This thread is devoted to the Pakistani military. I'd like to encourage members to feel free posting articles of a professional/scholastic nature that provide detailed information about the Pakistani Army's order of battle (itemized listings of units from Corps down to battalions along with special operations or army-level forces) and organization for combat (internal structure of specific unit-types).
Further, I'd be interested to learn about the Pakistani military education system. Who becomes an officer? From what social stratas are they likely to be obtained? What is their background(s)? Are there special incentive programs to attract certain officer candidates (medical/nursing, engineer, business) and what of women?
How does the ISI tie to the military? How is the ISI structured internally? Are they deeply compartmentalized internally?
Who forms policy? On what basis and with what objectives?
To the latter two points I'd refer readers to this excellent primer by Anatol Lieven as provided in another thread by Kasrkin-
Understanding Pakistan's Military-ISN March/April 2008
"...What follows is informed guess-work based on numerous discussions with experts and off-the-record talks with Pakistani officers including retired ISI officers.
Concerning the ISI, the consensus of my informants is as follows: There is considerable resentment of the ISI in the rest of the military, due to their perceived arrogance and suspected corruption. However, when it comes to overall strategy, the ISI follows the line of the high command. It is after all always headed by a senior regular general, not a professional intelligence officer, and a majority of its officers are also seconded regulars. The present Chief of Army Staff, General Ashfaq Kayani, was director of the ISI from 2004-2007, and ordered a limited crackdown on jihadi groups that the ISI had previously supported.
Concerning the Afghan Taleban, the military and the ISI are at one, and the evidence is unequivocal: The military and ISI continue to give them shelter, and there is deep unwillingness to take serious action against them on America’s behalf, both because it is feared that this would increase Pathan insurgency in Pakistan, and because they are seen as the only assets Pakistan possesses in Afghanistan. The conviction in the Pakistani security establishment is that the West will quit Afghanistan leaving civil war behind, and that India will then throw its weight behind the non-Pathan forces of the former Northern Alliance in order to encircle Pakistan strategically.
Concerning the Pakistani Taleban and their allies, however, like the military as a whole, the ISI is now committed to the struggle against them, and by the end of 2009 had lost more than seventy of its officers in this fight – some ten times the number of CIA officers killed since 9/11, just as Pakistani military casualties fighting the Pakistani Taleban have greatly exceeded those of the US in Afghanistan. Equally, however, in 2007-2008 there were a great many stories of ISI officers intervening to rescue individual Taleban commanders from arrest by the police or the army – too many, and too circumstantial, for these all to have been invented.
It seems clear therefore that whether because individual ISI officers felt a personal commitment to these men, or because the institution as a whole still regarded them as potentially useful, actions were taking place that were against overall military policy – let alone that of the Pakistani government. Moreover, some of these men had at least indirect links to Al Qaeda. This does not mean that the ISI knows where Osama bin Laden (if he is indeed still alive), Aiman al-Zawahiri and other Al Qaeda leaders are hiding. It does however suggest that they could probably do a good deal more to find out.
On the crucial question of support for terrorism against India, it is obvious that not just the ISI but the military as a whole are committed to keeping Lashkar-e-Taiba (under its cover as Jamaat-ut-Dawa) at least in existence, both as a potential future weapon against India and because they are genuinely scared of driving this very powerful and popular group to revolt.
Jamaat-ut-Dawa’s extensive international network in the Pakistani diaspora also leads Pakistani officers to fear that if they attempt seriously to suppress the group it will also launch successful terrorist attacks in the West, with disastrous results for Pakistan’s international position. Lashkar-e-Taiba members certainly have contacts with Al Qaeda, and helped Al Qaeda operatives escape from Afghanistan after the defeat of the Taleban and helped shelter them within Pakistan. As Stephen Tankel writes:
“Ideologically, for all of its strategic restraint following 9/11 Lashkar is, after all, a jihadi organization with a long history of waging pan-Islamic irredentist campaigns. Indian-controlled Kashmir may be the group’s primary ideological and strategic target, but it has never been the apotheosis of Lashkar’s jihad.”
Blaming Pakistan
All the groups and individuals within this net hate the US, Israel, India and indeed Russia alike, though they have different targets at different times. Despite LeT’s strategic decision to concentrate on India, therefore, there is no ideological barrier to its members taking part in actions against the West. The jihadi world could even be called a kind of cloud of gas in which individuals join some clump for one operation and then part again to form new ad hoc groups for other attacks. This also makes it extremely hard for the ISI to keep tabs on the individuals concerned, even when it wants to.
By far the biggest terrorist attack actually carried out by LeT itself was that in Mumbai in November 2008. The great majority of the Pakistani experts and retired officers whom I know do not think that the Pakistani high command, either of the ISI or the army, was involved in ordering Lashkar-e-Taiba’s terrorist attack on Mumbai in November 2008. They point out in particular that while deliberately targeting Westerners greatly boosted LeT’s prestige among international militants, it would have been an unprecedented, reckless and pointless strategy for the Pakistani high command, ensuring a furious reaction from the international community.
Equally, there is an overwhelming consensus that this operation could not have been planned without ISI officers having been involved at some stage and without the ISI knowing that some sort of operation was being planned. Whether the operation then continued as it were on autopilot, was helped only by retired officers, or whether the junior officers concerned deliberately decided to pursue it without telling their superiors, is impossible to say at this stage.
ISI help is however not necessary for Islamist terrorists who wish to carry out attacks against India (though it has certainly occurred in the past). The discontent of sections of India’s Muslim minority (increased by ghastly incidents like the massacres of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002, encouraged by the Hindu nationalist state government) gives ample possibilities of recruitment; the sheer size of India, coupled with the incompetence of the Indian security forces, gives ample targets of opportunity; and the desire to provoke an Indian attack on Pakistan gives ample motive. But whether or not the ISI is involved in future attacks, India will certainly blame Pakistan for them.
This creates the real possibility of a range of harsh Indian responses, stretching from economic pressure through blockade to outright war. Such a war would in the short term unite Pakistanis, and greatly increase the morale of the Army. The long term consequences for Pakistan’s (and possibly India’s) economic development could however be quite disastrous; while if the US were perceived to back India in such a war, anti-American feeling and extremist recruitment in Pakistan would soar to new heights.
All of this gives the US every reason to press the Pakistani military to suppress some extremist groups and keep others on a very tight rein. Washington also however needs to press India to seek reconciliation with Pakistan over Kashmir, and to refrain from actions which will create even more fear of India in the Pakistani military."
This article was first published in The National Interest, Washington DC, no.94, March/April 2008, under the title “All Kayani’s Men”.
This thread isn't a comparative study of regional force balances. As such, fanboys should find little of interest here. Pakistani tactics, techniques & procedures (TTPs) are welcome if sustainable by valid sources but disparaging or deriding comments will be edited as will the entire post if I suspect malfeasance.
Finally, flaming and trolling. If you can't read the comments and contain yourselves, if you won't read the supporting documents and sustain your arguments then this thread isn't where you should be.
There IS room for subjectivity. Anatol Lieven engages in some of his own within the above comments. If you can write to that level of speculative thinking your thoughts will be welcome. While no longer a mod, I retain editing and deletion privileges. I'll exercise them here. Just that simple. You may complain to management via P.M. and they can over-ride my actions.
If this is the only post to this thread I'm fine with that too.
Further, I'd be interested to learn about the Pakistani military education system. Who becomes an officer? From what social stratas are they likely to be obtained? What is their background(s)? Are there special incentive programs to attract certain officer candidates (medical/nursing, engineer, business) and what of women?
How does the ISI tie to the military? How is the ISI structured internally? Are they deeply compartmentalized internally?
Who forms policy? On what basis and with what objectives?
To the latter two points I'd refer readers to this excellent primer by Anatol Lieven as provided in another thread by Kasrkin-
Understanding Pakistan's Military-ISN March/April 2008
"...What follows is informed guess-work based on numerous discussions with experts and off-the-record talks with Pakistani officers including retired ISI officers.
Concerning the ISI, the consensus of my informants is as follows: There is considerable resentment of the ISI in the rest of the military, due to their perceived arrogance and suspected corruption. However, when it comes to overall strategy, the ISI follows the line of the high command. It is after all always headed by a senior regular general, not a professional intelligence officer, and a majority of its officers are also seconded regulars. The present Chief of Army Staff, General Ashfaq Kayani, was director of the ISI from 2004-2007, and ordered a limited crackdown on jihadi groups that the ISI had previously supported.
Concerning the Afghan Taleban, the military and the ISI are at one, and the evidence is unequivocal: The military and ISI continue to give them shelter, and there is deep unwillingness to take serious action against them on America’s behalf, both because it is feared that this would increase Pathan insurgency in Pakistan, and because they are seen as the only assets Pakistan possesses in Afghanistan. The conviction in the Pakistani security establishment is that the West will quit Afghanistan leaving civil war behind, and that India will then throw its weight behind the non-Pathan forces of the former Northern Alliance in order to encircle Pakistan strategically.
Concerning the Pakistani Taleban and their allies, however, like the military as a whole, the ISI is now committed to the struggle against them, and by the end of 2009 had lost more than seventy of its officers in this fight – some ten times the number of CIA officers killed since 9/11, just as Pakistani military casualties fighting the Pakistani Taleban have greatly exceeded those of the US in Afghanistan. Equally, however, in 2007-2008 there were a great many stories of ISI officers intervening to rescue individual Taleban commanders from arrest by the police or the army – too many, and too circumstantial, for these all to have been invented.
It seems clear therefore that whether because individual ISI officers felt a personal commitment to these men, or because the institution as a whole still regarded them as potentially useful, actions were taking place that were against overall military policy – let alone that of the Pakistani government. Moreover, some of these men had at least indirect links to Al Qaeda. This does not mean that the ISI knows where Osama bin Laden (if he is indeed still alive), Aiman al-Zawahiri and other Al Qaeda leaders are hiding. It does however suggest that they could probably do a good deal more to find out.
On the crucial question of support for terrorism against India, it is obvious that not just the ISI but the military as a whole are committed to keeping Lashkar-e-Taiba (under its cover as Jamaat-ut-Dawa) at least in existence, both as a potential future weapon against India and because they are genuinely scared of driving this very powerful and popular group to revolt.
Jamaat-ut-Dawa’s extensive international network in the Pakistani diaspora also leads Pakistani officers to fear that if they attempt seriously to suppress the group it will also launch successful terrorist attacks in the West, with disastrous results for Pakistan’s international position. Lashkar-e-Taiba members certainly have contacts with Al Qaeda, and helped Al Qaeda operatives escape from Afghanistan after the defeat of the Taleban and helped shelter them within Pakistan. As Stephen Tankel writes:
“Ideologically, for all of its strategic restraint following 9/11 Lashkar is, after all, a jihadi organization with a long history of waging pan-Islamic irredentist campaigns. Indian-controlled Kashmir may be the group’s primary ideological and strategic target, but it has never been the apotheosis of Lashkar’s jihad.”
Blaming Pakistan
All the groups and individuals within this net hate the US, Israel, India and indeed Russia alike, though they have different targets at different times. Despite LeT’s strategic decision to concentrate on India, therefore, there is no ideological barrier to its members taking part in actions against the West. The jihadi world could even be called a kind of cloud of gas in which individuals join some clump for one operation and then part again to form new ad hoc groups for other attacks. This also makes it extremely hard for the ISI to keep tabs on the individuals concerned, even when it wants to.
By far the biggest terrorist attack actually carried out by LeT itself was that in Mumbai in November 2008. The great majority of the Pakistani experts and retired officers whom I know do not think that the Pakistani high command, either of the ISI or the army, was involved in ordering Lashkar-e-Taiba’s terrorist attack on Mumbai in November 2008. They point out in particular that while deliberately targeting Westerners greatly boosted LeT’s prestige among international militants, it would have been an unprecedented, reckless and pointless strategy for the Pakistani high command, ensuring a furious reaction from the international community.
Equally, there is an overwhelming consensus that this operation could not have been planned without ISI officers having been involved at some stage and without the ISI knowing that some sort of operation was being planned. Whether the operation then continued as it were on autopilot, was helped only by retired officers, or whether the junior officers concerned deliberately decided to pursue it without telling their superiors, is impossible to say at this stage.
ISI help is however not necessary for Islamist terrorists who wish to carry out attacks against India (though it has certainly occurred in the past). The discontent of sections of India’s Muslim minority (increased by ghastly incidents like the massacres of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002, encouraged by the Hindu nationalist state government) gives ample possibilities of recruitment; the sheer size of India, coupled with the incompetence of the Indian security forces, gives ample targets of opportunity; and the desire to provoke an Indian attack on Pakistan gives ample motive. But whether or not the ISI is involved in future attacks, India will certainly blame Pakistan for them.
This creates the real possibility of a range of harsh Indian responses, stretching from economic pressure through blockade to outright war. Such a war would in the short term unite Pakistanis, and greatly increase the morale of the Army. The long term consequences for Pakistan’s (and possibly India’s) economic development could however be quite disastrous; while if the US were perceived to back India in such a war, anti-American feeling and extremist recruitment in Pakistan would soar to new heights.
All of this gives the US every reason to press the Pakistani military to suppress some extremist groups and keep others on a very tight rein. Washington also however needs to press India to seek reconciliation with Pakistan over Kashmir, and to refrain from actions which will create even more fear of India in the Pakistani military."
This article was first published in The National Interest, Washington DC, no.94, March/April 2008, under the title “All Kayani’s Men”.
This thread isn't a comparative study of regional force balances. As such, fanboys should find little of interest here. Pakistani tactics, techniques & procedures (TTPs) are welcome if sustainable by valid sources but disparaging or deriding comments will be edited as will the entire post if I suspect malfeasance.
Finally, flaming and trolling. If you can't read the comments and contain yourselves, if you won't read the supporting documents and sustain your arguments then this thread isn't where you should be.
There IS room for subjectivity. Anatol Lieven engages in some of his own within the above comments. If you can write to that level of speculative thinking your thoughts will be welcome. While no longer a mod, I retain editing and deletion privileges. I'll exercise them here. Just that simple. You may complain to management via P.M. and they can over-ride my actions.
If this is the only post to this thread I'm fine with that too.
Comment