The state of civil-military relations

While speculating about the state of civil-military relations, one should keep in mind that we are in a state of war

The March 11 raid at on Nine-Zero, the MQM headquarters, by the Rangers is being seen by many as an indication that it is the military that is taking the lead in dealing with all sorts of criminal elements. If true, what does it say about the civilian authority, its competence and the state of civil-military relationship? Nothing reassuring. In fact, the civilian authority is being perceived, at least in the context of the Karachi crisis, as totally incompetent. And since the raid and the subsequent developments, media reports have started speculating about impending governor’s rule in Sindh. It was in September 2013 that the Supreme Court had ordered the provincial government to clean up Karachi’s criminal clutter and eliminate the militant wings of political parties operating in Karachi. A special committee was constituted with the Sindh chief minister in the chair for supervising the operation. However, even after the lapse of more than a year, the operation could not take off. It was only after it was re-launched in right earnest early this year, following the formation of a high-level apex committee comprising both the prime minister and the army chief, that things seem to have started perking up.

There is lot to be done yet to bring the crime-infested city of Karachi back to normalcy. But the success the military-backed and the Rangers-led operation has achieved so far is not regarded as insignificant. And it is believed that it is the military’s backing of the operation that has made all the difference. Hence, the heightened speculations with regard to the state of civil-military relations. Many believe a soft coup has already been staged under the cover of the dust kicked up by the Imran-Qadri dharna in August last year. And some others keep whispering about what they call the ‘creeping coup’. Operation Zarb-e-Azb was launched in North Waziristan against both the good and the bad Taliban even before talks between the representatives of the government and the TTP had been officially abandoned as futile. The North Waziristan campaign was owned by the civilian authority only after it had begun and that too seemingly reluctantly generating the impression that it was not deemed necessary to consult the civilian authority before launching the campaign.

Next, we see the Army Chief, General Raheel Sharif, and the new Afghan President, Ashraf Ghani, interacting directly and at an unusually great frequency. In fact, on one of his visits to Pakistan, Afghan President Ghani went to the GHQ for a meeting with General Raheel without first calling on the civilian authorities reinforcing the impression that it is the military that is calling the shots vis-a-vis Pakistan’s Afghan policy. And it was the army chief during his visit last year to the US who had successfully negotiated the resumption of the Coalition Support Fund, which had stopped as per prior agreement on December 31, 2014, the cut-off date for the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan. Again, it was General Raheel who while visiting the border region in February, issued a stern warning to the Indians against provocation along the Line of Control and the Working Boundary.

But all said and done, it would be advisable to keep in mind while indulging in speculations about the state of civil-military relations that we are currently in a state of war. We, therefore, at the moment need more of the military’s input in the decision-making process than that of the civilians. We are at the same time traversing a transition phase from military rule to the civilian. During this phase, you simply cannot switch off the military and switch on the civilian authority. It is a long-drawn give-and-take process. The civilians would take their own time in developing capacities to govern and while this is happening, it would need to be business as usual for the army.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 24^th, 2015.

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