Pakistan Adrift: Navigating Troubled Waters

Abstract

There is no dearth of literature emphasizing the role of domestic and international factors for the predominance of the military over civilian institutions in Pakistan. Some scholars relate it to military’s growing economic interests, while others attribute it to military’s ‘Guardians of the Nation’ complex involving a militarily superior India, unsettled borders and irredentist claims from Afghanistan that make external security a high priority. Yet others attribute it to the incapability of the state and polity to democratically accommodate the diverse domestic aspirations and a complete reliance on the military to keep the house in order. Asad Durrani’s book adds to the existing literature on civil–military relations in Pakistan by focussing on the organizational interest of military and intelligence institutions of Pakistan. He argues that the imbalance in civil–military relations is a result of decisions taken by both military and civilian leaders in collaboration with intelligence agencies who were more influenced by domestic political calculations than external security issues. The book is the author’s personal account of events that took place in Pakistan during his long service association with the military administration as a junior officer (1959–1987), as Director General of Military Intelligence (MI) (1988–1989) and Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) (1990–1991) and ambassador to Germany (1994–1997) and Saudi Arabia (2000–2002). The book is divided into three broad sections which essentially describe the labyrinth of the power struggle between the army and the political elites of Pakistan. Although he has not been completely candid about all aspects of capital importance including the ethnic factor in military composition and its impact on the politics and society, he has categorically accepted that any interference from civilian governments in the affairs of the military was seen as a violation of their mandate and ‘was nipped in the bud’. This was done by either creating an alternative to the existing government in the form of covertly supporting the opposition or creating coalitions that were considered less harmful than the existing ones. The most reliable way for the military was either dismissing the government or a complete military takeover. The author supports his claims by analysing the elections of 1988. The Army had the perception that Benazir Bhutto’s growing political power was detrimental to its autonomy. Since her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was hanged by a military dictator, the army believed that she might try to diminish its role and completely Strategic Analysis, 2019 Vol. 43, No. 4, 352–354, https://doi.org/10.1080/09700161.2019.1626085