Asim Munir’s lunch with Trump showed Pakistanis who’s ‘The Real Boss’

By inviting Field Marshal Asim Munir (left) for a luncheon meeting, US President Donald Trump (right) was only recognising the de facto reality of Pakistan politics.

Army chiefs seldom get luncheon invites from presidents since they do not figure prominently in their national warrant of precedence or diplomatic protocols governing inter-state etiquettes. Yet, in inviting Field Marshal Asim Munir for a luncheon meeting, US President Donald Trump was only recognising the de facto reality of Pakistan politics where the military rules the roost, either directly or behind the curtains.

Trump may have solicited Munir’s support, perhaps, for his evolving Iran strategies. Nevertheless, to the world at large, it only affirms Pakistan’s asymmetrical civil-military relations that favours military in general and officers in particular, relegating civilians to second-grade citizenry.

Pakistan, an outlier in the civil-military equation

Pakistan defies cannons of normal civil-military relations stipulated in academic writings and those experienced in vibrant democracies. Democracies have a generic respect for civilian supremacy; and military officers, specialists in ‘management of violence’, prefer barrack life in return for operational autonomy.

Unfortunately, Samuel S Huntington, who propounded this hypothesis in 1957 and died in 2008, did not write any rebuttal despite witnessing six-decades’ long violations of classical civil-military relations in Pakistan. Pakistan does not even have a hybrid governance model where military and civil side share power in harmonious manner; instead, there is an institutionalised contradictory model where the military controls and guides the civil in every possible manner.

Probably, the best example of a larger-than-life space for military is Pakistan’s warrant of precedence. Whether it is generals, brigadiers or even colonels, they enjoy relative superiority vis-à-vis civilian officers. Even this warrant of precedence is informally consigned to the dustbin during state functions where the generals are treated like VVIPs and ministers have to make way for them!

Boss, make way for the next Field Marshal

In fact, Pakistani generals love crushing ministerial egos and the latter take it in their stride. Only few weeks ago, the Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif’s vehicle was stopped to make way for the convoy of the then General (now Field Marshal) Munir who is technically subordinate to him. In June 2013, even the then PM Nawaz Sharif’s convoy was stopped to let the then Army Chief’s convoy pass!

The Pakistan military also has a dominating role in civil administration. The Army Chief forms an essential pillar of the troika along with President and the Prime Minister where all important public policy decisions, including non-military ones, are shaped.

The military also occupies numerous top civilian posts. For instance, the Director General, Military Lands and Cantonments, is a serving Major General. This despite a long-standing Supreme Court order to restore the post back to the civilian officer from the cadre. In India, its counter-part organisation, the Director General, Defence Estates, is always headed by the senior-most officer of the Indian Defence Estates Service, a civilian Group A service.

ISI becomes doorkeeper for civilian posts

Serving or retired military officers in Pakistan also head numerous other big and small civil organisations, PSUs, paramilitary forces, ordnance factories, and regulatory authorities. Since 2022, the Inter–Services Intelligence (ISI), indulging more in political manipulations than actual intelligence, has replaced the civilian Intelligence Bureau as special vetting agency for top civilian posts. The new arrangement will perpetuate military influence in civilian administration.

The military also ensures a lucrative life for its officer cadre during and after service. The perks and privileges make military job most attractive at officer-level. A substantial portion of Pakistan’s defence budget is always diverted to the huge business empire under the military that supplements officers’ income after retirement. Pakistan has as many as 44 cantonment areas (against 62 in India) where military officers live like pampered aristocrats, in much the same manner as the British days. Civilians are treated like pariahs and do not have much on offer except low-level jobs and peripheral existence. Evening life is colourful and resembles colonial glitz and glamour.

An army with a country?

Pakistani military empowerment is the consequential result of the country itself being an ‘artificial construct’. Post-partition, the army projected itself as the defencer pacis of the fledgling nation and used Islam, Kashmir and anti-India rhetoric to mobilise the nation and its resources.  In the process, while the army has grown increasingly powerful, other institutions of government either did not grow or simply collapsed.

Today, military in Pakistan enjoys ‘institutional monopoly’ and the president, prime minister, legislature, bureaucracy etc. all look up to the Army for guidance. Other countries may have army, but as the joke goes, Pakistan army has a country for itself!

Costs of military dominance

This military domination affects civil set up in many ways.

First, the military has single-handedly prevented the political and bureaucratic elites to contribute constructively in a ‘state reconstruction’ project built on the edifices of democracy, independent judiciary, institutional checks and balances, and most importantly, civilian control over military. The military not only plays a good game of politics, but it is also adept at ‘deciding the very rules of the game’. This was best manifest in the denial of power to Imran Khan and his PTI.

Second, Pakistan could never draw and carry forward a transformative agenda. It was always busy with ‘security-state’ project rather than inching towards comprehensive ‘developmental state’ project. Evidences are galore – low GDP growth rate, absence of vibrant private sector entrepreneurship, and overall poor development. The buses, trains and basic infrastructure still resemble that common in the 1980s.

Third, Pakistan’s people are forced to listen and practice military narrative on important domestic and foreign policy matters. Pakistan military is apparently ‘popular’ when it’s singularly responsible for Pakistan’s miseries. Pakistan apparently ‘won’ the three-day war when it actually lost the game. Munir, having ‘failed’ the generalship test, was crowned as a ‘Field Marshal’!

Healthy civil-military relations define vibrant democracies. Unfortunately, the democracy project has failed in Pakistan. While Pakistan military is spreading its institutional outreach, there is increased militarisation of governance (through increased uniformed presence at top, garrison state syndrome, and higher defence budget); polity (reduced political tolerance culture and accommodation); and society (glorification and sponsorship of terrorist activities). Therefore, Pakistan’s people are condemned to live under the military’s shadow.

(Note: The author is in the Indian Defence Accounts Service. Views are personal and do not represent the stand of this publication.)