Civ-mil relations and own-goals

The writer is an analyst and commentator.

Was it too good to be true? For several months, it seemed that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had managed to strike up a robust working relationship with Army Chief General Raheel Sharif. They had embarked on a dual-track diplomatic push that has not only generated better confidence here at home, but also a much improved profile for the country abroad.

The events since the APS Peshawar attack of December 16, 2014 had seemed to have proven that Pakistan wins only when it works as Pakistan – that is, as one coherent whole. The civilians had delivered multiple national security wins for the country, not least of which was an amended constitution to clear the path for military courts, and a united parliament to block the path to the GCC imbroglio in Yemen. The military had delivered repeated battlefield wins for the country, including not only the wholesale victories in the tribal region, but the beginnings of a long and arduous war against sectarian hatred and the associated violent extremism it breeds.

No country can boast of perfect civ-mil relations, and Pakistan’s misfortune is that it can boast of only lessons learnt from terrible decisions by both elected leaders and military generals, over and over and over again. At long last, it had seemed that the fully processed and imbibed lessons of the tortuous journey Prime Minister Nawaz had taken to his third stint as PM, and his survival of the tedious dharnas of 2014 were beginning to pay off. It also seemed that the military, after the many humiliations this country has endured because of poor decisions by men like Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan, Amir Abdullah Khan Niazi, Ziaul Haque and Pervez Musharraf, had learned some lessons. Was it all too good to be true?

Unless one or both of the Sharifs that run this country are on a foreign tour, we hear of meetings between the two men, almost every week. Some weeks it is Raheel Sharif who visits Islamabad. Sometimes it is Nawaz Sharif who visits Rawalpindi, or a location at which troops are engaged in doing their valiant work. Is it possible that since the National Action Plan was announced in late December of 2014, almost a year ago, that one Sharif had never had the chance to tell the other Sharif about how much progress they were making? Is it possible that Army Chief Sharif has never discussed the scope and sphere for better governance in Pakistan with Prime Minister Sharif? Is it possible that in the numerous meetings to discuss the National Action Plan, the notion that a full-spectrum range of non-kinetic, non-military government operations is necessary, never came up?

It seems ridiculous, doesn’t it? It seems ridiculous that there is any chance that the prime minister and his cabinet don’t already know that governance is a really big problem, and that the speed and pace at which change is taking place in Pakistan leaves much to be desired. It seems even more ridiculous that it could be possible that the military, at the highest levels of the military, has not ever articulated its concerns about the pace of reforms or changes that need to happen to take advantage of battlefield victories in Fata and in other areas of the counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency.

This is the context in which, on November 11, the ISPR issued one of its most ill-advised forays into the national discourse in recent memory. The press release was issued after the corps commanders’ meeting, and cited the COAS’ discomfort with the pace of “of [the] National Action Plan’s implementation, finalisation of Fata reforms, and concluding all ongoing JITs at priority”. It then went on to state that the “COAS also directed to expedite return of TDPs, overcoming all obstacles for development works in affected areas and rehabilitation of all displaced families”. Finally, the press release described the forthcoming visit of the COAS to the United States, as a trip on which he will “clearly highlight Pakistan’s perspective of new emerging regional realities”.

We’ve already established that it is ridiculous to even conceive that the government is not aware of the military’s concerns about the pace of NAPs implementation or the complications around Fata reforms. Indeed, this is ridiculous, because two days before the corps commanders meeting, on November 8, the Prime Minister’s Office issued an order forming a FATA Reforms Committee.

If the ISPR was deeply moved by the concern in the voice of the army chief during the corps commanders’ meeting, there were a wide range of devices available to make that known to the government. One would have been by picking up the phone and calling the newly anointed National Security Advisor (NSA), former lieutenant general, and now public servant, Naseer Khan Janjua. The NSA is supposed to be the principal point of call for the PM on national security. Surely, this is an issue in which he deserves to be engaged and informed.

However, calling Gen Janua was only one of a wide array of choices. The Ministry of Defence, which is the place where such discussions should be happening, has a principal accounting officer with a long and distinguished record of service to the people of Pakistan through his employment in the Pakistan Army. Former Lieutenant General, Muhammad Alam Khattak is the federal secretary for defence. Though his direct boss – unlike Gen Janjua – is not the prime minister, but instead the defence minister, I understand that the defence minister and the prime minister are reasonably close, and a message meant for the PM through Khawaja Asif would certainly have reached him.

What the ISPR has managed to do with this press release is not merely to show that professionally trained soldiers cannot be expected to be faultless public relations professionals. It has done two other much more important things. First, it has shown the limits of the military’s power in Pakistan – because the press release can be easily interpreted as an obtusely worded appeal to the elected civilian leadership to fix things that only the elected civilian leadership can fix.

Second, and perhaps most worryingly, it has opened up the floodgates for op-ed writers and opinion-makers to state, once again, the importance of both good civil-military relations, and the importance of institutions to do their job, within the ambit of the constitution. This is an emphatic own-goal for the military, as far as the tug-of-war for influence that may exist between uniformed soldiers and waist-coated politicians.

For me personally, the last line in the press release was particularly disappointing because it implies that the range of people working for the government, from Ambassador Jilani in Washington DC, to Ambassador Lodhi in New York, and the various cabinet members involved in these matters don’t know how to do their jobs. That the military chose to assert the COAS needing to “clearly” state the “Pakistani perspective” on regional realities is worrying.

Perhaps equally worrying has been the reaction of the government. After the colossal own goal by ISPR, the government would have been well-advised to examine what drove responsible senior military officers to take such a measure. That rumination should have taken place quietly, and actions to redress the matter even more so. Instead, the prime minister allowed the matter to be dipped in high octane fuel, set alight with a fake Zippo, and tossed into the national discourse like a Molotov cocktail.

The ‘press release’ issued by a ‘spokesperson’ for the ‘Government of Pakistan’ asserting the constitution and the various formal roles assigned to our institutions has now pitted intelligent Pakistanis against each other in our oldest national sport, which is to find ways to excuse the military’s voracious appetite for governance.

At a time when the enemy is reeling, and national confidence was growing, this episode should instigate deep reflection among both the corps commanders and the Prime Minister’s Office and his cabinet. If this isn’t the last hiccup in civ-mil relations in a long, long time, Pakistan will be at real risk of losing momentum from recent successes at home, and abroad.

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