I somewhat agree to your post. However, keep in mind what happens when a military general or COAS takes bold steps. We shouldn't forget Kargil. The general did a great job to conquer the posts but what happened next was hopeless situation. That same COAS is facing article 6 and was abused nationwide in his regime. Such things have affects on the new Generals we've. They think a million times before taking a step now as majority of our nation is hypocrite. We need to give confidence to our generals when they take such initiatives then things will change In Sha Allah!
I will try my best to keep in strict limits when talking about COAS because there are opportunists on this Forum who jump at first opportunity to malign Pakistan Armed Forces.
What is expected from a Commander whose name is on list for promotion:
(and this works in all cadres of spheres whether military or civilian)
1. The officer is a part of an on-going operation, he is well versed on the issues which will be faced by the Armed Forces in next 2-3 years of the tenure that he will be serving (regardless of being promoted to COAS).
2. The officer thus knows the problems at hand whether is just a Corps Commander or Commandant of a Training institution. He knows he can be shifted to a command or staff position still.
At command position, there are lots more chances that his troops will be fighting insurgency unless he is commanding troops at LOC but he may still have troops that could be required for ops against insurgents.
(e.g. as Commander X-Corps, 111 Indp Inf Bde Brigade or 8th Indp Armd Bde Group can have some units transferred to fight insurgency)
At a staff position, he is leading a department or institution that is indirectly (if not directly) providing either training or doctrines at a very high level to Pakistan Army which are being implemented in the fight against insurgency.
So, at a post of Lt. General in Army, the officer is still involved in the war against insurgency at some level.
3. The officer surely will have ideas, plans, strategies, exercises, meetings of all sorts where Pakistan Army's progress against insurgency and countering terrorism is discussed not just at high level but with his low ranking officers too.
4. When the officer is then promoted to COAS, he must come fully prepared and must have an exhaustive plan to counter terrorism, not just look after Army and its affairs apart from already laid down scenarios against India. Therefore he should be ready to put those plans in action from Day-1. Strike fear in the heart of insurgents and show that he is more ruthless than Ex-COAS in WOT.
He has an example of ex-COAS methodology of countering insurgency in Pakistan and carrying from there, His Day-1 of at his office, he should have consolidated on that, improvised and taken the first step of targeting insurgent camps across border.
The operation against insurgent camps in Afghanistan would have been started in Nov 2016 instead of feb 2017, a delay of 3-4 months. Militarily, even if he needed to mobilise assets, it would not have taken more than 2 weeks to put assets in place for a strike.
Anyways, whats done is done, lets hope for the best.