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The Army Today
By Ahmad Faruqui
Monday, 12 Oct, 2009
The Pakistani Army’s war against the Taliban continues to make headlines. But there are several other reasons for the global interest in that institution. The army is one of the world’s largest and it has access to nuclear weapons.
It has fought three major wars with India and a few minor ones. Courtesy of four coups, it has ruled the country for more than half its history. And it maintains a sizeable presence in the economy.
Brian Cloughley’s History of the Pakistan Army has just gone into its third edition and that makes him eminently qualified to rate the army’s combat effectiveness. He is a Briton who served as a colonel in the Australian army.
In Brian’s view, ‘The army is combat-effective, with the caveat that there is always room for improvement. One problem is that large-scale exercises are extremely expensive. Given the fuel consumption of armoured units, for example, the bill for a division-sized exercise becomes astronomical, and Pakistan can’t afford it. So, although the army is very good, it is suffering from lack of large-scale training.’
Of course, this lack of training could hide major weaknesses such as the ones the army has manifested in prior wars. For example, poor coordination of armour and infantry units blunted Pakistan’s counter-attack in the Kasur-Khem Karan sector in 1965 forcing Pakistan to the ceasefire table faster than anyone would have expected. But Brian felt such blunders were unlikely to be repeated.
I asked him whether the army had improved in the past decade. Brian said the army had been improving since Gen Beg’s tenure as army chief. He ‘encouraged wider thinking about tactics’. In particular, a much better logistics chain was established and ‘contributed immensely to the army’s warfighting capabilities’.
I asked him whether the army had learned much from the 1971 war. Given the one-sided nature of that war, Brian said the war yielded ‘little of tactical importance’. But a strategic lesson was learned, that ‘there is no point in going to war unless you are absolutely certain you have the capability to win’.
I asked him if there was a spirit of critical inquiry in today’s army. He said there were some very critical minds in the army and that some of the corps commanders’ meetings had been very argumentative. He pointed out those generals could speak up without risking their careers since only one or two were going to get the fourth star.
He said that training at the two-star level and above was ‘very good’ but added that there was no way of knowing how today’s generals would perform in future wars. He also expressed a concern about ‘the standard of junior officers themselves. They are promoted too quickly and don’t serve with soldiers for long enough as lieutenants’.
I asked him about the army’s equipment. He said, ‘You will never get a soldier admitting that there are no equipment problems — probably because there are always some sort of problems, but from boots to tanks, things work, and that’s what matters.’
He added that in the past a major problem was that most of the critical, high-powered equipment was imported. Now, about a third of the tanks were produced indigenously and the US M-113 armoured personnel carriers had been modified and were being built from scratch. The army is almost self-sufficient in ammunition and aerial bombs. But all of the artillery continues to be imported.
I asked what threats preoccupy the army. He said terrorism and anarchy in the tribal areas: ‘The army had to retrain almost from scratch to meet the new challenge and it has done remarkably well in completely altering the training priority and emphasis in such a short period.’
Of course, the army contends that it continues to face a major threat along the Indian border and finding a ‘balance between commitment to NWFP/Fata and maintaining a credible deterrent in the east is difficult’. India continues to voice threats that any act of terror that originates from Pakistan will be followed by a short intense war. However, Brian is convinced that ‘nobody could say that such a war would be short. It would almost certainly go nuclear very quickly’. To me, that raises the issue of why Pakistan needs to have such a large army now that it has gone overtly nuclear.
I asked if the army had concluded that national governance was not in its best interest since it detracted from its primary function. He said yes but qualified it by saying that if the army senses that the country is faced with a total breakdown, it may step in.
The problem, in my opinion, is that it has always used this excuse to seize power in the past. One can only hope that if the army steps in for a fifth time, it will break from past practice and only stay in power long enough to hold elections and transfer power to the elected representatives.
I asked Brian if the army was able to carry out joint operations with the air force and the navy. He said jointness continued to be an area that needed improvement even though PAF–army cooperation had improved markedly in the recent war against the Taliban.
Brian added that true jointness would only arise when Pakistan appointed a chief of defence force (as is the case in the UK and the UK) but conceded that he did not see that happening any time soon. When asked to compare the Pakistani and Indian armies, he said the two were very similar with Pakistan having ‘an edge in quality of armour. This might appear strange, but is caused by India’s obsession with the ‘indigenous’ (foreign-engined) tank, the Arjun, which is a disaster’. He added, in so far as training and general professionalism were concerned, ‘I would be happy to serve in either army. You can’t get a greater compliment than that.’
Finally, I asked him to name the main weakness of the army. He said, ‘The army suffers from a shortage of junior officers, and especially from a dearth of high-quality junior officers. This is going to have a debilitating effect as time goes on. The obvious answer is to make the career more attractive — that is, better pay. But it is impossible for the public sector to pay comparable salaries to those offered to graduates by commercial enterprises.’
Over all, the army got really good marks from Brian. Perhaps it has learned its lessons.
DAWN.COM | Pakistan | The army today
****************************************
Tomorrow’s army
By Ahmad Faruqui
In my last article, I reported on my discussion with Col (retd) Brian Cloughley, a historian of the Pakistani Army, about the latter’s combat effectiveness. In this article I conclude that conversation by talking about the army’s future.
I asked him whether the army will be facing the same threats five years out as it does now. After protesting that he did not have a crystal ball, he noted that terrorism will continue to be a threat ‘and there will almost certainly be a continuing requirement for the army to police the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and the Northwest Frontier Province. As to the Indian threat — who knows? The nationalist extremists are now on the outer in India, but this could change. And the Indians are resolutely refusing to engage in dialogue, so there can be no dropping of guard’.
I asked if a time would come when Indians and Pakistanis will have routine exchanges of general officers and maybe even hold joint training exercises. After all, no less a military figure than President Field Marshal Ayub Khan had offered a joint defence pact to President Nehru in the late 1950s.
Brian said he very much doubted it and reminded me that Nehru had countered Ayub by saying: ‘Joint against whom?’ He said Nehru thought he was being clever but instead he was being arrogant and short-sighted. A real opportunity for peace was lost and increasing friction between the two siblings ultimately led to war in 1965.
I noted that Ayub Khan not only skipped the war in his memoirs, Friends, Not Masters, he also skipped it in his diaries which cover the period from 1966 to 1972. Brian said that he was not surprised by the omission: ‘It was a very poorly planned war. Operation Gibraltar was a shambles, to begin with.’
Ayub Khan, who had boasted that Pakistan was the Prussia of the subcontinent, knew that better than anyone else but his ego would not let him admit to the fact. This is borne out in a book written by G.W. Choudhury, one of the general’s cabinet ministers. In The Last Days of United Pakistan he says he met Gen Ayub when the latter was in the US for medical treatment after being deposed from power.
Choudhury says he asked him whether the usual procedure for debating both sides of the issue had not been followed with respect to the crucial decision to launch the war in Kashmir. The general answered: ‘Please do not rub in my weakest and fatal point.’
Returning to the army’s future, I asked Brian if the force structure, training regimen and equipment inventory of the army were adequate for dealing with changing threats. He said the army was flexible enough to cope with changing circumstances but that such changes would require time. He said even the US army was finding it difficult to change with changing circumstances, as seen by its performance in Afghanistan and earlier in Iraq.
Turning to the issue of Kashmir, I asked Brian if the army had finally concluded that it was a bad idea to keep on fighting a proxy war in Indian-held territories. He said he did not know for sure but was confident that under Musharraf the army had stopped supporting militants such as those of the Lashkar-i-Taiba ‘for good in 2002’.
Since Pakistan’s military failures can all be traced to poor generalship, I asked the army’s leading historian what criteria were used to promote general officers. He said that normal criteria were used such as competence, flexibility and good command record. Also, he said, ‘card-carrying fundos’ had been told to not bother applying.
A key unknown is whether the army, with its British heritage, will begin to resemble the American army with whom it has been engaged in a variety of cooperative endeavours during the past few years.
Brian seemed to think so, saying that the Americans were very keen to have it resemble the US army. He noted the Pakistan Air Force had already changed its badges of ranks and that younger officers in all services would like to go the American way in order to acquire the modern look.
I asked him if any obvious changes were going to occur in the Indian army during the next five years. He said the Indian army was short by 13,000 officers and that it may seek to eliminate that shortage but the cost could be prohibitive and it was becoming difficult to recruit junior officers. He also expected that army to improve its communications and domestic arrangements.
Since so much of the future depends on the quality of instruction, I asked him to comment on the curriculum at the Pakistan Military Academy (PMA) in Kakul. He said it was very good and that the PMA was a well-run and efficient place. Turning to the Command and Staff College in Quetta, where mid-level officers are trained, he said it was a world-class institution with one weakness: ‘A tendency to go for what we call the DS (Directing Staff) solution rather than take the risk of indulging in original thought.’
He added that the National Defence University, where flag officers were trained, was excellent, with ‘some first-class brains and thoroughly professional coursework’. And he was very complimentary of the faculty of contemporary studies.
In closing, I returned to Pakistan’s longstanding problem with India and asked whether a change in attitude on Pakistan’s part, especially on Kashmir, would change the military dynamic between the two countries. He quipped that he ‘would like to think that waving a wand over Kashmir would instantly create sweetness and light between India and Pakistan, but the legacy of 60 years of distrust — hatred, really — cannot be eradicated.’
Brian added that as best as he could tell, only businessmen on both sides seem interested in having normal relations between the two countries. In the present circumstances, he seemed to think war was unlikely but if the hard-core nationalists prevailed in India, a future war could not be ruled out. Of course, war could also break out if Pakistan’s future leaders, whether civilian or military, embarked on another misguided adventure.
The discussion concluded on a dour and dank note: ‘The development of nuclear weapons by both countries was supposed to be a deterrent but if a war breaks out, it will deter no one. It [is] doubtful that either nation would alter its current policy towards the other. The guns will stay in position while people starve.’
AhmadFaruqui@gmail.com
DAWN.COM | Pakistan | Tomorrow?s army
By Ahmad Faruqui
Monday, 12 Oct, 2009
The Pakistani Army’s war against the Taliban continues to make headlines. But there are several other reasons for the global interest in that institution. The army is one of the world’s largest and it has access to nuclear weapons.
It has fought three major wars with India and a few minor ones. Courtesy of four coups, it has ruled the country for more than half its history. And it maintains a sizeable presence in the economy.
Brian Cloughley’s History of the Pakistan Army has just gone into its third edition and that makes him eminently qualified to rate the army’s combat effectiveness. He is a Briton who served as a colonel in the Australian army.
In Brian’s view, ‘The army is combat-effective, with the caveat that there is always room for improvement. One problem is that large-scale exercises are extremely expensive. Given the fuel consumption of armoured units, for example, the bill for a division-sized exercise becomes astronomical, and Pakistan can’t afford it. So, although the army is very good, it is suffering from lack of large-scale training.’
Of course, this lack of training could hide major weaknesses such as the ones the army has manifested in prior wars. For example, poor coordination of armour and infantry units blunted Pakistan’s counter-attack in the Kasur-Khem Karan sector in 1965 forcing Pakistan to the ceasefire table faster than anyone would have expected. But Brian felt such blunders were unlikely to be repeated.
I asked him whether the army had improved in the past decade. Brian said the army had been improving since Gen Beg’s tenure as army chief. He ‘encouraged wider thinking about tactics’. In particular, a much better logistics chain was established and ‘contributed immensely to the army’s warfighting capabilities’.
I asked him whether the army had learned much from the 1971 war. Given the one-sided nature of that war, Brian said the war yielded ‘little of tactical importance’. But a strategic lesson was learned, that ‘there is no point in going to war unless you are absolutely certain you have the capability to win’.
I asked him if there was a spirit of critical inquiry in today’s army. He said there were some very critical minds in the army and that some of the corps commanders’ meetings had been very argumentative. He pointed out those generals could speak up without risking their careers since only one or two were going to get the fourth star.
He said that training at the two-star level and above was ‘very good’ but added that there was no way of knowing how today’s generals would perform in future wars. He also expressed a concern about ‘the standard of junior officers themselves. They are promoted too quickly and don’t serve with soldiers for long enough as lieutenants’.
I asked him about the army’s equipment. He said, ‘You will never get a soldier admitting that there are no equipment problems — probably because there are always some sort of problems, but from boots to tanks, things work, and that’s what matters.’
He added that in the past a major problem was that most of the critical, high-powered equipment was imported. Now, about a third of the tanks were produced indigenously and the US M-113 armoured personnel carriers had been modified and were being built from scratch. The army is almost self-sufficient in ammunition and aerial bombs. But all of the artillery continues to be imported.
I asked what threats preoccupy the army. He said terrorism and anarchy in the tribal areas: ‘The army had to retrain almost from scratch to meet the new challenge and it has done remarkably well in completely altering the training priority and emphasis in such a short period.’
Of course, the army contends that it continues to face a major threat along the Indian border and finding a ‘balance between commitment to NWFP/Fata and maintaining a credible deterrent in the east is difficult’. India continues to voice threats that any act of terror that originates from Pakistan will be followed by a short intense war. However, Brian is convinced that ‘nobody could say that such a war would be short. It would almost certainly go nuclear very quickly’. To me, that raises the issue of why Pakistan needs to have such a large army now that it has gone overtly nuclear.
I asked if the army had concluded that national governance was not in its best interest since it detracted from its primary function. He said yes but qualified it by saying that if the army senses that the country is faced with a total breakdown, it may step in.
The problem, in my opinion, is that it has always used this excuse to seize power in the past. One can only hope that if the army steps in for a fifth time, it will break from past practice and only stay in power long enough to hold elections and transfer power to the elected representatives.
I asked Brian if the army was able to carry out joint operations with the air force and the navy. He said jointness continued to be an area that needed improvement even though PAF–army cooperation had improved markedly in the recent war against the Taliban.
Brian added that true jointness would only arise when Pakistan appointed a chief of defence force (as is the case in the UK and the UK) but conceded that he did not see that happening any time soon. When asked to compare the Pakistani and Indian armies, he said the two were very similar with Pakistan having ‘an edge in quality of armour. This might appear strange, but is caused by India’s obsession with the ‘indigenous’ (foreign-engined) tank, the Arjun, which is a disaster’. He added, in so far as training and general professionalism were concerned, ‘I would be happy to serve in either army. You can’t get a greater compliment than that.’
Finally, I asked him to name the main weakness of the army. He said, ‘The army suffers from a shortage of junior officers, and especially from a dearth of high-quality junior officers. This is going to have a debilitating effect as time goes on. The obvious answer is to make the career more attractive — that is, better pay. But it is impossible for the public sector to pay comparable salaries to those offered to graduates by commercial enterprises.’
Over all, the army got really good marks from Brian. Perhaps it has learned its lessons.
DAWN.COM | Pakistan | The army today
****************************************
Tomorrow’s army
By Ahmad Faruqui
In my last article, I reported on my discussion with Col (retd) Brian Cloughley, a historian of the Pakistani Army, about the latter’s combat effectiveness. In this article I conclude that conversation by talking about the army’s future.
I asked him whether the army will be facing the same threats five years out as it does now. After protesting that he did not have a crystal ball, he noted that terrorism will continue to be a threat ‘and there will almost certainly be a continuing requirement for the army to police the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and the Northwest Frontier Province. As to the Indian threat — who knows? The nationalist extremists are now on the outer in India, but this could change. And the Indians are resolutely refusing to engage in dialogue, so there can be no dropping of guard’.
I asked if a time would come when Indians and Pakistanis will have routine exchanges of general officers and maybe even hold joint training exercises. After all, no less a military figure than President Field Marshal Ayub Khan had offered a joint defence pact to President Nehru in the late 1950s.
Brian said he very much doubted it and reminded me that Nehru had countered Ayub by saying: ‘Joint against whom?’ He said Nehru thought he was being clever but instead he was being arrogant and short-sighted. A real opportunity for peace was lost and increasing friction between the two siblings ultimately led to war in 1965.
I noted that Ayub Khan not only skipped the war in his memoirs, Friends, Not Masters, he also skipped it in his diaries which cover the period from 1966 to 1972. Brian said that he was not surprised by the omission: ‘It was a very poorly planned war. Operation Gibraltar was a shambles, to begin with.’
Ayub Khan, who had boasted that Pakistan was the Prussia of the subcontinent, knew that better than anyone else but his ego would not let him admit to the fact. This is borne out in a book written by G.W. Choudhury, one of the general’s cabinet ministers. In The Last Days of United Pakistan he says he met Gen Ayub when the latter was in the US for medical treatment after being deposed from power.
Choudhury says he asked him whether the usual procedure for debating both sides of the issue had not been followed with respect to the crucial decision to launch the war in Kashmir. The general answered: ‘Please do not rub in my weakest and fatal point.’
Returning to the army’s future, I asked Brian if the force structure, training regimen and equipment inventory of the army were adequate for dealing with changing threats. He said the army was flexible enough to cope with changing circumstances but that such changes would require time. He said even the US army was finding it difficult to change with changing circumstances, as seen by its performance in Afghanistan and earlier in Iraq.
Turning to the issue of Kashmir, I asked Brian if the army had finally concluded that it was a bad idea to keep on fighting a proxy war in Indian-held territories. He said he did not know for sure but was confident that under Musharraf the army had stopped supporting militants such as those of the Lashkar-i-Taiba ‘for good in 2002’.
Since Pakistan’s military failures can all be traced to poor generalship, I asked the army’s leading historian what criteria were used to promote general officers. He said that normal criteria were used such as competence, flexibility and good command record. Also, he said, ‘card-carrying fundos’ had been told to not bother applying.
A key unknown is whether the army, with its British heritage, will begin to resemble the American army with whom it has been engaged in a variety of cooperative endeavours during the past few years.
Brian seemed to think so, saying that the Americans were very keen to have it resemble the US army. He noted the Pakistan Air Force had already changed its badges of ranks and that younger officers in all services would like to go the American way in order to acquire the modern look.
I asked him if any obvious changes were going to occur in the Indian army during the next five years. He said the Indian army was short by 13,000 officers and that it may seek to eliminate that shortage but the cost could be prohibitive and it was becoming difficult to recruit junior officers. He also expected that army to improve its communications and domestic arrangements.
Since so much of the future depends on the quality of instruction, I asked him to comment on the curriculum at the Pakistan Military Academy (PMA) in Kakul. He said it was very good and that the PMA was a well-run and efficient place. Turning to the Command and Staff College in Quetta, where mid-level officers are trained, he said it was a world-class institution with one weakness: ‘A tendency to go for what we call the DS (Directing Staff) solution rather than take the risk of indulging in original thought.’
He added that the National Defence University, where flag officers were trained, was excellent, with ‘some first-class brains and thoroughly professional coursework’. And he was very complimentary of the faculty of contemporary studies.
In closing, I returned to Pakistan’s longstanding problem with India and asked whether a change in attitude on Pakistan’s part, especially on Kashmir, would change the military dynamic between the two countries. He quipped that he ‘would like to think that waving a wand over Kashmir would instantly create sweetness and light between India and Pakistan, but the legacy of 60 years of distrust — hatred, really — cannot be eradicated.’
Brian added that as best as he could tell, only businessmen on both sides seem interested in having normal relations between the two countries. In the present circumstances, he seemed to think war was unlikely but if the hard-core nationalists prevailed in India, a future war could not be ruled out. Of course, war could also break out if Pakistan’s future leaders, whether civilian or military, embarked on another misguided adventure.
The discussion concluded on a dour and dank note: ‘The development of nuclear weapons by both countries was supposed to be a deterrent but if a war breaks out, it will deter no one. It [is] doubtful that either nation would alter its current policy towards the other. The guns will stay in position while people starve.’
AhmadFaruqui@gmail.com
DAWN.COM | Pakistan | Tomorrow?s army
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