United States Institute of Peace • www.usip.org • Tel. 202.457.1700 • Fax. 202.429.6063

UNITED STATES INSTITUTE OF PEACE

© USIP 2012 • All rights reserved.

“For any strategy to 

work, it must have a minimal 

degree of resonance with the 

Pakistani people, and even 

more importantly, with the 

desired partners, most notably 

the civilian political elite. The 

temptation to conceptualize 

Pakistan as two Pakistans—that 

is, to devise a Pakistan policy 

based on a neat division between civilian and military 

elites—misses this benchmark.”

May 3, 2012

Fixing Pakistan’s Civil-Military 

Imbalance: A Dangerous Temptation

Summary

•	 Out of the proposed alternativesfor dealing with Pakistan discussed in Washington, one that

seemsto have gained some traction callsfor aggressively playing up Pakistan’s civil-military

divide by propping up civilians while dealing harshly with the military and the Inter-Services

Intelligence (ISI).

•	 While normatively attractive, the approach to deal with Pakistan astwo Pakistansis unworkable. It grossly exaggeratesthe U.S.’s capacity to affect institutional change in Pakistan and

fundamentally misunderstands what underpinsthe civil-military dynamic.

•	 In reality, any attempt by the U.S. to actively exploit thisinternal disconnect islikely to end up

strengthening right wing rhetoric in Pakistan, provide more space forsecurity-centric policies,

and further alienate the Pakistani people from the U.S.

•	 A more prudent approach would be one that limitsitself to targeted interventionsin areas

truly at the heart of the civil-military dichotomy and that would resonate positively with the

Pakistani people: by continuing to help improve civilian governance performance and by

providing regionalsecurity assurancesto Pakistan.

The New Thinking on Pakistan

Asthe mistrust in the U.S.-Pakistan relationship deepens, Washington’sfrustration with Islamabad

has also grown. Over the past few months, influential voices have begun to recommend that the

U.S. take a more aggressive approach to Pakistan by playing up Pakistan’s civil-military divide: prop

up civilians while dealing harshly with the military and itsspy agency, the Inter-ServicesIntelligence (ISI). Specifically, viewsrange from moving to a more hostile“containment”approach that

would box in the Pakistan military; to seeing“progressive”civilians as partners and declaring the

military as an adversary; to labeling specific members of the military and ISI found to be involved

in supporting militants as“terrorists.”1

The premise for this view isthat the Pakistani military and intelligence apparatusis undermining

U.S. interestsin Afghanistan and that it has held civilian governments—who otherwise would

be amenable to reversing Pakistan’straditionalstrategic paradigm—hostage to its own agenda.

Underlying thisisthe implicit belief that if the strength of the military is undercut and if the civilians are able to take charge in letter and spirit, resulting revisionsin Pakistani threat perceptions

and national priorities would overlap more neatly with U.S. interests.

Moeed Yusuf

E-mail: myusuf@usip.org

Phone: 202.429.3834

PEACEBRIEF125
© USIP 2012 • All rights reserved.

Fixing Pakistan’s Civil-Military Imbalance: A Dangerous Temptation

page 2 • PB 125 • May 3, 2012

The approach is attractive asit honesin on what is arguably one of Pakistan’s binding constraints:

the civil-military imbalance. It also correctly identifiesthe need to reverse Pakistan’sstrategic

paradigm and the military’s control over it. The problem, however, isthat this approach is unworkable. The temptation to see the U.S. play a proactive role to tilt Pakistan’s civil-military divide in favor

of civilians and to assume that this will necessarily produce positive resultsreflects a misconception

of Pakistan’s civil-military dynamic. In reality, any attempt by the U.S. to actively exploit thisinternal

disconnect islikely to end up strengthening right wing rhetoric in Pakistan, create more space for

security-centric policies, and further alienate the Pakistani people from the U.S.

Why the U.S. Can’t Do it

For any strategy to work, it must have a minimal degree of resonance with the Pakistani people,

and even more importantly, with the desired partners, most notably the civilian political elite. The

temptation to conceptualize Pakistan astwo Pakistans—that is, to devise a Pakistan policy based

on a neat division between civilian and military elites—missesthis benchmark. For one, the majority of Pakistanis do notsee a clear good versus bad division between the civilians and the military.

Surprising asit may be for Western audiences, the military ranksfar higher than the political elite in

terms of the trust people place in them.2 Moreover, while the overwhelming majority of Pakistanis

support democratic dispensations over military rule, they tend to draw a distinction between

elected and democratic governments; they are much more concerned about the output—read

performance—than the process of democracy. Poor governance discredits governmentsfairly

quickly, after which even those backing them are seen as part of the problem and often find

themselves maligned as a result. Interestingly, the relatively greater trust Pakistanis place in the

military hastraditionally meant that civilian politicians get blamed and discredited more readily

than the military for the country’s governance woes even though the military’s political meddling

has contributed immensely to the problem itself. This explains why U.S.support even to elected

governmentsrings hollow to most Pakistani earsif the leadership of the time is discredited internally. Thisis certainly the case today. The point here is not to say that civilian governmentsshould

not be supported but to challenge the assumption that a policy so obviously driven to undercut

the military would necessarily elicitsupport from the majority of Pakistanis.

Next, the supposition that Pakistani civilian authorities would welcome U.S.support to push

back the military underestimatesjust how caustic“brand USA”has become in Pakistan. While

the mainstream political parties would like to see the military cut to size in terms of its political

clout—and civilian and military elites have a history of requesting help from the U.S. in shaping

the domestic political environment—the political enclave can no longer afford to be associated

with any visible U.S. involvement in such an effort. For one, the U.S. is notseen astrustworthy

by most acrossthe politicalspectrum. Moreover, an obvious U.S. association will quickly set into

motion nationalistic forces asthey seek to discredit those political parties choosing to welcome a

U.S. role. As enmeshed as anti-U.S.sentiment has become with extremist rhetoric in Pakistan, the

outcome would likely be a successful campaign by the ultra right to malign the civiliansin question for trying to undermine the military, and the state apparatus as a whole for failing to keep this

‘questionable outsider’from meddling in domestic affairs. The masses would be further galvanized

on an anti-U.S., pro-nationalist agenda.

Furthermore,such a policy disregardsthe reality that genuinely popular partieslike Imran

Khan’s Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaaf have a fair chance of finding their way into the corridors of power,

but will neither be overly hospitable towardsthe U.S., nor inimical to the military’ssecurity outlook.

It is unclear how a U.S. policy that is blatantly antithetical to the military will work in thisscenario.
© USIP 2012 • All rights reserved.

Fixing Pakistan’s Civil-Military Imbalance: A Dangerous Temptation

page 3 • PB 125 • May 3, 2012

Third, drawing a clear distinction between the civilians and the military in terms of national

security outlook is also assumptive. While there is no doubt that Pakistan’s military-driven national

security policy lies at the heart of many of the problemsthat beset the country today, thisshould

not imply that the civilian bureaucracy and much of the political elite necessarily align with the

U.S. outlook. The fact isthat the foreign policy community—civilian and military included—see

their country’sstrategic interests differently than the U.S. would hope. For instance, the civilian

counterparts are as perturbed asthe military at Washington’s“do more”mantra. The rather hawkish

terms of the recently-concluded Pakistani parliamentary review are a good indication of the civilian mood toward the U.S. Pakistan’s present outlook toward Afghanistan also elicits broad support

within the civilian foreign policy community. Even more clearly, there is virtually no dissent among

civilian politicians and bureaucratic ranksthat China ought to remain Pakistan’stop ally, on the

view that Pakistan’sstand on Kashmir has greater merit than India’s, on the need to reach out to

Iran for energy collaboration, and on retaining a nuclear weapons capability. Civilian politicians,

especially those belonging to central and southern Punjab, are also not enthused about going

after militants based in their constituencies. Moreover, to expect any civilian government to go

along with an effort to blacklist individuals or parts of the security apparatus—read ISI—is naïve at

best. Finally, even though the Pakistani position on India hassoftened considerably, a U.S. regional

strategy thatseesIndia asthe principal counterterrorism partner, as approacheslike“containment”

of Pakistan have proposed, would only reinforce Pakistani expectations of U.S. behavior and bring

civilians closer to the military’straditional position.

Fourth, none of the proponents of the two Pakistans approach seem to have addressed how the

Pakistan military islikely to respond to such a shift in policy, raising several basic questions. For

instance, why would the military not respond to a cut in U.S.security assistance by simply demanding a largershare of the domestically available resourcesfrom the government? Also, would the

military not compensate by reaching out even more proactively to traditional partnerslike China

and Saudi Arabia? Would declining resources coupled with a closer U.S.-India security engagement

not force the military to rely even more heavily on the country’s nuclear capability to buffer against

India? Finally, why would the military not choose to take a more nationalistic line and manipulate

public sentiment to rally greater domestic support behind it? Not to forget, the Pakistan military

faced extreme domestic anger last year for having failed to respond to the U.S. incursion to kill

Osama bin Laden. The way to rectify this would be to portray, if not actually demonstrate, its

resolve and readinessto do so under thisscenario.

A Wiser Approach: Less, Not More 

As demonstrated here, any hope that Washington can positively affect Pakistan’s civil-military

imbalance by playing on thisinternal divide grossly exaggeratesits capacity and fundamentally

misunderstandsthe local context. The goal of attaining civilian supremacy in Pakistan may be

betterserved if the U.S. takes a more passive approach and only assists with targeted interventions

in areasthat lie at the heart of the civil-military dichotomy and that would resonate positively with

the Pakistani people.

It must be understood that ultimately, a permanent transformation in the civil-military imbalance is most likely to be driven by organic institutional processes originating within Pakistan.

This processis already taking shape. The rise of the independent media, judicial activism, and an

increasingly active parliament have already begun to squeeze the military’sspace for political

maneuvering and itsinfluence on foreign policy in profound ways.
© USIP 2011 • All rights reserved.

USIP provides the analysis, training and 

tools that prevent and end conflicts, 

promotes stability and professionalizes 

the field of peacebuilding.

For media inquiries, contact the office 

of Public Affairs and Communications, 

202.429.4725

2301 Constitution Ave., NW

Washington, D.C. 20037

About This Brief

This report focuses on one of 

the central debates on Pakistan 

in Washington: how to deal with 

this troubled and troubling ally 

in the months and years ahead. 

While views are divided, the rising 

frustrations with Pakistan have 

led many to lose patience and 

seek a stern response from the 

U.S. The author, USIP’s South Asia 

adviser, addresses a misconception 

regarding Pakistan’s civil-military 

relationship and the potential for 

the U.S. to make this the basis of 

engagement with Pakistan. The 

views expressed in the report 

are based on the author’s own 

research on the subject and 

multiple conversations with relevant Pakistani interlocutors; they 

do not represent the views of USIP, 

which does not take positions on 

policy issues. This report advances 

USIP’s goal of generating a better 

understanding of Pakistani institutional and conflict dynamics and 

of the U.S.-Pakistan relationship. 

These changes provide a significant opening for the civiliansto usurp their rightfulspace but

they are not likely to prove sufficient. Two other developments are needed to permanently loosen

the military’s hold and move toward a consolidated democratic system: improved civilian governance performance and regionalsecurity assurancesto Pakistan.

Were civilian governance outputsto improve in an environment where the military is already

on the back foot, the military’sspace for political overreach would constrict more. Until this happens, however, the opportunity to disrupt the system will remain open; traditionally, prolonged

discontent with civilian rulersin Pakistan hastended to lessen opposition to forced disruptions—

meaning, coups.

Equally, South Asia’sregional calculus must change such that Pakistan feelsreassured about its

security. The military’s domestic policy clout is directly linked to the problematic picture of regional

security as are much of itstroubling policy choices. Neither will transform completely unlessthis

South Asian Gordian knot loosens. Principally, forward movement impliestransformational gains

on the Pakistan-India front.

Even here, the U.S. capacity to affect change is modest. Its policy interventions must be targeted

toward addressing those governance bottlenecks where itsinvolvement will not be seen negatively by most Pakistanis(energy, water, accessto markets, etc.) and at demonstrating through

tangible policy actionsthat a close India-U.S. partnership will not come at the expense of or

indifference to Pakistan’s key security concerns. Beyond this, it would be prudent to adopt a“do no

harm”approach; a good start would be to discard any two Pakistans-based strategy.

Notes

1.	 Thisline of thinking is most clearly reflected in Bruce Riedel,“A New Policy Pakistan Policy:

Containment,” The New York Times, October 14, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/

opinion/a-new-pakistan-policy-containment.html?_r=1; and“Should Pakistan be Engaged or

Contained,”CNN/American Enterprise Institute, November 7, 2011, http://www.aei.org/article/

should-pakistan-be-engaged-or-contained/. A number of others have also supported this view in

varying degrees.

2.	 Virtually all polling data available for the past decade provesthistrend. The sentiment

held even aftersome major embarrassmentsfor the military in the past year. See for instance,

Gallup’sJuly 2011 poll results:“Pakistanis Still Rate Military Tops among national Institutions,”

Gallup World, July 29, 2011, http://www.gallup.com/poll/148709/pakistanis-rate-military-topsamong-national-institutions.aspx. The trend was also confirmed in a recent off-the-record

discussion at USIP where leading pollsters working in Pakistan presented recent data from

the ground. See USIP’s blog post on the meeting at http://www.usip.org/publications/

the-us-pakistan-relationship-three-pollsters-views.

Fixing Pakistan’s Civil-Military Imbalance: A Dangerous Temptation

page 4 • PB 125 • May 3, 2012