Pakistan is in all sorts of trouble and the situation continues to get worse. At the centre of this mess is the Pakistani military, which has grown powerful over the last half-century by exploiting religion, greed and paranoia about threats from neighbours, especially India and Afghanistan. After decades of relative success that while good for the military was bad for Pakistan, the military finds itself under attacks from all sides and in danger of losing its power over Pakistani politics while so much else in Pakistan is rapidly eroding with no relief in sight. Popular support for the military has been declining for over a decade and is accelerating because of an unprecedented economic crisis and the military’s meddling in Afghanistan backfiring in a spectacular fashion. Military efforts to control local politics is also a losing endeavour.
The chief political threat to the military is former prime minister Imran Khan, who is seen as the winner in upcoming elections because Khan wants to make the military subordinate to the elected government and keep it that way. This is something neighbouring India did from the beginning in 1947 when India and Pakistan were the two largest new democracies emerging from the end of British colonial rule over South Asia. Neither of these new nations was an outstanding success, but the Indians made fewer mistakes and had more success than Pakistan. Both new nations were cursed with an ancient tradition of corruption. One reason the British lasted so long and were so successful at running their huge Indian colonial empire was the British were less corrupt and more efficient running the region. An example of this is the peaceful departure of the British and their efforts to help the new nations organize governments that would last. This effort was more successful with India and the other, smaller new states created in 1947. Pakistan turned out to be a slow-motion train wreck which took decades to devastate Pakistan economically, politically and militarily.
Another source of trouble is Pakistan’s large number of state-owned companies, whose revenue accounts for ten percent of GDP. These firms include the national railroads, the national airline, other transportation, electric power generation operations, oil and gas production, finance and investment firms, real estate development, travel and marketing firms and dozens of smaller trade or manufacturing firms. Except for the oil and gas operations, all the others make little or no profit. Most, like the power generation firms, lose enormous sums annually. The primary problem is poor management by personnel who got their jobs for political reasons, not management ability. The losses these firms generate are one reason Pakistan has a hard time getting foreign loans to avoid financial collapse. Reforming these unprofitable operations requires more management and political capabilities than Pakistan can assemble.
Privatizing many of these firms is difficult because there are no buyers due to well-founded fears that government corruption would result in them being sold to politically-connected buyers at bargain prices, or being forcibly re-sold to the politically connected even if they had just been bought by a less-connected purchaser. Some of the money losing operations cannot just be shut down because they provide critical services. Foreign lenders and investors, including the IMF (international monetary fund), China and Saudi Arabia, have lost patience with Pakistan and are unwilling to take further financial risks there. One financial risk is the $77 billion debt to China and Saudi Arabia. This money is supposed to be repaid between 2023 and 2026. Pakistan doesn’t have the money to make the payments and is trying to negotiate an extension. Until this issue is resolved there will be no more loans or investments from China or Saudi Arabia. A side-effect of all this financial turmoil is high (47 percent) inflation which is felt by all Pakistanis.
Another failed investment was the Taliban and various Islamic terrorist groups. The Taliban was supported so it could take control of Afghanistan and show its gratitude by shutting down Islamic terrorists and separatist groups in Afghanistan that attacked Pakistan. That has not happened. The Taliban were also supposed to provide stability for Pakistani investments and trade. China was willing to make major investments in Afghanistan if conditions were stable. That has not happened and Pakistan gets most of the blame.
Disagreements between the Pakistani and IEA (Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan) governments over how to deal with the TTP (Pakistani Taliban) have resulted in the TTP remaining safe in their Afghan camps while launching attacks across the border into Pakistan. This is mainly because of political surprises in Afghanistan. Pro-Pakistan officials in the IEA government complain about how they have lost control of government policy. Pakistan believed that once the IEA took over the pro-Pakistan members of the IEA government would give Pakistan their long-desired control over, or at least influence on, the Afghan government.
That might have happened except for the fact the official leader of the Afghan Taliban, Mullah Hebatullah Akhundzada, is unpopular with many Taliban faction leaders, in part because Akhundzada was seen as a figurehead and his chief deputy, the head of the Haqqani Network, is actually in charge. That was true but the secret was that Akhundzada only acted as a figurehead because he had to operate from the Pakistan sanctuary in Quetta, a city just across the border from the Afghan province of Kandahar, where many of the original Taliban came from. Kandahar was where Akhundzada went after the IEA replaced the IRA (American backed-Islamic Republic of Afghanistan) in mid-2021. Once back in Afghanistan, Akhundzada could exercise his power as the official head of the Taliban and do so without potentially lethal pressure from Pakistan.
The Pakistanis underestimated how widespread the hatred of Pakistan was in Afghanistan, even among the many Afghan Taliban who seemed to maintain a pro-Pakistan attitude. Pakistan believed this would neutralize the many Afghan Taliban factions who had openly expressed their opposition to Pakistan interference in Afghanistan. Mullah Akhundzada was a highly respected Islamic scholar who rarely commented on his political beliefs. The Pakistani ISI (military intelligence service) that created the Taliban in the mid-1990s and “managed” them ever since misjudged Akhundzada’s silence on his attitude towards Pakistan. This was seen as agreement with or neutrality towards the ISI and Pakistan in general. Akhundzada had widespread support in Afghanistan while the pro-Pakistan IEA officials who were appointed while the Taliban were still in Quetta had little such support.
When Akhundzada overruled Pakistan-backed IEA officials, it was clear he was no longer a figurehead. Akhundzada was not a rigid religious fanatic either. When he imposed a ban on women’s higher education in December 2022, he paid attention to the reaction of most Afghans and agreed to lift most of the restrictions. Akhundzada understands he is responsible to what Afghans, not the ISI, want.
This revelation means a lot of problems for the ISI and the Pakistan military, who are in trouble with Pakistan voters and elected officials who are closing in on curbing the independence of the Pakistan military. The military’s policy towards Afghanistan played a minor role in this, but revelation that the Afghans hate the Pakistani military as much as most Pakistanis do has implications for the military’s future. Inside Afghanistan, the pro-Pakistan Haqqani government officials are being told to not criticize IEA leader Akhundzada openly because that might lead to more anti-Pakistan violence inside Afghanistan.
Another Afghan problem with Pakistan is that Pakistanis tend to take their Islam more seriously than Afghans do. This is part of a larger problem because since the founding of Pakistan in 1947 there has been frequent and continuing sectarian, religious and ethnic violence. Religion continues to be a major cause of violence. Attacks are carried out between different sects of Islam, primarily Shia and Sunni but there are other sects that attract violent attention. There is even violence between identical religious/ethnic groups because those who lived in Pakistan before 1947 don’t get along with those who fled Indian anti-Moslem violence in 1947 and settled in Pakistan. Most Moslem Indians stayed in India in 1947 and India currently has more Moslems than Pakistan. There is religious violence on both sides of the border but it is worst in Pakistan, whose name translates to “Land of the Pure.”
Afghans, in contrast, tend to be more tolerant. The exception is radical Afghan Moslems like the original Taliban. Their radical attitudes were the result of the Taliban being created by the Pakistani military in the mid-1990s. This left a lethal legacy as clashes in northwest Pakistan between Pakistani troops and Islamic terrorists continues. To a lesser degree, violence occurs in the southeast (Baluchistan) with Baluchi separatists. Afghans and Pakistani elected officials blame the Pakistani military for causing the separatist and religious violence and the resulting economic problems. While Pakistanis complain of their “Afghan problem” the Afghans are more justified complaining about a much more active and damaging “Pakistani problem.”
Inside Pakistan the major problem is the excessive power of the Pakistani military. Even though Pakistan military spending, at $11 billion a year, is the lowest in the region, the Pakistani military is a major political power, with veto power over any decisions the elected government makes. This contributed to current economic problems that have Pakistan facing bankruptcy. While the Pakistani military budget is only four percent of GDP, that is the highest percentage of GDP for military spending in the region. Active duty and retired military officers have a lot of control over the national economy and exercise a form of corruption that aims to take care of the military first and anything else second. This arrangement has been under attacks since the Pakistani debt crises began in 2019. The generals can, literally, blame it all on “foreign bankers” and largely infidel (non-Moslem) ones at that.
The IMF (International Monetary Fund) is reluctant to loan Pakistan any more money because of its excessive defence spending, poor performance of state-owned firms and lack of progress in getting wealthy Pakistanis to pay taxes. There are also accusations of financing Islamic terrorism. The IMF warned that if charges that Pakistan is allowing Islamic terrorists to raise and move cash out of the country are verified, Pakistan would have more problems obtaining foreign loans. The terrorism funding charges are evaluated by the FATF (Financial Action Task Force) which threatened to put Pakistan on the grey list and will escalate to the black list if Pakistan does not make effective efforts to block Pakistan based terrorist groups from using the international banking system to finance their violence. Pakistan reduced the illegal financing activity coming out of Pakistan and by 2019 FATF took Pakistan off the grey list. Being on the grey list leads to being put on the black list and that would mean Pakistan would have some financial problems because of resulting international banking restrictions. Without IMF assistance Pakistan would slide into financial collapse. That would hurt all Pakistanis, including the military. This is also dangerous for the neighbours and distant enemies of Pakistan because the military controls Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.
