Month: January 2015

Mr Hamid Hussein, one of the best and most well-informed commentators on the Pakistan army (and the British Indian army and it’s other daughter armies) has sent in this piece:


Year in Review and Year Ahead– Pakistan Army in 2014-15
Hamid Hussain

“A general who advances without coveting fame and retreats without fearing the disgrace, whose only thought is to protect his country and do good service to his sovereign, is the jewel of the kingdom.”          Sun Tzu      

General Raheel Sharif was appointed Chief of Army Staff (COAS) in November 2013.  He decided to work with the existing team of senior officers and didn’t embark on  a major re-shuffle right after assuming charge.  The responsibilities of COAS of Pakistan army are not limited to the army and he invariably gets involved in domestic politics as well as foreign relations.  The argument whether  the COAS pushes the door or politicians through their own incompetence opens doors as well as  the windows for him to enter the corridors of power is as old as  the emergence of Pakistan as an independent state in 1947.

In 2014, General Sharif worked to take control of his own institution, gently pushing civilians on some areas of interest of the army and mediated among quarrelling politicians.  This trend will likely continue in 2015.  General Sharif opted for a different approach and decided to work with  the senior brass put in place by his predecessor, General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani rather than bringing about a new team immediately. This meant that he was first among the equals at the decision making table.  I was not expecting forceful decisions from General Sharif, but I was pleasantly surprised when he took  the decision about launching operation in North Waziristan quite early in his tenure.
In the last ten years, there has been a gradual shift in the thought processes of  the officer corps.  Earlier there was debate amongst the senior brass regarding  the balance between negotiations and military operations.  In recent years, there has been a decisive shift towards clearing all the swamps.  In the last year of General Kayani’s tenure,  the majority opinion among the inner core was in favor of clearing North Waziristan.   The army had completed all their preparations but General Kayani demurred due to reasons best known to him (since his retirement, many are now critical on many of  his decisions during his extended tenure).  Now with a new COAS, the consensus amongst the existing team and  the new chief being first among the equals at the table made the decision about  the operation easy.

In 2014, General Sharif used  the normal retirement process to bring about a new team.  This prevents friction amongst the senior brass and was  the correct approach.  Newly promoted officers were appointed to important command and staff positions, that included four Corps commanders.  General Sharif will be now be presiding at conferences where other members around the table are quite junior to him.  This will enable him to carry the team easily with him.

In 2014, there were three main areas of friction with   the new civilian government headed by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif;  the decision on a military operation in North Waziristan,  the trial of former army chief General Pervez Musharraf and  the large scale demonstrations in the capital by a cleric, Tahir ul Qadri and recently empowered political party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) led by Imran Khan with  the clear goal of ousting the elected government.

The case of operation in North Waziristan is tragic. Both the previous Pakistan People’s Party government as well as provincial government of Awami National Party (ANP) pushed for the military operation,  the army demurred and now when  the army decided to take action in 2014, the new civilian government demurred fearing a backlash and started to drag its feet.  Both army and civilian rulers share the blame; petty personal and institutional interests clouded their judgement about strategic threats.  Finally, when the army announced  the start of  the operation the civilians simply tagged along.
 
The army as an institution doesn’t want a public humiliation of their former chief.  In addition, General Sharif has had a long personal association with General Musharraf.  General Sharif’s elder brother Major Shabbir Sharif was a decorated soldier and was killed in action in 1971.  He was General Musharraf’s course mate and he was what Musharraf wanted to be.  Since 1998, General Musharraf was more like an elder brother to General Sharif and his career was personally overseen by General Musharraf.   As a Brigadier, General Musharraf gave him choice between his Private Secretary (PS) or a course at  the Royal College Defence Studies (RCDS) in London and Sharif chose  the later.  Musharraf promoted him to two stars rank and gave him  the choice appointments as GOC of Lahore based 11th Division and later Commandant of Pakistan Military Academy (PMA). The Army brass want  the government to give General Musharraf a safe exit, while  the civilian government wants the courts to drag him through the coals.

A third complicating factor was  the announcement of Tahir ul Qadri and Imran Khan to stage mass demonstrations in the capital to oust  the government.  Tahir ul Qadri openly asked for direct army intervention.  On the other hand, former Director General Inter Services Intelligence (DGISI) Lieutenant General Ahmad Shuja Pasha had some contacts with Imran Khan and many of  the politicians who were associated with General Musharraf later joined Imran Khan this raised concerns that Imran had support of the army.  To make matters worse, relations between  the Prime Minister and DGISI Lieutenant General Zaheer ul Islam deteriorated on the issue of an assassination attempt on a famous journalist and television anchor.  Adding fuel to the fire, some senior army officers were also not happy with  the Prime Minister.  With this background, when massive demonstrations were staged against the government in the capital,  the Prime Minister concluded that  the army has given its blessing to these manoeuvres.  Tahir Qadri and Imran Khan assumed too much and over read the briefs without calculating the impact of the change of command.  The trio of  the P rime Minister, Imran Khan and Tahir ul Qadri reached such an impasse that General Sharif had to mediate, further eroding civil-military relations.  In the process, he re-asserted  the army’s control in several important areas.

The year 2014 ended on a very sad note on December 16th, when militants attacked a school run by the army and killed 141 people, 132 of them children.  Following the precedent of reacting to events, in a knee jerk reaction,  the civilian government started  the wholesale hanging of convicted terrorists, telling teachers to come to schools armed with handguns and announcing plans without any homework which they neither had the capacity nor the will to carry out.  The Army asked for and got a constitutional amendment in two weeks authorizing  the establishment of military courts to try terrorists.  Things which should have been done ten years ago with thoughtfulness and coordination were done in hours after  the atrocities sowing even more confusion.  Neither the Pakistani public nor  the international community is confident from such measures.  

In 2015, General Sharif will likely continue on the same path, guiding  the army in ongoing operations, managing his senior brass and to position senior officers to succeed him in 2016.  In addition to national security, he will try to keep a firm control on  the key foreign policy areas especially relations with Afghanistan, India and United States.  To do this involves keeping open independent channels of communication with Kabul, Washington, London and Beijing and this will invariably keep civil-military relations on a rocky road.

In 2015, two major shuffles will occur in April and October when eight Lieutenant Generals will be hanging up their boots.  Among these eight Lieutenant Generals are four Corps Commanders.  Appointments in 2015 will also show General Sharif’s own preference about his succession.  In my opinion, only three senior officers qualify to fill the COAS post in 2016.  They are  the current Chief of General Staff (CGS) Lieutenant General Ishfaq Nadeem Ahmad,  the current Rawalpindi based X Corps commander Lieutenant General Qamar Javed Bajwa and  the current Military Secretary (MS) Lieutenant General Mazhar Jamil.   The current DGISI Lieutenant General Rizwan Akhtar will be too junior to be considered for the position.  However, his role will be crucial in the next two years.  By the fall of 2015, Ishfaq, Qamar and Mazhar would have completed at least two years in their present positions and moving them around will put all three in a position to succeed him.  One possibility is swapping  the positions of Ishfaq and Qamar while moving Mazhar to command of a Corps (probably Lahore as command of Multan Corps is usually given to an Armored Corps officer).  After this repositioning, all three officers will be equally qualified to succeed General Sharif in the fall of 2016.

General Ishfaq is from  the 62nd Pakistan Military Academy (PMA) Long Course and was commissioned in  the 34th Azad Kashmir (AK) Regiment.  He is generally respected for his professionalism.  His career is typical of any senior officer serving as Chief of Staff (COS) of  the Mangla based I Corps at Brigadier rank, he commanded  the 37th Infantry Division operating against militants in Swat and then as Director General Military Operations (DGMO) at Major General rank before his promotion to Lieutenant General.  In November 2013, he was brought in as CGS.

Lieutenant General Qamar Javed Bajwa is from  the Baloch Regiment.  He served as  the Chief of Staff (COS) of  the Rawalpindi based X Corps at Brigadier rank, then GOC of Force Command Northern Area (FCNA) and Commandant of School of Infantry & Tactics at Major General rank.  He was promoted to Lieutenant General rank in August 2013 and appointed Corps Commander of  the Rawalpindi based X Corps.

Lieutenant General Mazhar Jamil is a gunner.  He served as GOC of  the Lahore based 10th Division, Commandant of the PMA and Vice Chief of General Staff (VCGS) before elevation to Lieutenant General rank in September 2013 and appointed Military Secretary (MS).

General Rizwan Akhtar was commissioned into the 4th Frontier Force Regiment.  He is considered a good officer by his peers.  His career is also typical of  senior officers reaching Lieutenant General rank with usual command, staff and instructional appointments.  He commanded the 27th Infantry brigade of the 7th Infantry Division from 2005-07.  However, all North Waziristan formations were essentially restricted to their posts and there were no offensive operations. The Army was busy cleaning the South Waziristan and the swamps of North Waziristan were rapidly filling with alligators of all shapes and hues.  The Army high command was simply reacting to events on the ground with the result that it lost the support of local population in tribal areas. In 2011-12, he was GOC of the 9th Division operating in South Waziristan.  He was Director General (DG) of the Sindh Rangers in 2012-14 and involved in the clean-up operation against criminal elements in the city of Karachi.  In October 2014, he was promoted to Lieutenant General rank and appointed DGISI.  In 2005 as Brigade commander in North Waziristan, he prepared a detailed report about the threats emanating from North Waziristan and response options.  In 2008, while at the US Army War College at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, Rizwan wrote his course paper on the U.S.-Pakistan trust deficit and the war on terror.  He made several recommendations on how to bridge the gap in  trust between Pakistan and the USA.  Now as DGISI, his position enables him to address both these issues – only time will tell how successful he will be in this endeavor.

Generals Ishfaq and Rizwan are the two senior officers amongst the inner core who are in a position to contribute effectively towards the successful conduct of operations, to stay the course while helping to create favorable regional and international dynamics that are beneficial to Pakistan.  They are part of the inner core decision making process and if they can continue on the track of the multiple tasks: of completing major military offensives against militant strong holds, trying to improve relations with India and Afghanistan, slowly disentangling Pakistan from the snake pit of Afghanistan and help the COAS to stays in his own lane.

An important task for Generals Sharif and Rizwan is to keep the ISI as an organization on the right track. The majority of serving officers in ISI have no intelligence background, they come for a two to three year stint. This stint has become an important part of climbing the promotion ladder, so they tend to be very cautious, relying too much on reports generated from lower levels without being subject to rigorous questioning  (although there are some exceptions).  They should demand from all ISI deputy directors to take full control of their respective departments and ensure that the direction from their commanders is carried out in both the letter and the spirit.  Some old hands in both the civilian section as well as retired army officers serving on a contract basis need to be moved out as the new generation are fully aware of the changed threat environment so need to be represented at all levels.

One crucial factor in the coming years is the issue of independent external funding of Pakistan’s armed forces.  It is clear that with the winding down of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan, budget allocations to Pakistan will be markedly reduced especially for the army.  It is likely that a Middle Eastern expeditionary force will be assembled and so more U.S. funding could follow.  The great assembly of extremists of all shades, as well as the mother of all sectarian wars is being fought in the Middle East spanning many countries.  It will be very tempting for the army command  to try and get some piece of the Middle Eastern pie – as the Afghan pie will likely morph into a cookie.

In my opinion, the Pakistan army command  should make every effort to stay miles away from the mess of the Middle East despite the instant gratification of some short term financial benefit.  The blow-back from Afghanistan is shaking the very foundations of the Pakistani state and Pakistani society and army have paid a heavy price.  Pakistan simply does not have the luxury in both capability and will to bear the brunt of another conflict which is becoming more vicious by the day and nobody can predict how things will settle down in the Middle East.

It was expected that after his two previous stints as Prime Minister, Mr. Nawaz Sharif would bring some maturity to the position along with a change from a highly personalized to an institutional form of government – instead his performance in 2014 has been dismal.  The government is drifting from crisis to crisis and is unable to present a coherent plan to tackle the critical issues.  The space left by civilians is invariably being filled by the army, especially in the security and foreign policy arenas. The Prime Minister needs to bring discipline and professionalism in his team.  The security and foreign policy teams should be re-organized by bringing in young and energetic members who get an input from both the professionals in the police and the foreign office as well as outside experts.

The army is by comparison better organized, has better institutional norms, but still has its own problems.  Promoting officers and giving them important assignments under whose command hundreds of soldiers deserted, officers who cannot even protect their own offices when their headquarters were bombed by militants with impunity or under whose nose hundreds of militants enter a major city, break open the city jail and free over two hundred prisoners who then go back to their lairs is not a good omen for the army.  This has a very negative impact all along the chain of command.

My personal view which has not changed in the last decade is that if any COAS can get the courage to sack a dozen or so officers that will go a long way to improve things.  The army brass needs to work within the system and while bypassing civilians is easy, it will aggravate relations and make things more complicated in the long run.

the conflicts of the last decade have put a severe strain on the Pakistani state and society. The Pakistan army is not immune from these changes.  One simple fact should be remembered by everyone that civilians and soldiers are on the same team.  It is the responsibility of every player to avoid a selfish goal.  Friction is expected in any polity, but minimum working relations are mandatory.  The personalized decision making process of the  Prime Minister and COAS will only aggravate civil military relations as distrust is mutual.  Civilian and military leadership should establish institutional mechanisms that will improve working relations, generate respect and ensure continuity of policies.  

 Ahmed Humayun, an analyst at the “Institute of Social Policy and Understanding” has a post up about the “management of savagery“, a central text in the Islamist militant movement.

Read the whole thing here (at 3quarksdaily).

Excerpts:

Yet it also outlines a clear, coherent worldview, a theory of geopolitical change, and, when it is not recycling superficial clichés about Western decadence, offers penetrating insight into how terrorist tactics can succeed, even when they appear to fail. It is a call to action that outlines a series of concrete, often diabolically clever steps that have been followed by a wide range of militant groups. –

..Such a transitional state prevails in the Muslim world today. Militant groups should therefore seek to ‘vex’ and ‘exhaust’ the enemy- the regimes ruling their societies, or their Western allies. This will catalyze the breakout of chaos – the weakening of political authority across the land, creating opportunities for militants to ‘manage the savagery’ successfully, so that the ultimate goal, an Islamic state, may be realized. –

..Finally, the West can try to live up to its values. The militants correctly identify that concepts like freedom, liberty, and justice resonate in Muslim majority societies, and see them as competing with the ideology they seek to implement. But when we unflinchingly back autocrats in Muslim majority societies instead of defending our stated values, when we support the stultifying status quo instead of encouraging critical political reform, we shrink the space for progressive ideas to emerge and expand opportunities for militant notions. We will never persuade the militants, of course but we might be able to persuade others if we tried. –

See the whole thing at 3qd. It is worth a read. I had the following “off the top of my head” comment on it:

I would add a few minor notes to this excellent analysis of the “management of savagery”:

1. The authors of the Islamist narrative are not self-sufficient in their creation of this narrative. They rely on Islamicate tradition for a lot of their cherry-picked theological quotes and for historical references about events like the early Arab invasion and colonization of the “near East”, the crusades, the invasions of Europe and even the sea-jihad of the Barbary pirates, ..interestingly the Pakistani ones at least seem to make more references to the conquest and loss of Spain and the subsequent centuries of conflict in the Western Mediterranean region than to the Ottoman conquests and subsequent losses in South-Eastern Europe, reflecting perhaps the relative value of the two regions in the eyes of Islamists and in the eyes of broader contemporary audiences; Spain, France and Italy being worthy prizes and the Balkans being mostly a nameless mess. They (surprisingly) do not seem to use a lot of Islamic source material for their polemic about early 20th century European interventions. A lot of THAT narrative is lifted straight from Robert Fisk and other Western writers. SOAS seems to have contributed more to that story than the Ulama and authors of the blessed dar-ul-Islam. This is an interesting sidelight and worth at least one good PhD thesis someday.

2. The author’s final prescriptions (“But when we unflinchingly back autocrats in Muslim majority societies instead of defending our stated values, when we support the stultifying status quo instead of encouraging critical political reform, we shrink the space for progressive ideas to emerge and expand opportunities for militant notions. We will never persuade the militants, of course but we might be able to persuade others if we tried”) are boiler-plate left-liberal talking points, but depending on what actual steps the author has in mind, may be even more unrealistic than the Islamist’s dream of utopia-after-savagery. Of course, the author may have specifics in mind that are far different from what I have heard from other progressive friends. This is always the risk when one imagines details based on a few brief lines of text. But we all rely on such heuristic devices and I get nervous when I hear “progressive ideas” and American foreign policy mentioned in one paragraph. I may be completely misreading the author (and I apologize in advance if I am clubbing him unfairly with people who occasionally read Arundhati Roy as if she is a serious analyst), but these days, I get nervous easily 🙂 … I am afraid that the neo-cons half-baked, ahistorical, poorly thought out creation of neo-liberal Iraq was not far enough from “progressive ideas” for us to feel safe. American support for “progressive ideas” may turn out to be no more helpful than American support of the “stultifying status quo” if it is based on equally superficial notions of history and of the origins of states and of modern society (for better and for worse).   Just a thought…

3. There is no single correct thing to do everywhere and at all times and the answer (as always) is “it depends”, but the author’s desire that the US avoid militarily invading far away countries (to save them, or to destroy them) is one we can all agree with and say “Amen”.

There is never a point to deliberately offend; in fact BP is a perennial victim of that.

There was a time in our first year when we were hitting a tipping point and then we became a target, which led to several website issues. Ever since we moved from WordPress to Blogger our user engagement is a fraction of what it was.

Leave a comment if you do; I’m not expecting many to be honest even if we do have robust viewing figures.

The first couple years of the blog had an excellent comments section especially when we were WordPress.

http://uk.eonline.com/news/614318/naya-rivera-says-showering-daily-is-a-white-people-thing-watch-now

It seems apart from the plunging price of oil the FT seems replete instead with warning about democracy. I intensely dislike and distrust nationalism (apathy/dislike for the “Other”) while I condone patriotism (love of one’s Own).

However I don’t think Europe is going to slip towards fascism anytime soon in the forseeable future. I don’t even think it’s viable or tenable to deport illegal immigrants however there has to be a control on future entries and manage the process.

Immigration has to be revamped that the developed countries of the world (West + Japan) need to synchronize their borders. As an example how many Americans would really want to move to Japan and settle there, or vice versa. I once read an Israeli economies write in the International Herald Tribune (essentially the NY Times) that unless incomes were 3x greater most populations would not immigrate.

As borders become more fluid it makes sense to plan for the eventuality of a more federated and united world. We are leaving the age of a Single Hegemon (with mixed results) towards a more equitable system. Transnational cultural groupings will take on much more significance than before however we must also begin to have a much fairer system.

The West (& Japan) have aging populations and overloaded pensions as a upcoming crisis. The answer is not more immigrants (because they themselves will ultimately age) but for pensioners to start migrating Southward (to found their own OAP colonies so to speak). Desirable locations around the world can become huge hubs for aging baby boomers where they will also be able to take advantage of purchasing power parity. Tourism and other industries would be built on the back of that (as families come to visit etc) and it would create huge employment opportunities in the South (for carers, companions etc).

Other than that it would also have an excellent environment impact as these compact colonies would essentially transfer from high emission producing regions to lower emission producing regions.

This is the migration that needs to happen not the one that’s currently occurring where the brain drain depletes the middle class in the Rest and squeezes the native middle class in the West. The first retirement colony will then start a wave (I know they are trying that in the Phillipines & Japan).

In this manner the West & Japan can ease into smaller more amalgamated populations (probably followed by countries that are becoming wealthier and aging) while also becoming much more capital intensive (and preserving high wages, low employment). The Rest will benefit from the spin-off of compacting Prosperity Sphere.

There is nothing wrong whatsoever with declining populations as long as cultural coherency remains in tact. The mistake right now in the West is that natives have a low fertility rate coupled with immigration creates a huge amount of societal imbalance. In a globalising world high wages can eventually be found everywhere (and even where wages are not high PPP can ensure that it’s more lucrative staying back rather than immigrating).

At that point support for the far-right will begin to precipitously decline as citizens and individuals begin to use globalisation to their advantage.

http://www.philstar.com/cebu-business/2013/01/08/894596/japanese-retirees-eyeing-cebu-retirement-hub

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-13/aging-baby-boomers-face-losing-care-as-filipinos-go-home.html

By now, the Philippines should have retirement villages for Americans because English is widely spoken. Instead, Americans are going to Spanish-speaking Mexico.

US Census 2010 estimates approximately 2.5 million citizens and legal permanent residents of Philippine ancestry.

One nongovernment survey claims 200,000 Fil-Am senior citizens would really like to retire in the Philippines, but they won’t.

Unlike Social Security, which you can take anywhere, Medicare stops at the border. Fil-Ams are afraid to return home without medical insurance. Another survey calculates that more than one million American seniors have homes in Mexico. The popularity of Mexico as a retirement destination is because you can simply cross the border back to the US for medical treatment.

http://asianjournalusa.com/american-retirees-the-next-big-business-for-the-philippines-p12342-114.htm