Don’t discount the civilians yet

For any observer of civil-military relations in Pakistan, lack of coup is a development both fascinating & positive.

Much has been and is being written about the current stand-off between the civilian principals and the military. Everyone is waiting with bated breath for the coup de grace by the military. No one is betting on the civilians. But the immediate is making us ignore a crucial fact: this memo, only a decade ago, would have seen the 111 Brigade roll out of the barracks.

That has not happened and is very unlikely. For any observer of civil-military relations in Pakistan, this development is both fascinating and positive. In fact, the memo, wittingly or unwittingly, relied on this by first invoking the threat of a coup and then formulating a strategy to counter that possibility. Whoever was behind it knew that far from the military planning a coup, it was time to play an active hand and mount one on the military.

An Icarian move for sure, its significance lay in two facts: the civilians wanted to take control and they felt the power of the military had diluted to a point where it could be chastened with some external help.

At this stage in the game, it was an excessive hand. The military’s power has definitely diluted and mounting a hard coup is not a clever option for several reasons. The military also appreciates that strategy is not just about projecting power but understanding the limitations of power, the latter being of greater importance. However, the civilians, going by this memo, miscalculated both the balance of power and the timing. Yet, as this episode in Pakistan’s history is played out, the military is resorting to indirect fire to take out the target.

That’s the positive and brings us to the central question: will it succeed?

The answer is not as simple as we might think. Another question is important: what is the military relying on and what would getting rid of Z beget it?

It has put up with Z & Co for nearly four years; during that period it has effectively controlled the foreign and security policies and continues to do so. The working arrangement was to have respective domains and not cross tracks. That’s Pakistan’s version of civil-military ‘balance’. The military was happy because the arrangement allowed it carte blanche in its areas of deep interest without having to project power overtly which is increasingly problematic; it allowed the civilians a free hand to politick.

With the memo, the civilians encroached on the military’s domain. Perfectly legitimate going by the normative belief in civilian supremacy but unrealistic given both the power configuration and the otherwise complete abdication of foreign and security policies to the military. You can’t go into mortal combat unprepared and you can’t, when you didn’t even try to salami-slice the military’s power, attempt a major, frontal assault on its centre of gravity.

It was bound to fail and now that the purported plan has been outed, the military has unsheathed the bayonet. Yet, and that’s what I find fascinating, the military knows its limitations and the civilians, their power. If this game is to be played, it has to be one of brinkmanship involving shared risk. The prime minister, unusually, has thrown down the gauntlet. He knows the military cannot get rid of Z constitutionally. But he has also signalled to them that the military can’t take out Z but live with the PPP. If Z goes, so does the PPP. And if the PPP goes, it will create a political crisis.

If the military is smart, it won’t pick up the gauntlet.

By standing up to the military, Gilani is not saying we want to fight with you but indicating the possibility of going back to the original arrangement and finishing the term as per the earlier script. He is also relying on the military’s appreciation that instability also hurts its core interests, especially at a time when the GHQ is having a face-off with the United States.

The military can rely on the PPP’s growing unpopularity and a strategy that combines the political opposition to the PPP, the judiciary and sections of the media. But that still does not count for much short of finding some way of ‘convincing’ Z that he must leave. That is unlikely. The military’s option then is to either do something that would help the PPP’s shrinking political capital or do the smarter thing and find a modus vivendi and let the PPP go into the next elections and get a fair drubbing at the hustings.

The possibility of a compromise therefore still exists. And if one were to be reached, we should, in the days to come, either see a bilateral meeting between Kayani and Gilani or even one involving Z. Interesting days ahead.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 24^th, 2011.