Pakistan does not need a ‘Strategy’

Lt Gen (r) Asad Durrani, the former ISI chief, concludes in his memoir, that the way our ‘Uniformed Rulers’ with all the wherewithal of statecraft could not come up with a ‘Grand Design’ for our Nation, the civilian rulers stand no chance of any worthwhile progress.

Here is an excerpt from his memoir ‘Pakistan Adrift’:

“Given the odds Pakistan had to face right from its inception, we may not have done too badly if we have, in fact, managed to muddle through. On this subject, I have often recalled a statement made to me by a Bedouin prince, who was seldom sober, “There is no need for a strategy”. He did not elaborate, and perhaps thinking that he had had one too many, I did not ask him to. But there was no way anyone trained in the military art could take such a brazen decree seriously. As one who had once headed the NDC, an institution that breathes and oozes strategy, for me the Prince’s assertion was blasphemous. A few years later, when I had to reflect on my days in the corridors of power, I wished I had drunk from the same fountain of knowledge. I think what the wise man from the desert was trying to convey to me was that, even if we had a strategy, our actions would still be dictated by the totality of the environment, one’s ability indeed being an important part of it. How did Pakistan fare on that account? All our Bonapartes were different in their disposition and their putsches occurred in different circumstances. If they took similar paths to gain legitimacy and acceptance—such as hiring a legal wizard and assembling a bunch of political opportunists—one could have understood their compulsion, but if they did not have a strategy, in fact, a grand strategy, to live up to the greatness thrust upon them, one could only bow one’s head in deference to the drunken prince. All of them were convinced that they had found the “scarlet thread”, the idea around which a strategic web was woven, and followed it more or less diligently. For Ayub Khan, the focus was on economy; Zia believed in the centrality of religion, even if was only as an expedient tool of politics; and whenever Musharraf talked of strategy—and he did that all the time— he actually meant stratagem. Strategy is indeed all-embracing. Economic development, ideological moorings, and “enlightened moderation”, which was Musharraf’s proclaimed recipe to achieve our Nirvana, might all be essential elements of nation-building, but they are only parts of a strategic whole. Since our uniformed rulers did not have the time, the patience, or the vision to follow a comprehensive course, the gains they made in their selected fields did not endure. (Though Ayub Khan’s achievements were spectacular: the country sustained an economic growth rate of six per cent or more, for three decades—the only country at that time to do so.) If, when exercising total control over all the instruments of state, the military could not come up with a grand design, it would be foolish to expect that while only playing a role from the side-lines, it could do any better than have hit and miss success.”

The Burden of Conscience

I think this can be a good reminder to someone going the Military control way of the statecraft, that soon after the climax, it invariably is an unfathomable chasm of regret.

Air Marshal Asghar Khan former CAS (23 July 1957 – 22 July 1965), known for writing a letter to General Zia ul Haq to take over the country’s affairs from the then Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, writes in his book ‘We Have Learnt Nothing from History’:

The second time when I had the opportunity to meet Mr Jinnah and to hear his views on an important subject was on 14 August 1947 in Karachi. As the Governor-General of Pakistan, he had given a large reception on the lawns of the Governor-General’s House, now the Governor’s House, in Karachi. I was among the dozen or so officers of the armed forces invited and one of the others was Lt Colonel (later Major-General) Akbar Khan of ‘Rawalpindi Conspiracy’ fame. Akbar Khan suggested that we should talk with the Quaid-i-Azam. The Quaid was moving around meeting his guests and when he came near us he asked us how we were. Akbar Khan replied that we were very happy that he had succeeded in creating a free and independent country and we had hoped that under his leadership our genius will be allowed to flower’. He went on to say that we were, however, disappointed that higher posts in the armed forces had been given to British officer who still controlled our destiny. The Quaid who had been listening patiently raised his finger and said, Never forget that you are the servants of the state. You do not make policy. It is we, the people’s representatives, who decide how the country is to be run. Your job is only to obey the decisions of your civilian masters.

Lt. Gen. Gul Hasan, former COAS (20 December 1970 – 2 March 1972), in his Memoirs writes:

In an army, effective leadership at the top makes all the difference between success and failure: so it is with the Pakistan Army. Our environment went askew because Martial Law became a part and parcel of our very existence, thereby burdening the army with the dual tasks of administering the country and defending it in any emergency. I shall frankly state that we failed miserably in both these undertakings. Our commitment to Martial Law was total in 1971, when in spite of the fact that the Army was all-in-all, there was no communication whatsoever between the Government and the General Headquarters. The void was absolute, and it had to be experienced to be believed.
As far as I can foresee, the spectre of Martial Law will be ever-present in Pakistan, unless she produces political leaders who can look beyond provincial horizons, be above-board possess honesty of purpose, command the solid support of the masses, and be genuinely concerned with their welfare and, last but by no means least, be patriots. (The meaning of the last word is a person who loves, supports, and defends his country and its interests.) This would be a tall order for our political community to fulfill, and it will be equally wishful to console ourselves that one fine day the leadership of the Army may decide to devote themselves wholly to their profession. I am not for one moment bracketing the junior officers with the top ranks. In both the wars with India their performance was magnificent, especially those who were in East Pakistan in 1971. In spite of being utterly isolated from the West Wing, harassed by a not-too-friendly population and surrounded by an implacable neighbour, they stood up to the unremitting strain for over six months with a courage and resolve that is not easy to find in the pages of military history. They were let down by their Government and General Head-quarters and their own senior-most commanders.

General K. M. Arif Vice COAS (1984-1987), in Khaki Shadows has this to say:

The Yahya interregnum, traumatic and turbulent, witnessed Pakistan’s defeat in war and the amputation of its Eastem wing. This monumental tragedy has remained an unexplained affair and the truth has still not emerged regarding Pakistan’s disintegration and military surrender. This would expose the political and military blunders made since 1947, a risk not acceptable to the policy makers. The details of the 1971 war have been written by the winning side in which facts have been falsified, with bias injected in the narration rather generously.
The history of failure in war can be summed up in two words: Too late. Pakistan lagged behind events in East Pakistan, lost the initiative, chased shadows and met her doom. Under the inspiring leadership of Sir Winston Churchill, Great Britain had converted the defeat at Dunkirk into victory. Conversely, Pakistan, reeling under the impact of defeat and the stigma of surrender in 1971, naively consigned its political, diplomatic and military skeletons to the safety closets and marked them TOP SECRET.

Lt. Gen. Asad Durrani former DG ISI (1990 – 1991), in Pakistan Adrift says:

By a strange coincidence, I was again in Kohat (on my way to Bannu where I was posted), when in March 1969 Yahya Khan imposed martial law. Something didn’t seem quite right, but it gave me my first taste, or illusion, of power over civilians. For the next few months, I was heading a summary military court and taking to task anyone carrying an unlicensed weapon—the Army’s pet procedure to restore law and order in the country. The problem was that in the two districts under my jurisdiction, Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan, this covered almost everyone. Of course, only those who were on the wrong side of the law (or its enforcers) were charged and produced before me. I don’t think it did much good for law or order, but it did help the civil administration to show khaki rule in a bad light. That the Army lets itself be duped every time it assumes political power, I was to learn much later. That, as a cog in the military machine, one was contributing to such a design became a pretty discomforting thought.

He also says:

The Army’s takeover of political power, whatever else it may have done to the country, never did any good to the service … After the putsch of 1999, [Musharraf] had all the country’s resources at his disposal, but since he mainly trusted the military, he planted members of the armed forces in many important civil institutions, and thus undid most of the good work done in the previous years to cleanse the armed forces of the unmilitary traits… When serving generals started falling for prime land offered at bargain prices and their palatial houses were built by government contractors, one knew that the fish was now rotting from its head.

Operation Northwoods – A plan to create justification for U.S. to attack Cuba.

Operation Northwoods was indeed a plan which entailed use of violence in the streets of the US to create a pretext for waging war against another sovereign country. Some people say that Pearl Harbor and 911 attacks were the manifestation of this plan, but one can never be certain about things until they are declassified. So after the declassification of Operation Northwoods we can say that such a plan was not just a remote possibility. Here I present an excerpt from the book, The Ghost – The Secret Life of CIA Spymaster James Jesus Angleton by Jefferson Morley about this operation.

“The situation was urgent. In a meeting on May 1, 1963, the Joint Chiefs resurrected a secret plan known by the deceptively bucolic code name of NORTHWOODS. The NORTHWOODS plan, first developed after the Bay of Pigs, sought to create a justification, a pretext, for a U.S. invasion of Cuba. Since Castro could no longer be overthrown from within (thanks to Kennedy’s weakness), the only solution was to remove him from without. The idea was to orchestrate a crime that placed the U.S. government “in the apparent position of suffering defensible grievances from a rash and irresponsible government in Havana.” Then the president could declare war and send in the Eighty-second Airborne Division. One NORTHWOODS scenario envisioned the use of violence on the streets of America. “We could develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities, and even in Washington.… The terror campaign could be pointed at Cuban refugees seeking haven in the United States. We could sink a boatload of Cubans en route to Florida (real or simulated).”19 That merciless parenthetical makes it clear that the Pentagon’s planners were willing to kill innocent persons who opposed Castro and to blame their deaths on the Cuban leader in order to justify a U.S. invasion. Kennedy wasn’t interested in socalled pretext operations. When Lyman Lemnitzer had first presented the NORTHWOODS concept at a White House meeting in March 1962, JFK had brusquely rejected it.20 With Castro emboldened in the spring of 1963, the Joint Chiefs revived the NORTHWOODS option. They recommended an “engineered provocation,” which would provide advantages in “control, timing, simplicity, and security.” The chiefs passed their recommendation to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, who ignored it. The Kennedy White House preferred the idea of “autonomous operations” against Castro.”

19. The NORTHWOODS schemes are contained in “Northwoods,” a 197-page compilation of documents from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, discovered and made public by the Assassination Records Review Board in 1997. See NARA JFK JCS RIF 202-10002-10104.
20. Brig. Gen. Edwin Lansdale, “Memorandum for the Record, Meeting with the President,” March 16, 1962, U.S. Department of the Army, Califano Papers, NARA CIA JFK RIF 198-10004-10020.