C. Christine Fair is the author of the new book Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army's Way of War. She also has written Cuisines of the Axis of Evil and Other Irritating States. She is an assistant professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, and she is based in Washington, D.C.
Q: You write, “Pakistanis and analysts of Pakistan have long
remarked, with more truth than hyperbole, that while generally countries have
armies, in Pakistan, the army has a country.” What accounts for this situation
and what is the resulting impact on the country?
A: The explanation I’ve come around to is that Pakistan was
the rump of the Raj. The institutions running the British Raj were inherited by
India. Karachi had been the provincial capital of Sindh, but Sindh was [more or
less] a desert and Karachi was a small city.
It was a state that didn’t have the apparatus of a state.
The army was weak compared to India’s, but it was stronger than the other
institutions. The Muslim League’s supporters were in North India. Imagine how
difficult it would be if [the key] elements of the Democratic Party were in
Canada.
[Concerning the idea of] Pakistan as a failed state, I say
it’s miraculous that it isn’t a failed state; it’s a symbiotic twin that was
lopped off [from India]. The army was the least bad off of all the
institutions, and was hoisted to the forefront in 1947.
Q: What is the impact now of Pakistan’s relationship to its
army?
A: From the beginning, there was no strong political party. [Pakistani
leader Muhammad Ali] Jinnah didn’t know how to set [it up]. There’s a healthy
debate that says he may not have seen this coming, and wasn’t prepared.
Politics in Pakistan never really developed. The bureaucracy
was inherited from the British. The bureaucracy and the army really governed
the country. It wasn’t until the time of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto that there was the
emergence of a Pakistani political party that truly had its roots in the
country.
One of the causes was that Pakistani democratic institutions
were never allowed to flourish. [In the United States,] the Democratic and
Republican parties today represent the whole country. In Pakistan, parties are
very much tied to localities and personalities.
In Pakistan, it’s zero-sum politics. Because it’s not
politics that represent the people, it’s given birth to very corrupt politics.
The army benefits from the incompetence of the civilians, and the army
contributes to the incompetence.
Q: How did you research Pakistan’s military culture?
A: I did a Ph.D. in South Asian languages and civilizations,
and we were taught to privilege text. I spent decades in Pakistan, and what
I’ve found is that the most honest sources are [the ones that] were not
intended for me, but for themselves. Army journals, different memoirs of
different officers. There were six decades of this stuff. I scanned thousands
and thousands of pages. I began collecting material in 2000.
There’s a very famous author named Carl Builder who talks
about how military cultures are slow to change. But our military culture has
changed, with gays openly serving, [new roles for] women, the integration of
minorities.
What I was struck by is how much the British [customs] are
carried on by the Pakistanis, and how the Pakistan army hasn’t updated its
security threat in a way that’s current. It hangs on to [issues] relating to
Partition.
In six decades, we’ve seen very little change in the
Pakistan army. The Indian army has jettisoned a lot of the British concepts,
and has come to much more seriously think about internal security. Pakistan
will say that [an internal situation] is because of an external threat.
Q: What do you see as the future of relations between
Pakistan and its neighbors India and Afghanistan?
A: I don’t see a good future. I don’t see Pakistan’s
concerns vis-a-vis India going away.
The book I’m working on now is looking at education, and how
Pakistani citizens are exposed to the same kind of [army-based] narrative in their schooling; the
Pakistan army makes a huge contribution to the curriculum.
I don’t see any evidence [that Pakistan is trying to make
peace with India]. If they are really trying to normalize with India, they
would try to dampen anti-India rhetoric. They’re not doing anything to put down
Lashkar-e-Taiba.
With Afghanistan, I don’t see a lot of change there either.
The concerns in Afghanistan are worse than on September 10. The Indians have
reestablished all their historic ties to the Afghans. Pakistan was terrified
after the first round of voting [in Afghanistan], because [Afghan presidential
candidate] Abdullah Abdullah has such ties to India. Iran comes in as well. The
Saudis and Pakistanis see India and Iran in cahoots in Afghanistan.
Q: You write, “The United States and its partners should
seriously consider what it means to contain the threats that emanate from
Pakistan, if not Pakistan itself.” What is the best course for the United
States to follow in that regard?
A: We actually have many laws on the books to manage this,
but we continue to subvert them. Our assistance to Pakistan is conditioned upon
Pakistan’s cooperation with eliminating terrorist groups, stop supporting
certain terrorist groups, but we have not enforced that. This administration
has waived them. Pakistan interprets this as Pakistan being too important for
us to take the issues seriously.
It’s hard to be punitive with Pakistan right now [due to]
the war in Afghanistan…I hope that when we no longer have a footprint [there],
we can be much more punitive.
It should be a much more transactional relationship in which
we only cooperate with them when it’s in our interest—like the relationship
with the Soviet Union. That’s how we should view Pakistan.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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