In sharp contrast to neighboring India, the Muslim nation of Pakistan has been ruled by its military for over three decades. The Army and Democracy identifies steps for reforming Pakistan’s armed forces and reducing its interference in politics, and sees lessons for fragile democracies striving to bring the military under civilian control.
Among U.S. allies in the war against terrorism, Pakistan cannot be easily characterized as either friend or foe. Nuclear-armed Pakistan is an important center of radical Islamic ideas and groups. Since 9/11, the selective cooperation of president General Pervez Musharraf in sharing intelligence with the United States and apprehending al Qaeda members has led to the assumption that Pakistan might be ready to give up its longstanding ties with radical Islam. But Pakistan's status as an Islamic ideological state is closely linked with the Pakistani elite's worldview and the praetorian ambitions of its military. This book analyzes the origins of the relationships between Islamist groups and Pakistan's military, and explores the nation's quest for identity and security. Tracing how the military has sought U.S. support by making itself useful for concerns of the moment—while continuing to strengthen the mosque-military alliance within Pakistan—Haqqani offers an alternative view of political developments since the country's independence in 1947.
The Pakistan Army is poised for perpetual conflict with India which it cannot win militarily or politically. What explains Pakistan's persistent revisionism despite increasing costs and decreasing likelihood of success? This book argues that an understanding of the army's strategic culture explains its willingness to fight to the end
Pakistan is a strategic ally of the US in the 'war on terror'. It is the third largest recipient of US aid in the world. Yet Pakistan is a state run by its army and intelligence service. Operating in the shadows, Pakistan's military industrial complex owns and controls swathes of the economic and political landscape of the country. Military Inc. dares to illuminate the military as an oppressive holding company possessing not just security-related businesses, but also hotels, shopping malls, insurance companies, banks, farms and even an airline. The result is a deeply undemocratic society, where money is funnelled towards the military's economic enterprises, leaving those in need of it impoverished and effectively disenfranchised. With an empirical richness, and a view to Pakistan's recent history, Ayesha Siddiqa offers a detailed and powerful case study of a global phenomenon: corruption, hollow economic growth and elitism. This new edition includes a chapter on the recent developments of the military's foray into the media, and a new preface.
This book examines the rise of religious extremism in Pakistan, particularly since 1947, and analyzes its connections to the Pakistani army's corporate interests and U.S.-Pakistan relations. It includes profiles of leading Pakistani militant groups with details of their origins, development, and capabilities. The author begins with an historical overview of the introduction of Islam to the Indian sub-continent in 712 AD, and brings the story up to the present by describing President Musharraf's handling of the war on terror. He provides a detailed account of the political developments in Pakistan since 1947 with a focus on the influence of religious and military forces. He also discusses regional politics, Pakistan's attempt to gain nuclear power status, and U.S.-Pakistan relations, and offers predictions for Pakistan's domestic and regional prospects.
"The Beijing-Islamabad axis plays a central role in Asia's geopolitics, from India's rise to the prospects for a post-American Afghanistan, from the threat of nuclear terrorism to the continent's new map of mines, ports and pipelines. China is Pakistan's great economic hope and its most trusted military partner; Pakistan is the battleground for China's encounters with Islamic militancy and the heart of its efforts to counter-balance the emerging US-India partnership. For decades, each country has been the other's only 'all-weather' friend. Yet the relationship is still little understood. The wildest claims about it are widely believed, while many of its most dramatic developments are hidden from the public eye. This book sets out the recent history of Sino-Pakistani ties and their ramifications for the West, for India, for Afghanistan, and for Asia as a whole. It tells the stories behind some of its most sensitive aspects, including Beijing's support for Pakistan's nuclear program, China's dealings with the Taliban, and the Chinese military's planning for crises in Pakistan. It describes a relationship increasingly shaped by Pakistan's internal strife, and the dilemmas China faces between the need for regional stability and the imperative for strategic competition with India and the USA."--Amazon.com.
Established as a homeland for India’s Muslims in 1947, Pakistan has had a tumultuous history. Beset by assassinations, coups, ethnic strife, and the breakaway of Bangladesh in 1971, the country has found itself too often contending with religious extremism and military authoritarianism. Now, in a probing biography of her native land amid the throes of global change, Ayesha Jalal provides an insider’s assessment of how this nuclear-armed Muslim nation evolved as it did and explains why its dilemmas weigh so heavily on prospects for peace in the region. “[An] important book...Ayesha Jalal has been one of the first and most reliable [Pakistani] political historians [on Pakistan]...The Struggle for Pakistan [is] her most accessible work to date...She is especially telling when she points to the lack of serious academic or political debate in Pakistan about the role of the military.” —Ahmed Rashid, New York Review of Books “[Jalal] shows that Pakistan never went off the rails; it was, moreover, never a democracy in any meaningful sense. For its entire history, a military caste and its supporters in the ruling class have formed an ‘establishment’ that defined their narrow interests as the nation’s.” —Isaac Chotiner, Wall Street Journal