The test of a true soldier

We don’t know how many Gen Raheel Sharifs we would've witnessed had his two predecessors retired at prescribed...

General Raheel Sharif has spent more time moving around than any other army chief I can remember. As a military commander, he subscribes to the military command principle of being present on the scene of action. All of us — those serving in the military and those who have retired — understand that nonconformity helps win more battles than hanging on to traditional approaches. A nonconformist of sorts, the general has been observed skipping his already planned schedules to be where his presence is needed most thus managing to create a multiplying influence, necessary for a military that is hard-pressed and fighting a war on multiple fronts. The Pakistan military is being led by a general who is not only very popular but who has also captured the public’s imagination. General MacArthur may be remembered for his grandiosity, General Patton for his calculated madness, but if I have to pin down one thing that General Raheel Sharif will be remembered for, it will be for his iron will and resolve in fighting the war on terror at a very critical juncture of his country’s history.

Is the general fighting his last war? He probably is. Is the country fighting its last war? No it is not. While the generals may come and go, the country will continue to remain in a state of preparedness to fight any war that may be imposed on it. It is for this reason that I refuse to join the frenzy for the general’s extension that has gripped the whole nation. Despite my sincerest admiration for him, I have my reasons for this.

We don’t know how many General Raheel Sharifs we would have witnessed had his two predecessors retired at their prescribed times. The worst thing that happened during the tenures of General Musharraf and General Kayani was that the institutional deadline — the end date of any army chief’s tenure in office — no longer looked like the deadline that it was supposed to be. The change of military command is not a condition-based process, but an event that must continue to back and support military policies, practices and traditions.

Take the case of the recently promoted lieutenant generals. Their age, or the completion of four years in service (whichever comes first) is the determinant of their retirement. Having been promoted in September 2015, all of them will complete four years in service in the current rank two months prior to November 2019 — which means that all of them already know that they have little or no chance of becoming the COAS. All of them are the best that the military has to offer and that is why they have been promoted. Yet they will retire before even being considered for the post of COAS. The correlation between the timings of promotions and retirement plans of the COAS has a direct bearing on who can and cannot become the next COAS.

It was in July 2010 that former prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani announced that General Kayani will remain in his position for three more years. How the former army chief’s ‘pro-democracy views’ affected the military’s fight in the war against terror is part of our history. Then there is the case of General Asif Nawaz Janjua, who was announced as COAS-designate six months prior to the retirement of General Mirza Aslam Beg. Naturally, all the public focus shifted from the man on the horse to the man getting ready to climb into the saddle. Given the current unprecedented political setbacks that most political parties have experienced courtesy the success of Operation Zarb-e-Azb, I find no ‘pro-democracy’ accolade for General Raheel’s tenure extension. At its best, ‘democracy’ will allow General Raheel to retire in November 2016 and at its worst it may designate and appoint a COAS a few months before his date of retirement. As far as the general himself is concerned, he has already set the bar of adhering to military principles, ethics and morality quite high and it is he himself who has to meet his own standards.

History tells us that some generals of the past were all too willing to seek power and were hard-pressed to relinquish it (Generals Ayub, Zia and Musharraf). We are also familiar with the loyalties that the accumulation of such powers creates. Unlike in politics, loyalty in the military is to the institution and not to the individual. It is when military leaders prolong and extend their tenures that a professional military like Pakistan’s gives the impression of being led by individuals rather than institutionally.

Military values call for obedience, conformity, integration and subordination of any interests (be those personal or national) to the interests of the military as an institution. Even in the fading twilight of his career, a general, it is said, has only one purpose — to serve his country and serve it well. Generals make many moral and ethical decisions during their careers but the one decision that they should be good at making is concerned with the timing of the hanging of their boots. Those who advocate their extension of tenure and continuity in office for the sake of ‘national interest’ are people with a one-dimensional approach, who fail to trust the ability of this national military to continue to produce generals who can serve this nation and do an equally good job of confronting the enemies of the state.

For a professional military, it is the military ethics of morality and tradition that take precedence over all other forms of military righteousness. Compromising one’s own principles is easy, but the refusal to compromise on military morality is, without exception, courageous, militarily proper and a more difficult course of action. What else has the military and the nation learnt from General Raheel Sharif except the ease with which he has taken all difficult decisions, only because the ground on which he stood was always morally high. One hopes that he continues to stand on the high moral ground and that can only happen if he bows out from service without taking any extensions.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 11^th, 2015.

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