A need to
redefine
civil-military relations
Contributing Editor, Dr. SHIREEN M. MAZARI looks at the necessity of marking out the parameters of this important issue in the country
Jehangir Karamat's public statement on the need for a National Security Council (NSC) has brought out the institutional malaise that has beset this nation since it has undergone decades of military rule interspersed with democratic breathers. Yet the content of Karamat's suggestion also showed that the military has realised that it is not the panacea to this malaise afflicting the Pakistani state and undermining its interests. One critical facet of Karamat's NSC suggestion was the very fact that he opted to call for an NSC rather than a National Defence and Security Council (NDSC), which would have emphasised an interventionist role by the military into civilian policy making. Instead, he gave out that he was primarily seeking a professional and comprehensive approach to national policy making.
So far so good. But the government's reaction and the subsequent government attempt to make the whole issue one of a civil-military confrontation, in which the civilians had somehow emerged 'victorious', only highlights the underlying problem of civil-military relations. The fact of the matter is that there is a need to substantively redefine civil-military relations in Pakistan. Since the Zia period, the shadow of the military has loomed large over the democratic milieu of the country. Additionally, the periodic interventions to remove democratically elected governments has lent credence to the view that the military, while it may have realised the inefficacy of direct military intervention, continues to call the shots from behind the scenes. The result has been that every government has sought to indulge the military hierarchy and every opposition has used appeals to the military to remove the government of the day.
Even at a micro level, civilian governments have felt the need - nay compulsion - to accommodate retired military personnel in the civilian sector at senior posts, be it in the civil and foreign services or academia and research. Also there is a strange tradition whereby military personnel can move into the civil bureaucracy and educational institutions at will, while there is no movement the other way round. All in all, the military has been given a continued centrality in civilian affairs even with the advent of democracy - only the term now used is 'Establishment', which at times at least includes within it the civilian bureaucracy.
However, this situation needs to be altered and a clearer distinction between the roles of the military and civilian leaderships needs to be defined and institutionalised. This has become even more critical because Pakistan is now a nuclear weapon state which means a clear command and control structure for nuclear decision-making needs to be instituted and maintained. Also, now that security policy refers to a wide spectrum of issues at the policy-making level - from economics to internal security to external security - the civil-military input must be carefully institutionalised. At present there are two grave shortcomings relating to this.
One, the democratically elected rulers tend to ignore democratic institutions like parliament in decision-making and chose to arrive at decisions secretly with inputs coming from a kitchen cabinet rather than elected representatives through debate and discussion. The rulers of the day behave as if the country is their private fiefdom in which they can take any decision they please, with inputs from 'friends' and other private sources. There has also been the erosion of all professionalism from the civil bureaucracy as elected representatives have chosen to play favourites rather than stick to merit and professionalism. As for the increasing need to consult professionals for specialised inputs into policy-making, that is something that the Pakistani politician is blissfully ignorant about. The result has been the haphazard, makeshift and short term policy formulations that do not serve the national interest at all.
Two, while the politicians have been busy with their own confused and personalised agendas, the military institutions have effectively taken over policy-making in certain critical national security issue-areas. The result has been that a parallel government exists, for all practical purposes, in terms of certain foreign policy making - to cite one crucial example. This has not served the national interest either. For when institutions that are meant to operationalise policy make the policy themselves, they have a narrow vision and lack a comprehensiveness that comes from a wider policy input in the civilian sector.
Take the case of Afghanistan. The Afghan policy has primarily been under military control since the Zia period and the result has been that so far Pakistan's national interests have consistently been undermined over Afghanistan. Successive Pakistani governments have been made to support narrow Afghan groups - and now the support of the Taliban to the exclusion of all others is costing Pakistan heavily in terms of its two most critical strategic allies - Iran and China. So obsessed is the military with ensuring the military 'success' of the Taliban that it is dragging Pakistan into a confrontation the country does not need and cannot afford. And this is not including the negative domestic fallout of the Taliban factor in Pakistan itself. But such is the military momentum that it is unable to see the broader picture - nor can it, given the function of military institutions like the ISI. Their role is to operationalise policy - for which they are brilliantly equipped - not make the policy itself. That needs the civilian expertise and input. But presently, for all practical purposes, the ISI has a whole foreign policy section within it and as far as one can gather, there is absolutely no civilian control over this institution in real terms.
This is simply because the political leadership has been so locked into its own internecine feuding that it has not had the time or inclination to assert democratic control over policy-making. The result has been that despite successive elections, there has been no attempt made to rationalise defence policy, expenditures and weapons procurement. Nor can the political elite do this effectively till they institutionalise professional structures to get specialised policy inputs. In that sense, Karamat's call for a NSC had some rational basis.
So what needs to be done, then? To begin with, the civilian leadership simply must get its act together and assert civilian control over all national policy-making, and this it needs to do by developing institutional structures for decision-making. But nothing can begin to happen unless the civilians first learn to institutionalise their own decision-making processes. Democratic institutions like parliament must be strengthened and governments must take decisions after debate and discussion that is open and free. The time for kitchen cabinets in over as is the time for ad hocism in decision-making. In an era of specialisation, experts are now an integral part of decision-making. The politicians in Pakistan need to get that specialised input not only in their decision-making but also in their parliamentary debates and so on.
In other words, it is high time the elected government institutionalised policy making and established a new equation in the civil-military relationship with the former firmly in control of the latter. Policy-making in all issue-areas must be firmly under civilian control, with operationalisation of these policies delegated to the specific institutions - military or civilian. For Clausewitz war was a continuation of politics by other means but now politics - and economics and propaganda, etc. - has become a continuation of war by other means and so now, more than ever before, war is too serious a business to be left to the generals. The nature of war has altered with indirect and unconventional means becoming dominant and all-out military action receding into the background. So it is imperative that there be complete civilian control of the military.
Nowhere is this more important than in the nuclear field, where the prime minister must institutionalise civilian control over the political decision to use nuclear weapons. But such control has to be firmly institutionalised - with the form being discussed and debated amongst experts, both military and civilian. This does not mean that the military would not have a say in policy making. No one can deny them their professional input on security issues. Nor can they be denied the need to maintain operational control of nuclear weapons. But the political control over these weapons and all other facets of security policy must be firmly in the hands of civilians.
Equally important, the military must stick to its sphere of operations and this primacy given to the military even within the civilian bureaucracy must be ended - unless some one military individual is required for his specific expertise in the civilian sector.
And most important of all, the political elite must learn to resolve its own conflicts. The military must not be looked to as an interventionist of last resort within a political crisis. The political system and the political elite must ensure that changes in power happen from within the system - not as a result of military interventions. Nor should the military leadership be dragged into political debates and in-fighting. It is time the civilian ruling elite matured into a nationalist, rational elite so that the military does not feel it has to fill a void that is created every time the political elite begins to ignore national priorities and policy imperatives and treats the country as its own private property. So what is required most of all is an alteration in the psyche of the political elite - as well as the military elite - in order for there to be a much-needed redefining of the civil-military relationship in this now-democratic and nuclear country of Pakistan.
