The serving Pakistan ambassador to the United States, Asad Majeed Khan, will be completing his three-year stint in January 2022. By all reports, he will be replaced by the former President of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Sardar Masood Khan.
If this news is correct, then there’s much wrong with the decision, starting with Masood Khan’s acceptance of the post. Consider.
Sardar Masood Khan, a former career diplomat who belongs to Azad Kashmir, was appointed as the 27th president of Azad Kashmir in 2016 by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif. For Khan to accept an ambassadorial position not only makes a mockery of the office of AJK president but is akin to an army chief accepting command of a battalion, post-retirement. At a personal level, Khan should rethink his decision — if he has made one — to accept the position.
But there is another factor that goes beyond Khan’s person and which is even more important: i.e., the position of Azad Kashmir in the larger framework of the Kashmir dispute. Let me explain.
In November 2016, I made a presentation at the National Defence University. I informed the audience that "Pakistan does not seem to have a viable Kashmir policy either in the domain of the moral-legal or in terms of force (realpolitik).” Instead, Pakistan relies “on old approaches that did not work and are unlikely, in the post-9/11 world, to work.” I also stressed that in order to rethink and innovate, Pakistan must not just focus on Indian-occupied Kashmir but bring the conversation home to Azad Kashmir:
“Pakistan will also need to take some clear measures in relation to Azad Kashmir. The Karachi Agreement was and remains problematic. Over the years mechanisms like the Kashmir Council have further eroded the independence of AJK and there has been electoral, political, developmental and administrative interference from Pakistan’s centres of power in Azad Kashmir’s affairs. That must end. The current electoral/administrative /political configuration is far from satisfactory. AJK needs its own indigenous political leadership.”
For my ‘loose’ remarks, I have since been banned from speaking at the NDU! Meanwhile, our tired approaches and seminars continue with embassies checking the box ‘Kashmir’ as top of the key performance indicators. Result: zip, zilch and zero.
Khan, as president, was very vocal about Kashmir and India’s oppression, but never brought the conversation home to Azad Kashmir and I say this because just like him, I also belong to Azad Kashmir. If he now wants to enjoy a sinecure in DC, he not only demeans the office of the AJK president, but also the cause of Azad Kashmir.
That’s as far as the issue’s AJK dimension is concerned. Let’s now get to the government’s process to find the suitable candidate to be placed in DC. How should that process look like? As in, what would (or should) be the first question, before a quest for the right candidate begins? To me it would be: what does Pakistan want from the US? That question, obviously, would need to be situated in the broader framework of challenges and opportunities Pakistan faces. It would also be grounded in what the US wants from Pakistan.
For the past two years, Pakistan has talked about geoeconomics as the central tenet of its national security strategy (I eschew here the broad literature on what the term means and how economic prowess coexists with and supplements military power). But let’s understand it as the focus on developing economic muscle in the interest of national security.
There are geopolitical snags, for sure. The shift to geoeconomics is not something that can happen overnight. Pakistan will have to reorient its institutional responses to synch with the new approach; it also faces the problem of external actors who have their own agency and interests. All of this complicates the picture. Yet, the idea that fires the new approach needs to go beyond being a statement of intent. And it requires focusing on trade and investment and exploring cooperation in areas that are vital for Pakistan but do not fall in the category of hard security.
If this is indeed what Pakistan desires, what kind of person would fit the bill for the post of ambassador to the US? Surely, not a fossil pulled out of a museum whose entire diplomatic life was informed by checking the usual boxes, never segueing from institutional sirat-ul mustaqeem (straight path). Pakistan would need a younger, dynamic person, either from the foreign service — if one could be so lucky to find one there — or an entrepreneur, someone who understands how trade and investment work, who can break the shackles of protocol and actually reach out to the right people, who has the ability to attract money. After all, geoeconomics cannot just be a concept on paper.
Organisation theory is very clear on the inertia that afflicts bureaucratic organisations. The seminal work in this regard is Organizations by Herbert Simon and James March, which came out in 1958. Others like Graham Allison followed with his study of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Scott D Sagan in his article “The Perils of Proliferation: Organisation Theory, Deterrence Theory, and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons” argues that “Organisations, by necessity, develop routines to coordinate action among different units: standard operating procedures and organisational rules, not individually reasoned decisions, therefore govern much behaviour.” They “often accept the first option that is minimally satisfying”. This makes organisations ‘myopic', which throws up the problem of ‘biased searches’ because “instead of surveying the entire environment for information, organisation members ... [focus] only on specific areas stemming from their past experience, recent training, and current responsibility.”
In other words, organisations factor problems into different parts. This means they deal with them not holistically but non-simultaneously; organisations ‘satisfice’ rather than optimise; they deal with problems using known, standard processes. This limits choices; they deal with uncertainty by making decisions rather than resorting to finding alternatives; these multiple processes are generally not in harmony, and therefore, may not add up to a strategic picture.
Corollary: if Pakistan really wants to operationalise the concept of geoeconomics, then the government needs to do more than just mouth shibboleths. While it will be asking too much to reform all sectors and organisations, the government can at least identify some key areas which can be targeted. It’s possible. Here’s an example: if you can get someone like Dr Sania Nishtar and let her work, you will have a successful programme like Ehsaas. Ditto for the work done by the National Command Operations Centre, which weds the government’s policy lead to the military’s organisational efficiency.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has produced many good diplomats. We have young officers who are very smart and intelligent. The challenge is to save them from the seniors who stopped thinking and living outside the organisational script. The modern world requires innovation, not stultification. By all indications, MoFA’s worldview, reified over decades, is of a world that’s passé.
Let me end with an example from how the 19th century German military trained and created the balance between understanding standard practices and innovation. According to William Lind et al:
“During 19th-century wargames, German junior officers routinely received problems that could only be solved by disobeying orders. Orders themselves specified the result to be achieved, but never the method (Auftragstaktik). Initiative was more important than obedience. (Mistakes were tolerated as long as they came from too much initiative rather than too little.)”
The German Staff College pioneered this approach more than a century ago. Perhaps it is time for Pakistan’s High Command to learn from the Germans.
If this news is correct, then there’s much wrong with the decision, starting with Masood Khan’s acceptance of the post. Consider.
Sardar Masood Khan, a former career diplomat who belongs to Azad Kashmir, was appointed as the 27th president of Azad Kashmir in 2016 by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif. For Khan to accept an ambassadorial position not only makes a mockery of the office of AJK president but is akin to an army chief accepting command of a battalion, post-retirement. At a personal level, Khan should rethink his decision — if he has made one — to accept the position.
But there is another factor that goes beyond Khan’s person and which is even more important: i.e., the position of Azad Kashmir in the larger framework of the Kashmir dispute. Let me explain.
In November 2016, I made a presentation at the National Defence University. I informed the audience that "Pakistan does not seem to have a viable Kashmir policy either in the domain of the moral-legal or in terms of force (realpolitik).” Instead, Pakistan relies “on old approaches that did not work and are unlikely, in the post-9/11 world, to work.” I also stressed that in order to rethink and innovate, Pakistan must not just focus on Indian-occupied Kashmir but bring the conversation home to Azad Kashmir:
“Pakistan will also need to take some clear measures in relation to Azad Kashmir. The Karachi Agreement was and remains problematic. Over the years mechanisms like the Kashmir Council have further eroded the independence of AJK and there has been electoral, political, developmental and administrative interference from Pakistan’s centres of power in Azad Kashmir’s affairs. That must end. The current electoral/administrative /political configuration is far from satisfactory. AJK needs its own indigenous political leadership.”
For my ‘loose’ remarks, I have since been banned from speaking at the NDU! Meanwhile, our tired approaches and seminars continue with embassies checking the box ‘Kashmir’ as top of the key performance indicators. Result: zip, zilch and zero.
Khan, as president, was very vocal about Kashmir and India’s oppression, but never brought the conversation home to Azad Kashmir and I say this because just like him, I also belong to Azad Kashmir. If he now wants to enjoy a sinecure in DC, he not only demeans the office of the AJK president, but also the cause of Azad Kashmir.
That’s as far as the issue’s AJK dimension is concerned. Let’s now get to the government’s process to find the suitable candidate to be placed in DC. How should that process look like? As in, what would (or should) be the first question, before a quest for the right candidate begins? To me it would be: what does Pakistan want from the US? That question, obviously, would need to be situated in the broader framework of challenges and opportunities Pakistan faces. It would also be grounded in what the US wants from Pakistan.
For the past two years, Pakistan has talked about geoeconomics as the central tenet of its national security strategy (I eschew here the broad literature on what the term means and how economic prowess coexists with and supplements military power). But let’s understand it as the focus on developing economic muscle in the interest of national security.
There are geopolitical snags, for sure. The shift to geoeconomics is not something that can happen overnight. Pakistan will have to reorient its institutional responses to synch with the new approach; it also faces the problem of external actors who have their own agency and interests. All of this complicates the picture. Yet, the idea that fires the new approach needs to go beyond being a statement of intent. And it requires focusing on trade and investment and exploring cooperation in areas that are vital for Pakistan but do not fall in the category of hard security.
Organisation theory is very clear on the inertia that afflicts bureaucratic organisations. The seminal work in this regard is Organizations by Herbert Simon and James March, which came out in 1958. Others like Graham Allison followed with his study of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
If this is indeed what Pakistan desires, what kind of person would fit the bill for the post of ambassador to the US? Surely, not a fossil pulled out of a museum whose entire diplomatic life was informed by checking the usual boxes, never segueing from institutional sirat-ul mustaqeem (straight path). Pakistan would need a younger, dynamic person, either from the foreign service — if one could be so lucky to find one there — or an entrepreneur, someone who understands how trade and investment work, who can break the shackles of protocol and actually reach out to the right people, who has the ability to attract money. After all, geoeconomics cannot just be a concept on paper.
Organisation theory is very clear on the inertia that afflicts bureaucratic organisations. The seminal work in this regard is Organizations by Herbert Simon and James March, which came out in 1958. Others like Graham Allison followed with his study of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Scott D Sagan in his article “The Perils of Proliferation: Organisation Theory, Deterrence Theory, and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons” argues that “Organisations, by necessity, develop routines to coordinate action among different units: standard operating procedures and organisational rules, not individually reasoned decisions, therefore govern much behaviour.” They “often accept the first option that is minimally satisfying”. This makes organisations ‘myopic', which throws up the problem of ‘biased searches’ because “instead of surveying the entire environment for information, organisation members ... [focus] only on specific areas stemming from their past experience, recent training, and current responsibility.”
In other words, organisations factor problems into different parts. This means they deal with them not holistically but non-simultaneously; organisations ‘satisfice’ rather than optimise; they deal with problems using known, standard processes. This limits choices; they deal with uncertainty by making decisions rather than resorting to finding alternatives; these multiple processes are generally not in harmony, and therefore, may not add up to a strategic picture.
Corollary: if Pakistan really wants to operationalise the concept of geoeconomics, then the government needs to do more than just mouth shibboleths. While it will be asking too much to reform all sectors and organisations, the government can at least identify some key areas which can be targeted. It’s possible. Here’s an example: if you can get someone like Dr Sania Nishtar and let her work, you will have a successful programme like Ehsaas. Ditto for the work done by the National Command Operations Centre, which weds the government’s policy lead to the military’s organisational efficiency.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has produced many good diplomats. We have young officers who are very smart and intelligent. The challenge is to save them from the seniors who stopped thinking and living outside the organisational script. The modern world requires innovation, not stultification. By all indications, MoFA’s worldview, reified over decades, is of a world that’s passé.
While it will be asking too much to reform all sectors and organisations, the government can at least identify some key areas which can be targeted.
Let me end with an example from how the 19th century German military trained and created the balance between understanding standard practices and innovation. According to William Lind et al:
“During 19th-century wargames, German junior officers routinely received problems that could only be solved by disobeying orders. Orders themselves specified the result to be achieved, but never the method (Auftragstaktik). Initiative was more important than obedience. (Mistakes were tolerated as long as they came from too much initiative rather than too little.)”
The German Staff College pioneered this approach more than a century ago. Perhaps it is time for Pakistan’s High Command to learn from the Germans.