South of Tora Bora

While the march of time has seen it happen to the Macedonians and the British, millennia and centuries before, we fiftysomethings have seen history repeat itself twice in our very lifetimes. I am, of course, referring to the inglorious retreat of yet another superpower from the rugged lands of Afghanistan. We saw the USSR slink away from this graveyard of empires some decades earlier. More recently, the US.

Much has been written about this fiasco — and there are some like Joe Biden who live within their own warped worldview of things; and think it wasn’t. So this article won’t delve into any of that, at all. What it will do, though, is use this example of Afghanistan — and its Army — to highlight why the defence and security of Pakistan is still its most vital core interest. Why Pakistan must have the Army it needs, and not the Army some of its people grow hoarse claiming they want.

In less than 20 days in the month of August, the Afghan National Army (ANA) collapsed upon itself like a proverbial house of cards. This, mind you, is the Army upon which reportedly $180 billion were spent by the US and its allies, to build and equip and train. These are the 350,000-strong-armed personnel which were touted by no less a person than the President of the United States as being capable of withstanding — and resoundingly defeating — any possible onslaught by the 70,000-odd Taliban fighters it would likely go up against. Let all of these numbers sink in for a moment.

Let us also consider that at home, Pakistan’s Army has been up in a fight against hardliners of a similar fashion, for well-nigh 20 years. This spectrum of hardliners has ranged from the ultra-conservative to the hyper-liberal; and has included ethno-linguistic, racial, sectarian and jihadist elements of all shades. We have suffered some horrific setbacks and casualties certainly, but we have also managed to truly break the back of such militants, too. Vast swathes of territory that were formerly under the “control” of miscreants — Swat, Waziristan, Mohmand, Bajaur and some areas of Balochistan — have been wrested back from them. In the past decade (2009 to 2018) the South Asia Portal on Terror estimates that casualties inflicted as a result of terror have gone down by as much as 89%, and the militants who held sway over these areas have been forced to slink away into the night — much like the defeated empires have from Afghanistan, in the past and recent past. In Pakistan, the Armed Forces are the ones still standing. Not the militants.

One is forced to wonder what would be the fate of those who flood our media and social media with digital cries about Pakistan being a draconian “security” state, were the Army not standing between them and those hawks who would curb their use of cellphones, what to speak of their freedom of speech. For those of a more conservative bent of mind, one might ask how they would be able to preach fire, sulphur and brimstone from their autocratic pulpits with such impunity if the Army were not there to thwart the designs of those rabidly sub-nationalistic secularists who would see Pakistan break up into fragments. One is forced to wonder whether these keyboard warriors and pulpit pounders would ever raise a finger to actually fight for the rights they so vociferously espouse, or whether they too, would slink into the night, without the Army halting those who would forcibly change their respective way of life.

One might very well imagine the plight of Pakistan — were the Army absent — to be similar to that which is unfolding in Afghanistan. Or Iraq. Or Syria. Or Palestine. Or Somalia. Or any other examples from recent or past history, where the absence of military power has led to these countries being methodically sacked, looted, dismembered and fractured — socially, physically and economically.

At the same time, one would very much like Pakistan to be able to subsist with Armed Forces that were an infinitesimal percentage of its current manpower, and for the state to equitably divert the monies saved to other areas of governance that are incredibly important, too. With a belligerent India to our East, though — with one of the world’s largest Armies — and let us not conflate the current lull in hostilities as anything resembling long-standing “peace” — this is quite unlikely to happen even if we were to vanquish the internal threat we face, for good. There will always be an insatiable Indian appetite for a Siachen, or a Balakot, or some non-existent surgical strike that the Indian Army might want to dupe its people into believing, actually happened. And that is a reality which we do not just have to live with; it’s something for which we must remain constantly prepared and vigilant. Until such time as these threats diminish, or are suitably neutralised, we will have to make do with the Army we need; not the Army that some of us might want.

For these reasons — and others far too numerous to list here — history, geography, demography and realpolitik place Pakistan at the confluence and overlap of closely-intersecting conflict zones. And while we may wish such impediments to our basic security vanished, this might be somewhat counter-productive wishful thinking, based on facts of a flawed personal construct rather than those that are present on ground.

In the meanwhile, let us sincerely pray that the need never arises for Pakistan’s Armed Forces to join battle in domestic, or internecine strife. If that need — God forbid — does arise, let us also pray that our Army acquit itself against the odds it might face, with the resolve, professionalism, and dignity that it has displayed in the past.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 4^th, 2021.

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