: “During the 1950s, books from the pre-Partition era continued to be used … Under Ayub Khan, History was no longer offered as a subject, and Pakistan Studies and Social Studies were introduced. However, there is hardly any mention of India versus Pakistan in these books.” It was in 1965 when things really began to change.

In an article written in 1967, Urdu scholar C M Naim analysed the effects of the 1965 India-Pakistan war on the shared language and literature of Urdu in the two countries. He concluded that certain trends set in motion after the particular use to which Urdu was put on both sides for official propaganda, as well as for the production of war poetry, may result in “producing two separate literary-cultural identities that will complement the existing separate national-political identities”. That this relative transformation in the literary sphere paralleled, or mirrored, a more general transformation in national consciousness is reflected in statements celebrating the effects of the war in a current Class IX Pakistan Studies textbook from Punjab: “This war instilled a spirit of unity and solidarity among Pakistani people. The entire nation disregarded their internal differences and stood firmly to fight the enemy … Pakistani artists, through their art, encouraged their soldiers. In short, the entire nation faced the enemy courageously and stood victorious in the war.”

While a change in mindset may have occurred after the 1965 war – which went on to become the primary symbol of military glorification through detailed discussion of its battles – scholars concur that the major transformation in textbook content actually occurred during the 1970s after the military suffered an unambiguous and ignominious defeat in East Pakistan. Researcher Rubina Saigol, who has worked extensively on education, nationalism and militarisation in Pakistan, writes in her 1995 book Knowledge and Identity: “When Zulfikar Ali Bhutto took over the government in 1971, the Pakistan army was demoralised due to having surrendered to India in East Pakistan … The public image of the army was very low and people’s faith in the army’s capacity to defend the country had been shaken. The Bhutto era curriculum is filled with war heroes, military values and the glorification of the army and its valiant exploits in the 1948 and 1965 wars with India.”

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While discussing a textbook from 1975, Saigol writes how it depicts the Pakistani army as being more than a match for the much larger Indian force. The Pakistan Army is depicted in the book as being “one of the best armies in the world” on account of its soldiers being tough, courageous and filled with the spirit of jihad. Its soldiers are also shown as being most humane in their treatment of women, children and prisoners of war, in accordance with international principles, unlike the Indians/Hindus. “All of this seems to be an attempt to redeem the damaged reputation of the Pakistani army because around that time, the atrocities it had committed in East Pakistan in 1971 were becoming known worldwide. This ‘highly principled’ army had reportedly raped 200,000 Bengali women and killed thousands of Bengali civilians,” explains Saigol.

Salim and Nayyar also state that Bhutto introduced a full two-year course titled Fundamentals of War and Defence of Pakistan for Classes XI and XII respectively: in the first, “themes like objects and causes, conduct, nature, modern weapons, operations … ethics, the means … of war and modern warfare were thoroughly discussed”. The second “dealt with Pakistan’s defence problems, economy and defenc e, foreign policy, military heritage, defence forces, role of armed forces during peace and qualities of military leadership etc”. It was also during Bhutto’s government that compulsory basic military training for college students was introduced.

Ziaul Haq’s era is seen by scholars as one where these trends only intensified, in tandem with the increasing exploitation of Islam and Islamic slogans of jihad and martyrdom. Linguist and academic Tariq Rahman writes in his 2005 book Denizens of Alien Worlds, that during Zia’s time, “Islam was used to support the state’s own militaristic policies in a way that it appeared to the readers of these textbooks that Pakistan, the Pakistan movement, Pakistan’s wars with India and the Kashmir issue were all connected not only with Pakistani nationalism but with Islam itself.”
Clearly, Zia’s and Bhutto’s rule was a time when attempts to produce a good Muslim civilian soldier reached their zenith. This was done through creating a culture of perpetual fear and the sense of a nation under threat. Saigol gives the example of a 1987 textbook for Class V which – within one short, single paragraph – uses the word ‘enemy’ four times and employs the notion of destroying this enemy five times. Since the army was performing the important function of protecting citizens from the ‘enemy’, it became the citizen’s duty to support the army. The roots of this mindset, which proved so useful during the Afghan jihad, and later against an oft-shifting enemy, were once again laid during the 1970s. Saigol quotes a 1975 textbook: “…every Pakistani has to be a soldier. If someone cannot join the army, he can be otherwise helpful to the defenders of the country. If he is unable to carry a gun, he can at least become a member of the Hilal-e-Ahmar … If a National Guards Corps is being organized, he is the first to carry a gun. If Air Defence is being organized, he is the first to join.”

Scholars do not see the tone of textbooks and education policies as having changed much in the democratic interlude following Zia. After 9/11, however, Pakistani textbooks became a subject of heightened controversy as local experts and international donor organisations increased pressure on the government to remove ‘hate material’, as well as content glorifying war, particularly ‘jihad’, from textbooks. A number of educational reforms have followed in the last seven years but experts say their implementation and impact have been limited so far.

Even though less space is now seen to be devoted to issues of war and external enemies, perhaps as a result of recent reforms, there is another, more subtle, way in which a positive image of the military is being reinforced through textbooks — that is, through mentioning, or failing to mention, the military’s role in politics. An interesting aspect of Pakistan Studies textbooks is that history largely disappears after the demise of Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Anything from later years is covered under the rubric of constitutional development, specifically “steps towards an Islamic Republic” in the 1956, 1962 and 1973 constitutions. There is no overt discussion about the direct or indirect role of the armed forces in politics since the 1950s. However, an image of the army emerges against the foil of chaotic and corrupt civilian rule.

A current Sindh textbook for Classes XI-XII discusses the “intrigue and disunity” and “intense internal strife and selfishness” that the Muslim League had fallen prey to after Jinnah’s death, using words like “political mischief”, “disruption”, “disintegration”, “fissiparous tendencies” all within the space of a few lines. “The country had to pay a heavy price for all the evil doings of the selfish politicians and leaders,” it concludes.

A number of current textbooks for Class IX from Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa go so far as to devote a special section to “important causes” for the 1958 martial law, listing factors such as political conflict, poor economic conditions, lack of political leadership, smuggling and nepotism, role of bureaucracy, uncertainty, provincial prejudices, political instability and delay in elections. The circumstances under which Ayub Khan “abrogated the Constitution and imposed Martial Law” are treated as inevitable and even justifiable. This effectively sets the stage for students to understand all later impositions of martial law as also inevitable and justifiable because what is the likelihood that generic factors such as uncertainty, prejudices and smuggling will ever completely fade from the national horizon.

If writers would just present the barest of facts about each civilian or military ruler while leaving the interpretation of events to teachers and students, the content of textbooks might be boring but, at least, accurate and objective. The unarguable part of it is, though, that textbook writers are not just outlining facts, but passing value judgements — and that too in a highly selective manner.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s current textbook for classes XI-XII contains an entire chapter titled National Integration and Prosperity, in which politics and politicians are identified again and again as obstacles towards the attainment of this goal and are then exhorted to rise above their petty differences to become more national, rather than regional, and to refrain from selfishness and corruption. By contrast, any criticism of the military’s political role is implicit rather than explicit. The writers limit their remarks to bland statements like democratic institutions in Pakistan did not “receive the opportunity” to function with continuity. The same book describes the abrogation of the 1958 Constitution as simply “unfortunate”, a typical example of the attitude of gentle regret that most textbook writers display towards this highly significant event.

As compared to earlier textbooks, many of the latest ones appear far less detached in their description of political events, and sometimes this trend does not work in the military’s favour. While earlier books are, as Saigol says, “virtually silent about 1971”, striking exceptions are to be found among current textbooks, several of which treat the ‘Fall of East Pakistan’ in some detail, leading to interesting results. While India and East Pakistani Hindus have traditionally been held responsible for engineering the split between Pakistan’s two wings in 1971, many current textbooks also acknowledge the role of the Pakistani army. While textbooks from Punjab, a traditional stronghold of the army, are predictably more conservative in this regard, the Class X textbook for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, seen as another military stronghold, contains an explicit subheading about army “interference” in East Pakistan.

The current Sindh textbook for classes IX-X is the most outspoken in its condemnation of the army’s actions. “After the general election of December 1970, the law and order situation in East Pakistan had gone from bad to worse. Instead of finding a political solution to the situation the then Military regime decided to suppress the Awami League … This fanned the flame. The army began military action against the separatist movement of the Awami League. This created hatred among Bengalis which also led to armed struggle.” Though this still falls far short of admitting the full scale of atrocities committed by the Pakistani army as reported by the Hamoodur Rahman Commission, it is nevertheless a relatively less biased depiction of events in the East Pakistan debacle.

The writers of the book also do not try to glorify army actions in the subsequent war. “Due to the lack of support of the local populace and the poor arrangements of supply of men and material, Pakistani soldiers surrendered before the Indian army on December 16, 1971 … On December 16, 1971 East Pakistan became an independent and free state of Bangladesh.”

The headline of the Dawn newspaper on December 17, 1971, declaring the end of the war

The headline of the Dawn newspaper on December 17, 1971, declaring the end of the war

In light of these examples of more open discussion in textbooks, can we expect to see a fuller appreciation of the military’s role in Pakistan’s politics in the newer textbooks currently being developed? Salim is far from optimistic, and asks, “Will the Punjab government allow it to be printed that Nawaz Sharif was planted by the army?” In the more general context of educational reform, Dr Syed Jaffar Ahmed, director of the University of Karachi’s Pakistan Study Centre, took a similarly dismal view at a recent seminar on the major challenges confronting Pakistan’s educational system. “You don’t know how much the government is investing in keeping you uninformed, so that you shouldn’t become informed … because then there would be demonstrations.”

While all this may be true at the policy level, it seems that information – and knowledge – is not always so tightly controlled at the level of practice. The Balochistan Textbook Board’s current Pakistan Studies textbook for Classes IX to X, for instance, is openly critical of the army while championing democracy and the rights of provinces. While praising the 1973 Constitution as the first to be “prepared unanimously by a duly elected Assembly”, the book takes a dim view of the 1962 Constitution: “This Constitution was in no way democratic but reflected the ideas of a Military Chief.”

Intriguingly, this book also contains no mention at all of the wars of 1965 and 1971. Instead, the writers attempt to offer a semblance of political analysis. The movement against Ayub Khan is explained thus: “As the system of government was not rooted in the masses therefore they nursed anti-government feelings … Excepting Punjab, the remaining three provinces were against the integration of West Pakistan [as One Unit].”

While political discussion in most textbooks tends to halt after the promulgation of the 1973 Constitution, this book devotes some attention to the second martial law. It discusses how the country “stood on the brink of a civil war” when results of the 1977 election came under dispute. Keeping in view the typical pattern of textbooks, the writers could have treated Zia’s martial law as being justified as a means to restore order at this juncture. Instead, they appear vexed that “the army got an opportunity to interfere”.
What is more, while textbooks typically prefer to stay quiet, or, at least, speak in rather matter of fact terms, about Zia’s repeated failure to hold elections, this book describes the general’s promises in a rather startling manner: “… many announcements were made from time to time to hold elections at the earliest, but these were all moonshine and the Martial Law Government prolonged itself.”

It can be argued that the writers or reviewers did not sufficiently understand the import of the word ‘moonshine’ (bakwaas being the closest Urdu equivalent) and that is why the book was passed by the National Textbook Board Review Committee. But how do we explain the generally more critical terms in which the actions of the military or of martial law administrators are described in many similar textbooks being presently used in schools? While Pakistan Studies textbooks published by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Textbook Board can be seen to follow a similar, if diluted, line to those published by the Punjab Textbook Board in most matters, writers for Sindh and Balochistan’s textbook boards are often seen to adopt a far less, let us say, fervent approach.

The Herald interviewed Qaimuddin Bilal and Ausaf Latif, respective subject specialists at the Sindh Textbook Board and the Balochistan Textbook Board, who supervise the preparation of Pakistan Studies textbooks for their respective boards. When asked about approaches adopted towards particular events by the boards’ writers, the two officials claimed to see no difference between the content presented in their books and those of other boards. They said that textbook writers in Sindh and Balochistan followed the same curriculum outlines laid down by the federal government, as writers for other provinces were required to follow. But when specific differences were pointed out, Latif acknowledged that there could possibly be a difference of emphasis. What some writers may cover in a few lines, others may devote much more space to, she said, while acknowledging that here and there the writer’s own voice might “slip through”.

Going by these statements, it does not appear that any criticism – or lack of glorification – of the army in these textbooks is part of some wider policy on the part of the provinces or the federal government to present a specific image of the institution. The content could simply have been approved because reviewers at the National Textbook Review Committee lack either the understanding or the expertise to evaluate whether textbook writers have met (or exceeded) the requirements of the curriculum, as indicated by Dr Khalid Mahmood, technical adviser to the Canada-Pakistan Basic Education Project, in a 2010 article about science and mathematics textbooks.

The recent devolution of the subject of education to the provinces, as a result of the 18th Amendment, adds another angle to the picture: textbooks will now be reviewed at the provincial level, instead of going to the centre. Many people fear this may weaken ‘national ideology’. Former federal education minister Zubaida Jalal, for instance, has been quoted as saying: “The plan to hand the education ministry to the provinces is a threat to the federation.” How this will pan out as far as the military’s portrayal in textbooks is concerned may depend on whether a decade or two can pass without the military’s returning to rule Pakistan. Since we, as a nation, are clearly more comfortable teaching history, as the saying goes, so long as it remains firmly about the past.

Live discussion with Brian Cloughley

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Brian Cloughley has studied South Asian affairs for over 30 years. He has also authored two books, A History of the Pakistan Army and War (which focuses on Kargil war) and  War, Coups and Terror (which studies the evolution of the Pakistan Army between 1972 and 2008).

On June 21, 2012 the Herald  invited Cloughley to a live discussion about the allocation of the defence budget. The blog has been edited for space, clarity and grammar.

7:27         Comment From Safa. What are the reasons behind the secrecy of the defence budget?

7:28         Brian Cloughley. The normal reasons that most countries have for secrecy, although in the case ofPakistan, there is rather more, simply, I think, because of a tradition of secrecy. I doubt it’s sinister.

7:29         Comment From M Anwer. Do you think the allocation of the defence budget is politically motivated?

7:31         Brian Cloughley. No I don’t — if only becausePakistan isn’t like some other countries, in that politicians (in theUS for example) have defence industries in their electorates & have to pander to industry. As to other reasons . . . no, I can’t really think of any.

7:31         Comment From Haroon Asif . When do you think discussing the defence budget in the parliament seize to be taboo. It seams that all political parties when in out of power tend to be all for transparency of defence spending but when in power, only a selected few talk about it and that also behind closed doors. Secondly if the military portrays itself to be so accountable and just why are they afraid of disclosing where the money is being spent?

7:35         Brian Cloughley. You are quite right about parliamentary discussion; of course, it’s a bit strange that there’s no insistence on open examination. For example, they could discuss why there are different priorities for navy and air force in allocations. As to disclosure by the military itself, this can be difficult if only because there are some aspects that should not be known by outsiders. No country, so far as I know, ever gives the smallest details about nuclear programme allocations. But in the basics, you are right: there should be a bit more transparency, and I think it is improving gradually.

7:36        Comment From Haroon Asif. Does the war against militancy within the country justify the 12 % increase in defence spending? (this does not include the Rs 73 billion allocated for pensions of military personnel that would be paid from the civilian budget and a separate allocation for security-related expenses).

7:39         Brian Cloughley. Answering second point first: no country includes military pensions in defence budgets. This was a device dreamed up way back by the politicians so that they could disguise at least some part of military expenditure. As to the war against militancy — I don’t think that the costs of this are widely understood. It is enormously expensive to maintain such a high degree of readiness and to continually train for this type of military activity. The operating costs of having so many troops in the west of the country are really staggering.

7:39         Comment From Hammad Raza. In current coalition government system in Pakistan, a number of political wings of establishment have become part and parcel of Pakistan’s current democratic set-up, how democratic forces can cut down to size the praetorian state structure by rationalizing defence budget?

7:43         Brian Cloughley. Rationalisation of defence budgets is the Ideal of all nations, but it’ll never happen, mainly because it is so difficult to predict what charges will be made. And politicians aren’t experts in this, so they try to cover all bases.

7:43         Comment From Hammad Raza. There is a perennial predicament in Pakistan related to imbalanced civil-military relations. In current situation, when military has gained immense ascendancy to power extending into the realm of political economy, how it can be possible to open up defence budget before ‘unpatriotic’ politicians?

7:45         Brian Cloughley. It’s not a matter of distrusting the politicians. After all, I don’t think that even the most venal of pollies would actually betray their country by revealing defence secrets to foreigners. The matter of openness goes further than that. The tradition is one of secrecy. It hasn’t been the custom to openly discuss defence expenditure matters. I think things are getting better, but this sort of change takes time.

7:46         Comment From Muhammad Faryad. Do you think the defence budget is decreasing the competitiveness of private businesses by subsidizing the military-owned businesses?

7:49         Brian Cloughley. I imagine you are thinking of such organisations as the Fauji Foundation, which owns a lot of businesses. Some of these are indeed in competition with other businesses of like nature. But I don’t think that their competitiveness is adversely affected by the defence budget. And we have to bear in mind that Fauji looks after several million dependants of service members, thereby saving the greater economy an awful lot of money.

7:54         Comment From Muhammad Faryad. Is it true that the changing nature of warfare (remote controlled weapons, cyber warfare, and terrorism, to name a few) requires more investment in educational, technological, and industrial development of the nation to be able to defend the nation from internal and external threats? Or is this just an exaggeration the military propagates?

7:57         Brian Cloughley. There is no doubt that the highly technical devices that are so necessary in modern warfare are expensive in cash terms and demanding in operator skills. So there has to be investment all round. As General Kayani said, “We in the Army understand very well that there should be a very good balance between defence and development because ultimately security does not only mean secure borders but the welfare of the people. We would like to spend less on defence; any country should do the same way.”

So I don’t think there’s much exaggeration going on — but of course all defence forces try to get as much as they can!

7:58         Comment From Hassan J. How does Pak’s defence budget stand in relation to India‘s?

7:59         Brian Cloughley. It’s about one sixth of Indian defence spending. Both countries have enormous internal security problems in addition to maintaining conventional and nuclear defence structures, and the costs are staggering.

8:00         Comment From Dara S. Do you think most of the military expenditure is spent of training and providing the Taliban with weapons?

8:00           Brian Cloughley. I really don’t think that there is any training of Taliban. Or weapons’ supply, either. After all, a country would be a bit strange to train and equip people who have killed over 3000 soldiers of its military and paramilitary forces . . . .

8:02         Comment From Iqbal. In what year was the most transparent defence budget released? Why do you think that was?

8:03         Brian Cloughley. I think it was 2011. All part of governments developing wider social consciences

8:03         Comment From SHM. Besides Pakistan which other country is less open about their military budget? Are the reasons similar to Pakistan?

8:06         Brian Cloughley. No country is really open about its defence budget. It might look as if the UK, for example, is indeed most open — but if one tries to dig down and discover how much is spent on Intelligence, nuclear, murky dealings, we never seem to get very far. The reasons are similar, sure: but one has to bear in mind that in politics and bureaucracy there is an inbuilt tendency to keep things secret for the sake of doing so.

8:06         Comment From Obaid. Adding to what you said, isn’t it true that the defence budget is given such an alarmingly large proportion of our total budget at the expense of the budget allocated towards education, infrastructure etc. When what this country really needs is better educational systems and more development to tackle a lot of problems that the army has to deal with right now. Like terrorism and in the long run corruption which should decrease with an increase in literacy in the country because one of the major rifts between the govt and the military is because of the dishonest leaders that we have. Then why is it that every year our defence budget increases when it should be decreasing or be in some reasonable proportion to other major spending concerns which will in fact help us get out of the mess that we are in better than the army can help us with..

8:10         Brian Cloughley. I so agree with you. But of course we have to bear in mind that all costs are increasing year by year. And when you think of the cost of new equipment, it’s mind-boggling. The main drain, though, is almost certainly in operating costs of the 130,000 troops in the west of the country, who have to be stationed there because of the Afghan war and its most adverse effects on Pakistan’s stability. It costs vast amounts in fuel, for example. And we also have to remember that the services are the only real fall-back when there are natural disasters. The earthquake and the floods would have had much worse effects if it hadn’t been for massive military assistance — which costs an awful lot of money.

8:11         Comment From Yusra. What is the model country for transparent military budget?

8:17         Brian Cloughley. Ireland

8:18         Comment From SHM. Why is Ireland a model country for transparent military budget?

8:19         Brian Cloughley. That was intended to be a tiny joke. Just because it has a very small budget, no advanced weapons, and relies on not having any wars to fight . . .

8:11         Comment From Obaid. What was the biggest problem with the defence budget this year?

8:22         Brian Cloughley. It all depends where you come from. If you’re wearing uniform, you would say ‘There isn’t enough’. If you are a teacher you would probably say ‘it’s far too much.’ In no country will you ever have agreement. But I think we all agree that reduction in defence spending would be a good thing. The Army Chief himself has said this. But how to do it? Better people than we are have tried!

8:25         Brian Cloughley. Here’s what I wrote elsewhere about Pakistan’s defence budgeting process. It might encourage more discussion: Pakistan’s security objectives will place a heavy requirement on maintaining a consistent level of defence spending. However, as GDP is estimated to grow relatively uniformly in later years following the end of current procurement agreements, the percentage of GDP necessary to complete defence objectives will diminish. Also, an uncertain political future could prevent any consistent level of expense, although the military’s omnipresence in Pakistan’s political landscape ensures that levels are unlikely to drop too drastically.

Defence spending transparency has improved inPakistan, but there remains no structured approach to capital acquisition. Programme management and budgeting, as understood in most defence forces, is not practised. The focus of spending is on modernisation, and counterinsurgency operations inNorth WestFrontierProvince.

8:29         Comment From M Anwer. The government has to appease the media, the people and the army. Do you think this years’ defence budget has appeased anyone?

8:30         Brian Cloughley. No I don’t think that this year’s defence budget has appeased or pleased anyone. By definition, that is extremely difficult, if not impossible, because everyone has different priorities. We’re all human.

8:30         Comment From Qayum Khan. Pakistan has been under several martial coups, how does the shroud on the defence budget change in those years?

8:32         Brian Cloughley. In the Zia years everything was kept very quiet indeed — possibly because there were a lot of subsidies from Riyadh. Oddly enough, when democracy came back after Zia was killed, there wasn’t much clarity evident, either, and neither Benazir nor Nawaz seemed anxious to have much more. Strange, really.

I think time’s up. Thank you very much, everyone.

Live discussion with Aqil Shah

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Aqil Shah is a post-doctoral fellow at the Society of Fellows, Harvard University. He is writing a book on the origins and sources of sustained military intervention and weak civilian control in Pakistan. A former Rhodes Scholar, he holds a doctorate in Political Science from Columbia University and has held fellowships at Stanford and the University of Chicago. Dr Shah has taught at Columbia, UChicago and LUMS. He has also worked for the International Crisis Group in its South Asia office.

On June 21, 2012 the Herald invited Shah to a live discussion about the allocation of the defence budget. The blog has been edited for space, clarity and grammar.

2:57     Comment From Safa. What are the reasons behind the secrecy of the defence budget?

3:04  Aqil Shah. The military’s standard argument for secrecy is that defence expenditures involve “sensitive national security issues.” Hence, it objects to any civilian scrutiny on the grounds that outside interference would undermine its professional capabilities. The actual problem is that the military’s political dominance has allowed the generals to place themselves above reproach. And for the most part, the military does not trust civilians, especially their ability to keep “secrets.” Neither does it have much confidence in civilian capacity and acumen to understand military affairs. So there is a “trust us, we know better” attitude at work.  While all militaries are insular and secretive to varying degrees, and there is a case for not fully publicizing operational and intelligence matters, there is no convincing rationale for cloaking all military expenditures under the convenient pretext of “national security.” The public has every right to be informed about how their money is spent, a right that assumes added importance because of the military’s demonstrably poor recent professional performance (e.g. GHQ attack, Mehran base, U.S. raid to kill bin Laden)

3:06     Comment From M Anwer. Do you think the allocation of the defence budget is politically motivated?

3:09     Aqil Shah.  Resource allocation is a political process. The military gets what it wants because it wields the biggest stick in town. Because military budgets are shrouded in secrecy andPakistan’s national security policy is what the military says it is, it is hard to determine the connection between military expenditures and actual security imperatives.

3:10    Comment From Umair Javed. Hi Aqil, Umair Javed here (was in your CMR class at LUMS). Do you think that all this talk about the army’s gradual withdrawal from active politics holds any weight, and more importantly, do you think its fiscal appetite can be curtailed by any means other than by direct political confrontation, possibly in the shape of a popular mass movement?

3:20     Aqil Shah.  The military has left power, but it has yet to exit politics. Military extrication from government in 2007-2008 was primarily the result of the need to preserve its institutional reputation threatened by its close association with an isolated and deeply unpopular Musharraf.  Put differently, the military withdrew to the barracks contingently, not out of a commitment to democratic norms. This conditional adherence to civilian rule means that the military continues to view itself as the only permanent custodian of the country’s ‘permanent’ interests, which makes civilian authorities ‘temporary,’ and hence, ultimately disposable. The military also reserves the right to exercise broad oversight of the civilian government and overtly or covertly challenge or reverse civilian policy initiatives that impinge on its national security prerogatives. In fact, intervention is still a legitimate option in the military’s institutional mind-set. In the words of COAS General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, “military interventions are sometimes necessary to maintainPakistan’s stability…temporary bypasses that are created when a bridge collapses on democracy’s highway. After the bridge is repaired, then there’s no longer any need for the detour.”

I am a little sceptical of the actual “democratic” outcomes of “mass movements,” especially when they are based on violent means.   Research has shown that non-violent mass uprisings have been more successful in achieving democratic ends in part because they are more likely to win broader domestic (and external) legitimacy. I think democratic institutionalization, a slow and uncertain process no doubt, may offer a more reliable way of clipping the generals’ political and financial wings.

3:21     Comment From Hassan. How does Pakistan‘s Defence Budget stands against that of India‘s? Is that something our policy makers look at? Our defence budget is 18% of total budget (please correct if wrong), does India also give roughly the same percentage to its defence budget?

3:26     Aqil Shah.  The official rationale for the amount of defence spending is that Pakistan needs to match India’s military capabilities. India’s military budget is roughly four to five times higher than Pakistan’s total defence allocation in absolute terms, but India allocates a lower percentage of its government expenditure (15-17 % on average) than Pakistan (actually around 25-28 %). But remember, India’s economy is also bigger and growing much faster than Pakistan’s. So the real question is: can we really afford the existing levels of military expenditures given our national economic conditions/resources? When a country spends seven to ten times more on arms than primary education, there is something seriously wrong with its national priorities.

3:27     Comment From Qayum Khan. Pakistan has been under several martial coups, how does the shroud on the defence budget change in those years?

3:30     Aqil Shah. Military expenditures have rarely been transparent, regardless of who is in power. Under military rule, I believe even the perfunctory civilian oversight is diminished. At least in theory, democratic-civilian rule offers more space for debating military expenditures in the public domain than military authoritarian rule.

3:31     Comment From Dara S. What is the biggest problem with the defence budget this year? What is the issue most people have with it?

3:36     Aqil Shah. One of the biggest issues is the absolute lack of transparency and civilian scrutiny. We don’t know the real extent of the military budget. The official allocation for 2012-2013 stands at Rs 545 billion which is highly misleading. Some independent estimates put the actual budget at Rs 800-900 billion, almost double the allocated amount. This is because the estimated budget does not include internal security expenditures, military pensions, debt on military loans, arms purchases, etc. Second, the information disclosed indicates that salaries absorb almost fifty percent of the military budget, which is quite skewed in terms of the ratio between money spent on actual combat preparedness and on personnel maintenance. Put simply, the military spends less on improving its battleground effectiveness than on non-combat expenses. 

3:44     Comment From Muhammad Faryad. Is it true that the changing nature of warfare (remote controlled weapons, cyber warfare, and terrorism, to name a few) requires more investment in educational, technological, and industrial development of the nation to be able to defend the nation from internal and external threats? Or is this just an exaggeration the military propagates?

3:47     Aqil Shah. There is certainly an argument to be made about the need to invest in human and technological capital amidst the changing tenor of modern warfare. But in a world of scarce resources, there is also a trade-off between what a country can spend on developing an advanced military machine and what it invests in building human capabilities and providing basic human security from hunger, disease and poverty.

3:48     Comment From Gul. They say that Pakistan’s foreign policy can be summarised in one word: India. Is this the sole reason for our oversized defence budget or does the Taliban also have a lot to do with it?

3:52     Aqil Shah. Traditionally, the size of military budgets has been driven by the perceived threat from India. Internal security threats, Taliban and the like, have become more salient especially since 9/11. However, the military’s main mission is still fighting India and its doctrines, training, perceptions are largely products of the threat from the east. The military establishment tends to see internal threats as part of “enemy/India designs” to destabilize Pakistan from within. Hence, domestic and external threats are deeply intertwined in its national security policies.

3:54     Comment From M Anwer. The government has to appease the media, the people and the army. Do you think this years’ defence budget has appeased anyone?

3:59     Aqil Shah. As far as defence spending is concerned, the civilian government has no real space to appease anyone except the armed forces. The military budget is usually not subject to change because of civilian preferences. The dominant right-wing sections of the media, as well as military-sponsored “defense analysts,” play an important role in constantly refurbishing the military’s “national security” narrative that helps legitimate large and unaccountable military spending. In that sense, you can say that the media acts as an additional pressure group that restricts the civilian government’s already limited room to manoeuvre.

4:01     Aqil Shah. I would love to answer more questions but the time has run out. Thank you for your participation.

On trial

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Yousuf Raza Gilani is creating history of sorts: With just one month to go before he completes his fourth year in office, he is already the longest serving prime minister of Pakistan. With a mix of luck, guile, compromise, concessions and even confrontation, he would expect to pull off another historical feat — of surviving his full constitutional term in office.

At the military’s beck and call

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The civil and military leadership at the All Parties Conference

The civil and military leadership at the All Parties Conference

Only a week before dismissing Prime Minister Mohammad Khan Junejo’s government in May 1988, military dictator General Ziaul Haq angrily remarked to his subordinates in Rawalpindi’s army house, “Have you noticed how arrogant Junejo has become? He even walks and behaves like [Zulfikar Ali] Bhutto.”
Zia’s anger was not without cause. A month earlier, the prime minister had not only gone against the general’s advice to sign the Geneva Peace Accord with the Afghan government but had also rallied the country’s political leadership behind this decision. In the process, Junejo isolated Zia and the military leadership and, perhaps, came as close to achieving civilian supremacy over security and foreign policy issues as any civilian leader in Pakistan ever has.
In March 1988, Junejo called an All Parties Conference (APC) on Afghanistan. He wanted Benazir Bhutto to participate in the conference, in order to ensure its success, and she demanded that Zia would not be invited to attend the event. Junejo accepted this condition. A piqued Zia then instructed Junejo not to sign the Geneva Peace Accord in haste. However, buoyed by the APC’s support for his point of view, Junejo dispatched foreign minister Zain Noorani to sign it.
Junejo’s attitude towards the military’s top brass is in stark contrast with the way Pakistan’s present political leadership is playing second fiddle to the military and intelligence establishment’s decisions. In an APC on September 29, leading politicians endorsed a resolution supporting a change of policy in dealing with militants in the tribal areas. The new policy, summed up as “Give peace a chance,” is intended to initiate dialogue with the tribal militants.
As the Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee Khalid Shamim Wyne, the Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Director-General Shuja Pasha briefed the APC participants, no one questioned the rationale for the policy change. Ironically, only two years ago, these political leaders had supported a military operation in Swat — again, no questions were asked.
Some participants at the September APC say the gathering was not meant to encourage, let alone ask, critical questions. Abid Hassan Minto, the senior Supreme Court lawyer known for his left-wing politics, was present at the APC and had some questions; he left the conference midway when he was not allowed to ask any. “The format of the APC was not conducive to questioning and the mood was not of critically examining the issues,” he says. There were dozens of political leaders present and all of them wanted to deliver hard-hitting speeches, he adds.
Minto says nobody questioned the military commanders about Pakistan’s internal security situation or the practical purpose of negotiating with militants after more than seven years of intermittent military operations. The APC did not question the political objective of successive military operations in the tribal areas and numerous peace deals forged with tribal militant groups.
Minto says he did not sign the resolution, “because after listening to the prime minister’s speech and briefings by Kayani, Pasha and the foreign minister, I had a clear understanding of the exact purpose of the APC.” It was, he says, “organised to endorse the decision of the military leadership”.
APC participants from almost all major political parties say they did not float the idea of initiating dialogue with militants. Only minor parties like Imran Khan’s Tehrik-e-Insaaf and extreme right-wing parties urged the government to start the dialogue, sources within the APC say. That they managed to make it the most important part of the resolution confirms that their agenda was being pushed by the military leadership.
The APC was convened at a time when Pakistan’s military leadership came under pressure from their counterparts in the United States military and intelligence establishment. Official circles perceived American allegations that Pakistani intelligence services were providing logistical support to militant groups such as the Haqqani network as threats. However, even before the politicians could meet, the Americans had already started a diplomatic effort to calm the Pakistani leadership’s nerves by issuing conciliatory statements and praising Pakistan for its role in the war against militancy.
No political leader, however, asked the military commanders and intelligence chief about the nature of their interactions with the Americans. None of them knew that Pakistani spies had, indeed, facilitated a meeting between the Haqqani network and American interlocutors only months before they placed their collective weight behind the military as a show of defiance to the United States. This meeting came to light last month when US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton revealed the information during her visit to Pakistan.
A senior member of a major opposition party admits that the ISI-facilitated meeting between the Haqqanis and the US has had serious foreign policy implications and should have been critically examined in the APC before any endorsement of the resolution. He cannot explain, however, why this could not happen. The commanders were not asked why or how the Americans accused Pakistan of harbouring Haqqani militants and providing them logistical support only a month after meeting with the militants. Whether the military opts to corral political support for itself only when in trouble and does not even so much as bother to talk to politicians when things are hunky-dory is certainly open to question.
Observers say such a situation usually arises when the line between foreign policy and the murky world of intelligence blurs. When this happens, spymasters take over where politicians and diplomats should have been in charge. Such a shift is not only the result of recent events — the absence of strong democratic and civilian institutions through much of Pakistan’s history has allowed the military and intelligence establishment to dominate the policymaking process, enabled by an eager-to-please political class willing to do the military’s bidding to settle internal scores.
If the politicians had not made their internal discord visible and had avoided strengthening Zia in the wake of the Junejo government’s dismissal, his regime would have collapsed before his plane crashed. Zia was already feeling nervous as he witnessed his trusted officials being shown the door by Junejo in the months preceding the Geneva Peace Accord. Junejo first sacked Major-General Agha Nek Mohammad who was heading the civilian intelligence agency, the Intelligence Bureau, and was considered close to Zia. He subsequently sacked foreign minister Sahibzada Yaqub Khan, another close Zia associate. The message was clear — Junejo wanted to exclude Zia and the military from the domain of internal security and foreign policy.
“The single biggest mistake the Pakistani politicians made was that they were not organised when Zia moved against the Junejo government,” says Minto. Some of the politicians, in fact, sent congratulatory messages to Zia over the government’s dismissal. Others joined his post-Junejo administration — Nawaz Sharif opted to stay as chief minister of Punjab, with the general’s blessing, even after Sharif’s seniors and counterparts in the centre and other provinces had been unceremoniously removed.
Even during the post-Zia period, the military continued to dictate the decision-making process. Much to the chagrin of the military establishment, Benazir Bhutto challenged the military’s hold on foreign policy before she was ousted from power in 1990. In the run-up to her sacking, the military leadership as well as the opposition Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI) severely criticised her for trying to improve ties with India during Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s 1989 visit to Pakistan to attend a summit meeting of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc). Benazir Bhutto also disagreed with the military over the resolution of problems in Afghanistan — while her government favoured the policy of continuing negotiations on the basis of the Geneva Accord, the military and intelligence agencies supported warlords such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar in their attempts to take over Kabul by force. Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto annoyed the military leadership when she attempted to bring the intelligence services under her control and appointed a committee to review the role and relationship of intelligence agencies in a democratic set-up in February 1989. In May 1989, she replaced the powerful ISI chief Lieutenant-General Hamid Gul, posting him as corps commander Multan, a demotion in the military hierarchy.
Benazir Bhutto was cautious when she returned in 1993 — she avoided major foreign policy decisions or interference in security policy during her second tenure. Importantly, she resisted international pressures to decrease defence expenditure, which remained fixed at 26 per cent of the national budget during her two and half years in office. She also vigorously campaigned in Washington to get the military a waiver from sanctions through the Brown Amendment, which made it possible for the United States to supply much-needed military hardware to Pakistan’s armed forces. This mollycoddling did not save her second government from dismissal, that too at the behest of the military establishment. Politicians – both in power and in the opposition – took note and never missed a chance to warm up to the military and intelligence chiefs.
“Over the years, the civilian leadership has conceded its role in security related policymaking,” acknowledges Khawaja Asif, a central leader of the Pakistan Muslim League–Nawaz (PMLN). “But, in the present situation, this is true only for the government. We in the opposition want to assert our role in the security-related decision-making process,” he asserts. Asif claims his party has shunned the political tactics of the past, when politicians were ready to do the military’s bidding to defeat their opponents. He, however, does not have convincing answers when asked to explain why his party leader and Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has had secret meetings with the army and ISI chiefs. Asif was cagey when asked why his party head, Nawaz Sharif, endorsed an unequivocally pro-military resolution at the APC. Before attending the APC in Islamabad, Sharif presided over a meeting of his party leaders in Lahore, seeking their opinion on the question of attending the conference, Asif says. “Many in the meeting opposed going to the APC as they said that it would be useless,” he tells the Herald. “This is a new method that the army has adopted to give cover to its decisions … previously they have been taking decisions on their own without consulting anyone … now they are doing the same with the APC — providing a cover for their continued dominance over the decision-making process on security and foreign policy issues,” says Asif. Nawaz Sharif nevertheless attended the APC and, despite raising a few rhetorical questions as reported in the press, did not press the issue of civilian supremacy over foreign policy and security issues.
This is not the first time Nawaz Sharif has shown such ambivalence towards the military. The first time he did so it cost him his second government. By late June 1999, he was convinced that the army’s intrusion into Kargil was a fiasco; instead of confronting the military leaders, he proceeded to Washington, uninvited, to seek President Bill Clinton’s help for a face-saving arrangement allowing the army to withdraw. The army leadership also knew by then that they could not sustain their Kargil adventure but, according to a former diplomat, “wanted to shift the blame for defeat on to the civilian leadership.” In less than two months, Nawaz Sharif was ousted from power in a bloodless coup.
In this, and so many similar examples of civilian leaders paying heavily for cozying up to the military establishment, is a bitter truth: democratic governments have not survived even after continuing to do the army’s bidding. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and President Asif Ali Zardari’s government seems to have forgotten this.