Military rules damaged Army's image: Gen Abbas
RAWALPINDI (Online) - The rules of Gen Ayub Khan, Gen Yahya Khan, Gen Ziaul Haq and Gen Pervez Musharraf had badly damaged the image of Armed Forces.
This point of view is presented by Director-General Inter Services Public Relations Maj-Gen Athar Abbas in an article available at ISPRs website. Following is the text of the article:
Countries with a colonial past, find democratic institutions struggling hard against heavy odds for a variety of reasons. The political institutions i.e. political parties do not develop in the developing countries because societal cleavages are too strong, said Professor SP Huntington, Political order in Changing Societies, 1968.
The founding father envisaged Pakistan as a sovereign, modern and democratic state based on the principles of equality and justice. The failure of successive governments to establish a tolerant political culture, viable political system and good governance has driven people to a state of disillusionment. The rapidly changing global politico-economic environments demand all stakeholders realise the challenges of new security paradigm. Any failure to do so would seriously affect our national integration and may result in destabilisation of the state and society.
In the past we have tried various systems but have not succeeded. The stunted development of our political system is mainly due to the fact that initially our state developed as a security state due to incomplete partition and no urgency was felt to have a constitution. Subsequent corruption and incompetence led to frequent near collapse situations making way for military interventions. As soon as military took over, realising that it could do better, it tended to prolong the stay in power. This led to concentration of power in one hand and eroded the system of checks and balances - which is the spirit of a democratic system.
A state needs a military powerful enough to defend itself, but it must also ensure that its coercive arm does not become a threat to itself:
The civil-military challenge is to reconcile a military strong enough to do anything the civilians ask with a military sub ordinate enough to do only what civilian authorise.
Huntington evolved two types of control - subjective and objective. While the subjective definition of civilian control presupposes a conflict between civilian control and the need for military security, whereas, objective control denotes maximising of military professionalism.
The large number, varied character and conflicting interests of civilian groups make it difficult to maximise their power as a whole with respect to the military. Consequently, maximising of civilian power always means maximising of the power of some particular civilian group or groups.
The general relationship between power, professionalism and ideology make possible five different types of civil-military relations (CMRs).
Anti Military ideology, High Military Political Power, and Low Military Professionalism: This type of CMR is found in more primitive countries where military profession has been retorted or in more advance countries where security threats are suddenly intensified and the military rapidly increases their political power. Examples are Asia, Latin America. Turkey removed officers from politics and concentrated on professional behaviour and outlook. Japan is another example, maintaining this pattern of CMR over a long period of time. It was, however, characteristic of Germany during World War 1 and United States during World War II.
Anti Military Ideology, Low Military Political Power and Low Military Professionalism: It appears where the ideology of society is so intensely pursued that it is impossible for the military to escape its influence no matter how far they reduce their political power.
Military rules damaged Army's image: Gen Abbas | Pakistan | News | Newspaper | Daily | English | Online
RAWALPINDI (Online) - The rules of Gen Ayub Khan, Gen Yahya Khan, Gen Ziaul Haq and Gen Pervez Musharraf had badly damaged the image of Armed Forces.
This point of view is presented by Director-General Inter Services Public Relations Maj-Gen Athar Abbas in an article available at ISPRs website. Following is the text of the article:
Countries with a colonial past, find democratic institutions struggling hard against heavy odds for a variety of reasons. The political institutions i.e. political parties do not develop in the developing countries because societal cleavages are too strong, said Professor SP Huntington, Political order in Changing Societies, 1968.
The founding father envisaged Pakistan as a sovereign, modern and democratic state based on the principles of equality and justice. The failure of successive governments to establish a tolerant political culture, viable political system and good governance has driven people to a state of disillusionment. The rapidly changing global politico-economic environments demand all stakeholders realise the challenges of new security paradigm. Any failure to do so would seriously affect our national integration and may result in destabilisation of the state and society.
In the past we have tried various systems but have not succeeded. The stunted development of our political system is mainly due to the fact that initially our state developed as a security state due to incomplete partition and no urgency was felt to have a constitution. Subsequent corruption and incompetence led to frequent near collapse situations making way for military interventions. As soon as military took over, realising that it could do better, it tended to prolong the stay in power. This led to concentration of power in one hand and eroded the system of checks and balances - which is the spirit of a democratic system.
A state needs a military powerful enough to defend itself, but it must also ensure that its coercive arm does not become a threat to itself:
The civil-military challenge is to reconcile a military strong enough to do anything the civilians ask with a military sub ordinate enough to do only what civilian authorise.
Huntington evolved two types of control - subjective and objective. While the subjective definition of civilian control presupposes a conflict between civilian control and the need for military security, whereas, objective control denotes maximising of military professionalism.
The large number, varied character and conflicting interests of civilian groups make it difficult to maximise their power as a whole with respect to the military. Consequently, maximising of civilian power always means maximising of the power of some particular civilian group or groups.
The general relationship between power, professionalism and ideology make possible five different types of civil-military relations (CMRs).
Anti Military ideology, High Military Political Power, and Low Military Professionalism: This type of CMR is found in more primitive countries where military profession has been retorted or in more advance countries where security threats are suddenly intensified and the military rapidly increases their political power. Examples are Asia, Latin America. Turkey removed officers from politics and concentrated on professional behaviour and outlook. Japan is another example, maintaining this pattern of CMR over a long period of time. It was, however, characteristic of Germany during World War 1 and United States during World War II.
Anti Military Ideology, Low Military Political Power and Low Military Professionalism: It appears where the ideology of society is so intensely pursued that it is impossible for the military to escape its influence no matter how far they reduce their political power.
Military rules damaged Army's image: Gen Abbas | Pakistan | News | Newspaper | Daily | English | Online
