Rightsizing of the Armed Forces

Romair #31 You refer to the middle class and the lower middle class of Pakistan. I have a request. Could we please start referring to ``income groups`` rather than ``classes``? This would get rid of the false impression that the richer people of pakistan possess more class than the poorer people? My humble personal observations lead me to believe that the poorer people of Pakistan have at least as much class and dignity, if not more, than the richer people.
Thank you in advance for your kind consideration of this humble request.

Romair #31 In continuation of this post, I see Mr. Arjun referring to the ``average abdul``. Mr. Arjun is lucky he can write what he likes on the internet. In real life, this ``average abdul`` would probably not give a second glance to two-taka twits like Mr. Arjun. And probably wring Mr. Arjun`s neck if Mr. Arjun tried to act high an mighty ``english speaking man living in america`` in front of the ``average abdul``.

harish_hyd at # 32 wrote:

``There`s a joke about the Pak. Army that it is the only Army in the world that hasn`t won a single war.``

Its just that they were able to snatch 1/3rd of Kasmir from India in 1949, defend Pakistan quite successfully in 1965 and deny one General Chowdhry of Indian army to have tea by afternoon at Lahore Gymkhana (source: Indian newspapers in 2001 - The Great Indian Debacle of 1965) and finally, run a very successful joint venture with Americans in Afghanistan that eventually resulted in crumbling of former Soviet Union that is the real tragic part.

The fun part about Pakistan army is the way that they decided to defend East Pakistan, about 1000 miles away, cordoned off by India from 3 sides who also had a strategic military treaty with the USSR that gave an everlasting feeling of ecstacy to the Indians.

CONERGENCE,

At last there is agreement by all pakistanis, romair to sameer about the need to cut down the pak army. Who else can you count on, except the ones who could have easily cut the numbers down by 90,000, allowing for inflation, that is easily 200,000 in the present day numbers.

There is hope for pakistan, across the borders.

A NEW DIRECTION,

This is the first article in any pak media that nemes the jihadists as cannon fodder and mercenaries. There is also a noticeable change in the letter to editors of dawn, some are questioning the kashmir day, they are talking about basant celebrations. These are good beginnings, the next step is to call the jihadists terrorists and assign them jobs like the ones I am suggesting in my tipe for pakistan

TIPS FOR PAKISTAN,

Burried mines are the night mare for any deming operations. The claymore mines are the mosr devastating. These can be detected by metal detectors, but removing them safely is hazardous and this is ehere the jihadists can be put to use.

Each jihadist has to be given a black granite block, may be 6 inch cube. After detecing a mine by the metal detector, the jihadist can be sent there and told that there is a hindu idol, an elephant god, and he has to dif it out with his hands and smash it on the black granite block. Knowing the symbolic significance the jihadist will start digging.

One advantage is that the resulting explosion will not damage anything like showels as he will be digging with bare hands and the granite will survive the blast. The martyres name can be etched onit, of course in arabis and given to the next jihadist.

Finally when all the six sides are fully engraved, the cubes can be assembled into a massive black cube in honour of the jihadists which they can look back from heaven

There`s a joke about the Pak. Army that it is the only Army in the world that hasn`t won a single war. My question is: If you have an Army that cannot fight, why have an Army at all? The Pak. Army works like a perfect feudal: grabbing plush land and allotting it to the Generals at throwaway (or is it free?) prices, shrinking the space available for civilians, establishing businesses (what else are the Fauji foundation, military farms, etc.?). To top it all it provides managers for sick units like WAPDA, KESU, Railways, PIA, the Pak. Cricket Borad, etc. The civilian population has more than its fair share of blame to take for this. Consider the fact that Indians fought tooth and nail against Indira Gandhi`s emergency and triumphed against it, and then voted (threw) her out of power in the 1977 General Elections. The Pak. Army is now an Army with a country. The rate at which it is eating up resources, it may very well soon be an Army without a country.

#27 alephNull

Couldn`t have put it better. The main issue is for pakistanis to realize that some fundamentals are seriously wrong. BTW, on a historical note in india shiv sena/Bajrang Dal are re-enacting the anarchy and maratha violence that afflcited the country post-Shivaji. It is amazing how much a little historical rumination can reveal about the present.

Finally, a relatively reasonable, and not the usual emotional, analysis of how to rightsize the Pakistan Armed forces.

There are a couple of issues that need to be tackled here and these should be done separately. First of all, one has to get an objective analysis of how the general population of Pakistan views the military - not the well-off, self-proclaimed ``revolutionary`` expatriate Chowk population, but the middle class and lower middle class Pakistan-living general population. In survey after survey, from Davos Switzerland to Herald Pakistan, the Pakistan military ranks as the most respected institution in Pakistan amongst common Pakistanis (the 99% of Pakistanis who don`t have Internet).

``Most Trusted Institutions

Gallup International`s 2002 Voice of the People survey, designed in collaboration with Environics International and conducted from July to September 2002, included face-to-face or telephone interviews with 36,000 citizens across 47 countries on six continents. With this sample, results are statistically representative of the views of 1.4 billion citizens. Respondents were asked to rate their level of trust in 17 different institutions to operate in the best interest of society.

People around the world express the lowest levels of trust in national legislative bodies and large companies. The highest levels of trust worldwide are enjoyed by the armed forces, non-governmental organizations and the United Nations.

Given the very low trust expressed in democratic institutions, it may be alarming to some that the armed forces are ranked highest overall. However, very high ratings in countries currently in state of heightened alert (including India, Israel, Pakistan and the United States) contribute to the high scores.`` (http://www.weforum.org/site/homepublic.nsf/Content/Annual+Meeting+2003%5CResults+of+the+Survey+on+Trust#II)

So overall, armed forces ranked no. 1 worldwide amongst most trusted institutionsm while Parliaments ranked the lowest. Four countries (Israel, USA, Pakistan, India) had armed forces that were not only at the top, but received, ``very high ratings`` in the world, as ranked by their citizens.

I have experienced this respect personally. I hope (a useless hope, I admit) this will put to rest all the conspiracy theories going around on tihs site about the lack of respect of the military amongst Pakistanis.

However, this does not mean that the armed forces do not need reform. Obvioulsy, they do in different areas. It should be kept in mind here that the Air Force and Navy of Pakistan never participate in Martial Laws. Only the Army does. So the Army needs the most reforms.

Let`s look at the suggestions, in this article, one by one:

Political Interference:
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``it can be claimed that the conspicuous price for the mega enterprise is quashed democracy, institutional meltdown, perpetuation of the military’s hegemony and abject poverty.``

An Army`s participation in politics is not a function of its size. If the Army is cut down by 25% of its current strength, as the writer suggests, from 450k to 320k, will it make it any more difficult for a COAS to carry out a coup? Considering the fact that only about 100 soldiers were needed to carry out the last one, the answer would have to be, ``No.`` You would have to cut the size of the Army by 90%, and then maybe it would not be able to carry out a coup.

In Pakistan`s situation, any COAS can basically carry out a coup anytime he wants. The ones who didn`t, could have, had they wanted to. So it just depends on the personality of the COAS. Unfortunate, but true. The fact that a coup is punishable by death, according to Pakistani law, hasn`t stopped the any COAS from intervening should indicate the power of the COAS.

There is one and only one way to stop a coup anywhere in the world (what more could be done than the death penalty). And that is public uprisings against coup. I am sure quite a few Indian and US generals have wanted to kick out politicians (Generals generally dislike politicians - just watch any US movie or read any book about McCarthur etc.), but they haven`t done so, because they know the public will not approve of it.

So until and unless, the politicians achieve credibility amongst citizens and/or Pakistani citizens just disapprove of coups, they will keep occuring. The Pakistani public usually is indifferent to, or even welcomes, coups. Uptil then, Pakistani politics will be at the whim of any COAS. This is wrong, but power is an aphrodisiac, and anyone who has strength tries to fill in the power vacuum - be they feudals, businessmen, maulvis or Generals. Expecting ambitiously powerful people to hesitate from taking power due to some spiritual enlightenment or through argument, may work most of the time, but it is not a fool-proof solution.

I am certain of one thing in Pakistani politics: anyone who has the power to become a dictator (Nawaz, BB, Musharraf etc.) does so. Maybe for the right reasons, maybe for the wrong. But laws and arguments have never stopped him/her. Only a more powerful dictator, or a fear of massive public uprising in favor of the person he/she has kicked out can stop the dictator.

Size:
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``Probably, most importantly, a significant reduction in the total number of men on disposal of the top brass would (hopefully) curtail their political manoeuvrability by forcing them to focus their energies more on professional duties than to interfere in state running -- the root cause of our predicaments.``

The political aspects have been expressed before, i.e. reducing the number of Generals, from 125 to 90 (25%) will not solve the problem. Reducing it to even one General will not solve the problem - in such a situation Brigadiers will carry out coups. A change in rank doesn`t solve the problem.

However, reducing the number of Generals is very important for other reasons. The number should not be cut down by 25%. It needs to be cut down by 50 to 66%. This should be done, more due to cost cutting and to make the military itself more efficient.

``Therefore, slashing the strength of the Pak Army by 25 %, as a minimum, would have nominal, if at all, impact on its fighting potential.``

This requires furthur studying. People really need to analyze the budget of the military. The budget of the Pakistan military is not balanced per no. of soldiers in any one branch. For example, the PAF is 1/10 the size of the Army in numbers, yet it gets about 1/3rd of the total Defence budget. Infact the cheapest commodity in the Pakistan military is the low paid sepoy.

Reducing the size of jawans by 25% will have an effect on the fighting potential. How could it not? So if this reduction is to be carried out, it should be done while keeping the reduction in fighting potential in mind.

Overwhelmingly, the budget costs are due to equipment, and not men. Keeping an F-16 flying or a submarine operating costs thousands of times more than the salary of the crews on it. So if budget needs to be cut, it can only be done through equipment cuts (and somewhat through cutting the General officers).

``Moreover, in relation to country’s per capita income Pakistani senior military officers are one of the best paid in the world.``

Actually their pay is quite low (otherwise, I wouldn`t have left the military). However, their hidden perks (none for non-Generals, but large for Generals) are huge. That is where the Generals make their money.

````Hence, trimming down the XL size of the security apparatus and cutting back lavish perks for the higher echelon will have no direct effect on our overall defence.``

This is correct. However the solution is not to reduce perks. Reducing perks is impossible to do, since most of their perks come from the military budget that is supposed to be for junior officers - not from civilian funds. The solution is to remove the General officer positions, all together.

Military Reorganization:
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``While providing adequate delivery systems in tandem with a reasonable stockpile of nuclear warheads to our troops, we have to rearrange our national priorities, in order to survive.``

I used to be a great believer in this. However, someone once explained the costs of developing a, ``nuclear`` arsenal to me. It turns out maintaining a large nuclear arsenal may even be more expensive than maintaining normal military equipment. So, one would have to do a cost-benefit analysis, for this, because this may actually increase the defence budget.

``A comprehensive overhaul of the military set-up, with absolutely no room for khakis in civilian spheres or policymaking, must be the starting point.``

As stated before, legally, there is absolutely no room for Generals in politics (except now through an NSC, which has been put in by a military govt. itself). However, even a death penalty has not detered any General considering a coup. What other, comprehensive overhaul`` punishement could be put in the law that could deter him?

The only practical solution to this is to either incorporate the Army indirectly into politics (ala Turkey) or to hope that the population takes out the General in power, if he carries out a coup. Historically, laws have never ever detered coupmakers. Making more laws will not deter them either (what more is their after the death penalty. I suppose death penalty for his kids also). They can only be detered by a population that has faith in the political leadership, and wants civilians in power. This is true worldwide.

My Suggestions:
-----------------

By the way, perhaps the reason I didn`t do too well in the military is because I wrote too many papers making a lot of suggestions like the ones below, during my military career. But here they are, after quite a bit of analysis (which I don`t have room to explain here):

1. Cut the number of General position to one third its number, across the board, from the current 160 (around 125 Army, 23 Air Force, 15 Navy) to 55. This can be done by the National Assembly. Generals will resist this. But no General will carry out a coup because of this.

2. Get the military out of all private enterprises, like banks, fertilizer companies, etc. Privatize these companies as soon as possible through the privitization commission. Only retired officers will be effected. Once again, Generals will resist, but not enough to carry out a coup.

Both 1 and 2 require a political Prime Minister with a lot of credibility amongst the voters.

3. Take a huge strategic risk and freeze all military expenditure (actually this has already been done), regardless of the current astronomical rises in the Indian military budget. Hope that the current nukes are enough of a deterent against India, at least for five years or so (producing large number of newer nukes/delivery system is probably too expensive). Take one third of the military men, and put them and thus indirectly their budget, into education. Send the sepoys back to their villages as teachers (I think it would be cheaper for them to live in their villages with their families, anyways).

After five years, retire and incorporate these soldiers directly into the education department with higher salaries than what they were making as soldiers, and pass on the budget of thier salaries from the military to ministry of education (the actual budget is on the equipment, so this wont actually be 1/3rd of the whole military budget).

4. During these five years, redo the complete structure of the remaining military - specially the junior officers. Cut down their size, wherever possible. Use the money saved from this cutdown, to double to treble the salaries of the junior officers who are left (junior officers are some of the lowest paid professionals in Pakistan - I know because I was one), so that the best ones don`t opt for lucrative private sector jobs like security guard, bakery owner and car salesman (these are actually more lucrative than being a Captain). Change their training curriculum towards industrial and technical engineering of export oriented armament, in liason with China. And set up the military for indigenous production of armament.

Use the foreign exchange saved from indigenous production of armaments like aircraft, ships, guns etc. (by far the largest part of the budget) and money gained from exports to make the military a leaner meaner technical military - smaller in size, but much better equipped (on the track of the Israeli military). This will actually increase the military budget, but could set up a huge armement export market which would more than compensate for the initial investment in armament industry infrastructure.

5. In due time, privatize the entire armament production infrastructure. Pakistan military actually already builds a lot of its own armament (like aircraft, etc.). However, the military does not have the sales and marketing skills to export it to the lucrative Middle East Market. Allow military officers to compete for jobs as civilians in these new private companies at a young age (Captains, Majors), rather than stuffing them into Fauji Foundation and Shaheen Foundation owned enterprises at a later age (retired Brigadiers etc).

This is enough to debate for now.

During this whole time, Pakistan needs to be simultaneously trying to work on peace with India, by solving the Kashmir problem according to the wishes of the Kashmiris (not Pakistanis or Indians wishes) and a mutual freeze on South Asian military budgets. However, this requires co-operation from India. And currently, India is the biggest (getting bigger and bigger) importer of armament in the world, so I am not quite sure how interested India would be in the above.

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By suggesting that the Pakistan Army serves little purpose and urgently needs to be downsized, this well-meaning article, and many equally well-meaning replies, have managed to get hold of the wrong end of the proverbial stick. Blame is unfairly directed at superficial concrete aspects of army rule, rather than at what lies beneath.

The form and shape of a country`s government, the direction in which its society develops, its foreign policy, regional posture, and the size, function and orientation of its armed forces, are eventually expressions of dominant national ideology. To understand why Pakistan`s armed forces have their crucial role, one needs to take a look at what values Pakistanis celebrate as a nation, their sense of purpose, how they view themselves and their history, who their official national heroes are, what model their leaders have in mind for attaining security and prosperity for the chosen ones.

There is no need to go as far as Prussia to find a model that fits Pakistan, of an `army in search of an empire`. Better models by far are available close to home in the history of Islamicate rule in North India. Pakistan is a country that idolizes marauders like Ghaznavi and Abdali, regards its history as beginning with the conquests of bin Qasim and Ghori, views itself as ethnically and culturally Central Asian/Middle Eastern rather than subcontinental, considers itself as the civilizational successor to the Delhi sultanate and most of all the Mughal empire.

It is inevitable that Pakistan will converge towards the model that these exemplars represent. The hallmarks of this model of predatory military-feudal despotism are: absolute monarchical rule, extraction of wealth by straddling trade routes, the use of the army not as a defensive weapon but for looting wealth from productive civilizations, the subsequent actual conquest of rich new territories to add to an empire, the large-scale militarisation of society, and the setting up of a rentier class and revenue extraction machinery to squeeze wealth out of a subject population. It is easy to see the convergence taking place in Pakistan. Consider:

(1) Changes of power occur in irregular fashion through military coups or dismissals of elected governments. Each successive supreme leader, military or elected, tries to centralize power in his own person with scant regard for civic institutions. [In this respect Nawaz Sharif though more legitimate was not much better than Musharraf.] The populace first watches each ruler`s malfeasances with seeming apathy only to dance in the streets when his successor seizes power and promises deliverance.

(2) The attempt to annex Afghanistan, as a prelude to the conquest of Central Asia and its mineral/energy resources, or at least the monopolisation of Central Asian transit routes, is too recent to require further mention. Other attempts to capitalise on `strategic` location rather than productive capacity, are made on a regular basis, first with the US, next with China, then with the US again, most recently with Putin`s Russia.

(3) The feudal control of Pakistan`s agriculture, with the military additionally playing the rule of the biggest landholding feudal, is well-known. The explicit use of the military to collect revenues and the take-over of assorted civilian organizations also fits the model very well.

Viewed in the proper perspective, recent Pakistani history is little more than an atavistic reversion to the Mughal type. `Quashed democracy, institutional meltdown, perpetuation of the military`s hegemony` are desirable goals rather than things to regret. Abject poverty of the awam is only a problem to the extent that it limits the extent of revenue extraction. Welfare of the people is in any case not the goal of parasitical regimes. The real question should be not why Pakistan`s Army is so large, but rather why it is so disproportionately small and ill-equipped relative to the imperial Mughal role it needs to play. The use of trained jihadi lashkars as a sort of Pakistani Foreign Legion in Afghanistan and Kashmir is clearly an attempt to fill the gap and will increase if the powers in Islambad have their way.

If Pakistanis want a different kind of future, they will have to begin in the realm of ideas. The Turko-Afghan-Central Asian model and everything it implies will have to be decisively repudiated. The Delhi sultanate and especially the Mughal period should be regarded not as the good old days but rather as a period of long stagnation and disastrous decline for the Indian subcontinent and for Islamicate civilization in India. Wealth will have to be seen as something primarily *created* by a skilled populace, not obtained through military conquest, or extraction of unearned mineral resources, or levying of transit fees. Civic institutions will have to be regarded, like hospitals and schools, as a vital component of social capital, in which all citizens have a crucial stake.

Let these ideas become commonplace, and the rest, including an end to military rule and a more modest army, will arrive sooner or later. Without them, all talk of change is pointless.

Ref. #21 by faisaluno on February 7, 2003 8:36am PT

I dare to disagree. Responsibilities are directly proportional to the power, clout and influence. The more authority you hold, larger the possibilities you had to affect the situation, the more answerable you are for the results.
As army has always been the final arbiter in Pakistan, they bear the ultimate liability for the thick mess we are in, including the flies and sanitary conditions. See, have you ever come across any “attack” on farmers, (Pakistani) bankers, tonga walas, etc.?

If army (and of course there fans) is not pleased by the situation, or they want to be respected, than there is a simple way out: mind your own business and let the law of the country runs supreme. The people must be allowed to decide about their destiny on their own and the social apartheid we have in the country must be dismantled -- at the earliest.

<>

The military may seize power all of a sudden, but civilian authority will be taken back by `attrition`. For example, isn`t there a difference in the `jawabdaari` of Ayub vs Zia vs Musharraf?

Also, IMO, its important that the tradition of parliament/provincial legislatures is allowed to continue unbroken, and then it will finally not matter which idiots sat in the first sessions.

re: jay

{This satellite does not function during eclipses as the rechargeable batteries fail during this period.}

...hahahah....so much for moosharrat trying to chase india..

Riffat Jahan:

This is an excellent article from you.

IMO, Pakistan is already on this path. We are:

1. Improving our nuclear delivery systems to the chagrin of the USA Troika. The Troika, under the Israeli influence, assumes that they are threatening that state. Hence, pronouncements against Pakistan.

2. Declaring that our strategic assets are India specific.

3. Reducing our expenditure on conventional weapons and other non-productive expenditures.

Pakistan inherited too big an army at partition. The selective hiring of soldiers from certain areas during British Raj ended up giving Pakistan much bigger chunk of military personel than necessary. The hiring of Muslims from these areas actually went up during twenty years prior to partition due to mistrust of Sikhs by British after Ghadar movement and intra-Sikh disturbanced called Akali Lehr.

The perks came with the size and it lead to protecting and enlarging these perks with helpless governments handing them whatever they asked - or they took it by force by first removing the government. Militart started interfering early on and Rawalpindi Conspiracy case of 1951 is such an example. Ayub Khan not only continued this mission but started a propaganda that military is the most nationalistic and patriotic element of the society. Zia added to that by launching propaganda that military is a protector of not just geographical boundries but ideological too and Islmaized it to bring in-line with the ideology. Musharraf`s spin on already well-oiled well-spinning wheel is that military is left only standing institution (thanks to destruction of all other with the full intent of military) and must be a party in running the civilian affairs of the country through NSC, LFOs, constitution amendments with the help of farcical exercise of controlled democracy plus lotas, Jamalo and convicted criminals.

It is easy to suggest but practically impossible to implement any strategy to cut military power and spending. It is a rogue dianosaur. The divisions who surrendered in Bangladesh should have been disbanded because defense of East Pakistan was no longer a reality. Pakistani geographical boundries have shrunked few thousand miles and therefore, less military was requied now but it did not happen. Instead we created new cores, such as Pano Aqil in Sindh.

Despite all the alleged or real corruptions of both BB and NS, both tried to bring military spending under control. Benazir was dismissed by GIK during her first term upon the recommendation of military because She was going to go ahead with GAO oversight of military budget spending. She wanted details of how public money is being spent on military which was unacceptable to GHQ. NS tried to grab the snake by the head first but could not handle the power of snake who got rid of him in a hurry. The oversight and civilian supremacy were to be the logical outcome of sacking Musharraf, had it succeeded. The failure to dislodge Musharraf might be cited as most detrimental event in Pakistan history of nineties decade.

Alas! Pakistan lost a golden opportunity to bring Pakistan under civilian rule for at least one decade by failing to curtail the power of a legally dismissed COAS who was on the sure path of post-dismissal demotion otherwise.

Instead, we witnessed the decimation of civilain institutions, grab of plots and top administrative jobs by military establishment, selling sick industrial units and giving contracts to buddies, using public money lavishly on buying political loyalties and increasing the military spending with most notable job left for miltary is to provide security to Musharraf during his Lahore and Karachi trips and becoming party in the farcical political game.

This is a good article - good for shedding tears, good for feeling remorse and good for feeling angry.