Civil Military Relations

| Pakistan Affairs |
Civil Military Relations
Civil–military relations (Civ-Mil or CMR) describes the relationship between civil
society as a whole and the military organization or organizations established to
protect it.

Or

Civil-military relations can be defined in terms of a balance between the civilian

and military organization and institutions and their internal cohesiveness.

Concept of Civilian Control

First of all, why is it that the militaries need to be controlled by the civilian
political leadership? The answer lies somewhat close to the piquant (attracting)
observation of the French statesman George Clemenceau that

“The war is too important a business to be left to the generals.”

Paradox of Civil Military Relations

A paradox lies at the center of traditional civil-military relations theory. The
military, an institution designed to protect the polity, must also be strong
enough to threaten the society it serves. A military take-over or coup is a worst-
case example. Ultimately, the military must accept that civilian authorities have the
"right to be wrong". In other words, they may be responsible for carrying out a
policy decision they disagree with. Civilian supremacy over the military is a
complicated matter. The rightness or wrongness of a policy or decision can be
ambiguous.

Theories of Civil Military Relationship

Institutional Theory
Huntington’s main descriptive or empirical claim in The Soldier and the State
was that American civil-military relations have been shaped by three variables:
the external threat, which he called the functional imperative, and two
components of what he called the societal imperative, "the social forces,
ideologies and institutions dominant within the society."

In Huntington’s prescriptive or normative theory, the key to objective control is

"the recognition of autonomous military professionalism," respect for the
independent military sphere of action. Interference or meddling in military affairs
undermines military professionalism and so undermines objective control.

Agency Theory
In this book “Armed Servants”, Peter Feaver proposes an ambitious new theory
that treats civil–military relations as a principal–agent relationship, with the
civilian executive monitoring the actions of military agents, the “armed servants”
of the nation-state. Military obedience is not automatic but depends on
strategic calculations of whether civilians will catch and punish
misbehavior.

Convergence Theory
According to Janowitz, the military would benefit from exactly what Huntington
argued against – outside intervention. Janowitz introduced a theory of
convergence, arguing that the military, despite the extremely slow pace of
change, was in fact changing even without external pressure. Convergence
theory postulated either a civilianization of the military or a militarization of
society. However, despite this convergence, Janowitz insisted that the military
world would retain certain essential differences from the civilian and that it would
remain recognizably military in nature.

Major Problems associated with Civil Military Relations

Culture gap
Alfred Vagts had already begun the discussion from an historical point of view,
concentrating on the German/Prussian military experience. He was perhaps most
influential with his definition of militarism, which he described as the state of a
society that "ranks military institutions and ways above the prevailing
attitudes of civilian life and carries the military mentality into the civilian
sphere."

The gap debate revolved around two related concepts:

1. The notion of a cultural gap, i.e., the differences in the culture, norms, and
values of the military and civilian worlds, and
2. The notion of a connectivity gap, i.e., the lack of contact and
understanding between them.

According to Feaver a military must be strong enough to attain its

objectives and at the same time soft enough in order not to pose a threat to
the society it protects. A military can weaken a society in three primary ways i.e
direct seizure of power, draining of national resources due to high
expenditure on maintenance, and involvement of societies in undesirable
wars.

Civil Military Relationship in Pakistan

Major Factors behind Civil Military Discord
Of Pakistan’s many problems nothing is perhaps as enduring or as debilitating as
the conflictual relationship between its civilian leadership and the military. Unlike
in most democratic countries, Pakistan’s elected civilian government rarely
commands the gun. Scholarly debates and analyses have identified multiple
reasons including weak political institutions and parties, incompetent
political leadership, the entrenched power of the civil-military bureaucracy,
and threats to Pakistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Other contingent factors arising from the country’s demography and geography
contribute to Pakistan’s difficulties, but are rarely given attention for shaping
the civil-military relations, governance and security challenges that the Pakistani
state has faced from the onset. The imperatives of geography, demography and
security play a critical but varying role in shaping relations between civilian and
military leaders in other countries as well.

Weak institutions are often attributed to the lack of well-established political

parties headed by competent leaders. This, in turn, has failed to develop the basis
for a robust and effective political and constitutional system, seriously impeding
the government’s ability to respond to a myriad of internal and external
challenges it faces related to national cohesion and integration, ethnic
tensions, sectarianism, regional inequalities and international relations. In
this space the bureaucratic military elite has become steadily more assertive,
increasing its power at the expense of the country’s political elite.

The proxy wars between the United States and the Soviet Union in
Afghanistan following occupation in 1979 by Russia and after 2001 by the United
States, its allies and the Taliban have made Pakistan an intersection of several
global fault-lines. This, too, has had serious consequences for its economy,
political stability, sovereignty and territorial integrity. Under these conditions, and
in the face of the external threat of aggression and war, the Pakistani military
has been obliged to perform its constitutional duty to ensure national
security and unity, and to assist the government in its humanitarian
mission. The conditions in Afghanistan, over which Pakistan has no real control,
have compounded the problems of chronic political instability and difficult civil-
military relations. Most serious political challenge facing Pakistan concerns the
conflict in Afghanistan, which, like the other disputes, also shares a significant
demographic dimension. The Pashtun nation consists of approximately 45
million people. Pakistan is home to 31 million Pashtuns, about 70 percent of
the population, with Afghanistan home to another 14 million or about 30 percent.

Military of Pakistan
The military is Pakistan’s most trusted, disciplined and cohesive Institution. Its
composition closely corresponds to Pakistan’s demography. At 57 percent
Punjabis make the majority followed by Sindhis, 17 percent; Pasthun, 15
percent; Kashmiris, 9 percent; and Balochis, 3 percent.

Retrospect of Civil Military Relations in Pakistan

1947 to 1958 Junior Partner
Throughout the 70-year history of Pakistan, democracy has suffered the most. The
country experienced either martial laws or intermittent phases of defective
democracy. The latter comprised rigged elections, controlled media and
compromised civil and political liberties. Though the character of civil-military
relations (CMR) was ‘proto-democratized’ during 1947-51, whereby politicians and
political parties struggled to survive in the nascent republic, it ‘bureaucratized’
under the civil bureaucracy that controlled Pakistan during 1951-58. The military
acted as junior partner in this period as far as national politics was concerned. It,
however, assumed the principal position in Pakistani politics and polity
through its first coup in October 1958.

Militarization
From 1958 till 1971, the contours of civil-military relations reflected a ‘militarized’
character where military means were employed to silence dissident political
parties and politicians (Fatima Jinnah). Ironically, however, the dilemma of
Pakistani politics and democracy, for that matter, only consolidated when a
section of politicians, civil bureaucracy and the judiciary rationally allied
with the military regime and provided it much needed political, constitutional
and legal legitimacy.
King’s Party Rule (1958-1968)
Little wonder, from Muslim League (Council) of the Ayub era to Muslim League
(Quaid-i-Azam) of Musharraf era, the presence of the King’s party on Pakistan’s
political landscape has reflected, on the one hand, the self-centered politicians
and, on the other, blatant disregard for democracy and people’s mandate. It
becomes pertinent to mention here the bitter fact that the majority of Pakistani
politicians do not like to visit their constituencies after they are elected. It is due to
such personalistic politicians and parties that Ayub, Zia and Musharraf were able
to ‘civilianize’ the regime. Noticeably, however, civilianization here does not
mean democratization; rather, it implies softening the regime as militarized
relations with the society become counterproductive from the medium to the long
run.

Bonapartised Era (1970-77)

The Bhutto era of the 1970s is conceptualized here as ‘Bonapartised’ type of CMR,
where power and perks were predicated on the personalization of politics and the
state machinery. The establishment of the Federal Security Force (FSF) is a case
in point. Moreover, Bhutto’s affecting the organizational structure of civil
bureaucracy and the military proved cosmetic at best and ill-planned and
unintelligently executed, at worst. Thus, he failed to establish an oversight
mechanism, a prerequisite for establishing civilian control over the men on
horseback. Consequently, not only was his government toppled in a coup in July
1977, he lost his life, too.

Principal ship (1978-2007)

From 1977 until now, the military has successfully guarded its principal ship of the
state, if not society, and staged two coups (1999, 2007) to protect the military-
guided ‘state’ system. During the 1990s, contrary to certain scholarship that
viewed it as ‘decade of democracy’, the civil-military equation was dominated by
the military in terms of ‘presidentalised’ type of civil-military relations whereby
President Ishaq, who basically was a bureaucrat and close aide of General Ziaul
Haq, and President Leghari, a pro-militablishment politician, toppled four civil
governments from 1988-99. During this era of civilian circularity, both Nawaz
Sharif and Benazir Bhutto compromised and, paradoxically, confronted the army
top brass. Both failed to control the army due to two main reasons:

1. The powerful military constrained their choices structurally as well

as institutionally
 2. Both lacked the strategic vision and elite consensus to put Pakistan on
the path of democratization.

Recent Developments
Democratic Transition and Security in in Pakistan (2007-Present)
During 2008-2013, according to recent literature such as “Democratic Transition
and Security in in Pakistan” edited by Shaun Gregory, Pakistan is believed to
have achieved a milestone by successfully transitioning from a military regime to a
democratic civil government. Under the Gillani (Zardari) government, the military
asserted itself institutionally and did not allow the civil side to take control of the
domestic and foreign policy.

Hybridization of Civil Military Relations

In a hybridized type of civil-military relations, the military, for the first time in
Pakistan’s history, is able to have a permanent presence/position on the
Cabinet’s Committee on National Security (CCNS), has military courts (in
non-martial law times) and apex committees, which work as a parallel
structure vis-a-vis provincial cabinets.

Moreover, the Sharif government (2013-2017), in the military’s perspective, was

found to have been interfering in foreign policy, i.e. normalization with India as
well as economic policy i.e. control of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor
(CPEC). Significantly, the military has now assumed institutional role in
governance, security and economic management, thus, not leaving any rationale to
stage a hard coup.

Conclusion
To conclude, it is posited that this mutually reinforcing hybridization negates
democratic transition as well as the transformation, in some radical ways, of
state institutions in Pakistan. Instead, it points to consolidation of ‘defective
democracy’ where the civil-military elites rule, while the public suffers. According
to a recent report, 60 million Pakistanis are drinking arsenic polluted water
whereas half of the 200 million plus population is living on a dollar a day. In
order to survive as a stable society and welfare state, Pakistan’s civil-military elite
need to prefer larger interest of the state and the society now than ever through
the promotion of democratic values, equitable redistribution of resources, women
and minority empowerment, eradication of poverty and, overall, correcting the
otherwise incorrigible civil-military relations. Until this materializes, Pakistan is,
in terms of the mode of governance and typology of civil-military relations, most
likely to oscillate between ‘ hybridized’ and ‘militarized’ structure of imbalanced
relations, with ‘hybridized’ democracy adding more problems to the system, than
providing solutions for betterment. Army-Judiciary role

Addressing a seminar titled ‘The Future of Democracy in Pakistan’, the former

prime minister said that the courts validated martial laws in the country on the
basis of the ‘doctrine of necessity’, adding that a section of the judiciary had always
supported dictators.