The Pakistan Army bears resemblance not to the Turkish army, with which it is often compared, but with the Indonesian army under Sukarno and Suharto, according to Shuja Nawaz, author of a forthcoming book on the Pakistan Army.

Shuja was speaking at the Johns Hopkins University about his book – “Crossed Swords: Pakistan Army and the Wars Within” – on Friday. He stressed that the army of today reflects the increasingly urban origin of its soldiers in Pakistani society, which is a good thing.

National ideology: The army, he explained, has gradually expanded its remit to include protection of the national ideology, as defined by itself. He said this ideology has changed from a loose definition of a Muslim state at birth to an Islamic polity under Ziaul Haq, and now to the “enlightened moderation” of General Pervez Musharraf, even as the growing urban population appears to prefer the conservative end of the social and political spectrum.

According to Shuja, today, Pakistan is at another crossroads as a partner of the West in the global “war on terror”. The army is operating in a changed and highly charged domestic political environment. After decades of conflicts with India, it is now waging a largely futile war against an unseen enemy: Islamist terrorists within its own border.

No supervision: Shuja pointed out that there is no hard financial scrutiny or supervision of the army’s commercial enterprises or even its overall defence spending, which distorts the allocation of scarce domestic resources and retards economic development.

Shuja said, “The army and the armed forces in general remain a key element in Pakistan’s polity. They are well entrenched … [however] unlike the Turkish army, they do not have any constitutional role in the country’s polity, (and) they have crafted a role for themselves and equipped themselves to tackle whatever problems they perceive, without an invitation from the government. This has created an inherently unstable system.”

He was of the view that the army of today is ill-equipped and untrained for low-intensity conflict and has suffered heavily at the hands of well-trained guerrillas. Their major target has been President General Pervez Musharraf himself.

Shuja told the meeting, “It is important for the army to help create a stable national polity by subjecting itself in practice to civilian oversight and control … [and] on its side, the civilian government needs to ensure that it follows the Constitution fully and does not involve the military in political disputes.” Shuja warned that while the army remained a conservative institution at heart, it was not yet a breeding ground for large numbers of radical Islamists that many fear.- [Written by Khalid Hasan via DailyTimes]

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