In the initial years of Pakistan’s existence, the country's civil and military leadership was too enthusiastic about developing robust relations with Washington. The 1948 Kashmir war changed the perspective of the Pakistani ruling elite. They realised that they were facing a much larger and relatively much more well-equipped and hostile military power, India, on its Eastern border. In this situation, thinking developed that to meet the military challenge from India, Pakistan needed to seek the involvement of an extra-regional power to neutralise Indian military superiority. Over the next several decades, one of the aims of Pakistani diplomacy was to attract the involvement of this extra-regional power to counter and neutralise the Indian threat. This diplomatic objective took us to the doors of Washington, to Arab capitals, and to Beijing.
The Pakistani military and its successive leaders developed close and deep relations with the military and intelligence establishments of Washington. This is not to say that they don’t have close relations with the Arab militaries or political leaders. Or that they are not thick with the military and political leadership of China. I specifically mentioned Washington only because I want to narrate a story in the context of our military and intelligence establishment’s deep and dubious relations with Washington and its security establishment.
In the initial years after independence, when the Cold War was in full swing, the Pakistani government received massive US military assistance to build up land forces, which in American calculations would engage in holding operations in case of Soviet invasion while the US would be preparing for a counterattack in South Asia and Southwest Asia. This led to the US supplying military equipment to the Pakistani military and financing the raising of new land force formations. The Pakistani military, during the three military governments of Ayub, Zia, and Musharraf, received large military supplies and military finances from the United States, and these military assistance packages transformed Pakistan into a modern military machine. The Pakistani military turned to Chinese weaponry only after it was heavily sanctioned by the Americans. After the 1965 and 1971 conflicts with India, Washington imposed complete embargoes on arms exports to Pakistan. Then the Pakistani military turned to Chinese weaponry.
At the start of this century there again was trouble in Afghanistan and this time the foe was a network of international terrorists who were the enemies of the West. Pakistan again became a frontline state and started receiving military training, weapons, and financial support to turn the conventionally armed and trained Pakistani military into a counter-insurgency force in the region. Around 2018 the Western countries started imposing arms embargoes against the Pakistani military. This was the time when Washington started to seriously consider withdrawing from Afghanistan—the strategic importance of Afghanistan and Pakistan dwindled in US perceptions. Pakistan again turned towards China for the supply of military hardware--According to a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), China supplied 81% of Pakistan's arms imports in the past five years.
Old habits, as they say, however, die hard. The Pakistan military still seems to be part of American-led strategic security consultation mechanisms. There has been an old tradition of Pakistan’s two senior military officials—COAS and DG ISI—paying a visit to Washington after assuming office. In Washington, they hold consultations with the entire military and intelligence chiefs of the US security apparatus. US CENTCOM Chief regularly visits and holds talks with Pakistani military top brass. This consultation mechanism remained in place even in times of severe political tensions or coldness between Washington and Islamabad. I remember, how after kicking out the civilian government of Nawaz Sharif and trampling upon the constitution, the then coup leader, General Pervaiz Musharraf called US CENTCOM chief, General Anthony Zinni who was somewhere in the Egyptian Desert observing a military exercise, to inform him that he had imposed martial law in Pakistan.
The Pakistan foreign office has described the proposed US law as an individual effort and something that doesn’t represent the views of the US administration
This is not the only incident of close and dubious relations between the then-Pakistani military leaders and the US security apparatus. Another incident of this dubious influence is the way media reports started to inform the public that the military officials who were destined to occupy the position of COAS in Pakistan were first cleared by Washington for appointment. These and other incidents of deep relations between the Pakistani military and the US security apparatus are residual elements of more robust but least transparent interactions between the military and intelligence establishments of the two sides over the past several decades.
Our political leaders and our representative institutions are mostly bypassed in the functioning of these relations. For instance, how can a Chief of the Army Staff, who is supposed to be loyal to the country, state, and government, inform the military commander of a foreign country about what he had done with his government and with what audacity and face? What kind of frankness and confident relations exist between the military commanders of foreign countries and the COAS so that the latter could take the liberty of doing this act? But this is not my main point.
The doyen of US diplomacy, Henry Kissinger once said, “To be an enemy of America is dangerous but to be its friend could be fatal”. A bipartisan group of US senators introduced the “Pakistan Democracy Act” in the US Senate, seeking to sanction the country’s Army chief for “persecution of political opponents” including former Prime Minister Imran Khan. The proposed law intends to place sanctions on Pakistan’s military boss within 180 days, under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act. Violators can be subjected to denial of entry to the United States and ineligibility for U.S. visas”. The Pakistani political system is in deep waters and is in flux.
The Pakistani military is in confrontation with a popular political leader, Imran Khan, whose popularity could be ascribed to his anti-American stance in public campaigning after he was ousted from power through a no-confidence motion that he later accused the military of orchestrating against him. Imran Khan has now relinquished his anti-American stance but has not lost his popularity in Pakistan. First, he accused the Americans of bribing his opposition to move a no-confidence motion against him. Later he accused the then COAS of being behind the no-confidence motion and at the same time he withdrew his allegations against Americans. Lately, he and his party have been openly boosting their close relations with the newly elected US President Trump, who claimed that the US Administration will secure Imran Khan’s release from jail. In my opinion, our political system is at a precarious stage where it could lose its remaining legitimacy if Imran Khan continues to be shut out from participating in politics.
The Pakistan foreign office has described the proposed US law as an individual effort and something that doesn’t represent the views of the US administration. There have been some informal discussions between Pakistani officials and US diplomats related to this proposed bill in the US Senate. A few days back, it was ironic to see the Pakistan government seeking solace in the US top diplomat’s (in Islamabad) condemnation of Baloch separatists as a panacea for its troubles in Baluchistan. The US proposed bill-imposed travel restrictions Pakistani Army chief itself should not be a cause of botheration, except when seen in the context of Pakistan’s state total dependence on foreign powers in matters political, economic, and diplomatic. Sometimes it appears to me that the Pakistani state and its functionaries create perceptions and space for themselves based on acknowledgements and support from foreign powers. True, this is a universal diplomatic practice but not to the extent of seeking support from a foreign power for imposing writ, of the state within its territory. And of course, when they are in the habit of seeking such support and approvals, the US travel restriction bill becomes extremely relevant. Seeking foreign endorsements is built into the DNA of the Pakistani state as this habit is drawn from dragging extra-regional powers into the affairs of South Asia to neutralise Indian hegemonic ambitions. And surely, those you give the space to approve your status and actions, automatically assume the role of disproving your status and actions.
US foreign policy and security establishment will need to keep some residual influence on Islamabad to make it easy for India to act as a counter to China
Our dependence on foreign countries in the exercise of hard military power within their territory has by no means less relevance in creating space for the mischievous US senators to think about intervening in the country's political system in such a crude way. The US administration used to partially meet the bill of our military operations in Pak-Afghan border areas from 2004 to 2018. Do we have the resources for a prolonged military operation in Pak-Afghan border areas? In Baluchistan, the separatists are stepping up their militancy and terrorism. Indians appear to be extending material support and media support to the activities of Baloch separatists within the country and outside the country. We want Americans to be on our side in this connection. Domestically any military operations in Baluch would not be based on any sound political footing. In such a situation, condemnation of US diplomats of separatists-led terrorism would be very valuable. But all this weakness and the support we are asking for will come at a price: more political intervention in Pakistani politics. A US bill proposing travel restrictions on COAS is one of the prices. Securing IMF loans is another source of dependence on Washington, and for which we will have to pay the price.
The bad habit of washing your dirty linens in public is another reason that provoked the mischievous US senators into tabling this bill. Pakistan’s dirty politics reached American power corridors through the hands of the influential Pak-American community. They have been lobbying against the Pakistani military’s involvement in politics and support of Imran Khan among US policymakers for the past two years. This activity has been seen in Pakistani power corridors as anti-Pakistan. But this tradition is not at all new, in every age Pakistani Americans have been in support of the parties they support in front of US policy-making institutions and their buildings.
This time, however, the problem is that the campaign is in support of a person who already has an international standing because of his sporting career as a world-class cricketer. At the same time, this is happening at a time when the US security apparatus had completely withdrawn from our region and yet they need to keep a handle on the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan. For Afghanistan, none of the existing forces in the region have a better chance of influencing the outcome in Afghanistan than the Pakistani military and intelligence services. Similarly, US foreign policy and security establishment will need to keep some residual influence on Islamabad to make it easy for India to act as a counter to China. Imran Khan and his party are becoming tiny tools in this much larger game. One piece of advice for Imran Khan and his party: You will not be able to control, even if you come to power sometime in the future, the forces this travel restriction bill will unleash in the highly pro-American environment of Islamabad. Please abort the mission to get General Asim Munir. Washing dirty linens in public is a bad idea, you are not the first one condemned to jail by the Pakistani state.
I think the very idea of dragging a superpower or an extra-regional power into South Asia is a bad idea from the very start. Historically it didn’t pay dividends. This extra-regional power didn’t save us from disintegration in 1971. Because of this extra-regional power, we reached the point of civil war in our country from 2004 till 2018. This extra-regional power has now started playing games with us instead of protecting us from much larger India. We may need extra-regional power to carry out adventures in Afghanistan. But we don’t need extra-regional powers to reconcile with segments in our society and popular political leaders we have put behind bars through dubious legal processes.
The path of reconciliation is an easy one and is not fraught with dangers to our sovereignty or whatever is left of it. On the other hand, the path of Pakistani diaspora hobnobbing with anti-Pakistani lobbies in Washington to undermine the country's sovereignty will be very painful and hurtful. I think if our military leaders want to understand why this point has been reached where some unknown US senators started to develop such crude ideas for intervening in Pakistani politics, they should order a study on how Pakistan’s three military rulers (Ayub, Zia, and Musharraf) surrendered their sovereignty in the process of working out a functioning of diplomatic and military alliance with Washington. They will come across some startling and sensational facts which are no more secrets thanks to the American tradition of declassifying their diplomatic documents after every 25 years.