Our security situation — a failure of the ruling elite

Government, army achieved new landmarks in five years, but their attitude was far from effective with daily murders.

Am I missing something here? The 158^th formation commanders conference concludes. The army chief rushes to the presidency to meet the president. The presidency issues a one-line statement: “The current security situation in the country was discussed.” The next day, a photograph of the army chief in uniform meeting the president is published in almost all newspapers. The readers are told that the army chief informed the president that the army will be ready to act in aid of civil power if called upon by either the provincial or the federal government in Karachi. To top it all, the president sprints to Karachi to hold a meeting of the ruling party to review the security situation and evaluate the likelihood of deployment of the army in the troubled city. There is nothing new in the sequence of events I have highlighted except that people are now used to these gimmicks of our political and military elite.

Never before in the history of Pakistan has the senior military leadership allowed the continuity of the democratic process. Never before have our assemblies been allowed to complete their constitutional term of five years. It has only been made possible because fiction, not facts, has guided our security concerns. Inaction and not action has been “the collective call of conscience of our political and military elite”. While we will be celebrating the historic occasion of the completion of our 13^th National Assembly’s tenure, we would do well to remind ourselves of what this assembly will really be remembered for. Poor governance, lack of security, failure to stem ethnic and sectarian conflicts, corruption, polarised politics, and above all, the complete failure to establish the writ of the government.

Similarly, the current core set of senior army officers, led by the army chief, will also be less remembered for supporting the democratic process. They will be more remembered for what we call in the army, “the commander’s responsibility to say and do rather than follow the techniques to survive and not follow strategies to fight”. Allowing the death of over 30,000 innocent men, women and children, and over 5,000 security and armed forces personnel is what they will be most remembered for. It is what both the politicians and the army have failed to achieve in the last five years that the people will measure their performance against. If the sustained and deep engagement that the army pursued with the government was equally replicated in pursuing the national security cause, we would not be where we are today.

Our soldiers have been kidnapped, executed Nazi style, and even had their throats slit. We continue to be regularly “droned”. Americans conducted special forces operations in the heartland of our country. Our air force bases were attacked. Our schools, mosques and residential areas bombed. Yet, as far as we are concerned, no one crossed any red lines. Self-respecting nations value the lives of their citizens and do not allow them to be butchered and massacred. Although our civilian government and the army achieved new landmarks — the former completing its constitutional tenure and the latter taking credit for supporting it to do so — their attitude was far from effective as it accounted for daily murders of innocent civilians and men in uniform. Content with satisfying the people with partial fixes and firefighting that set out none of the fires, both have failed to deliver.

This government and the army that has failed to convince and galvanise it to take bold and result-oriented security decisions must now spare this country with the worst possible setback — postponement of elections. The worsening security condition in Karachi is already indicating that the city is in no shape to subject itself to the electioneering process, both with and without the deployment of the army. While there is no prescription for the ideal way forward, what one can recommend is that the army should be deployed in force only at the time of elections, so that at least the election process is completed without major security breaches. Any military operation in Karachi must only be planned and executed after, and not before, the elections for it will be a recipe for their eventual postponement.

Rumours abound that the already top-heavy army may now have three four-star generals appointed for each regional command. It is also being said that the army chief may take over as the defence commander, who will not only command the army but also the navy and the air force. I only hope that the authority entrusted to bring about this change and promote and appoint senior officers on these positions seeks an answer to one important question before taking this decision. Did we, in the last five years, make Pakistan more secure for the people of this country? If the answer is not in the affirmative, then we need a change in the senior hierarchy of the Pakistan Army and not a continuity, as much as we need a change in the government through the process of elections.

As of today, it is difficult to judge who is the author and promoter of “the strategy of limit and restraint”. Is it the army or the civilian government? For the last five years, the army kept reminding us that it is the civil government that is reluctant to call it in aid of civil power or give it a go-ahead to conduct military operations in the tribal areas. Is this true? One only hopes that the next government gives up, or at least modifies this disorderly, non-delivering strategy of limit and restraint. Five years of deteriorating security conditions in the country suggest that the costs we paid as a nation were for the risks that our political and military elite did not take. There were many stage-managed public stunts but the use of military force as an option to root out terrorism, unfortunately, was seemingly never on the table.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 16^th, 2013.