Realpolitik Books - VI

Fighting to the End

The Pakistan Army's Way of War

Pakistan was founded in 1947 as a British solution to ensure that the followers of Islam were not prejudiced by the Hindu majority of Independent India. This was also the demand of the Muslim League for the right of self governance of Muslims. 

While India adopted to democratic governance. Pakistan fell under the influence of its Military establishment. The contentious territory of Kashmir, which Pakistan wanted and wants till day, to wrest from India, has already caused three major wars - in 1947, 1965 and 1999. Pakistan failed to win any of them. The military establishment of Pakistan was further riled when East Pakistan, the present day Bangladesh, seceded from Pakistan in 1971, with support of direct military intervention by Indian military. Pakistan, lost a major chunk of its territory in that process.

Not succeeding in direct warfare, the army continues to prosecute this dangerous policy by employing non-state actors under the security of its ever-expanding nuclear umbrella. It has sustained a proxy war in Kashmir since 1989 using Islamist militants, as well as supporting non-Islamist insurgencies throughout India and a country-wide Islamist terror campaign that have brought the two countries to the brink of war on several occasions. In addition to these territorial revisionist goals, the Pakistani army has committed itself to resisting India's slow but inevitable rise on the global stage.

Seen from Pakistan's perspective, the repeated attempts to wrest Kashmir is rational even if does not face any Indian intention of capturing Pakistani soil. The military establishment wants to keep India engaged to ensure that India does not become the ruling power in this part of the world. Therefore failed attempts are "honorable and brave Muslims" fighting against "meek and treacherous Hindus". The author after researching the writings of the senior military officers of Pakistan has found this to be central theme of their thought process. Pakistan Army Green Books are replete with arguments of why the Hindu Indian army poses a threat to a resource-wise weaker, but conviction-wise stronger Muslim Pakistan. This postulate has a major error as the Indian army is a multi-religious force, but this is ignored as this does not fit in the ideologue of the Pakistani army.

Pakistan despite being a much weaker country, economically and militarily,  continues to see itself as India's equal and demands the world do the same. The dangerous methods that the army uses to enforce this self-perception have brought international opprobrium upon Pakistan and its army. And in recent years, their erstwhile proxies have turned their guns on the Pakistani state itself.

While India has not been able to deter Pakistan from launching terrorist attacks, Pakistan has been able to do little to acquire what it wants. The author is not optimistic about any possibility of change in the mindset of Pakistani military authorities. 

Why does the army persist in pursuing these revisionist policies that have come to imperil the very viability of the state itself, from which the army feeds? In Fighting to the End, C. Christine Fair argues that the answer lies, at least partially, in the strategic culture of the army. Through an unprecedented analysis of decades' worth of the army's own defense publications, she concludes that from the army's distorted view of history, it is victorious as long as it can resist India's purported drive for regional hegemony as well as the territorial status quo. Simply put, acquiescence means defeat. Fighting to the End convincingly shows that because the army is unlikely to abandon these preferences, Pakistan will remain a destabilizing force in world politics for the foreseeable future.

At the time of writing this book, the author, Carol Christine Fair was an associate professor at the Center for Peace and Security Studies (CPASS), within Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign service. 

Namaste

Prabir