In what could be a big irony, in the name of “jointness” among the armed forces, Pakistan seems to be distancing itself from the concept’s core feature: the equal status of all the service chiefs—the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force.
Modern wars need new technologies, applications, and doctrines. The combination of improved sensors, automation, and artificial intelligence (AI) with hypersonics and other advanced technologies in robotics and algorithms is vital for fighting and winning wars. And in this, all three services ’joint planning and coordination play a vital role.
No single service is unilaterally “more important” than another as effective national defense relies on the seamless integration and synergy of all three branches—Army, Navy, and Air Force—to address the complex and varied challenges of modern warfare.
Modern military doctrines emphasize Multi-Domain Operations (MDO), where the Air Force and Navy, with their ability to operate across physical domains (air, sea, land) and new domains (space, cyber), are key integrators of military power.
In fact, air and naval platforms leverage advanced technologies such as satellites, drones, and sophisticated electronic warfare systems to deliver superior intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities. Air and naval assets can overcome geography, bypassing land-based obstacles like rugged terrain or fortified borders, thereby enabling force application in otherwise inaccessible areas.
In other words, jointness is no longer army-centric, as it seemed to be in the past. Earlier, army dominance was due to a continental strategic focus, potentially resulting in a decline in resources and influence for other branches, such as the navy and air force.
While the Army continues to be responsible for defending land borders and internal security, which are fundamental to national defense, air and naval power are essential for projecting a country’s power and influence across vast distances in an increasingly globalized world.
The Navy is critical for protecting vital sea lanes, trade routes, and energy supplies that are essential for a nation’s economy. And air power provides surveillance and combat dominance.
However, all these places become insignificant if one goes by the proposed 27th Constitutional Amendment in Pakistan, which calls for major reforms in its military command and judicial framework.
A key feature of the amendment is the introduction of the post of Chief of Defence Forces, which would replace the existing Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (CJCSC). Under the new arrangement, the Army Chief will always serve as the Chief of Defence Forces, with the Chiefs of the Navy and Air Force reporting to him.
The amendment also grants lifetime constitutional protection to officers promoted to five-star ranks such as Field Marshal, Marshal of the Air Force, and Admiral of the Fleet. These officers would retain their ranks, uniforms, and privileges permanently, with removal possible only through a parliamentary process similar to impeachment.
It may be noted that Pakistan’s present Army Chief General Asim Munir was promoted to the honorary lifetime rank of Field Marshal in May 2025. Now, with this amendment, he would be at the apex of the military command, consolidating authority over all three services and giving him a decisive role in nuclear command appointments, all with constitutional protection.
Understandably, the amendment has sparked a strong debate in Pakistan, with some political parties and legal experts expressing concern over the potential for a further erosion of democracy.
They believe that General Munir is now the country’s most powerful military leader, with control that rivals or exceeds that of civilian leaders. In fact, he is now said to be the country’s de facto leader in Pakistan’s hybrid civil-military governance structure. The civilian government led by Mian Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif is increasingly being viewed as a “puppet regime” subservient to General Munir.
Of course, Pakistan has long been viewed by strategic experts worldwide as not a country with an Army but an Army with a country.
Pakistan has been under direct military rule for 33 years since its creation in 1947. It has spent several decades under direct military rule in three stints – 1958 – 1971, 1977 – 1988, and 1999 – 2008.
And when not directly ruling, the military has always kept the civilian government away from three crucial areas – nuclear weapons, foreign policy, particularly vis-à-vis Afghanistan, India, China, and America, and, of course, military issues (no question of the Army remaining under the civilian rulers).
But what is not equally emphasized is that it is the Pakistani Army that dominates the country’s economy too. In her well-researched book, ‘Military Inc: Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy, leading Pakistani defense analyst Ayesha Siddiqa has provided insight into how the Pakistan army possesses 12 percent of the country’s land, out of which two-thirds is owned by senior military officers.
She argues that the military’s economic power, rooted in “its historic role as a defender of the nation’s security,” has expanded rapidly in recent decades to include a vast array of commercial enterprises too. These include everything from land development projects to heavy manufacturing to retail businesses, all owned or controlled by the military through various front companies.
She provides detailed accounts of several vital military-owned enterprises, including “the Fauji Foundation,” which is involved in everything from cement production to fertilizer manufacturing to banking. She also examines the military’s role in land development projects, a major source of controversy in Pakistan in recent years.
Other Pakistani experts, like a former civil servant and respected Pakistani freelance columnist Irfan Husain, have lamented that “The military has long been expanding its footprint across Pakistan’s cities through its multiplying defense societies.”
According to him, “Land is acquired [by Defence Housing Authorities] at nominal rates from provincial governments and developed with money taken as advance payments for residential and commercial plots from officers. And what is more disturbing, “allotment letters are then sold to civilians at several multiples of the price they paid.”
A United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report also states that Pakistan’s military is one of the largest “conglomerates of business entities in Pakistan, besides being the country’s biggest urban real estate developer and manager with wide-ranging involvement in the construction of public projects.”
And these entities are not entirely separate; they overlap, giving the military a double advantage. Besides, the report points out that the military oversees the civil aviation authority, Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), the National Institute of Health, various state-owned firms, and government agencies in charge of power, water, telecoms, & housing. Above all, former top soldiers have also secured many top-flight positions, including ambassadorships to important countries.
In fact, a report revealed not long ago that former army chief General Qamar Jawed Bajwa and army spokesman General Asim Saleem Bajwa made significant financial gains within a relatively short time.
Bajwa’s immediate family amassed substantial wealth, transforming into billionaires within six years. General Asim Saleem Bajwa and his brother established a business empire that included 133 restaurants across four countries, operating under the Papa John’s pizza franchise.
It has also been reported how the brothers of former army chief Ashfaq Parvez Kayani created a real estate empire. In fact, the so-called Pandora Papers during former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s regime had exposed a long list of Pakistan’s former military officers who had accumulated immense wealth through tax evasion and corruption.
With such a preponderance of the Army in Pakistani polity over the years, the last few Generals no longer considered it necessary to rule the country directly by staging military coups.
They have preferred to exercise real power in the country from behind the civilian rulers. In fact, when people talk of “the establishment,” it does not mean the Prime Minister and his ministers and civil servants. “Establishment” in Pakistan meant the “consensus” of the country’s elites as a whole, but led by the Army.
As Sushant Sareen, an avid Pakistan-watcher and Senior Fellow at the Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation, says, “This consensus—call it the “Idea of Pakistan,” if you will—is made up of the military along with other influential segments of the society and polity, including businessmen, landed gentry, professional classes (bankers, lawyers, doctors, etc.), judges, bureaucrats, politicians, and some clerics. At its most basic, the establishment is the ruling class, which is not always the same as the ruling party or coalition”.
Viewed thus, the present amendment only confirms that General Munir and the military establishment have further consolidated their hold in the country’s governance.
But this army-centric feature, viewed through a military prism, implies that Pakistan’s primary security focus will remain land-based, particularly on its eastern and, more recently, western borders — India and Afghanistan.
After all, Munir had issued a warning only a few days ago: “With diminishing distinction between combat and communication zones, the reach and lethality of our weapon systems (nuclear) will shatter the misconceived immunity of India’s geographic vastness.”
- Author and veteran journalist Prakash Nanda is Chairman of the Editorial Board of the EurAsian Times and has been commenting on politics, foreign policy, and strategic affairs for nearly three decades. He is a former National Fellow of the Indian Council for Historical Research and a recipient of the Seoul Peace Prize Scholarship.
- CONTACT: prakash.nanda (at) hotmail.com
