The Armed Forces of Pakistan (review)

The distinguished Pakistani scholar, Dr. Pervaiz Igbal Cheema, now President of the Islamabad Policy Research Institute, in this concise survey of the fifty-five-year history of his country's armed forces and analysis of their future prospects, provides a work that invites comparison with the Turkish situation since before World War II. Both countries have to be constantly aware of their many contiguous frontiers with enemies great and small. Both have to be conscious of internal stability even to the point of the "Cromwellian Act" of seizing and maintaining power for genuinely patriotic reasons backed by historical experience, and remaining willing to return that "bauble" to civilian hands once stability and security is assured. Both have found the United States an unreliable ally.

The Pakistani situation is complicated by Shi'ite Iran to the unstable west, anarchic Afghanistan to the north, Kashmir to the northeast, and her fellow British legacied India to the east. Because of the shifting nature of potential enemies, insecurity, variable allied support, and the constant arms race and necessity for limited conflicts with her largest neighbor, Pakistan has had to combine diplomacy and economic self-sufficiency in the management of her armed forces.

Professor Cheema has compressed a complex modern story into a readable volume. Unfortunately his manuscript was finished in 1999, but publication was delayed for a variety of reasons. The delay also explains why some recent books are omitted from the heavily Pakistani bibliography, notably the excellent second volume of The Story of the Pakistan Air Force (1998).

After the 1947 Partition, Pakistan found itself bereft of most training and support facilities while British assistance was limited by fear that the arms secrets would filter to the U.S.S.R. Forced by limited resources to plan, President Muhammed Ayub Khan (1962-69) placed the emphasis on facing the current and future realities. In 1951 training was the key, as was the reorientation from the Red threat to the Indian one. From 1955 the Army was shifted from the British Indian model to a Pakistani one, bolstered from 1954 with U.S. aid. The Indo-Pak wars of 1948, 1965, and 1971 imposed realities, while periodic crises provided mobilizational experience. In addition, there have been peacekeeping operations in Kuwait, Somalia, and Bosnia.

In contrast, the story of the evolution of the Pakistan Navy is briefly told. It had to guard the two parts of a country divided by sixteen hundred miles of sea. First assisted by the U.S. and then abandoned after the 1990 Pressler Amendment, the PN moved to self-sufficiency and Chinese aid.

The Pakistan Air Force also receives summary treatment as do the topics of internal security and politics, defense procurement, and nuclear and missile developments.

Readers should also consult Indian studies after adding this volume to their shelves.