Book Review: Pakistan: Beyond the Crisis State
Book Review: Pakistan: Beyond the Crisis State
Edited by Maleeha Lodhi.
Published by Columbia University Press, New York. 328 pages, 2011.
Reviewed by Commander Youssef Aboul-Enein
Maleeha Lodhi was Pakistan’s Ambassador from 1993 to 1996 and again from 1999 to 2002, she also served as Pakistan’s Ambassador to the Court of Saint James from 2003 to 2008. She has combined a career of public service to Pakistan and education of not only Pakistanis but Americans studying Pakistan and the region. Her latest book collects seventeen Pakistani intellectuals, economists, political thinkers, and military affairs experts to discuss the future of their country. The book is opportune, as relations between the United States and Pakistan remains tense after the killing of Usama Bin Laden in Abottabad, Pakistan. Ayeha Jalal, who teaches at Tufts University, opens with a chapter on how Pakistan’s past influences the present, she begins by quoting a Washington Times article that referred to Pakistan and Paranoidistan, she then unpackages the perceptions of distrust and merges them with history and context. She argues that Pakistanis cannot develop a historical consciousness without a credible history. Jalal also discusses the devaluing of history for ideological reasons.
Dr. Akbar Ahmed who teaches at American University in Washington D.C. wrote a thoughtful piece entitled, “Why Jinnah Matters,” it is time for more Americans to appreciate that there were two visions of Pakistan upon its founding in 1947, that Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Pakistan’s founder, a secular nation that accommodates diverse Islamic and non-Islamic beliefs by not holding any religion above the state and those like Abu al-Al’a Al-Mawdudi who envision a Pakistan that lives up to Islamic values, and attempts to impose an interpretation of Islamic values on other Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Ahmed distills Jinnah’s speeches and reminds readers of the course Pakistan may have taken if Jinnah had not died a year into Pakistan’s independence.
Amb. Lodhi, who edited the book, has a chapter that is highly critical of Pakistan’s civil service and the need for reform as it is currently incapable of delivering governance. She discusses how Pakistan’s different political parties represent dynastic families, such as the Pakistan’s People’s Party being the purview of the Bhutto dynasty, and Nawaz Sherief dominating the Muslim League. You have politics of feudalism and clientelist politics in which tribes expect rewards for political support, and religious leaders expect to be compensated for their backing. The book continues with chapters on the Pakistani Army by Shuja Nawaz and Saeed Shafqat, it is an army attempting to shift from conventional tactics to counter-insurgency, and the 2009 decision to confront the Talibinization of Pakistan as the country’s chief threat. Chapters explore nuclear policy, economic reform to include the absolute need for balanced tax policies, and the challenge of education spending as a percentage of Gross National Product. This is a thought provoking book for those interested in Pakistan specifically, and region generally. It is the voice of experienced Pakistanis and those of Pakistani origin who have thought deeply of the national policies of Pakistan.
Commander Aboul-Enein wishes to thank the Blackwell Library at Salisbury University for providing a quiet place to write this review.
This language–of the military as a force for modernization of the society because civilian institutions are weak–is identical to the language of American military journals from the 50s and 60s, and contemporary language of many different armies today. No, really, think about it. Even within the American discourse.
I suspect members of the Bush administration and some so-called Coindinistas mirrored this thought process, and were as captured by it today as others were in the past, and, likely, unaware of its long term origins.
To be fair, neither American Right nor left is able to grasp this aspect of its attitudes toward the region.
The conception of the Army as the main modern force in society is an important motivator of action in addition to any regional fears.
As I wrote in another comments section:
“In the June 1969 volume of Military Review, there is an article that is fascinating to examine in both historical terms, and how it reflects on the steadiness of American attitudes toward the region.
The Pakistan Army and Nationbuilding, Raymond A. Moore, Jr. (page 35)
From the 1969 article from the American military journal, I find the following (the article views all of the Army programs as excellent, and the Pakistani Army as a model modernizing force):
”
Aqil Shah makes the same point (and has the same referenced article in the footnotes) in the books The Pakistan Army and Democracy.
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674728936
Where I disagree with the some points made in the book is that I see outside attempts to modernize the country through civilian institutions to be similarly problematic.
But again, this is my eternal naiveté playing out, most of what happens intellectually within institutions is not true scholarly work but simply attempts to cherry pick information to fit pre-existing desires and wants.
I wonder if the American Army found this particularly pleasing because it views itself as a modernizing force abroad, and, so, each fed off the other.
PS: Above, I mean that the American left thinks in terms of outside aid as modernizers and so civilian and military modernizers are really all of a piece.
PPS: Oops, Aqil Shah’s book is a true scholarly work, I was just thinking about think tank world in my comments above.
Why do we not do this for everything? Go through one major American military journal region by region and create an institutional narrative of how you have thought about things, how you have changed, and what seems to be the same?
Time and money, of course, so much is diverted to the contractor class and others looking for a quick buck or to make their careers, ideologues, etc.
I wonder, however, what the “Boston” zeitgeist was that contributed to Obama administration policy toward the region, all of the pet ideas of academics were attempted in South Asia, but, of course, hit the rocks because the real world is not some talk for the public at the Brattle.
You know your world, I know mine….
From the Raymond Moore article I have quoted in my comment below:
Military Review, 1969
Also from the article:
From the Christian Science Monitor, May 2013:
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-South-Central/2013/0509/Pakistani-fertilizer-grows-both-Taliban-bombs-and-Afghan-crops
And of course, there is a lot of smuggling and our system has a limited ability to deal with any of it, it’s flailing to focus on land reform or smuggling versus looking at the larger picture.
Since our system is back in its traditional Gulfie “get Iran” and eastern NATO “get Russia” mode, where the needs of our nation is subordinate to the mental irritations of our interventionists and the so-called (some hawks, can’t hunt for *&$%) hawkish class, there is talk of the US needing to understand counter-unconventional warfare.
I mean, various Eastern NATO and Ukrainian border forces were begging for help years ago, but offensive operations were preferred by their their military class, and our foreign policy class, because the desire to go at the Russians over-rode reasonable policies for counterunconventional warfare, including dealing intelligently with minorities.
The US is lousy at proxy warfare and at counter proxy or counterunconventional warfare because of the inability to speak honestly about the true nature of its problems and how it contributes to the disorder which allows proxies to flourish. Patrick Cockburn:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-arabia-as-executions-rise-allies-must-focus-more-closely-on-warring-antiis-forces-9818316.html
There is disagreement in intellectual circles over the degree that this is the case; at any rate, the US, because it has sided with one side due to the desire to leverage that one side against Russia or Iran, cannot be honest about anything that it does, and, so, cannot be the subtle force it wishes.
Special Forces stiffening up the Kurdish forces battling IS? Sure, this we can do, but the strange dance with Syrian opposition forces? Here we will play all sides of the fence, all because we still will not study the proxy conflicts that matter in the ways that matter, and I wonder too if this is a because of institutional embarrassment and dislike at being shown up. Or simply that there is no price to be paid for being terribly, terribly wrong within our system.
The trends are still good for our nation, when taking the long view, but I think many young people in the military will simply have to have good patience and focus on what is in front of them. I wish you all the best, but somewhere, I hope some of you have time for your own study, and at least a part of that study should be to look at what I called the “mental irritations” of the DC class which is stuck in the past. Hopelessly stuck in a dream of the late Cold War and the 90s.
As I’ve noted before in this thread, American military journals, particularly early in the Cold War, stressed the idea that the Pakistan Army–with its roots in the British Indian Army–represented a force for modernization particularly given the weakness of civilian institutions.
I’m sure the British pressed this language too, given their interest in cultivating the region and their immigrant populations. Tracing BBC news coverage on Kashmir over the years is particularly illuminating.
This language can be seen in official and doctrinal language from the Pakistani Army, even today. A force for modernization through the building of infrastructure, etc.
From the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/18/opinion/the-pakistani-talibans-massacre-in-peshawar-must-be-its-last.html?_r=0
Yet the remainder of the article is interesting in that the politicians are being blamed for not supporting the Army in its “new” strategy. Imran Khan too:
This article was widely shared on Twitter and I found it interesting, the Army doing its best and the politicians messing it up again. Yet the entire institutional framework of supporting proxies and armed jihad has to be torn up.
Is this playing favorites again, being subtly telegraphed, is this showing a break, or, is this a kind of feint? I’m not talking about the article or the author, just the curious, well, the curiousness of it all.
Once again, that article is all “the besieged and right doing Army vs. evil Politicians,” and, yet, what of the reported connections between the security state and Imran Khan, between the security state and its pressing of civilians when they want to normalize relations with neighbors.
This article from the Arab News is interesting given the nature of the New York Times article:
http://www.arabnews.com/columns/news/675431
This too:
The US never left Pakistan to fend for itself, it continued support for proxies even after the Soviets left. It was a popular policy, hard to dismantle just like that, back in the late 80’s. Most of the post 1990 attempts to help, routed around Congress policy and through the aid of allies and international institutions, have contributed to disorder so that is a paragraph that is misleading, to put it mildly. A message?
For the average American that doesn’t really pay attention–the sort that thinks Musharraf sounds reasonable as he sounds off on CNN–the messaging that “the gloves are finally off” by the military works a treat so we won’t know until more than the usual suspects are rounded up by the system if there is any real change. Doesn’t look good so far.
From Robert L. Grenier’s 88 Days to Kandahar: A CIA Diary:
On Dr. Maleeha Lodhi in Chapter 7:
And
Do you think any of the people approvingly citing this book or it’s author will pick out these quotes, especially the last?
It’s as if there are only two ways to discuss any situation, those that parallel our political conversation, instead of the millions of intellectual permutations that are possible. If you want a small foot print (better for sure) or even wanted to raid and then leave, you still have to understand your strengths and weakness in working with others.
This is sometimes missing from the Cointra vs. Coindinista conversation, it’s as if recognizing the weakness of the CIA requires a big military foot print. I don’t believe those were the only options.
I picked the wrong time to tease everyone over the whole “exoticism” thing, didn’t I? I didn’t even see the Washington Post ‘CENTCOM emails’ article when I wrote my previous comments.
At this point, I’m not sure I care all that much, mainly because it seems like there is some Beltway battle going on in the background that I can’t quite understand.
The Dr. Lodhi articles I was mentioned earlier in the thread are in Caravan Daily:
http://caravandaily.com/portal/category/comment/lodhi/
“Coercive Diplomacy”. Interesting concept.
PS: I read articles very differently today from how I used to in the past, whether by an Indian or Afghan or Pakistani or American scholar. It always seems as if there are multiple ways to “read” an article. I used to read things quite literally which is strange given my background. Who reads a scientific journal article without thinking about how properly to ‘dissect’ it, from data generation in materials and methods to the rest of it?
The back-and-forth coming out of so-called “South Asia” is really getting obnoxious. One day it’s one thing from one side, another day it’s from another side. And there are way more than two sides, it never was a diad:
http://www.nationalinterest.org/feature/how-china-pakistan-are-beating-india-the-new-great-game-13096
(Mega Eyeroll….; not necessarily at the author but the entire concept.)
The ticky tacky Nixon-ger NATOization of American thought (I’ve used that stupid phrase before.)
Why, if we take this country and that country we can have an alliance against another country!
And every country is somehow strategically vital for US interests. American foreign policy and military journals are filled with articles (especially during the Cold War) about how Pakistan was the key operationalizer for American Grand Strategy in the region.
No one country is key for anything in the larger sense. There are things called navies (well, if we’d actually fund one) and there are things called national economies with manufacturing (which we stupidly gave away) and there are things called nuclear weapons.
This silliness that many nations have about how they somehow have to play a Great Game.
Everyone looks like a loser in this game to me but you know how it is with d*&k waving chest-bumping nationalist hawks….
Against my better judgement I bought Relentless Strike by Sean Naylor.
Who needs unnamed sources when the open source writing of many (in this case, Robert Grenier) gets you there?
Scroll down and look at some of my comments this thread:
– page 378 Relentless Strike Sean Naylor
Grenier gets a lot of crap but I’ve always found this sort of thing interesting:
Through Our Enemies Eyes
“Anonymous” (Michael Scheuer)
Perhaps I haven’t been reading enough about political science theory, strategy, Star Wars or Lawrence of Arabia.
I once had a file of quotes on Musharraf by everyone under the sun (the early 2000’s period, the Indians were surprisingly positive officially).
I appreciate Gary Hart’s latest entry at The National Interest but I think he’s missed something. Not that he isn’t correct or that his commission wasn’t right on the money.
The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy
Page 177
The Washington Post wrote about this but it translated it into a sort of dry IR political science-inflected Washington-ese that made it sound as if supporting the textile trade was rooted in a kind of scholarship when it was just a way to justify what a bunch of competing lobbies in DC wanted.
I used to buy this sort of thing because I didn’t know what was behind the adoption of IR or political science language to camouflage intentions. This happens with military writing too, it seems, the jargon is cover even if many scholars are sincere. They are being used.