Pakistan’s relations with India, Afghanistan and the US remain prickly. Since the core of our national security strategy is focused on all three countries, it is worth asking who in our civil-military establishment is responsible for this failure of strategic policy.
Let us admit some hard facts. Since independence, Pakistan has been fashioned by the powerful military establishment as a “national security state” in which law, constitution, economy, democracy and foreign relations are all subservient to a strategic doctrine of “national security” defined by the military in which India has figured as the perennial arch-enemy. This doctrine and the consequent national narrative that flows from it is embedded in the national consciousness by virtue of the military’s direct political over-lordship of state and society during three decades of rule by Generals Ayub Khan, Zia ul Haq and Pervez Musharraf and indirect stewardship when corrupt, inefficient and weak civilian rulers have been in office. Indeed, whenever the military has seized power from the civilians it has cited “overwhelming national security concerns” as a key motive. In fact, all the key foreign policy decisions since independence have been taken by the powerful military establishment while the weak and divided civilians have meekly acquiesced. These include the anti-USSR Cold War alliance with the US, pushing East Pakistan into secessionist mode, sponsoring jihad against USSR in Afghanistan in the 1980s, triggering war and conflict with India on four occasions, playing favourites in Afghanistan by installing the Taliban in Kabul in 1997 and giving them safe havens in Waziristan after 9/11 in pursuit of another national security offshoot doctrine of “strategic depth”. As a consequence, the military has also nourished non-state jihadi and sectarian actors for “liberating” Kashmir from India and opposed trade and peaceful co-existence with India. As a result any potential economic dividend from peace with neighbours has eluded Pakistan.
To be fair, however, the fact also is that since General Musharraf’s time the military establishment has been critically reviewing its national security doctrine and making significant adjustments in view of changing geo-political realities. After 9/11, it abandoned the doctrine of “strategic depth” in Afghanistan. In 2005, it realized the futility and negative consequences of sponsoring jihad in Kashmir and slowly turned off the tap. In particular, it abandoned the “core” idea of “Kashmir banay ga Pakistan”. By the time General Ashfaque Kayani retired in 2013, the military’s national security doctrine had also abandoned the cherished notion of a “pro-Pakistan” Afghanistan and settled on sponsoring a neutral Afghanistan that would not be hostile. Most significantly, the national security doctrine now postulated the “enemy within” (religious terrorism) as an “existential” threat to state and society and not the external enemy India. Operation Zarb-e-Azb is a natural and powerful exposition of this doctrine by General Raheel Sharif. These developments amount to an evolving paradigm change in the outlook of the military in Pakistan.
Unfortunately, however, the historical burden of distrust and double-dealing among the key players in this region – Pakistan, India, Afghanistan and the US – is creating stubborn obstacles in the way of this process of stabilising Pakistan and the region. The key players in Afghanistan are all agreed on a joint multi-lateral approach to establishing peace in Afghanistan but each wants to put the onus of core responsibility (“do more”) on the others. This is a major source of tension between the Pakistani military establishment and the other regional players, especially America and Afghanistan. Internally, the civilians and military in Pakistan are also, finally, on the same strategic page. But much the same burden of historical civil-military distrust has muddied the waters and lead to tensions and frustrations.
This is the context in which we should address the question of “who makes foreign policy” and who is responsible for its success or failure in Pakistan. The military says it simply gives its “input” into the making of foreign policy for which the civilians are ultimately responsible. But the civilians say with greater justification that the military is the key determinant of policy because the instruments of its implementation are squarely in its hands. If the civilians wanted the military to attack the Haqqani network and push it out of Pakistani border lands or if the civilians ordered it to drag the Afghan Taliban to peace negotiations (as demanded by the regional players), of if they wanted it to disband the jihadis and help the government confront the radical religious outfits, would it be able or willing to do so? If the civilians wanted to make unilateral trade and overland concessions to India in a non-sum zero game, would the military agree or would it sabotage any such initiative?
Therefore this is not a matter for a full time civilian foreign minister to redress as opposed to a coterie of foreign policy advisors. This is really about elected civilians demonstrating greater know-how, ability and vision to steer the country out of troubled waters as much as it is about the military relinquishing its grip over national security tactics and strategy.
Let us admit some hard facts. Since independence, Pakistan has been fashioned by the powerful military establishment as a “national security state” in which law, constitution, economy, democracy and foreign relations are all subservient to a strategic doctrine of “national security” defined by the military in which India has figured as the perennial arch-enemy. This doctrine and the consequent national narrative that flows from it is embedded in the national consciousness by virtue of the military’s direct political over-lordship of state and society during three decades of rule by Generals Ayub Khan, Zia ul Haq and Pervez Musharraf and indirect stewardship when corrupt, inefficient and weak civilian rulers have been in office. Indeed, whenever the military has seized power from the civilians it has cited “overwhelming national security concerns” as a key motive. In fact, all the key foreign policy decisions since independence have been taken by the powerful military establishment while the weak and divided civilians have meekly acquiesced. These include the anti-USSR Cold War alliance with the US, pushing East Pakistan into secessionist mode, sponsoring jihad against USSR in Afghanistan in the 1980s, triggering war and conflict with India on four occasions, playing favourites in Afghanistan by installing the Taliban in Kabul in 1997 and giving them safe havens in Waziristan after 9/11 in pursuit of another national security offshoot doctrine of “strategic depth”. As a consequence, the military has also nourished non-state jihadi and sectarian actors for “liberating” Kashmir from India and opposed trade and peaceful co-existence with India. As a result any potential economic dividend from peace with neighbours has eluded Pakistan.
To be fair, however, the fact also is that since General Musharraf’s time the military establishment has been critically reviewing its national security doctrine and making significant adjustments in view of changing geo-political realities. After 9/11, it abandoned the doctrine of “strategic depth” in Afghanistan. In 2005, it realized the futility and negative consequences of sponsoring jihad in Kashmir and slowly turned off the tap. In particular, it abandoned the “core” idea of “Kashmir banay ga Pakistan”. By the time General Ashfaque Kayani retired in 2013, the military’s national security doctrine had also abandoned the cherished notion of a “pro-Pakistan” Afghanistan and settled on sponsoring a neutral Afghanistan that would not be hostile. Most significantly, the national security doctrine now postulated the “enemy within” (religious terrorism) as an “existential” threat to state and society and not the external enemy India. Operation Zarb-e-Azb is a natural and powerful exposition of this doctrine by General Raheel Sharif. These developments amount to an evolving paradigm change in the outlook of the military in Pakistan.
Unfortunately, however, the historical burden of distrust and double-dealing among the key players in this region – Pakistan, India, Afghanistan and the US – is creating stubborn obstacles in the way of this process of stabilising Pakistan and the region. The key players in Afghanistan are all agreed on a joint multi-lateral approach to establishing peace in Afghanistan but each wants to put the onus of core responsibility (“do more”) on the others. This is a major source of tension between the Pakistani military establishment and the other regional players, especially America and Afghanistan. Internally, the civilians and military in Pakistan are also, finally, on the same strategic page. But much the same burden of historical civil-military distrust has muddied the waters and lead to tensions and frustrations.
This is the context in which we should address the question of “who makes foreign policy” and who is responsible for its success or failure in Pakistan. The military says it simply gives its “input” into the making of foreign policy for which the civilians are ultimately responsible. But the civilians say with greater justification that the military is the key determinant of policy because the instruments of its implementation are squarely in its hands. If the civilians wanted the military to attack the Haqqani network and push it out of Pakistani border lands or if the civilians ordered it to drag the Afghan Taliban to peace negotiations (as demanded by the regional players), of if they wanted it to disband the jihadis and help the government confront the radical religious outfits, would it be able or willing to do so? If the civilians wanted to make unilateral trade and overland concessions to India in a non-sum zero game, would the military agree or would it sabotage any such initiative?
Therefore this is not a matter for a full time civilian foreign minister to redress as opposed to a coterie of foreign policy advisors. This is really about elected civilians demonstrating greater know-how, ability and vision to steer the country out of troubled waters as much as it is about the military relinquishing its grip over national security tactics and strategy.