Name: Pakistan's Army: Guardians or Power Brokers? | Inside Asian Conflicts
Uploaded: 2025-06-17T17:35:57.000Z
Duration: 14 min 21 s
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In May 2023, a line was crossed. Protestors stormed military installations across Pakistan, a rare direct challenge to the country's most powerful institution.

The unrest followed the arrest of former Prime Minister Imran Khan, but it also revealed something deeper, a breakdown of the delicate balance between politics and the military.

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In most democracies, armies take orders from elected leaders. In Pakistan, the army has long held influence, not just over matters of security, but also over politics, economy and the foreign policy. How has it retained that power? And why is it being challenged now?

Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf, or PTI, is now the country's most prominent opposition force.

But just a few years back, this party was widely seen as being close to the military establishment. That alliance fractured in 2022, when Khan's government was ousted through a no-confidence vote in parliament.

Khan claimed his ouster was engineered with foreign backing and domestic support, including from the army. From that point on, PTI's criticism of Pakistan's army became sharper.

Khan survived an assassination attempt he blamed on senior generals, and he was eventually jailed ahead of the 2024 elections.

PTI was a script of its iconic electoral symbol, a cricket bat, and its candidates were forced to contest as independents. Despite that, they won the greatest number of seats in the new parliament, but couldn't form a government. The party claimed its mandate had been stolen.

But critics ask, is PTI against military interference in politics, or just against interference?

On one hand, they say, this is our military, and this is our country, but attacking the top leadership of Pakistani military and trying to cut deals with them at the same time, trying to convert it into an institution that would mainly serve the interests of megalomaniac, egoistic politician, clearly means that it has nothing to do with democracy.

After Pakistan's independence from British colonial rule in 1947, the country's military quickly took on a prominent role. The first military coup took place in 1958, and since, generals have governed the country directly for nearly half of its entire history. Even during democratic interludes, real power has often been exercised from behind the scenes, with the military continuing to exert significant influence in key policy areas.

Hussain Haqqani is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington DC and the

Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy in Abu Dhabi. He also served as Pakistan's ambassador to the United States from 2008 to 2011.

and palace manipulation. During that phase, the weight of the army, as soon as the army got an indigenous commander, General Ayub Khan, who became commander-in-chief in 1951, as soon as he got power, he decided to put his weight first behind one set of politicians, then behind another. And by 1958, he was ready to take power in a coup d'etat.

They decide who's going to come, and for decades, they have pushed governments out either directly or indirectly.

Ayesha Siddique is an author and senior fellow at King's College London, and an expert on military affairs, South Asia, and politics.

There have been more than 12 to 15 years of direct military rule. Then another method with the military is running government through military presidents, which they have done about 15 years of that in Pakistan's history. But a longer period is also when they run it in partnership with civilians. And that is one of the most tricky periods in Pakistan's politics because the face of such governments is civilian.

The military claims it doesn't seek political control, but just steps in when civilian governance, violence breaks down. In 1977, General Zia-ul-Haq seized power amid widespread political unrest and street protests against an elected government.

Two decades later, after taking over in a bloodless coup, General Pervez Musharraf called for the institutionalization of the military's political role. Those who defend the army and its actions as an institution see the military as a stabilizing force in a fragile state that is constantly threatened by religious extremism, militancy, separatism, and external enemies.

Border skirmishes with India are also not uncommon. The two, now nuclear-armed neighbours, have fought four major wars since independence. But during the past two years, the country has seen an uptick in militant violence, particularly in its western provinces bordering Afghanistan and Iran.

In March 2025, militants attacked a passenger train in the southwest of the country, triggering a 36-hour hostage crisis. The army led the rescue, but after the operation, the army chief raised alarm over governance gaps in the civilian system.

This statement signalled what many thought was the military's perspective. They claim failure in governance, whether social, economic, or political, ultimately leads to a host of security challenges in the country. So, politics and security, therefore, cannot be treated separately.

And the military sees itself as the only institution that can decide what is in Pakistan's national interest. Therefore, even major foreign policy decisions are no longer made by Pakistan's diplomats, but they are made by the military officers and conveyed to the diplomat.

I think this is not an accurate perception that the Pakistan army controls Pakistan's foreign policy.

Syed Muhammad Ali is a senior research fellow at the Centre for International Strategic

Like all countries, the input on critical foreign policy issues is offered to the foreign office by different institutions, including military, including intelligence, including civilian intelligence organizations, and different think tanks as well. And the foreign office practically functions as the entity which consolidates this input into policy and active policy measures.

For decades, political parties have struggled to govern independently. They have often invited military mediation during crises, reinforcing the army's central role.

Mazhar Abbas is a senior journalist and political analyst.

Political parties have always been victims of their own interests.

And the establishment has sometimes intervened unnecessarily.

The problem in Pakistan is that everybody looks towards the army as the one that is going to resolve a stalemate or become the final arbiter in a confrontation.

If the politicians work things out among themselves, there would be no need for a final arbiter.

And like other countries where there is democracy and civilian supremacy, the civilians would control the political process and the army will take directions from the civilian leadership.

The military's power isn't limited to politics. Over the years, it has built a vast financial empire, estimated to exceed $20 billion, spanning from real estate and banking to construction and agribusiness.

This desire for autonomy has led them into the business sector. So all three major sectors – agriculture, manufacturing, service industry – you have military presence there and a very dominant military presence. So they became powerful, they built their economic strength on the basis of their political strength.

This autonomy has made the institution harder to reform.

There is a perception that the Pakistan army is involved in business ventures. But in reality, such initiatives are governed by the necessity to take care of the families of deceased armed forces personnel, particularly those who have laid down their lives in different combats and crises.

Not only Imran Khan, over time political leaders including former Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali

Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto were exiled or jailed.

Protests turn into crises and the military continues to act as the ultimate guarantor of stability while denying any political ambition.

These are politicians who have always been out of time. So never have the time and the confidence to build institutions to push back the military. So it doesn't happen.

If politicians stop playing games with one another, agree that they will respect each other's mandates, agree to the rules of the game, then it will be very difficult for the military to intervene in politics.

Allegations of electoral manipulation and institutional overreach continue to raise concerns about the country's long-term trajectory. But many argue this isn't just about one party, one leader or one general.

This is a military which will not be controlled through dealing with individual generals.

It has to be an institutional approach and unfortunately we have two problems here.

One of the problems is that most of the politicians who are in power, they are created by the military itself and they feel that they have communication to convince the military to allow them, let them remain in power. It doesn't work that way.

Will Pakistan break out of this vicious cycle and transition towards a more stable democratic order, one in which state institutions operate within their clearly defined boundaries and power is exercised with undiluted accountability?

The answer will shape Pakistan's future and its democracy for years to come.