Sliding towards Anarchy

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By Brahma Chellaney

The world’s first ever military coup in a nuclear-armed nation is a reminder that democracy is a global norm that can be successfully flouted.

The jehad-spouting generals in Islamabad seem firmly ensconced in power even though their one-year rule has neither halted their country’s slide towards chaos nor reversed its international isolation. In fact, military rule has served as one more negative label for a country that conjures up images of fanaticism, terrorism and gun-toting mullahs.

The radicalisation of the Pakistan military since the time of Gen. Mohammed Zia ul-Haq has progressed to the extent that its generals are increasingly beginning to appear like mullahs in uniform. With the mullah-generals calling the shots, there can only be trouble for neighbouring States. It is no accident that, except for authoritarian China and the Islamabad-backed thugs in power in Kabul, States all around see Pakistan as proliferating, what Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee has called “practitioners of medieval religious extremism”. Pakistan, or ‘Land of the Pure’, is looking so dirtied and bloodied that it has become, as Robert Kaplan says in the Atlantic Monthly, “the lawless frontier”.

With the military on the political saddle for half of Pakistan’s existence, last October’s coup came hardly as a surprise. What was a surprise, however, was the West’s readiness to tolerate the coup without seeking early results from the new rulers. And even though Pakistan’s problems have only become more acute over the past year, the West is still willing to put up with military rule, as shown by the finalisation of the IMF’s latest $ 580 million debt-relief package for Islamabad.

If the West wanted, it could have used Pakistan’s deep economic vulnerability to keep on a tight leash a regime led by the general who masterminded last year’s villainous Kargil invasion. The West still has an opportunity to exert more pressure on the regime so that it frees itself both from the grip of narco-fundamentalist forces and from its own compulsive belligerence towards India.

Self-styled ‘chief executive’ Pervez Musharraf’s record in power speaks volumes despite his moderate facade: His regime connived in the hijack of the Indian jetliner last December; it stepped up its aid to armed criminals masquerading as mujahideen in Kashmir; it continues to prop up the Taliban by participating in its military campaigns (including the Panjshir battles in recent days) and facilitating its narcotics trade; and it refuses to crack down on radical bands within Pakistan that are exporting terrorism to many parts of the world.

Economically, Pakistan has become a basket case under military rule, which has scared away investors with its bellicose rhetoric and cosy ties with fundamentalists. Most of the regime’s initiatives have turned out to be barren, except for tax-collection overhaul, while the introduction of harsh Islamic banking laws has proved counterproductive. The economy currently is growing only at the same rate as population, while external debt has ballooned to $ 35.5 billion, or half of its GDP. With four-fifths of the national budget being used for defence and debt servicing, hardly any development is taking place.

The West’s strategy in not pushing the regime too hard has backfired, as it has made Pakistan’s condition worse without slowing the movement of drugs and extremists to other parts of the world. Even today, some in Washington view military rule as Pakistan’s ‘last option’, although that country’s problems are largely the legacy of the various generals that have been at its helm. It is doubtful whether the present military can keep Pakistan together. Pakistanis are more disillusioned than ever, realising that the Musharraf regime is no better than the politicians it replaced.

The only beneficiary of the coup has been the military itself, which has thrived even as the nation has continued to sink. The coup was countenanced by the West as a last-ditch effort to prevent Pakistan from becoming a ‘failing State’. Instead, military rule has only reinforced Pakistan’s ‘failing State’ image. Sebastian Mallaby described Pakistan in The Washington Post as a “Colombia with nukes and Islamic fundamentalism”. There is growing international concern that with the gradual Talibanisation of Pakistan, the military there values its nuclear weapons as a shield for reckless adventurism, as it showed in Kargil.

Not only has Pakistan become a haven for terrorists and home to the world’s largest population of heroin addicts, there appears little hope for its future. The military, however, can flourish only as long as the Pakistan State survives. Therefore, the military will do everything to keep Pakistan from disintegrating, even if it means ratcheting up hostility with India and engaging in further adventurism. A sinking Pakistan will insist on sinking India too. Its role since last year in Kargil, Kandahar and Kashmir is a stark reminder of that.

The major question is whether Indian policy-makers understand the lurking dangers and are ready to devise a strategy to counter them since Pakistan’s travails increase, rather than decrease, its mischief potential. Myths, however, abound in India. One myth is that Pakistan is making itself bankrupt by bleeding India in Kashmir. Pakistan is perched on the edge of bankruptcy, not because of its surrogate war in Kashmir, but because of its search for military parity with India that results in unsustainably high defence spending as well as its political and economic disorder.

In fact, proxy war is a highly cost-effective strategy that Pakistan can carry on everlastingly because it consumes a tiny proportion of its defence expenditure but inflicts disproportionately high costs on India — costs that a conventional military strategy cannot impose. The failure of conventional aggression, even when it is covert, as in Kargil, has further increased the attractiveness of proxy war for Pakistan. The low-cost tool of surrogate war was perfected by Pakistan in a decade of declining fortunes, with unemployment doubling and poverty increasing 41 per cent during the Nineties.

It is well known that Pakistan’s foundation has been built on hostility towards India. Its aggressive fixation on India, in medical language, will be called obsessive-compulsive neurosis. Many Indians view that antipathy as a path to Pakistan’s eventual self-destruction. But for the Pakistan military, that antagonism is the essential glue to hold Pakistan together and provides the raison d’etre for its strong political influence over the State.

As Pakistan sinks further, its military will increasingly take recourse to its economical tool of proxy war to keep India mired in internal-security problems. Today’s “war of a thousand cuts” being waged by Pakistan could become a war of ten thousand cuts. It doesn’t take much for a strong-willed State to murder, maim and menace the innocent through surrogate agents.

India cannot counter these dangers through continued passivity. In modern history, no State has pursued a sustained surrogate war of the scope and extent waged by Pakistan. Nor has any nation like India brooked a situation for so long where its security has been progressively impaired through externally directed subversion and murder. The cumulative costs of this proxy war for India have been greater than all the conventional wars imposed on it.

A decaying neighbour that could potentially slide into the Islamic ruins of Afghanistan and become the world’s first failed nuclear State calls for a clear, long-term Indian strategy. The military will continue to hold the reins of power in Pakistan, although Musharraf’s own future seems uncertain. The former army commando is forced to constantly look behind his shoulders at the Islamist generals of his junta who executed the coup when he was aboard the flight from Colombo last October 12. Pakistan’s post-1971 history shows that its rulers invariably get killed, jailed or banished.

Pakistan will continue to loom large on India’s security horizon unless it disintegrates. India’s interests can be served neither by pleading for a secure, stable Pakistan nor by disdainfully writing off Pakistan. A collapsing Pakistan can remerge with India or splinter into four or five distinct entities. India can certainly aid the process of disintegration to help fragment Pakistan’s consolidated military assets and clinch the final solution to Kashmir.

Brahma Chellaney is a Research Professor at Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi. He is a political analyst and writer.