The Armed Forces of Pakistan

240 Pages·2003·1.87 MB·English

by  Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema

THE ARMED FORCES OF PAKISTAN
The Armed Forces of Asia
Series editor: Professor Desmond Ball, Strategic and
Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University
This groundbreaking series is the first to examine the
military capabilities of nations in Asia. Spanning the arc
from Pakistan in the west to the Russian Far East in the
north, each book provides a succinct survey of each
service of the armed forces, including territorial and
paramilitaryformations.Writtenbymilitaryanddefence
strategy experts from around the world, the booksassess
the role of the armed forces in relation to national
defence and security policy, and their social, political
and economic functions. Up-to-the-minute research is
drawn upon to present, in many cases, the first unclassi-
fied accounts of nations’ defensive and offensive
capabilities, as well as the ambitions of sectors within
the armed forces establishments.
The Armed Forces of Asia series
You Ji China
James Rolfe New Zealand
Joseph Bermudez Jr North Korea
Greg Austin & Russia in Asia
Alexey D. Muraviev
Tim Huxley Singapore
Stanley Weeks & The USA in the
Charles Meconis Asia–Pacific Region
THE
ARMED FORCES
OF PAKISTAN
PERVAIZ IQBAL CHEEMA
First publishedin 2002
Copyright (cid:1) Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema 2001
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Cataloguing-in-Publicationentry:
Cheema, PervaizIqbal, 1940– .
The armed forces of Pakistan.
Bibliography.
Includesindex.
ISBN 1 86508 119 1.
1. Pakistan—ArmedForces. I. Title.(Series : Armed
forces of Asia).
355.309549
Maps by Ian Faulkner
Set in 12/13.5 pt Trumpby MidlandTypesetters,Victoria
Printedby South Wind Production(Singapore) Private Limited
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Dedicated to the memory of
my father (the late Ch. Mohammad Iqbal Cheema)
and my father-in-law (the late Dr M. A. Alvie)

Foreword
Professor Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema, Pakistan’s leading stra-
tegic and defence analyst, is probably the only person
who could have written an authoritative, comprehen-
sive, detailed and balanced account of Pakistan’s armed
forces. The subject is vast, complex and controversial
and has heretofore defied rendition in a single volume.
With a total active armed forces exceeding 600 000
and a reserve of more than half a million, Pakistan has
one of the ten largest armed forces in the world. But its
defence expenditure accounts for almost one-quarter of
government spending, and has undoubtedly contributed
to the country’s perennial economic difficulties.
Pakistan has the eighth largest nuclear weapons
capability in the world. Its Ghauri missile has a range
of 1500 kilometres. However, its nuclear command and
control system is fairly primitive—it is vulnerable, has
little redundancy and poor technical capability, and
invites pre-emption in crisis situations. It also raises the
spectre of inadvertent or unauthorised use of nuclear
weapons.
The subcontinent is prone to wars and crisis situa-
tions. In addition to the three major wars between
Pakistan and India—the wars over Kashmir in 1947–49
and in 1965, and the 1971 war which resulted in the
dismemberment of East Pakistan (Bangladesh)—there
have been innumerable border skirmishes as well as
almost continuous conflicts in Kashmir itself.
And since 11 September 2001, Pakistan is on the
frontline of the US-led war against terrorism, with
vii
viii THE ARMED FORCES OF PAKISTAN
members of the Taliban, of al Queda and other funda-
mentalistIslamicgroupsmovingbackandforthbetween
Afghanistan and Pakistan. Cooperating with the US in
this war is unpopular in many parts of Pakistan, greatly
addingtothepoliticalstresseswithinthecountry.
Nuclear weapons have figured in crises between
India and Pakistan on several occasions since the late
1980s, persuading many analysts (although Professor
Cheema does not share this view) that the risk of use of
nuclear weapons here is greater than it ever was
between the United States and the Soviet Union during
the Cold War.
The Pakistani armed forces have been much more
directly involved in domestic politicsthanthoseofmost
other large countries. Four generals have taken over the
government since independence—Ayub Khan in 1958,
Yahya Khan in 1969, Zia-ul-Haq in 1977 and Pervez
Musharraf in 1999—between them ruling for more than
twenty-five years. Professor Cheema argues that mili-
tary intervention has been necessitated by the failure of
the civil processes and that the armed forces themselves
have maintained a high level of internal discipline, but
the military has evinced no better economic or devel-
opmental performance than the displaced civilians and
has done little to allay concerns about the command
and control of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.
I first met Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema in 1979, when he
was a Visiting Fellow in the Strategic and Defence
Studies Centre at the Australian National University.
He was then a lecturer in the Department of Inter-
national Relations at Quaid-i-Azam University in
Islamabad. He was later to head that Department, as
well as the Department of Defence and Strategic Studies
for fourteen years. He has taught at all the military staff
colleges in Pakistan. He is the author of many booksand
monographs dealing with strategic and defence issues in
South Asia, including Conflict and Co-operation in the
Indian Ocean (1980), Afghanistan Since 1978 (1980),
FOREWORD ix
Pakistan’s Defence Policy 1947–58 (1990), and Brass-
tacks and Beyond: Perceptions and Management of
Crisis in South Asia (1995). He has also written numer-
ous articles on more specialised aspects of Pakistan’s
armedforces.
The extent to which Professor Cheema’s knowledge
of the Pakistani armed forces is peerless comes out time
and again through this volume—whether it is the dis-
cussion of officer training programs, internal security
incidents, the nuclear infrastructure, or the weaknesses
of command and control and joint service planning.
This book will have its critics. The subject is ex-
tremely controversial. The roles of the Pakistani armed
forces in national politics and internal security are
contentious issues. But more fundamentally, the dis-
course on South Asian security matters is inevitably
politicised. Where war is always a real possibility,where
different Muslim and Hindu beliefs and perspectives
obtain, and where emotional tides sometimes become
overwhelming, then even ‘facts’ will be contested.
Professor Cheema will be accused of bias. That is
unfair. His arguments are erudite, but they are informed
by the Pakistani perspective. Readers willwanttoappre-
ciate this perspective as much as to learn the number of
new Agosta class submarines in the Navy or the number
ofF-7fighteraircraftintheAirForce.
This is an important and timely book, as one of the
world’s major armed forces takes a beleaguered country
intothenuclearclub.Itisalsoacourageousbook,which
exposesthePakistanistrategicculturetopublicscrutiny.
I sincerely hope that the criticisms which Professor
Cheema will inevitably receive are outweighed by the
thanks which he deserves for thisimmensecontribution
to our understanding of Pakistan’s self-appointed
‘guardians’.
Professor Des Ball
Strategic and Defence Studies Centre
Australian National University
Canberra