Pakistani Army commentary

**omarali50** · 09-27-2011

I was unhappy with the first attempt at a reply this morning and edited it again and am still unhappy. The point may be moot anyway. Events may be moving in a direction where liberal and "conservative" Pakistani officers will all look equally problematic to American analysts because the pendulum is now swinging from "our army in South Asia" to "our enemy in South Asia", with God knows what results to follow.
And we have an election year coming up.
If I was an academic specializing in research papers about the recruitment patterns of the Pakistani army and the school networks in Chakwal, I would start thinking of grant ideas in a different direction. When the money spigot is finally turned off, it wont be done very rationally. Nobody wants to study a disaster until at least 20 years have passed.

**davidbfpo** · 09-27-2011

This is a review of Carey Schofield's new book:http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/720...y-within.thtml

Like other writers who know the country well, she regards it as the only institution which is able to transcend the religious and tribal divisions that rend the country apart. ‘A Christian or a Parsi or a Sikh can serve in the Pakistan army,’ writes Schofield. ‘Atheists do. But all are bound together by a willing submission to discipline and a battle for self-improvement that is in itself doctrinal in character.’

This is the reason Schofield is optimistic that the army has not been heavily infiltrated by the Taleban...

She paints a convincing picture of the army as an honorable, indeed moral institution, dedicated to the security of the Pakistan nation. But what is this nation to which the army is loyal?

A slim bio:http://ccw.modhist.ox.ac.uk/people/bios/schofield.asp

**omarali50** · 09-27-2011

I see that the army is still the great white hope in Pakistan. There is an Urdu verse that fits here:
Meer kya saada hain, beemar huey jin key sabab
Ussi attar key londey sey dawa letey hain..

How naive is Mir, going to get his medication,
from the same physician who made him sick in the first place..

Who knows. Next time around, it may work.

**omarali50** · 10-06-2011

Good review, of all places, in huffpo: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aparna..._b_995933.html

**davidbfpo** · 10-06-2011

Omarali50,

We must have read a different review! As you said:

Good review..

The reviewer was blunt, for example:

Here again, Ms. Schofield unquestioningly accepts the Pakistan army narrative on Afghanistan, on the Afghan war, and on U.S. policy towards Pakistan. Like the Pakistan army, she repeatedly states that the Pakistan army does not lack intentions, only capabilities, in fighting the militants. There is no attempt to address U.S. concerns about Pakistan's links with the Taliban and the Haqqani network, or Pakistani Jihadi groups. The prescription is simple: Americans need to help build Pakistan's capabilities and resources if they want Pakistan to do more.

Finally:

Otherwise you end up with simply portraying what the propaganda machine asks you to do, taking away any shred of credibility. ... Her latest book is not an academic work on the Pakistani army, but a long press release written by a foreigner.

**omarali50** · 10-06-2011

If its blunt, it cannot be good?

I will be the first to admit it, I think the Pakistani army high command (for all sorts of reasons) has adopted a strategic worldview that is fundamentally flawed and leads to repeated disasters and missed opportunities. And I also think that a lot of Western commentators take it for granted that all modern looking armies must have the same fashionable modern notions of strategic necessities and problems, so they tend to take the Pak army view as a reasonable starting point and take it from there. I think that is a mistake.
I also think the Pakistani army is not impossible to reform. They are pragmatic at heart and if more of their "allies"and advisers had told them so and been a bit more upfront, they might have been induced to rethink...."enabling" their pathologies is not helping them.
having said that, I also suspect it may be too late now. Mistrust and accumulated mistakes make it hard to imagine the US or NATO playing too constructive a role any more. Maybe Uncle Chin will have to do what Uncle Sam could not..