CHAPTER 1

THE MILITARY AND DEMOCRACY

Aqil Shah

The Pakistan military has repeatedly intervened to arrest the development of democracy in the country, ruling Pakistan directly for almost half the country’s existence. Between 1947 and 2012, not even once did an elected government complete its tenure and peacefully transfer power to another elected government. All of Pakistan’s previous transitions to democracy were aborted by military coups. Even when the armed forces were not in power, they maintained a firm grip on national politics. Pakistan made its latest transition to democracy in 2008 when the military extricated itself from government, once again, after eight years of authoritarian rule under General Pervez Musharraf (1999–2007). In 2013, Pakistan finally broke its curse of zero democratic turnovers when the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) completed its full constitutional term of five years and surrendered power, and its main challenger, Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N, emerged victorious in the parliamentary elections held in 2013, both at the center and in Punjab Province.

In order to understand the trajectory of civil–military relations since 2007, this chapter examines the mode of military disengagement from politics while locating military interventions and dominance in historical perspective. Faced with a mobilized opposition led by the “lawyers’ movement,” seeking to reinstate the sacked Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, the military government reached out to the largest opposition party, the PPP, to negotiate its exit. But despite blows to its public standing and without extracting any formal legal safeguards to preserve its interests once it had left power—conditions associated with the diminution of military entitlements in other contexts1—the Pakistan military was able to retain its core institutional privileges, concerning control over its internal structure, national security missions, budgetary allocations, intelligence gathering, and so on.

What explains why the military remained strong enough to maintain its political and strategic influence in the post-authoritarian context despite a weakened military-led authoritarian regime?² How and to what extent have the military’s entitlements impeded the consolidation of democratic government,³ including the procedural minima of civilian control over the military?

In order to answer these questions, this chapter makes a twofold argument. First, it contends that the paradox of weak military government–strong military institution was the result of structural differentiation between these two components of the state that allowed the institutional military to disassociate itself from the authoritarian regime and withdraw on its own terms.⁴ While the government and the military were connected at the top by the president and army chief of staff, General Musharraf, the institution was not directly involved in government. Many military officers were appointed to the civilian bureaucracy, but the military institution did not hierarchically take over direct command of the state. There were no military councils of ministers and no reserved seats for members of the military in the Parliament, as in Suharto’s Indonesia or Pinochet’s Chile. In fact, the large majority of the military was focused on combat readiness against its archrival India and, to a lesser degree, on counterinsurgency missions against Taliban militants in the country’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) bordering Afghanistan.

Therein lies the crux of the matter: the almost permanent perceived threat from India makes the government-institution distinction imperative for the maintenance of military cohesion and integrity and accords the armed forces a preeminent strategic position within the state that is unaffected by the political or economic performance of a particular military government. Thus, while the antiregime mobilization attacked the legitimacy of the military government, the military institution qua institution generally managed to remain above the political fray. No less important, the uniformed military did not directly participate in repressing the antigovernment protests, which enabled it to leave power without incriminating itself in the unsavory deeds of the despot. In fact, the high command compensated for the military institution’s association with the military government by withdrawing support from Musharraf during the opposition movement, thus depriving him of his core power base and ultimately convincing him to resign.

Second, the chapter argues that the degree to which the military can impose constraints on democratic governance after it leaves power is better explained by focusing on two interrelated dimensions of civil–military relations in a new regime: military prerogatives and military contestation.5 Military prerogatives are policy areas where “whether challenged or not, the military as institution assumes they have an acquired right or privilege, formal or informal, to exercise effective control.”⁶ Contestation is the military’s “articulated disagreement” or protest against the policies of civilian governments that challenge its prerogatives.⁷

The chapter proceeds in the following manner. The next section traces the formative historical conditions that helped foster the military’s institutional prerogatives. It then illuminates the context of the military’s latest institutional extrication, paying special attention to the interacting processes of authoritarian liberalization, opposition mobilization, regime weakening, transitional bargaining, and the actual transition to civilian rule in 2007–2008. Finally, it examines post-authoritarian civil–military relations in Pakistan from the perspective of military prerogatives and military contestation of civilian authority to assess their impact on the consolidation of democratic rule.

THE HEAVY HAND OF HISTORY: “NATION-STATE” BUILDING UNDER CONDITIONS OF WARFARE

Given a bitter rivalry in the decade preceding independence, Pakistan’s founding Muslim League leadership, led by Mohammad Ali Jinnah, suspected that the Congress government of India viewed the creation of Pakistan as a “temporary recession of certain territories from India which would soon be reabsorbed.”⁸ The onset of the territorial conflict between the two countries over the princely state of Kashmir, which sparked military hostilities in 1947–1948, turned this suspicion into deep insecurity, further complicated by irredentist Afghan claims on Pakistan’s northwestern territories.⁹ It also spurred the “militarization” of the Pakistani state in the early years,¹⁰ thus providing the context in which the generals could increase their influence in domestic politics and national security policy while at the same time observing constitutional procedures. As state building and survival became synonymous with the “war effort,” the civilian leadership diverted scarce resources from development to defense¹¹ and abdicated its responsibility of oversight over the military, thereby allowing the generals a virtual free hand over internal organizational affairs and national security management.

Reinforcing the emergence of this warrior state was an equally crucial political handicap: Pakistan lacked the primary background condition that makes democracy (and, by implication, civilian democratic control of the military) possible: national unity.12 In the words of Christophe Jaffrelot, Pakistan’s was a “nationalism without a nation.”¹³ Pakistan emerged from British colonial rule with a deep ethnic diversity that overlapped with its geographical division into two wings, West Pakistan and East Pakistan, separated by Indian territory. While West Pakistan (or, more precisely, the migrants or Mohajirs from northern and western India and the Punjabis) dominated the central government and its institutions, East Pakistan had a territorially concentrated and politically conscious Bengali majority, which was excluded from the armed forces and the civil bureaucracy.¹⁴ Independence provided a “brief moment of political unity.”¹⁵ However, the West Pakistani elites’ desire to forcefully integrate the Bengalis and other smaller West Pakistani ethnic groups (Pashtuns, Sindhis, and the Baluch) into the “nation-state,” while denying the legitimacy of all claims for political representation, participation, and regional autonomy based on subnational identities, led to the centralization of power, which decreased provincial autonomy and further strained the internal cohesion that can greatly facilitate the crafting of democratic institutions.

Strong political parties can be crucial to political stability and democratic consolidation. In particular, parties with “stable roots in society” have the capability to peacefully moderate and mediate social conflict. The Muslim League had weak social and organizational roots in Pakistan.¹⁶ Hence, the League leadership’s ability to “govern with consent” was complicated by the existential political threat stemming from the numerical logic of electoral democracy. Rather that pursuing “state-nation” policies that could help the development of “multiple and complementary identities” and accommodate distinct ethnic and cultural groups within a democratic federal framework, Pakistan’s founding elites followed “nation-state policies” designed to create a single nation congruent with the political boundaries of the state, albeit for “reasons of state” or political expediency.¹⁷ However, this national unification project only exacerbated “the chasm between the ideology and sociology” of Pakistan, especially by politicizing Bengali identity.¹⁸ For instance, even though 98 percent of the majority Bengalis (54 percent of the total population) spoke Bangla, the central government denied that language the national status it deserved and imposed Urdu (the first language of only 7 percent of the total population) as the sole state language immediately after independence, which sparked a “language movement” in East Pakistan as early as 1948.

Seeking to consolidate state authority, Jinnah and his successors found a ready-made governing formula in the iron fist of viceregalism. Backed by the military, the viceregal executive sacked noncompliant civilian cabinets (1953), delayed constitution making, disbanded Parliament when it crafted a federal democratic constitution (1954), removed an elected government in East Pakistan (1954), and ultimately amalgamated the provinces of West Pakistan into “One Unit” to create parity with East Pakistan (1955–1956). As governmental legitimacy was eviscerated under the heavy burden of authoritarian centralization, especially in East Pakistan, the emerging guardians of national security in the military developed serious doubts about the appropriateness and feasibility of parliamentary democracy in a fragile polity threatened by external threat and internal dissension. By the mid-1950s, the military under its first Pakistani commander-in-chief, General Ayub Khan, had dropped its pretensions of political neutrality and was no longer concerned merely with protecting its autonomy or budgets. Instead, the generals (and influential civilian bureaucrats) began to envisage a new form of “controlled” democracy “suited to the genius” of the Pakistani people.19

Here, institutional developments within the military had important consequences for civilian politics because they reinforced the officer corps’ emerging guardian mentality. Starting in the early 1950s, the military underwent a formative process of institutional transformation from an “ex-colonial” army into a “national” army with a corporate identity and ethos of its own. This process of institutional development was further spurred by military training, expertise, and armaments Pakistan received for allying with the United States to contain the threat of Soviet expansionism. This increased the capabilities of Pakistan’s small army, including its firepower, mobility, multiterrain operations, and command and control, thereby boosting the military’s “already high confidence in itself.”²⁰ This rapid military professionalization also conflicted sharply with the perceived failure and instability of civilian politics, especially the inability of politicians to craft an appropriate political system that would ensure national harmony and economic development. The high command believed that only a united and prosperous Pakistan could stand up to India and blunt the chances of the external (Indian) abetment of internal strife.²¹ Thus, American Cold War security assistance contributed to fanning the army’s praetorian ambitions by rapidly modernizing it, which reinforced the soldiers’ belief in the superiority of their skills over civilian politicians and was crucial to the high command’s decision to expand into an array of civilian roles and functions. Initially, the military called the shots under the cover of a Janowitzian “civil–military coalition” figuratively headed by the governor general.²²

After Pakistan’s first constitution came into force in March 1956, it was only a matter of time before national elections installed a government of autonomist Bengalis and their West Pakistani allies.23 In October 1958, the military demolished the constitutional order and established a “preventive autocracy”²⁴ to preempt the “chaos” it thought would be unleashed by the country’s first universally franchised elections, which would likely have brought the “India-friendly” and presumably “communist” Bengali nationalists to power. Within a decade of Pakistan’s independence, the military effectively interrupted the process of democratic evolution (however tenuous and flawed it was), and Pakistan has yet to recover from that fateful setback.

This outcome contradicts the conventional wisdom in the political science literature. Drawing on the work of Stanislav Andreski,²⁵ several scholars argue that external security threats result in civilian supremacy over the military. As Samuel Huntington described it, “from the standpoint of civilian control, happy is the country with a traditional enemy.”²⁶ The logic is that when a mortal enemy is knocking on the gates, civilians and the military unite to fight it.²⁷ As a result, the military becomes focused exclusively on external defense, as long as civilians supply it with the resources necessary to carry out its mission.²⁸ As I have argued elsewhere, Pakistan’s experience suggests that this prevalent interpretation of the relationship between the soldier and the state ignores a crucial intervening variable: national unity.²⁹ External threats can be unifying or divisive depending on the degree of antecedent domestic cohesion,³⁰ especially during the early stages of state formation. Put simply, the greater the shared sense of political community, the more likely that security threats will unify civilian and military elites across the board and focus the military outward and away from society. Otherwise, military danger and crises can “subdue civilians and pass all powers to the generals.”³¹ Ethnic divisions between West and East Pakistan (as well as within West Pakistan) limited the prospects of a unified response to external danger, which ostensibly raised fears among civilian and military governing elites that external enemies could exploit internal disunity, which spurred the imposition of authoritarian emergency measures to maintain what they perceived to be national security, which in turn alienated the Bengalis and ultimately led to state breakup in 1971.

Over time, repeated military coup d’états and military or military-led governments (e.g., 1958–1969 under General Ayub, 1969–1971 under General Yahya Khan, 1977–1988 under General Zia ul Haq, and 1999–2008 under General Musharraf) that have followed each coup have led the military to entrench its prerogatives. For instance, the military claims a large chunk of the national budget (for example, 4.5 percent of gross domestic product on average between 1995 and 2009)32 without any meaningful civilian oversight. It has also used its privileged position in the state to appropriate public resources (e.g., in the form of concessionary land grants for officers’ housing societies and subsidies for its “welfare foundations”) that has expanded its commercial and business interests into vitals sectors of the economy. Though not the original motivation for military intervention in politics, “Military Inc.” acts as an added incentive for maintaining its political influence.³³

The military’s “clientalistic” ties to the United States have repeatedly reinforced the military’s praetorian propensity. This relationship “reached its culmination” during the Central Intelligence Agency’s covert anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan when Washington supplied the Pakistani military with F-16s, and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) “received billions of dollars to support the Mujahideen.”³⁴ The post-9/11 U.S. occupation of Afghanistan made Pakistan a “frontline” ally once again, leading the Bush administration to back the Musharraf government as a key ally in fighting Al Qaeda, thus lending military rule a degree of external legitimacy and even more aid.³⁵

ENTER AND EXIT MILITARY GOVERNMENT: CONTEXT, CHOICE, AND CONTENTION (1999–2007)

The proximate roots of the current state of civil–military relations can be traced to the military government of General Zia. The 1977 coup, which brought him to power, ended the elected PPP government of Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (1971–1977). Having co-opted and/or divided opposition to his rule and ruthlessly contained antiregime mobilization by the PPP-led Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD), Zia transformed the country’s first democratically crafted parliamentary constitution of 1973 into a semi-presidential hybrid, with a powerful president and a weakened prime minister (PM) to guarantee the military’s continuing tutelage of elected government after he gradually civilianized his regime in the early 1980s. One of the key prerogatives acquired by the military president was the power to appoint military service chiefs previously reserved for the PM. An even more politically far-reaching prerogative concerned presidential decree powers under Article 58(2)B of the constitution, which empowered the president to arbitrarily sack civilian governments. After Zia’s death in a plane crash in 1988, the military institution decided to extricate ostensibly due to the high institutional cost to the military of holding on to government after a decade of military rule.36 But facing a divided and weakened opposition, the military was able to preserve Article 58(2)B and presidential control over top military appointments.

In the decade that followed the transition from authoritarian rule, the military used presidential decrees to prematurely unseat three elected governments—two belonging to the PPP led by Benazir Bhutto (1988–1990, 1993–1996) and the third to Nawaz Sharif’s right-of-center Pakistan Muslim League government (PML-N, 1990–1993)—mainly when they challenged military prerogatives. Upon assuming power with a two-thirds majority in 1997, the Parliament led by Sharif’s PML-N abolished the presidential coup prerogative and reappropriated the power to appoint military service chiefs to the PM. In October 1999, the military under General Pervez Musharraf seized power when Sharif tried to fire the general in the wake of civil–military tensions over the military-initiated Kargil war with India.

After overthrowing the civilian government, Musharraf appointed himself as “chief executive” of the country, created a military-dominated National Security Council (NSC), and initiated a politically motivated “accountability” drive to target the regime’s opponents, especially the PML-N. Like his military predecessors, Musharraf had his coup legitimized by the Supreme Court under the “doctrine of state necessity,” albeit subject to a three-year grace period for holding parliamentary elections.³⁷

Facing legitimacy problems inherent to authoritarian regimes, Musharraf initiated a process of gradual political liberalization: relaxing curbs on civil liberties, opening up private broadcast media, and allowing limited political pluralism. In April 2002, he organized a fraudulent referendum to appoint himself as president for five years. In the meantime, the military ISI created a new right-wing political party, the Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid-e-Azam; PML-Q), to act as the civilian face of the military government. The PML-Q mainly comprised disaffected, coerced, or bribed defectors from the PML-N. It also facilitated the creation of the Muttahida Majlis-e Amal (MMA, or United Action Front), an alliance of six Islamist parties of different theological and sectarian persuasions, to further squeeze the PML-N’s right-of-center vote. No less important, the regime decreed electoral rules to marginalize the opposition leadership, such as the Sharif and Bhutto-specific clause barring anyone from holding the office of prime minister more than twice. It finally held a manipulated parliamentary election in October 2002, which brought the PML-Q to power at the center, and in the largest Punjab Province, thereby allowing the military government to cloak itself in the universally respectable veneer of democracy.38 With the help of the PML-Q and its Islamists allies in Parliament, Musharraf amended the constitution in 2003 to revive presidential coup powers, as well as presidential authority to appoint high state officials, including military service chiefs.

But liberalization turned out, as it often does, to be a dangerous gamble. Once an authoritarian regime permits even limited contestation, it sends out the signal to society that the “costs of collective action” are no longer high.³⁹ As a result, previously barricaded arenas of opposition become available for contestation, especially if “exemplary individuals” were willing to probe the boundaries of the regime’s tolerance. And here the strategic choices and symbolic leadership provided by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, helped unite and galvanize opposition in both civil and political society.⁴⁰

Pakistan’s courts have typically condoned military interventions in the past, thereby endowing legitimacy on successive authoritarian regimes and indirectly aiding the endurance of military prerogatives. Chaudhry himself was part of the twelve-member bench of the Supreme Court that legalized Musharraf’s coup in May 2000 and was a member of several others that validated Musharraf’s extraconstitutional actions, including his presidential referendum and his retention of the post of army chief during his first presidential term. However, this judicial appeasement began to unravel when Justice Chaudhry was appointed to the country’s top judicial post in 2005. Buoyed by support from the newly independent media, the Chaudhry court began to challenge the military government through public interest litigation, intervening to regulate commodity prices, canceling corrupt public sector privatization contracts, and pursuing the cases of hundreds of “disappeared” persons, mostly terror suspects illegally detained by military intelligence agencies since Pakistan joined the U.S.-led war on terrorism in 2001.

In 2007, Musharraf’s five-year presidential term was set to expire.⁴¹ No longer certain that the Supreme Court would endorse him as president in uniform, the general and his intelligence chiefs made an ill-fated attempt in March 2007 to fire Justice Chaudhry for alleged misuse of authority.⁴² The move sparked countrywide contentious mobilization led by the Supreme Court Bar against what it termed the government’s assault on judicial independence. The protests were focused on the narrow goal of restoring the Chief Justice, but they also tapped into latent political resentment against the military-led government, mobilizing broader opposition from the media, rights organizations, and political parties.⁴³ To the distress of General Musharraf, the Supreme Court rejected the charges against Chaudhry and restored him to office in June 2007.

Because he could not easily mend fences with Sharif, whom he had exiled to Saudi Arabia in 2000, Musharraf had made efforts to reach out to the self-exiled former premiere and PPP leader, Benazir Bhutto. But facing judicial activism and pressure from civil society added urgency to his need for striking a power-sharing pact with her party. As the most popular and “moderate” politician of the country, Bhutto was also the choice of the United States (and the United Kingdom) for a civilian partner in Pakistan who could salvage Musharraf by broadening the popular base of his regime.44 Bhutto’s main motivation for engaging the regime was to end her decade-long political exile and return to power. She placed several key preconditions on the table: Musharraf’s retirement as army chief, free and fair elections, the lifting of the Bhutto (and, by default, Nawaz Sharif) specific ban on seeking a third prime ministerial term, and, most important, the removal of “politically motivated” corruption charges against her and her spouse, Asif Ali Zardari.

Direct meetings between Bhutto and Musharraf, followed by several rounds of talks between their trusted aides—including then Director General of the ISI (DG-ISI) General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani on behalf of the military government—reportedly resulted in a “deal” in October 2007, under which the PPP agreed to support Musharraf’s reelection as president in return for a retraction of the corruption cases and the removal of the third-term ban on her election as prime minister.⁴⁵ Although he did not remove the bar on her reelection, Musharraf agreed to rescind the corruption charges and enacted an amnesty law, the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO), in the same month, which paved the way for Bhutto’s return. He then moved to secure a second presidential term by a controversial parliamentary vote with the PPP’s help.⁴⁶

However, acting on petitions, the court suspended the NRO and stayed the presidential election results until it could make a final decision about Musharraf’s eligibility for reelection as a president-in-uniform. Expecting an adverse ruling on his reelection bid, Musharraf suspended the constitution, declared a state of emergency on November 3, 2007, and put Chaudhry and other defiant judges under house arrest. Backed by the military high command, the general armed himself with a new authoritarian constitution, the Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO), to purge the courts.⁴⁷ He then packed the Supreme Court with loyalist judges and had them legalize his reelection.

Musharraf’s “second coup” hastened the military government’s demise by galvanizing a broader civilian opposition in both political and civil society, comprising lawyers, students, academics, journalists, activists, opposition parties, and ordinary citizens. In response, the government cracked down, arresting thousands of protesters and gagging the media. The regime’s actions made it politically difficult for Bhutto to continue her cooperation with Musharraf, and she was obliged to demand his resignation, a step that temporarily coalesced the opposition by bringing the PPP and the PML-N closer together.48

Although the general staff had formally supported the emergency,⁴⁹ another five years of Musharraf’s “military” presidency did not have a strong constituency among members of the officer corps, already demoralized by fighting “Washington’s” war on terror on their own soil. Jealously protective of its institutional prestige and status, now sullied by its close association with a detested and degraded military ruler, the military institution withheld its active support from Musharraf. Responding to pressure from the middle ranking and junior officers, the corps commanders reportedly decided that they could “no longer stand by Musharraf and provide him institutional cover,” when he had become the main target of collective rage in political and civil society.⁵⁰ Although the antiregime protest movement did not constitute a “people’s power” insurrection that could have forced the military’s hand, the uniformed military generally avoided direct involvement in repression because of the potentially adverse effects on its reputation.

The Bush administration also insisted that Musharraf relinquish his uniform and hold elections.⁵¹ Having lost the crucial backing of his commanders and reeling under domestic and external pressure, the general finally resigned his army post in November 2007, ended the emergency in December of the same year, and ultimately organized parliamentary elections in February 2008. Although Bhutto was murdered during the election campaign, the PPP, under her widower, Asif Ali Zardari, won a plurality of seats in the National Assembly (the lower house of Parliament) and formed a short-lived coalition government with the PML-N, both at the center and in the largest and politically most important Punjab Province. The two parties also cooperated in Parliament to start impeachment proceedings against the civilian President Musharraf for “high treason,” which finally pushed him out of office in August 2008.

It is important to discuss the nature and structure of the Musharraf-led authoritarian regime to understand how the institutional military was able to extricate without having to compromise on its expansive prerogatives. The 1999 coup, which brought the military to power, was an institutional act, carried out by the military institution in response to perceived threats to military integrity posed by the then prime minister Sharif’s actions. Thus, the authoritarian government was clearly military in its origins. But its nature and structure were relatively less militarized than those of the well-known military governments in the Southern Cone of Latin America and even the previous military government of General Zia. Although as army chief of staff Musharraf was the indisputable head of both the military government and the military institution, he did not declare martial law like Zia (or even Ayub) in part because of the reduced acceptability and increased diplomatic and financial costs of military rule in the post–Cold War international environment.

In his capacity as chief martial law administrator, Zia had formally established an advisory council comprising both members of the top brass and civilians. Some army corps commanders held cabinet-level appointments while others acted simultaneously as provincial governors.52 The military was also hierarchically involved in executive and judicial functions through special military courts and geographically organized martial law administrations. In contrast, the military had no direct role in the cabinet or any other top public office in the Musharraf period. This structural separation between the two was also evident in the level of military involvement at the lower levels of government. For instance, even though over a thousand individual military officers were seconded to different agencies and levels in the civil bureaucracy,⁵³ the hierarchical military did not assume any direct role in day-to-day governing, with the exception of the “army monitoring teams” tasked with a brief watchdog role over civilian agencies after the coup.⁵⁴ However, much like the previous military governments of Ayub and Zia, the bulk of the officer corps was engaged in performing purely military duties and thus out of the public gaze, even during the height of the antigovernment mobilization in 2007.

There was also a historical factor at play. To a considerable degree, the military’s widely accepted (mainly in the Punjab, the center of both political and military power) external mission against India has insulated it from any potential challenges to its control over organizational structure and functions once it has left power. The clear and present external threat has long provided the Pakistan army with an important source of the institutional cohesion needed to avoid the factionalism that typically engulfs politicized militaries during transitions.⁵⁵

CIVIL–MILITARY POLITICS AFTER THE EXTRICATION

Keen to wipe off the stain of the military government from the military institution, Chief of Staff General Kayani, who replaced Musharraf in that post in November 2007, pledged to keep the military away from politics. Toward this end, he made several “democratic” overtures. He reportedly banned officers from keeping contact with politicians and announced the recall of active-duty personnel from the bureaucracy. The relative success of the two main opposition parties, the PPP and the PML-N, in the 2008 parliamentary elections shows that the military institution, especially the ISI, generally did not rig the ballot in favor of the PML-Q as it had done in 2002. Press reports also indicated that the high command closed down the ISI’s notorious “political” wing implicated in rigging elections and blackmailing and/or bribing politicians in the past.56 All these steps led some observers to contrast Musharraf’s political behavior to General Kayani’s apolitical professionalism.⁵⁷

Somewhat unexpectedly, the military also did not contest changes in the constitution that were designed to erode its tutelage of government. For instance, the PPP-led government decided to formally abolish the defunct NSC in 2009,⁵⁸ which sought to “bring the military [in the government] to keep them out,” as Musharraf described it.⁵⁹ The most significant democratic reform was the eighteenth constitutional amendment. Signed into law in April 2010 with a unanimous parliamentary vote, the amendment restored the constitution to its parliamentary essence by diminishing the powers of the president, including the reassignment of presidential authority to appoint military service chiefs, to the elected chief executive. Most crucially, it abolished the president’s “coup” powers under Article 58(2)B, thereby depriving the military of an important constitutional tool for securing its interests. Similarly, the government and the opposition have collaborated in reforming electoral institutions and processes to make the ballot more credible and transparent. In particular, a bipartisan parliamentary committee will appoint the chief election commissioner and the four members of the Election Commission from a list provided by the prime minister and the leader of the opposition in the national assembly (the appointments were previously a presidential prerogative). A similar procedure will govern the appointment of the caretaker prime minster.⁶⁰

The military’s studied silence over these far-reaching reforms masked a cold cost-benefit calculation. Musharraf-era rules and structures like the NSC were secondary to such first-order organizational priorities as preserving corporate autonomy and de facto influence over national security decision making. The generals tolerated their abolition in part because of the institutional imperative to delink the military from the structures and rules that symbolized the perpetuation of the ancien régime. No less important, the mobilized opposition in political and civil society had demanded an end to military government and a return to competitive elections, with a restoration of the 1973 constitution to its pre-1999 form as a key rallying point. Hence, even if the military had wished to retain a formal seat at the table, it was either too soon or risky after a prolonged period of military government to resist a reform that enjoyed broad political support.

However, the military’s “professional” pose masks deeper institutionally held assumptions about the desirability of high military prerogatives and military tutelage of government. The high command continues to consider drastic military solutions to political crises as legitimate, albeit as “temporary” measures. Even as he projected himself as a democrat, Kayani believed that “military interventions are sometimes necessary to maintain Pakistan’s stability.” In fact, he compared coups to “temporary bypasses that are created when a bridge collapses on democracy’s highway. After the bridge is repaired, then there’s no longer any need for the detour.”61 The military’s belief in the appropriateness of interventions is particularly revealed during crises, such as the political deadlock over the deposed judges in February–March 2009. Although the PPP government had released the judges from house arrest immediately after assuming power, it was reluctant to reinstate Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry because of his known opposition to the NRO. Still, President Zardari had assured his main coalition partner, the PML-N, that his government would restore the judges, which was a key plank of that party’s 2008 election campaign. However, Zardari reneged (first in May and again in August 2008), fearing that the Chaudhry-led court would repeal the corruption amnesty.

In August 2008, the PML-N formally left the coalition government.⁶² With the government stalling on the judges’ issue, the leadership of the lawyers’ movement decided to march on Islamabad and hold a dharna (sit-in) before Parliament on the second anniversary of the sacking of Justice Chaudhry (March 9, 2007). The PML-N joined hands with the lawyers, as did other parties, including the Jama’at-e-Islami (JI) and the Pakistan Tehreeke Insaaf (PTI, or the Pakistan Movement for Justice).⁶³ In a preemptive strike, Zardari used a court ruling disqualifying the Punjab chief minister and Sharif’s brother, Shehbaz Sharif, from holding electoral office to dismiss his government and impose governor’s rule in the province.⁶⁴ To repair what was seemingly a breaking of the “bridge of democracy,”⁶⁵ General Kayani intervened and reportedly threatened to implement the “minus-one formula,” that is, the ouster of President Zardari while keeping the rest of the government intact.⁶⁶ Under army and opposition pressure, the PPP government finally relented and reinstated the Chaudhry court on March 16, 2009.

Such “near coups” introduced enough uncertainty about the military’s intentions to keep the PPP government looking over its shoulders. Ultimately, governing in the shadows of a military having high prerogatives and a demonstrated ability to contest civilian authority, the elected leadership has chosen not to exercise certain prerogatives either due to a lack of capacity or because it has simply abdicated responsibility in anticipation of military noncompliance. For example, in 2008, the government placed all the “law enforcement agencies” under the operational command of the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) or fighting militancy, designating him as the “principal” for deciding “the quantum, composition and positioning of military efforts.”67

Critics have rightly questioned the government’s ostensibly poor governance performance.⁶⁸ But it is important to acknowledge that the democratically elected leadership’s ability to provide sound government was impaired by pernicious authoritarian legacies. In addition to high military prerogatives, it also had to contend with Musharraf’s continuation as president until August 2008; economic crises (including severe energy and food shortages), the ethnic conflict in Baluchistan, and the Taliban insurgency in the FATA; as well as more deeply seated structural problems, including high military spending, low levels of taxation, high indebtedness, weak civilian administrative capacity, and pervasive poverty. Additionally, the PPP government won only a thin parliamentary majority, making it dependent on fickle coalition politics.

In fact, unlike the civil–military “troika” model of the 1990s (i.e., when the prime minister was usually pitched against the president and the army), executive–military interaction quickly resolved into a “dyarchy” between the army led by General Kayani and the PPP-led coalition governments led by Prime Ministers Yusuf Raza Gilani (2008–2012) and Raja Pervez Ashraf (2012–2013), de facto controlled by President Zardari in his capacity as party cochair.

However, the Supreme Court led by Justice Chaudhry emerged as a third institutional power, deriving its claims to authority and legitimacy from the lawyers’ movement. For instance, the Chaudhry court struck down the NRO as unconstitutional in December 2009 and ordered Prime Minister Gilani to petition Swiss authorities to resume inquiry into a corruption case involving the president.⁶⁹ In July 2012, the judges convicted Gilani for contempt of court, thereby disqualifying him from public office and consequently unseating him as prime minister.⁷⁰

Insofar as democratic consolidation rests on the acceptance of democracy as the only game in town by all politically significant actors, political parties have a key role. In general, political parties appear united on the need for unfettered parliamentary democracy, as reflected in the Eighteenth Amendment. For the most part, they have behaved in a democratically loyal fashion, keeping their opposition within the bounds of constitutional procedure. But the utopia of a democracy properly “guided” by the military continues to have currency among some politicians (as well as members of the media and civil society). For instance, in 2011, top leaders of the then opposition PML-N proposed the integration of the military into national decision making.71 The ethnic Karachi-based Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) went a step further, inviting the generals to seize power and salvage Pakistan from corruption.⁷² In August 2013, its leader, Altaf Hussain, demanded that the army take control of Karachi’s administration.⁷³ However, in a positive development, most other parties in Sindh, including the PML-N, PTI, and JI, rejected the proposal on the grounds that only civilians should handle civilian matters.⁷⁴

The real test of politicians’ loyalty to the democratic process was the May 11, 2013, elections, which marked the first transition from one democratically elected government that had completed its tenure to another. It is true that an orchestrated campaign of violence by the Taliban in the run-up to the elections against “pro-American,” secular parties like the Awami National Party (ANP), the MQM, and the PPP tilted the playing field in favor of more conservative parties, like the PML-N. Allegations of localized voter fraud on polling day also marred the balloting process. Despite these problems, the Election Commission was able to hold an election generally considered free and fair by international observers.⁷⁵

The PML-N won a simple majority of seats in the National Assembly and a two-thirds majority in the Punjab assembly, thereby forming governments in the center and the Punjab. Notably, almost all political parties accepted the election results. And unlike the past, when parties in control of the federal government would typically try to prevent the opposition from forming provincial governments, the PML-N allowed the PTI and Baluch nationalist parties to form their own governments in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan. The dyarchical civil–military arrangement also continues under the Sharif government, although the new president, Mamnoon Hussain, who replaced Zardari in September 2013, is a PML-N loyalist.

As discussed in the following section, military prerogatives have curtailed the autonomy of the PPP government since 2008, and they act as an independent source of democratic weakness by virtue of the undue power they endow on the military. Similarly, military contestation—often amplified through the mobilization of influential actors in the media and the judiciary—generates policy conflict and undermines the authority and credibility of the government because it indicates the lack of regime autonomy.76 In sum, the two dimensions combine to limit the government’s ability to exercise sovereign power and erode the prospects of the institutional consolidation of democracy.

INSTITUTIONAL AUTONOMY

As a corporate organization, the military seeks to enhance internal control and limit external interference. However, the military’s prerogatives over its internal structure and functions limit the scope for the establishment of civilian supremacy over the armed forces. After the transition, the military has sought to maintain and, in some cases, even increase control over military promotions and appointments. For instance, General Kayani has unilaterally awarded service extensions to several general officers beyond the age of retirement, including the last Director General of the ISI, Lieutenant General Shuja Pasha (2007–2012). In 2010, he also secured an unparalleled three-year extension of his tenure as army chief of staff, clearly eroding the government’s prerogative to appoint an army chief of its own choice.⁷⁷

In July 2008, the military vetoed the government’s decision to extend civilian control over the ISI by placing it under the “operational, financial and administrative control” of the interior ministry. But the military virtually forced it to backtrack within hours of the official notification, revealing the limits it can impose on civilian authority.⁷⁸

AUTONOMY FROM EXECUTIVE CONTROL AND PARLIAMENTARY OVERSIGHT

Although the PM is the country’s chief executive, de facto control over the three armed services (army, air force, and navy) rests with their respective service chiefs and senior commanders. The authority to appoint military service chiefs is the constitutional prerogative of the PM, but its de facto exercise is also curtailed because the military decides the “pool” of candidates to be considered for the job. Given that choosing the COAS is one of the few levers of civilian authority over the army, past prime ministers have sought to appoint army chiefs based on their perceived loyalty. Sharif was faced with the decision to appoint Kayani’s successor upon the latter’s retirement in November 2013. Although Sharif had declared his intent to choose a new COAS on the basis of seniority and merit,⁷⁹ it would not be surprising if he settled for a general on the basis of his perceived political leanings.⁸⁰

Parliamentary oversight is an established principle for exercising democratic civilian control over the military. In Pakistan, Parliamentary Standing Committees on Defense (the National Assembly and the Senate has one each) are technically empowered to examine defense budgets, administration, and policies. However, given the history of military dominance and a strictly enforced tradition of secrecy, these committees have focused mainly on politically nonsensitive issues, such as irregularities in the civil aviation authority and military housing. Besides, senior military officers typically avoid appearing before these committees. Instead, the army invites (and expects) members of Parliament to come to the general headquarters for briefings.81

In contrast to the ineffective standing committees, Pakistani legislators have tried to reduce military prerogatives over the country’s defense policy by creating a special Parliamentary Committee on National Security (PCNS) to provide them with “guidelines” and “periodic reviews” on important security policies, especially counterterrorism.⁸² The committee set a good precedent when it refused to attend a military briefing on foreign policy at army headquarters and publicly reminded the army that it is subservient to Parliament, not vice versa.⁸³ After a U.S. helicopter attack on Salala, Mohmand Agency, killed twenty-four Pakistani soldiers in November 2011 and prompted Pakistan to halt North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) supply lines, the PCNS took a proactive stance in drafting the new rules of engagement with the United States and NATO, recommending greater transparency in military dealings between the two states, the parliamentary approval of all foreign military agreements, an end to U.S. drone strikes against Al Qaeda and Taliban militants because of civilian casualties, and the denial of Pakistani territory to such militants. With minor changes, a joint sitting of the Parliament approved these policy guidelines, but their implementation remains dependent on military consent.

The undetected May 2, 2011, U.S. Special Forces raid in Abbottabad that killed Osama bin Laden badly tarnished the military institution’s public reputation. In fact, the military’s humiliation offered a rare opportunity for the affirmation of civilian control, for instance, by firing the top military leadership. However, the military deftly deflected responsibility by taking its case to Parliament. Senior military officials, including the DG-ISI Lieutenant General Pasha and deputy chief of the air force, appeared before a special joint parliamentary session. Pasha admitted that the agency’s failure to detect bin Laden’s presence in Pakistan was an “intelligence lapse.” Nevertheless, he also used the occasion to stir anti-American sentiments by blaming the United States for carrying out a “sting operation” on an ally.84 The strategy worked. Instead of calling the military to account, the joint session strongly condemned U.S. unilateral actions on Pakistani territory and reposed “full confidence in the defense forces … in safeguarding Pakistan’s sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity and in overcoming any challenge to security.”⁸⁵

INDIA POLICY

The military has a low threshold of tolerance for what it considers civilian interference in its foreign policy prerogatives, such as Pakistan’s India policy. In the past, democratic governments of both the PPP and the PML-N have sought to ease tensions and normalize trade with India if only to reduce the military’s domestic power and monopoly over national security. In November 2011, the PPP-led cabinet decided, in principle, to grant India the status of most favored nation after a series of talks between the commerce ministers of each country. However, the military reportedly pressured the government to “slow track” the process on the grounds that its trade policy was out of sync with security policy.⁸⁶

Like the PPP, the Sharif government has sought to normalize bilateral relations with India, including trade liberalization, much to the chagrin of the military, which continues to pursue a “Kashmir first” approach in dealing with its archenemy. For instance, despite increased tensions along the Line of Control in Kashmir in July and August 2013, Sharif, who has long been committed to regional conflict reduction, called for a bold foreign policy review in August 2013 focused on Pakistan’s eastern neighbor, as a way of freeing up resources for economic development.⁸⁷ However, the government backtracked in the face of military resistance.⁸⁸

Initially, Sharif also sought to exercise greater control over national security policymaking in general. However, his rhetoric of civilian supremacy is matched only by his government’s pragmatic accommodation of military demands and interests. For instance, it has reconstituted the Defense Committee of the Cabinet (DCC)89 into a broader Cabinet Committee on National Security (CCNS) with a broader ambit to facilitate civil–military coordination in light of Pakistan’s complex internal and external security environment. Chaired by the prime minister, the CCNS will include the ministers of foreign affairs, defense, interior, and finance, as well as the Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (CJCSC) and the three service chiefs. The committee “will formulate a national security policy that will become the guiding framework for its subsidiary policies—defence policy, foreign policy, internal security policy, and other policies affecting national security.”⁹⁰ Unlike the DCC, to which the military chiefs were invited when needed, the CCNS will have them as permanent members.⁹¹ Sharif’s advisor on national security and foreign affairs, Sartaj Aziz, the principal civilian architect of the new committee, suggests that this formal integration of the military into national defense policymaking will help enhance coordination and reduce misperceptions between civilians and the military.⁹² In reality, though, Sharif’s government seems to have fulfilled the military’s longstanding preference for institutionalizing its de facto dominance over defense policy by making the military service chiefs members of a committee of the cabinet.

DEFENSE ADMINISTRATION AND BUDGETS

The Ministry of Defense (MoD), headed by a civilian minister, is formally responsible for the policy and administrative matters related to the three armed forces.⁹³ As in other government ministries, a secretary acts as the chief administrative and accounting officer. In addition, a special division of the Finance Ministry performs monitoring of military expenditures to ensure compliance with budgetary rules and regulations. In reality, civilian oversight is more nominal than real.⁹⁴ No policy that affects the military can be implemented without its consent. Moreover, active-duty (and retired) military officials typically occupy strategic policy positions in the MoD, thus facilitating the military’s formal control over defense management. For example, the current defense secretary is a former lieutenant general, as was his predecessor. An additional secretary heads each of the three main wings of the ministry that deal with policy matters related to the army, air force, and navy, as well as important interservices organizations, such as the ISI and the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR). At present, all three secretaries are serving military officers of the rank of major general or equivalent.⁹⁵ The military occupation of the MoD goes beyond the question of civilian capacity and reflects the assumption that civilians cannot be trusted with “sensitive” matters and that only uniformed men have the expertise to manage military affairs.⁹⁶

In terms of budgetary allocations, the military has made nominal concessions, since 2008, by allowing the disclosure of an itemized annual budget before Parliament.97 Yet it has evaded any real accountability on the grounds that the disclosure of “sensitive” budgetary matters will undermine national security by exposing critical information to “enemy agents.” It has also advised the government to “streamline” wasteful civilian expenditures rather than questioning the military budget.⁹⁸

ROLE IN INTELLIGENCE

The generals exercise exclusive control over intelligence and counterintelligence, mainly through the ISI. Although the ISI de jure reports to the PM, it is essentially a military intelligence organization officered by active-duty armed forces officers and headed by a three-star army lieutenant general (designated as director general) whose de facto boss is the army chief. In other words, the ISI operates under the army’s chain of command.

Since the 1980s, when it acted as a conduit for Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Saudi money and weaponry to the Afghan mujahideen fighting the Soviets, the agency has evolved into a formidable and feared military organization with deep involvement in politics and policy, which has “eroded the rule of law” and “distorted civil-military relations.”⁹⁹ Besides meddling in politics on behalf of the army high command, the agency has encroached on civilian law enforcement and investigation functions. For instance, the ISI conducted its own parallel inquiry into the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and kept crucial evidence hidden from civilian investigators. Even more seriously, it undermined the investigation by publicly releasing an allegedly intercepted communication implicating the then head of the Pakistani faction of the Taliban (known as the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan or TTP), Baitullah Mehsud.¹⁰⁰

The ISI also spearheads the military’s pursuit of “strategic depth” against India by waging asymmetric warfare through militant proxies. Even as the military fights some TTP factions in South Waziristan and other tribal agencies, the ISI continues to provide the “good” Afghan Taliban with sanctuary and logistical support for fighting coalition troops in Afghanistan. According to official figures, suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks have claimed the lives of more than 40,000 Pakistanis, not including the deaths of an estimated 2,000 security forces personnel.101 In 2009, militants successfully attacked and infiltrated the heavily guarded army general headquarters, killing eleven military officials and taking over three dozen hostages.¹⁰² Despite the clear negative feedback effects of its selective counterterrorism policies, as well as international pressure and isolation, the military’s internal discourse¹⁰³ and actions reveal that it continues to believe in the utility of using militancy as a tool of foreign policy. The ISI-backed Haqqani network’s attack on the U.S. embassy in Kabul in September 2011 heightened tensions between the two countries as the Obama administration stepped up pressure on Pakistan to eliminate the group’s sanctuaries in North Waziristan.¹⁰⁴ And even as then President Zardari pledged to take action against the Haqqanis,¹⁰⁵ the army demurred on the grounds that its troops were stretched thin by existing deployments in the FATA.

After years of stalling to protect its strategic assets, the Pakistan military finally launched an offensive, code-named Zarbe Azb (or the strike of the Azb, the Prophet Mohammad’s sword) in June 2014. The immediate trigger for the operation was the daring June 8 terrorist raid on Pakistan’s main international airport in Karachi reportedly carried out by the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan on behalf of the TTP. It is still not entirely clear what Pakistan hopes to achieve from this latest assault, said to involve some 25,000–30,000 ground troops, artillery, tanks, and fighter aircraft. The military’s main target appears to be the Pakistani Taliban and Uzbek and other foreign militants, even though it has vowed to “eliminate” all terrorist groups holed up in the area “regardless of hue and color along with their sanctuaries.”¹⁰⁶ Aside from reports that the Haqqanis were relocated to the adjoining Kurram Agency,¹⁰⁷ the army’s local commander tellingly admitted that the militant leadership had already escaped the area in anticipation of the military assault.¹⁰⁸

HARNESSING THE MEDIA AND THE JUDICIARY

Beyond contesting civilian policy initiatives or simply “shirking,” the military remonstrates through the “creative management” of public opinion.109 The military has long been concerned with maintaining its public image and with the role the media can play in national security management.¹¹⁰ Adapting to the growing power of the media in a globalizing world and wary of domestic and external concerns about the restriction of civil liberties under authoritarianism, the Musharraf military government had extensively liberalized the broadcast news media. At the same time, the military expanded the ISPR, its media branch, to increase its institutional capacity to more effectively police both electronic and print media.¹¹¹ The ISPR vigilantly controls journalists’ access to “sensitive” defense information, such as the military’s counterinsurgency operations in the FATA. In addition, the ISI runs its own powerful “Information Management Wing,” which metes out both punishments and rewards. In recent years, the agency has been widely accused of intimidating and blackmailing journalists, while cajoling others through both monetary incentives and “exclusive” stories to sway public opinion against designated internal and external foes. For instance, after the CIA operative Raymond Davis was arrested in Lahore for killing two Pakistanis in January 2011, the ISI leaked the names of fifty-five American “spies” to show how the PPP government’s lax visa policy had made it possible for the CIA to expand its network within Pakistan.¹¹² It also deliberately leaked the name of the CIA station chief in Pakistan to settle scores with the Americans for the humiliation they had caused it with the raid that killed bin Laden.¹¹³

That highly embarrassing aerial intrusion and an audacious May 22 militant attack on a heavily fortified naval base in the port city of Karachi temporarily strained the patron–client relationship between the military and prominent pro-military sections of the media. Some “friendly” journalists launched unexpected criticism of the military for its disastrous policies of nurturing militants and its transparent incompetence despite receiving a large share of the national budget.¹¹⁴ In turn, the military publicly warned its critics to stop “trying to deliberately run down the Armed Forces and the Army in particular” and threatened “to put an end” to “any effort to create divisions between important institutions of the country.”¹¹⁵ At least in one case, the generals seem to have lived up to their words. On May 29, 2011, the ISI allegedly abducted, tortured, and brutally murdered the Pakistani journalist Saleem Shehzad, just a day after he exposed links between Al Qaeda and navy personnel.¹¹⁶ Similarly, on April 19, 2014, unknown gunmen shot Hamid Mir, a well-known journalist and news anchor at the popular Geo TV, in the port city of Karachi. Before the attack, Mir had informed his family and close associates that the ISI was plotting to assassinate him and that the agency should be held responsible if he was harmed. After Geo TV hurriedly broadcast the allegations, splashing a picture of the DG-ISI Lieutenant General Zaheerul Islam Abbassi across TV screens in Pakistan for hours, the ISI had Pakistan’s Defense Ministry petition the Pakistan Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA), the country’s electronic media regulator, to revoke Geo TV’s transmission license and initiate criminal charges against its management for defaming the state. In addition, ISI-backed militant organizations, such as the Jamaat-ut-Dawa, staged angry protests, which competitor pro-military media organizations then broadcast along with talk shows segments questioning the patriotism of Mir and Geo TV. Ultimately, Geo and its affiliated newspapers were banned from military bases and units,¹¹⁷ and the ISI reportedly pressured cable TV operators around the country to block the channel’s transmission.

Another notable example of the military’s media manipulation was its handling of the public debate surrounding the Kerry-Lugar-Berman Bill, signed into law by President Barack Obama as the Enhanced Partnership Act of 2009, which offers Pakistan $1.5 billion annually in nonmilitary, developmental U.S. aid for five years. While the civilian government welcomed the aid, the military joined right-wing opposition parties and publicly expressed its outrage118 over “critical provisions [that] were almost entirely directed against the Army,” particularly the conditioning of American military assistance on certification by the U.S. secretary of state that the military was operating under civilian control and keeping out of political and judicial processes.¹¹⁹ The military also reportedly encouraged TV talk show anchors to mobilize public opinion against the law by presenting it as a blatant example of U.S. interference in Pakistan’s internal matters, which it could then use to pressure the Americans into modifying the legislation.¹²⁰ Thus, cable news channels concocted conspiracy theories, painting the bill as part of America’s sinister design to weaken the country’s security institutions as a way of depriving it of nuclear weapons. While openly praising the military for its principled stand against the Americans, many in the media targeted the PPP government, portraying it as an American stooge out to sell the country’s honor.¹²¹

Beyond trying to control the popular media, the military has used judicial activism to preserve or enhance its institutional prerogatives over national security. General Kayani hurriedly called an “emergency” corps commanders’ meeting and publicized the appointment of a new head of the 111 Brigade, the army unit that executes military coups, to signal that a coup might be in the offing. Before the two sides could reach the brink, the civilian government reportedly backed down.

The main goal of the contentious antiregime mobilization that facilitated Musharraf’s demise was the restoration of the sacked judges of the superior judiciary. The Chaudhry-led court’s triumphant return has endowed it with the moral and legal authority to assert its autonomy and power. In addition to media manipulation, the military has sought to harness judicial activism to protect “national security” from threats posed by the political leadership. This strategy was exemplified by the so-called Memogate affair, in which Mansoor Ijaz, a U.S. businessman of Pakistani origin, alleged in a Financial Times op-ed that the PPP government had sought his assistance in seeking U.S. help to avert a military coup in the wake of the bin Laden killing.122 The alleged memorandum, requesting American intervention, was ostensibly written by Pakistan’s then ambassador to the United States and Zardari confidante Hussain Haqqani, who had played an instrumental role in the Kerry-Lugar aid. In return, the government pledged to appoint a new “U.S.-friendly” national security team, abolish the ISI’s external operations or “S” wing to stop the agency’s support to Islamist militants, and place Pakistan’s nuclear program under international safeguards. After establishing the “authenticity” of the memo, the military pressured the government to investigate the matter and hold the ambassador to account.¹²³

Denying involvement, the government recalled and fired Haqqani and tasked the PCNS with determining the truth behind the allegations. But the parliamentary inquiry was prematurely undermined when, sensing an opportunity for political gain, the opposition PML-N filed a petition in the Supreme Court seeking a judicial investigation. Heeding the advice of the army and ISI chiefs who defiantly broke ranks with the civilian government by declaring the memo a “national security” threat,¹²⁴ the court readily agreed to constitute a judicial inquiry commission.¹²⁵ Deeply embarrassed by the army’s “unconstitutional” and “illegal” court statements, Prime Minister Gilani responded with a firm warning to the generals that his government would not tolerate a “state within a state.”¹²⁶ He then fired the MoD secretary, a former general loyal to Kayani, and appointed a trusted civil servant to the post. The army retaliated by reminding the PM that his accusations could have “potentially grievous consequences for the country.”¹²⁷ As coup rumors began circulating in the media, General Kayani signaled the army’s intent to instigate a coup by calling an “emergency” corps commanders’ meeting and replacing the commander of the 111 Brigade.¹²⁸ Before the two sides could reach the brink, the civilian government reportedly backed down.

“Memogate” serves as a potent recent exemplar of the military’s ability to achieve its objectives by adapting its methods to changed political conditions. In the past, the “memo” might have been sufficient to persuade the military to destabilize the government or launch a coup. But with its public reputation badly tarnished by both a long decade of military rule and its more recent professional failures in a context defined by new centers of power, the military has learned to exercise its influence by other means. Despite the military’s apparent political weaknesses, however, the civilian government was either unable or unwilling to press its advantage in part because of the very real fear of a coup,¹²⁹ as well as judicial challenges to its authority. Amidst media reports that the government was planning to sack the army and ISI chiefs for their illegal actions, the Supreme Court admitted a petition seeking to restrain the civilian government from using its constitutional prerogative to remove the two.¹³⁰

But the judiciary’s relationship with the military is not clear-cut. Although it has aligned itself with the military on national security, the judges have also questioned the military’s human rights violations. The Chaudhry court’s aggressive pursuit of the so-called missing persons was one of the reasons why Musharraf tried to sack Chaudhry in 2007. However, since its restoration in 2009, the court has continued to investigate these cases. In at least one harrowing case, involving eleven illegally detained terror suspects, four of whom died in ISI custody, the court ordered the agency to produce the remaining seven in court, allow them proper medical care, and explain the legal basis of their detention.131 The judges have also reprimanded the military for its alleged human rights violations in Baluchistan, even specifically demanding an end to all military operations (including the paramilitary Frontier Corps’ “kill and dump” operations) and abolishment of the “death squads” run by the ISI and Military Intelligence (MI).¹³² However, ISI and MI officials continue to impede judicial inquiries by denying involvement, blaming the disappearances on foreign intelligence agencies, and delaying action on court directives by claiming immunity under the cloak of national security.¹³³ In May 2012, the military openly defied the court’s orders to produce two missing Baluch activists by allegedly dumping their dead bodies on the roadside.¹³⁴ Yet the courts have yet to indict or convict even a single military official. Hence, these toothless inquiries have done little to puncture military presumption of impunity. In fact, the military has paid little heed, and senior military officers, including the inspector general of the Frontier Corps, continue to defy judicial authorities.¹³⁵

Under mounting public criticism for selectively targeting civilians, the Supreme Court dug up the 16-year-old Mehran Bank scandal that embarrassed the military. Ultimately, it held the former army chief, General Aslam Beg (retired), and former DG-ISI, Lieutenant General Asad Durrani (retired), responsible for violating the Constitution. However, rather than risk antagonizing the generals, it vaguely instructed the government to take “necessary legal action” against them, while issuing specific instructions that the politicians who took bribes should be interrogated by the Federal Investigation Agency.

SUPRALEGALITY

In a democracy, the military (or other state institutions) cannot be above the rule of law. One important mechanism for reducing the military’s power and prerogatives is its integration into the civilian judicial system.¹³⁶ The Pakistani military operates outside the purview of civilian law with virtual impunity. It protects its supralegal status through several means.

On the one hand, the military habitually evades accountability to the law where its own members are concerned on the grounds that it has stringent internal mechanisms that obviate the need for external scrutiny.137 For instance, even though Musharraf had retired from the army, the generals obtained for him a “safe passage” to avoid his possible impeachment by Parliament, which would have further besmirched the military’s carefully protected public image as the impeccable guardian of the national interest. The military also initially stonewalled the efforts of the 2010 UN Commission of Inquiry formed to investigate Benazir Bhutto’s murder because of the alleged involvement of senior army officers in the Musharraf regime’s cover-up of the incident. The commission’s final report claims that Major General Nadeem Ijaz Ahmed, the then head of MI, had ordered local police officials to “hose down” the crime scene within two hours of the suicide attack that killed Ms. Bhutto, resulting in the loss of crucial forensic evidence.¹³⁸ While Kayani and Pasha eventually met with the head of the commission, the COAS turned down the commission’s request that Ahmed appear before it to clear his name. Similarly, in the infamous National Logistics Cell scam that surfaced in 2009, two generals, one major general, and two civilians stood accused of causing a loss of almost Rs 2 billion ($200 million) by investing public moneys in the stock market in violation of government rules.¹³⁹ However, Kayani stonewalled civilian investigations by reportedly initiating an internal inquiry. In July 2011, the National Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee ultimately referred the case to the National Accountability Bureau, the government’s primary anticorruption agency. But Kayani protected the three ex-army officers from civilian scrutiny by taking them “back on the strength” of the army so that they could be tried under the Army Act of 1952.¹⁴⁰

On the other hand, the military has expanded its own legal prerogatives over civilians, albeit with the government’s acquiescence. For instance, through amendments to the Army Act, the military has empowered itself to try civilians in military courts for offenses considered prejudicial to the security of Pakistan.141 Similarly, the Action in Aid of Civil Power Act (2011) authorizes the military to detain terror suspects indefinitely during its operations in the northwestern border areas (FATA and Provincially Administered Tribal Areas). While the ISI and the MI have no legal powers of arrest, they have allegedly detained, tortured, and even killed suspected Islamic militants¹⁴² with American and British complicity.¹⁴³ In Baluchistan, they have resorted to classic “dirty war” tactics against nationalist leaders and rights activists.¹⁴⁴ As one military intelligence official reportedly told an illegally detained Baluch politician, “even if the president or chief justice tells us to release you, we won’t. We can torture you, or kill you, or keep you for years at our will. It is only the Army chief and the intelligence chief that we obey.”¹⁴⁵

Growing media focus on military corruption in the wake of scandals involving army officers and the Supreme Court’s occasionally aggressive stance toward the military intelligence services have predictably prompted a pushback. Apparently sensing a “sinister campaign” designed to undermine the military leadership and drive a wedge between the soldiers and the officers that would erode institutional cohesion, Kayani issued a sermon-cum-gag order to “all systems” civilians. In it, he obliquely reminded the media that they should desist from maligning the institution of the army for individual lapses that have yet to be proven. Indirectly criticizing the Supreme Court for asserting its supremacy, he went on to question the notion that any one individual or institution has a monopoly on defining the national interest. Ultimately, Kayani warned against “acting in haste,” which would weaken the “institutions.”¹⁴⁶ The judges took heed. In at least one case, where an ISI brigadier was charged with kidnapping a civilian, the Supreme Court itself restrained the police from executing his arrest orders because “it was a matter of respect of an institution.”¹⁴⁷

However, the Court did challenge the military’s presumptions of impunity by ordering the PML-N government to prosecute Musharraf (who returned to Pakistan to contest the May 2013 elections) for suspending the Constitution and imposing emergency rule in November 2007. The government initiated treason charges against the former general president in November 2013, and the three-judge Special Court established for the purpose indicted him in April 2014. Not surprisingly, the military interpreted the trial as an affront to the “dignity” of the institution,¹⁴⁸ openly articulating its opposition when the government did not heed the “advice” of Army Chief General Raheel Sharif (who replaced Kayani in that position in November 2013) to “move on” by letting Musharraf travel abroad for medical treatment.¹⁴⁹ It then sought to destabilize the government by backing and orchestrating public protests led by Imran Khan and the Canada-based pro-military cleric Tahirul Qadri against alleged electoral rigging in the 2013 parliamentary elections.¹⁵⁰

CONCLUSION

Since yielding power in 2007–2008, the military has seen its broader governmental prerogatives shrink (like the NSC, which was effectively disbanded in 2009), because of the lack of any legitimacy for such a role in the immediate post-authoritarian context. At the same time, it has successfully resisted periodic civilian challenges to its core institutional prerogatives through both active and passive noncompliance, thereby undermining the authority of elected government led by the PPP and, on occasions, threatening its survival. In most conflicts with the PPP government, the military prevailed. The government accepted the military’s preferred outcomes to avoid losing power. The military’s relationship with the current PML-N government, too, has been fraught with tensions over Sharif’s decision to prosecute Musharraf as well as his attempts to seek peace with India.

Brute coercion is less effective for protecting its interests in a post-transitional context defined by a broad-based rejection of military rule as an alternative governing formula and the empowerment of new institutional centers of power and persuasion, such as the higher judiciary and the broadcast media, as a result of both authoritarian liberalization under Musharraf and the contentious politics that facilitated his government’s demise. Hence, the military has adapted itself to this new setting by steering the course of change and trying to obstruct unfavorable governmental initiatives by mobilizing the support of judges, journalists, and pro-military politicians like Imran Khan. Overall, the exercise of military prerogatives, especially in the management of national security policy, acted as a major source of civil–military friction between 2008 and 2014.

Military prerogatives are obviously not the only impediment to democracy. In fact, the prospects of continued democratization are complicated by myriad political, economic, and security challenges. Rampant political corruption, poor governance, growing inflation, chronic energy shortages, and almost dwindling essential public services reduce public trust in government and encourage the politics of “system blame.” Terrorist violence and Islamist militancy, which afflict both the northwestern border areas and the Punjabi heartland, fuel political instability and weaken the writ of the government. Democracy might have a better chance of consolidation if elected governments can deliver on public expectations, solidly move toward resolving Pakistan’s urgent problems, and, together with their oppositions, respect democratic and constitutional norms in both rhetoric and practice. The prospects of sustained democratization will depend to a considerable degree on the extent to which civilian political leaders can demonstrate unity, thereby denying the military the opportunity to exploit political divisions and assume responsibility for the direct or indirect conduct of national affairs. In fact, the military-sponsored political crisis of 2014 exerted a “rally around democracy” effect on opposition parties in Parliament, and they backed Sharif in his government’s tussle with the PTI.

However, as I have argued in this chapter, a continuing major source of democratic vulnerability is a military that is only conditionally loyal to democratic rule and continues to exercise nondemocratic prerogatives that restrict the autonomy and authority of democratically elected leaders. In the past, the military has dealt major blows to the process of democratization in Pakistan. It has either directly intervened to overthrow governments or limited the authority and autonomy of elected governments. Military coups and rule have deepened the country’s structural problems by providing shortcuts that prevent solutions through the political process. In this context, the transfer of power from one elected government to another in May–June 2013 carried considerable symbolic significance simply because it has never happened before. The real question is whether democratic turnovers will become a norm. For the foreseeable future, it seems likely that Pakistan might be heading toward an unstable equilibrium of its civil–military arrangement in which formal civilian supremacy becomes a euphemism for the military’s formal and active participation in politics and national security. In other words, this would constitute a situation in which the military does not seize direct power but formally insinuates its nondemocratic privileges into the functioning of democracy.

NOTES

    1.  See Samuel J. Valenzuela, “Democratic Consolidation in Post-Transitional Settings: Notion, Process, and Facilitating Conditions,” Working Paper No. 150 (University of Notre Dame: Kellogg Institute, December 1990). See also Scott Mainwaring, “Transitions to Democracy and Democratic Consolidation: Theoretical and Comparative Issues,” in Issues in Democratic Consolidation: The New South American Democracies in Comparative Perspective, ed. Scott Mainwaring, Samuel J. Valenzuela, and Guillermo O’ Donnell (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992), 294–341; Terry L Karl, “Dilemmas of Democratization in Latin America, Comparative Politics 23, no. 1 (1991): 1–21.

    2.  An anonymous reviewer objected to the term “post-authoritarian” because of the “authoritarian behavior and attitudes” permeating the Pakistani state and society. This chapter uses “post-authoritarian” merely to describe the period after the end of military government to distinguish it from the democratically elected government, which does not imply that either the state or society is free of nondemocratic structures or beliefs. But it is important to acknowledge that even the most advanced or established democracies can contain some authoritarian elements in their governments or political culture.

    3.  The anonymous reviewer also had a problem with the use of terms like “democracy” and “democratic government” as a substitute for civilian rule in Pakistan because of the “authoritarian tendencies” of civilian leaders. Jaffrelot makes a similar point in the introduction to this volume that the difference between elected and nonelected governments is typically a matter of degree because both exhibit authoritarian features. However, for normative and analytical reasons, we would be remiss to lump elected governments with military-authoritarian ones because the former originates in, and is sustained by, a collective “voted” decision, whereas the latter is a product of the application of organized coercion and is defined by the imposition of the will of the generals. Insofar as democracy is a system of government in which universally enfranchised, competitive elections determine “who governs,” and elected officials are not de jure accountable to, nor have to share their power with, the administrative institutions of the state (including the military), this chapter uses the terms “democracy,” “democratic government,” and “civilian rule” interchangeably for governments that meet these procedural minima. Hence, the PPP government (2008–2013) was democratic, but Musharraf’s government was authoritarian despite its civilianization between 2002 and 2007.

    4.  Alfred Stepan, Rethinking Military Politics: Brazil and the Southern Cone (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988), 30–31.

    5.  Ibid., 93–102.

    6.  Ibid., 93.

    7.  Ibid., 68.

    8.  Chaudhry Mohammad Ali, The Emergence of Pakistan (Lahore: Research Society of Pakistan [first impression], 1975), 175.

    9.  Pakistan’s Pashtun-majority North West Frontier Province (presently known as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) was part of Afghanistan until the British annexed it in the nineteenth century.

  10.  “Militarization” is used here in the Andreskian sense of the “subservience of the whole society to the needs of the army.” See Stanislav Andreski, Military Organization and Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968), 184–185.

  11.  Ayesha Jalal, The State of Martial Rule: Pakistan’s Political Economy of Defense (Lahore: Sange Meel, 1995), 49–51.

  12.  Dankwart Rustow, “Transitions to Democracy: Towards a Dynamic Model,” Comparative Politics 2, no. 3 (April 1970): 350.

  13.  Christophe Jaffrelot, ed., Pakistan: Nationalism Without a Nation (New Delhi: Manohar, 2002).

  14.  For instance, only one of the 133 Indian Civil Service (ICS)/Indian Political Service (IPS) officers who opted for Pakistan was a Bengali. Moreover, Bengalis were less than 3 percent of the strength of the military, a legacy of the institutionalized colonial policy of military recruitment from among the martial races of North India, such as the Punjabis and the Pashtuns. This colonial policy was left untouched in Pakistan. See Rounaq Jahan, Pakistan: Failure in National Integration (New York: Columbia University Press, 1972), 20; Stephen P. Cohen, The Pakistan Army, 2nd ed. (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1998), 44.

  15.  Yunas Samad, A Nation in Turmoil: Nationalism and Ethnicity in Pakistan, 1937–1958 (New Delhi: Sage, 1995), 90–125.

  16.  The demand for Pakistan was articulated primarily by elites from Muslim-minority areas who feared the economic, political, and cultural domination of the Hindus in a united India. The League was formed primarily to preserve the interests of this privileged minority. See D. A. Low, “Provincial Histories,” in The Political Inheritance of Pakistan, ed. D. A. Low (New York: Macmillan, 1991), 7–8. On the social origins and composition of the Muslim League, see Maya Tudor, The Promise of Power: The Origins of Democracy in India and Autocracy in Pakistan (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), esp. 56–64, 123–149.

  17.  For an excellent discussion of the conflicting logics of the “nation-state” and politically salient sociocultural differences and how to reconcile them by crafting “state nations,” see Juan Linz, Alfred Stepan, and Yogendra Yadav, Crafting State Nations: India and Other Multinational Democracies (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011), 1–38.

  18.  Jaffrelot, Nationalism Without a Nation, 18.

  19.  Mohammad Ayub Khan, Friends, Not Masters: A Political Autobiography (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1967), 217. See also Ayub’s biography by his chief of staff, Colonel Mohammad Ahmed, My Chief (Lahore: Longman’s, Green, 1960); Major General Sher Ali Pataudi (retired), The Story of Soldiering and Politics in India and Pakistan (Lahore: Lahore Publishers, 1976), esp. 146–161.

  20.  Major General Fazle Muqeem Khan, The Story of the Pakistan Army (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1963), 159.

  21.  Ayub Khan, Friends, Not Masters, 36.

  22.  The preeminent American military sociologist Morris Janowitz defined a “civil-military” coalition as one in which the military “expands its political activity and becomes an active political bloc,” and civilian executives or parties can “remain in power only because of the passive assent or active assistance” of the armed forces. See his Military Institutions and Coercion in Developing Countries (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977), 83.

  23.  Jahan, Pakistan: Failure in National Integration, 53.

  24.  K. J. Newman, “Pakistan’s Preventive Autocracy and Its Causes,” Pacific Affairs 32, no. 1 (March 1959): 18–33.

  25.  In Andreski’s words, “the devil finds work for the idle hands: the soldiers who have no war to fight or prepare for will be tempted to intervene in politics.” Military Organization and Society, 202.

  26.  Samuel Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993), 234; Michael C. Desch, Civilian Control of the Military: The Changing Security Environment (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), 11–17.

  27.  This argument is derived from the German social theorist George Simmel, who argued that conflict can be an “integrative force” because it strengthens group consciousness and the awareness of separateness. See his Conflict, trans. Kurt H. Wolf (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1955), 17–18.

  28.  Desch, Civilian Control of the Military.

  29.  Aqil Shah, The Army and Democracy: Military Politics in Pakistan (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2014).

  30.  As Lewis Coser pointed out, the unifying effect of conflict with “out groups” may be dependent on some degree of prior internal cohesion and integration. Otherwise, it can result in repression and tyranny. See his The Functions of Social Conflict (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1956), 87–89.

  31.  Harold D. Lasswell, “The Sino-Japanese Crisis: The Garrison State Versus the Civilian State,” China Quarterly 11 (1937): 649. See also “The Garrison State,” American Journal of Sociology 46, no. 4 (January 1941): 455–468.

  32.  Muhammad Azfar Anwar, Zain Rafique, and Salman Azam Joiya, “Defense Spending–Economic Growth Nexus: A Case Study of Pakistan,” Pakistan Economic and Social Review 50, no. 2 (Winter 2012): 164.

  33.  Ayesha Siddiqa, Military Inc.: Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy (London: Pluto, 2007).

  34.  Christophe Jaffrelot, “Introduction” in this volume.

  35.  The United States has provided over $25.9 billion in aid to Pakistan since 2001. Of this, $15.8 billion has been security assistance, including reimbursements for the military’s operations in support of the U.S.-led “war on terror.” See Susan B. Epstein and K. Alan Kronstadt, “Pakistan: U.S. Foreign Assistance,” Congressional Research Service, July 1, 2013, 10, https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R41856.pdf.

  36.  Hasan Askari Rizvi, “The Legacy of Military Rule in Pakistan,” Survival 31, no. 3 (May–June 1989): 256. See also Michael Hoffman, “Military Extrication and Temporary Democracy: The Case of Pakistan,” Democratization 18, no. 1 (January 2011): 75–99.

  37.  Syed Zafar Ali Shah and Others vs. General Pervez Musharraf, Chief Executive of Pakistan (PLD 2000 S.C. 869).

  38.  Aqil Shah, “Pakistan’s ‘Armored’ Democracy,” Journal of Democracy 14, no. 4 (October 2003): 26–40.

  39.  Guillermo O’Donnell and Phillipe Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), 49.

  40.  The following discussion of government–judiciary conflict is based on Shoaib A. Ghias, “Miscarriage of Chief Justice: Judicial Power and the Legal Complex in Pakistan Under Musharraf,” Law and Social Inquiry 35, no. 4 (Fall 2010): 985–1022.

  41.  Under the 1973 constitution, an electoral college comprising both houses of the Parliament and the four provincial assemblies indirectly elects the president.

  42.  The 1973 constitution bars active-duty civilian or military officials from holding any other public office. Musharraf had secured a one-time waiver from the Supreme Court in 2002.

  43.  See “Daylong Running Battles Across Capital” and “Opposition Flexes Muscles on Protest Day,” Dawn, March 17, 2007.

  44.  Helene Cooper and Mark Mazzetti, “Backstage, U.S. Nurtured Pakistan Rivals’ Deal,” New York Times, October 20, 2007.

  45.  Benazir Bhutto, Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West (New York: HarperCollins, 2008), 225–230. See also “Benazir Defends Deal with Musharraf,” The News, April 26, 2007.

  46.  Opposition parties boycotted Musharraf’s reelection by the same Parliament that had elected him in 2002, except for the PPP, which abstained from the vote.

  47.  The PCO mandated that all superior court justices take a new oath pledging unconditional obedience to the regime or lose their office. The almost two-thirds who refused to comply were sacked.

  48.  During the 1990s, each of the two parties had alternated in government twice. When out of power, each typically connived with or encouraged the military against the other. Realizing that their zero-sum rivalry had played into the hands of the military, Sharif and Bhutto had signed a “Charter of Democracy” in May 2006, in which they had pledged not to “join a military regime or any military sponsored government [or] solicit the support of military to come into power or to dislodge a democratic government.” The parties fell out once again over the PPP’s rapprochement with General Musharraf, which the PML-N saw as a betrayal of the Charter. See “Text of the Charter of Democracy,” Dawn, May 16, 2006.

  49.  See “Proclamation of Emergency,” Dawn, November 4, 2007.

  50.  Author’s interview with a retired army major general, Rawalpindi, August 2012. See also Jay Soloman and Zahid Hussain, “Army Grows Cooler to Musharraf,” Wall Street Journal, February 13, 2008.

  51.  Delcan Walsh, “Bush Tells Musharraf to Choose Ballot Box or Uniform,” Guardian, November 7, 2007.

  52.  Rodney W. Jones, “The Military and Security in Pakistan,” in Zia’s Pakistan: Politics and Stability in a Frontline State, ed. Craig Baxter (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1985), 76.

  53.  Massoud Ansari, “The Militarization of Pakistan,” Newsline, October 15, 2004.

  54.  Human Rights Watch, “Reform or Repression? Post-Coup Abuses in Pakistan” (New York: October 2000), http://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/pakistan.

  55.  Collective threats can unite and cohere members of a group. See Lewis Coser, The Functions of Social Conflict (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1956).

  56.  Umar Cheema, “The Man Who Rigged the 2002 Polls Spills the Beans,” The News, February 24, 2008.

  57.  See, for instance, Mark Sappenfield, “Musharraf Successor Kayani Boosts Pakistan Army’s Image,” Christian Science Monitor, February 5, 2008. See also Jay Soloman and Zahid Hussain, “Army Grows Cooler to Musharraf,” Wall Street Journal, February 13, 2008.

  58.  “Bill to Abolish NSC Soon,” Nation, February 25, 2009.

  59.  Quoted in Ian Talbot, Pakistan: A Modern History (London: Hurst, 2006), 401.

  60.  The caretaker prime minister is appointed by the president in consultation with the incumbent PM and leader of the opposition in the National Assembly (NA) within three days of its dissolution. In case of a deadlock, each forwards two names to an eight-member parliamentary committee comprising four members each from the treasury and opposition benches. If the committee is unable to reach a decision in three days, the Election Commission has the authority to appoint the caretaker PM from the committee’s shortlist within two days. See the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Article 224 and 224 A.

  61.  “50 Most Powerful People of the World,” Newsweek, http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/​2008/12/19/20-gen-ashfaq-​parvez-kayani.html.

  62.  PML-N cabinet ministers had resigned from the cabinet in May 2008 after the first mutually agreed deadline to restore the judges passed.

  63.  The PTI is a right-of-center party led by the charismatic former Pakistani cricket team captain Imran Khan. The party projects itself as an alternative to the two major parties, the PPP and the PML-N, based on its nondynastic and presumably honest leadership. It has combined an anticorruption message with a virulent anti-Americanism popular with Pakistan’s urban middle classes. In the 2008 elections, Khan won the sole NA seat for the party. However, the party emerged as the third largest in the NA in the May 2013 elections and formed a coalition provincial government with the JI in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

  64.  “Governor Rule in Punjab,” Nation, February 26, 2009.

  65.  “50 Most Powerful People of the World.”

  66.  Rauf Klasra, “Political Deal Worked Out,” The News, March 13, 2009.

  67.  Iftikhar A. Khan, “Carrot and Stick Plan to Tackle Militancy: COAS Gets Vast Powers,” Dawn, June 26, 2008.

  68.  See, for instance, Sakib Shirani, “A Governance Framework,” Dawn, January 13, 2012. See also Sabir Shah, “A Review of the PPP Government’s 53 Month Performance,” The News, August 27, 2012.

  69.  The charges pertain to Zardari and his spouse accepting illicit “commissions” through off shore agents for the award of a pre-shipment inspection contract to SGS/Cotecna in 1994.

  70.  The PPP government eventually backed down and drafted the letter in accordance with the court’s wishes, although executive–judiciary friction has far from subsided. In January 2013, the Supreme Court ordered the arrest of PM Ashraf for allegedly taking bribes in 2010 when he was minister for water and power.

  71.  Observers saw party president and Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif’s call for including the military and the judiciary in a proposed all-parties conference to tackle Pakistan’s many multiple crises as an indication of the party’s permissive attitude to a temporary military intervention. See, for instance, “Call for Intervention,” Dawn, March 9, 2011.

  72.  “Altaf Again Invokes ‘Patriotic’ Generals,” Dawn, February 12, 2011.

  73.  “Altaf Demands Army for Karachi,” Nation, August 27, 2013.

  74.  “Political Parties Reject MQM’s Call for Army,” Pakistan Today, August 28, 2013.

  75.  EU Election Observation Mission, Preliminary Statement, May 13, 2013, http://www.eueom.eu/files/dmfile/eom-pakistan-preliminary-statement-13052013-en.pdf.

  76.  Ibid., 100.

  77.  “General Kayani Gets Three Year Extension,” Nation, July 23, 2010.

  78.  Omar Warraich, “Pakistan’s Spies Eludes Its Government,” Time, July 31, 2008, http://www.time.com/time/world/​article/0,8599,1828207,00.html.

  79.  On the eve of the elections, Sharif told an Indian journalist, “I will go by the book; I will go by the merit. Whosoever is senior most, will have to occupy … the next one, the next in line.” See “Sharif Not to Play Second Fiddle to Army,” Hindu, May 6, 2013.

  80.  Lieutenant Colonel Muhammad Ali Ehsan, “Appointing a New Army Chief,” Express Tribune, July 29, 2013.

  81.  See, for instance, “ISI, Army to Brief NA, Senate Committees,” Dawn, October 11, 2011.

  82.  National Assembly of Pakistan, “Consensus Resolution of the In-Camera Joint Sitting of Parliament,” October 22, 2008, http://www.na.gov.pk/en/resolution_detail.php?id=39.

  83.  See “Parliamentary National Security Committee Refuses to Attend GHQ Briefing,” Dawn, October 11, 2011, http://Dawn.com/2011/10/11/national-security-committee-refuses-to-attend-ghq-briefing/.

  84.  “Denying Links to Militants, Pakistan Spy Chief Denounces U.S. Before Parliament,” New York Times, May 13, 2011.

  85.  National Assembly of Pakistan, “Resolution on Unilateral U.S. Forces Action in Abbotabad,” May 14, 2011, http://www.na.gov.pk/en/resolution_detail.php?id=52.

  86.  “Civilians, Military Consulted on Trade with India,” Dawn, November 5, 2011.

  87.  See “PM’s Address to the Nation: Nawaz Sharif Dreams of Making Pakistan an Asian Tiger,” Express Tribune, August 19, 2013.

  88.  “Military Blocking Pakistan–India Trade Deal, Says Shahbaz,” Guardian, February 13, 2014.

  89.  The DCC was the highest governmental forum for defense policymaking.

  90.  “DCC Reconstituted as CCNS,” Associated Press of Pakistan, August 22, 2013, http://www.app.com.pk/en_/index.php?​option=com_content&task=​view&id=247202&Itemid=1.

  91.  This is the logic provided by the ostensible architect of the CCNS, Sharif’s advisor on national security and foreign affairs, Sartaj Aziz. See his Between Dream and Realities: Some Milestones in Pakistan’s History (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2009), 242–245.

  92.  Ibid.

  93.  Defense Division, Ministry of Defense, Government of Pakistan, www.mod.gov.pk (accessed April 4, 2012).

  94.  See “No Control Over Operations of Army, ISI,” Dawn, November 22, 2011.

  95.  Ministry of Defense, Government of Pakistan, www.mod.gov.pk (accessed December 8, 2014).

  96.  See Pakistan Army Green Book: Nation-Building (Rawalpindi: General Headquarters, 2000), 15.

  97.  In prior years, the military’s budget was just a lump sum figure.

  98.  “ISPR Chief Decries Criticism of Defense Budget,” The News, March 14, 2011.

  99.  “Report of the United Nations Commission of Inquiry Into the Facts and Circumstances of the Assassination of Former Pakistani Prime Minister Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto” (New York: United Nations, 2010), 59, http://www.un.org/News/dh/infocus/​Pakistan/UN_Bhutto_Report_15April2010.pdf (accessed September 2, 2011).

100.  Ibid., 62.

101.  “War on Terror Toll Put at 49,000,” Express Tribune, March 27, 2013; “Terrorists Killed 40,000 Civilians, 2,250 Security Personnel,” Nation, January 19, 2010, http://costsofwar.org/article/pakistani-civilians.

102.  “Timeline of Pakistan’s Defense Sites Attacked by Militants,” Dawn, August 16, 2012.

103.  See, for example, Major General Shaukat Iqbal, “Security Politics of the Region: Indo-U.S. Nexus and Security Challenges of Pakistan, in Pakistan Army Green Book (Rawalpindi: General Headquarters, 2011), 107–113; Major General Shafqaat Ahmed, “Multi-Dimensional Threat to the Security of Pakistan,” in Pakistan Army Green Book: The Future Conflict Environment (Rawalpindi: General Headquarters, 2008), 1–10; Major General Muhammad Ahsan Mahmood, “Future Conflict Environment: Challenges and Responses,” in Pakistan Army Green Book: The Future Conflict Environment (Rawalpindi: General Headquarters, 2008), 17–24; Brigadier Shaukat Iqbal, “Future Conflict Environment: Challenges for Pakistan Army and the Way Forward,” in Pakistan Army Green Book: The Future Conflict Environment (Rawalpindi: General Headquarters, 2008), 43–50.

104.  Elizabeth Bumiller and Jane Perlez, “Pakistan’s Spy Agency Is Tied to Attack on U.S. Embassy,” New York Times, September 22, 2011.

105.  “Zardari Vows Operation Against Haqqanis,” Dawn, November 9, 2011.

106.  “Zarbe Azb Operation: 120 Suspected Militants Killed in North Waziristan” Dawn, June 16, 2014.

107.  “The Battle for Kurram,” News on Sunday, August 24, 2014, http://tns.thenews.com.pk/battle-for-kurram-agency/#.VIczp4c810w.

108.  “Taliban Fled Pakistani Offensive Before It Began,” BBC News, July 10, 2014, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-28241352.

109.  Author’s interview with a former military intelligence official, Islamabad, January 2012.

110.  See, for instance, the book by former head of military public relations Brigadier A. R. Siddiqui, The Military in Pakistan: Image and Reality (Lahore: Vanguard, 1996). Military officers writing in professional publications continually stress the need to “guide” and manage the media for the projection of national interest and consensus building on important issues to prevent exploitation by hostile foreign and domestic forces. See also “Defense and Media,” ISPR (Rawalpindi, 1991), esp. 15–22; Brigadier Jehanzeb Raja, “Role of Media and Its Importance in Future Conflict Environment,” in Pakistan Army Green Book: Low Intensity Conflict (Rawalpindi: General Headquarters, 2008), 83–92; Major General Shafqaat Ahmed, “Multi-Dimensional Threat to the Security of Pakistan,” in Pakistan Army Green Book: Low Intensity Conflict (Rawalpindi: General Headquarters, 2008), 1–10; Commodore Asaf Hamayun, “Media as an Instrument of Strategy,” NDC Journal, 2002, 196–209.

111.  Huma Yusuf, “Conspiracy Fever: The U.S., Pakistan and Its Media,” Survival 53, no. 4 (2011): 106.

112.  Ansar Abbassi, “Names of 55 U.S. Suspects on the Loose,” The News, March 12, 2011.

113.  “Leak of CIA Officer Name Is Sign of Rift with Pakistan,” New York Times, May 9, 2011.

114.  See Aaj Kamran Khan Key Saath (Tonight with Kamran Khan), Geo TV, May 4, 2011, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_88jfndamw (accessed February 9, 2012). See also Talat Hussain, “The Problem Within,” Dawn, June 13, 2011.

115.  ISPR, “139th Corps Commanders Conference,” press release, June 9, 2011.

116.  See Saleem Shehzad, “Al-Qaeda Had Warned of Pakistan Strike,” Asia Times Online, May 27, 2011, http://www.atimes.com/atimes/​South_Asia/ME27Df06.html.

117.  Aqil Shah, “The Generals Strike Back,” Foreign Affairs, December 9, 2014, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/141379/aqil-shah/the-generals-strike-back.

118.  See ISPR press release, October 7, 2009.

119.  Embassy of the United States, Islamabad, “Ambassador Meets with Kayani and Pasha about Kerry-Lugar,” October 7, 2009, http://www.cablegatesearch.net/cable.php?id=09ISLAMABAD2427.

120.  Yusuf, “Conspiracy Fever,” 106.

121.  Ibid., 97.

122.  Ijaz, “Time to Take on Pakistan’s Jihadist Spies,” Financial Times, October 10, 2011, http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/5ea9b804-f351-11e0-b11b-00144feab49a.html#axzz3q83vQzSf.

123.  Then ISI Director General, Lieutenant General Shuja Pasha secretly visited Mr. Ijaz in London, and reportedly collected incriminating transcripts of text messages exchanged between Haqqani and Ijaz. See Ahmed, “When Mansoor Ijaz Met General Pasha,” Newsweek (Pakistan), November 20, 2011.

124.  “Memogate: COAS Submits Rejoinder to SC,” The News, December 21, 2011.

125.  The commission was ordered to investigate the “authenticity” of the memo and to determine whether sending the memo to senior American officials “is tantamount to compromising the sovereignty, security and independence of Pakistan. See “Memogate Probe: Full Text of the SC Decision to Form Commission,” Express Tribune (Karachi), December 3, 2011.

126.  “State Within a State Not Acceptable,” Pakistan Today, December 22, 2011.

127.  ISPR, press release, January 11, 2012.

128.  “Commander 111 Brigade Changed,” The News, January 11, 2012.

129.  The last time a civilian government tried to prematurely retire an army chief, in October 1999, the army executed a coup.

130.  “Government Does Not Want to Sack Army, ISI Chiefs,” Nation, January 20, 2012; “Court Admits Petition on Saving Army and ISI Chiefs,” Express Tribune, February 28, 2012.

131.  “Adiala Missing Inmates: ISI and MI Not Superior to Civilians, Says SC,” Express Tribune, March 1, 2012.

132.  “Disband Agencies’ Death Squads,” The News, September 28, 2012.

133.  See “SC Seeks Progress Report on Missing Persons,” Daily Times (Lahore), February 9, 2012; “Missing Persons: ISI, MI Counsel Says RAW and Mossad Involved,” Express Tribune, March 16, 2012; “SC Seeks Report in Missing Person’s Case,” Frontier Post, July 23, 2013.

134.  “Two Bodies of Missing Persons Found in Baluchistan,” Express Tribune, May 1, 2012.

135.  “Security Agencies Not Cooperating with Top Court,” Express Tribune, August 27, 2013.

136.  See Narcis Serra, The Military Transition: Democratic Reform of the Armed Forces (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 83.

137.  “Investigating Generals: Army Refuses to Assist NAB in NLC Scam,” Express Tribune, March 11, 2012.

138.  “Report of the United Nations,” 33.

139.  The NLC is a monopolistic army-run logistics and transportation agency, even though it falls under the administrative purview of the National Logistics Board, an attached department of the federal Planning and Development Division.

140.  The fate of that inquiry remains unknown.

141.  Pakistan Army (Amendment) Ordinance, 2007, http://www.na.gov.pk/uploads/documents/​1302673360974.pdf (March 1, 2012).

142.  “Peshawar High Court Judge Says Missing Persons Killed After Courts Pressure Agencies,” The News, July 24, 2013; “ISI Denies Torturing Man to Death in Custody,” Express Tribune, September 28, 2011.

143.  See “Globalizing Torture: CIA Secret Detention and Extraordinary Rendition,” Open Society Foundations, New York, 2013, https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org​/sites/default/files/globalizing-torture​-20120205.pdf.

144.  “Enforced Disappearances by Pakistan Security Forces in Baluchistan,” Human Rights Watch, July 28, 2011, https://www.hrw.org/news/2011/07/28/pakistan-security-forces-disappear-opponents-balochistan.

145.  Pakistani intelligence official to Bashir Azeem, the 76-year-old secretary-general of the Baluch Republican Party, during his unacknowledged detention, April 2010. Ibid.

146.  “Kayani Hits Back: Apparent Reaction to the Bashing of Generals,” Dawn, November 6, 2012.

147.  “Supreme Court Takes U-Turn on Arrest of ISI Brigadier,” Daily Times, July 24, 2013.

148.  See “Army Will Preserve Its Honor at All Costs,” Express Tribune, April 7, 2014.

149.  “A Day After the Indictment: Government Advised to Let Musharraf See His Mother,” Express Tribune, April 2, 2014.

150.  The most damning revelations about the PTI’s collaboration with the ISI came from the party’s former president, Javed Hashmi, whom Imran Khan summarily removed from that position after he opposed storming the Parliament. He claimed that Khan was receiving direct instructions from the intelligence agency to coordinate his protests with those of Tahirul Qadri to put maximum pressure on the government. See “Imran Khan Said Can’t Move Forward Without Army: Hashmi,” The News, September 1, 2014.