Deepening Pakistan’s enduring civil-military imbalance

The iron grip of Pakistan’s military establishment upon the nation’s political system endures as the most potent force shaping its governance. The elevation of Gen. Asim Munir to the rank of field marshal, announced on May 20, is a thunderous declaration of the military’s unassailable supremacy, a gesture that reverberates far beyond the barbed-wire perimeters of the Army’s General Headquarters in Rawalpindi. As his elevation followed the short military clash with India in early May in which Pakistan was quick to claim strategic gains, the conflict was likely the proximate factor in his ascent. It is a message both to Pakistan’s citizens — that the barracks rule the ballot — as well as to the international community — that the guardians of the state are now, more than ever, its rulers.

The beginning of centralized rule

For Pakistan, the history of civil-military relations has been fraught with tension, as the military has often overshadowed civilian institutions. Although Muhammad Ali Jinnah professed a commitment to democratic ideals, the formative choices he made as Pakistan’s founding leader revealed a deeper paradox. By preserving the authoritarian framework of the British viceregal system and exercising unchecked executive authority to dismiss elected governments in the North-West Frontier Province and Sindh, he entrenched centralized power. These decisions distorted Pakistan’s civil-military balance and stunted the growth of democratic institutions, setting a precedent in which authority, rather than accountability, would shape the trajectory of the state. In the decades that followed, this precedent hardened into pattern.

Field marshal: Ceremonial yet powerful

Now, the field marshal’s baton has become a scepter, and with it, Munir presides over a Pakistan in which the idea of democracy flickers faintly.

Within the country’s military hierarchy, Munir, as the chief of Army staff (COAS), is the ultimate decision-maker regarding the Army’s operational apparatus. The position of COAS is anchored in constitutional precedent as well as the routine exercise of command authority. The title of field marshal, an honorific bestowed in recognition of extraordinary service, is theoretically positioned above the rank of general and equivalent to admiral of the fleet in the Navy and marshal of the Air Force, but does not grant any operational role within the chain of command or active service responsibilities following retirement, according to the Pakistan Army Act, 1952.

While the title of field marshal is more ceremonial than constitutional, the elevation of Gen. Munir to this distinction carries with it deep historical resonance. It is the first such conferment since 1959, when Field Marshal Ayub Khan, then the self-styled architect of Pakistan’s guided democracy, conferred the same honor upon himself. However, in the case of Munir, the process involved a joint recommendation by the prime minister, president, and defense ministry.

Entrenchment of military dominance

Ayub’s assumption of the title was an unmistakable declaration of the military’s primacy over civilian authority, a pivot that would come to define Pakistan’s enduring civil-military imbalance. However, during Ayub’s reign, there was no pretense of civilian government; Ayub was both the military chief and the head of state, ruling as a military dictator. Thus, the question of constitutional supremacy of civilian institutions versus real supremacy of the military never truly arose — the two were one and the same. His authority was undisputed because there was no civilian government to dispute it. Today, by contrast, Pakistan finds itself in a deeply paradoxical situation: a civilian government exists, constitutionally empowered to oversee the military, yet the military chief now holds the rank of field marshal — a rank historically associated with undisputed, singular power. This anomaly underscores an unprecedented tension in Pakistan’s political system, where the constitutional supremacy of a civilian government exists only on paper, while real authority resides elsewhere.

The elevation of Munir thus revives Ayub’s symbolism but introduces a more unsettling dimension — the coexistence of a nominally sovereign civilian setup and a functionally dominant military elite cloaked in ceremonial might. In resurrecting this honorific now, one senses an echo of a past in which uniformed power cloaked itself in the trappings of statecraft, often to the detriment of democratic consolidation. The implications underscore a perennial tension in Pakistan’s political system: the unresolved question of where sovereignty truly resides — in the ballot or in the barracks.

Even when Ayub was eventually compelled to resign in 1969 amid rising popular unrest, he did not return the state to civilian hands; rather, he handed power to another general — Yahya Khan. This act entrenched the norm that transitions of power in Pakistan need not pass through the ballot box. Yahya’s misrule would culminate in the cataclysm of 1971, the secession of East Pakistan and the birth of Bangladesh — a trauma that momentarily chastened the military’s overt dominance and allowed the re-emergence of civilian rule under Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

Bhutto’s government represented a critical opportunity to re-anchor Pakistan’s polity in democratic soil. Yet Bhutto himself governed with an authoritarian impulse, centralizing power and undermining institutions in ways that mirrored his military predecessors. His attempt to assert civilian supremacy over the armed forces provoked latent resentment within the military establishment. This simmering tension came to a head in 1977, when Gen. Zia-ul-Haq, then a relatively obscure figure elevated by Bhutto himself, executed a coup under the pretext of restoring order amid electoral controversies.

Zia’s regime would prove far more ideologically transformative than that of his uniformed predecessors. While Ayub ruled with the rhetoric of modernization and strategic realism, Zia sought legitimacy through Islamization, embedding religion into the bureaucratic and legal machinery of the state. This fusion of military authoritarianism and religious conservatism left an enduring legacy, reshaping the civil-military equation not merely in institutional terms but in ideological ones. Zia’s rule, which lasted until his death, in 1988, entrenched military control over Pakistan’s political apparatus and marked the beginning of an era where the military not only controlled the defense and security policies of the country but also shaped its domestic policies.

The ensuing decades were marked by a cyclical pattern in which fragile civilian governments rose and fell under the long shadow of military tutelage. Democratic interludes, though constitutionally legitimate, remained structurally weak — unable or unwilling to confront the entrenched dominance of the military establishment. The 1990s heralded a nominal return to electoral politics, yet power continued to orbit around Rawalpindi more than Islamabad. Though Benazir Bhutto rose as a formidable champion of liberal socio-economic reforms, women’s empowerment, and the restoration of civilian supremacy over military power — galvanizing public sentiment with her charismatic leadership — her tenure as prime minister, like those of her civilian successors, unfolded within invisible boundaries drawn by the military establishment. This dynamic reached its inevitable climax in 1999, when Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was unseated in a coup led by Gen. Pervez Musharraf, reaffirming the military’s prerogative to act as the final arbiter of national destiny.

Musharraf, styling himself as a modernizer in uniform, cloaked his rule in the language of enlightened reform. Yet beneath this veneer, his regime consolidated the very structures that subordinated civilian institutions to military oversight. The state’s bureaucratic machinery, media narratives, and foreign policy apparatus were all recalibrated to serve strategic ends defined by the armed forces. During his decade-long rule, Musharraf ensured that any future civilian government would operate within boundaries long drawn by the military leadership.

The past two decades have witnessed a formal restoration of civilian governance, but one that has operated under the implicit constraints of military oversight. Successive governments, elected through flawed electoral processes, have functioned more as stewards of limited autonomy than as sovereign architects of national policy. The turbulence following the 2018 general elections, and the subsequent ouster of Prime Minister Imran Khan in 2022 and his imprisonment in 2023, laid bare the enduring centrality of the military in orchestrating Pakistan’s political theater, often behind a carefully managed façade of civilian rule. This “hybrid regime” serves as both mask and mechanism — masking military dominance with the illusion of democratic process, and mechanizing control through pliant institutions and constrained civilian agency.

Munir’s commanding position

Under the command of Gen. Munir, the military’s role has become not only more visible but also more institutionalized, with its influence permeating the judiciary, the media, and even the electoral process. Civil-military imbalance, judicial manipulation, and suppression of dissent are the hallmarks of Pakistan’s current hybrid regime, with Gen. Munir controlling key levers of power behind the scenes. While it is true that Pakistan’s military has long wielded considerable influence over civilian affairs, what is different this time is the manner in which the military is asserting that control. The scale and visibility of state repression appear far greater; the political engineering is more aggressive, as seen in the crackdown on the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI); and institutional autonomy has shrunk faster, with the judiciary and bureaucracy acting as extensions of the military establishment.

Thus, Munir’s elevation to the rank of field marshal signifies more than personal prestige. It serves as a culminating gesture in the long arc of military ascendancy, marking what appears to be the consolidation of a post-democratic order in which elected governments survive not by virtue of public mandate, but by alignment with the preferences of the security establishment. In this context, Gen. Munir’s ascent is less a military accolade than a constitutional epitaph — an inscription on the gravestone of civilian supremacy in Pakistan.

This consolidation of authority has not gone unrecognized by Pakistan’s judiciary. The Supreme Court of Pakistan recently strengthened the Army’s position under Munir by ruling in favor of military courts conducting trials of civilians — a significant legal development that has expanded the armed forces’ ability to suppress dissent. The ruling not only blurs the lines between civil and military justice but also institutionalizes a mechanism for civilian repression under the guise of national security.

Under Munir, the military’s reach extends beyond the traditional domains of defense and security. It has become an omnipresent force, dictating not only foreign and national security policy but also economic and social decisions. Prominent examples include the Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC), established in 2023, which granted the military a formal seat at the table to facilitate foreign investment. Munir himself has led delegations abroad to attract investment, notably to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and also publicly expressed gratitude for Saudi Arabia, China, and the UAE for aiding Pakistan in securing a $7 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This underscores Munir’s growing visibility in financial diplomacy, indicating that foreign partners consider the military as a more reliable interlocutor than civilian leadership. Reversing the tentative shifts toward economic pragmatism pursued by his predecessor, Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, Munir’s prioritization of military power over economic survival exemplifies the military’s mindset: maintaining a strategic edge in the region at all costs, even if it makes conditions worse for the civilian population.

Pakistan’s civilian governments, already emasculated by years of military interference, now function primarily as figureheads. The constitutional framework, which is supposed to provide a check on military power, has been increasingly hollowed out, with key decisions often made behind closed doors in Rawalpindi. The rise of Gen. Munir has only accelerated this process, leading to a situation where the military’s influence is no longer merely a fact of life but the defining characteristic of Pakistan’s political system.

Munir’s overt religiosity

Gen. Munir presents a paradox: On the one hand, he is a military man, rigid and methodical in his approach to governance; on the other, he has skillfully fused his military leadership with religious legitimacy, drawing upon Islamic symbolism to bolster the military’s agenda. On April 16, Gen. Munir spoke about the “stark differences between Hindus and Muslims,” highlighting the very basis for Pakistan’s creation — the “two nation theory” adopted by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, which postulated that Hindus and Muslims could not live in peaceful coexistence in a single political system after the British left and therefore the Muslims of South Asia needed a separate homeland for themselves. Speaking at a convention for overseas Pakistanis, Munir resurrected the ghosts of this theory by asserting that Pakistan’s founders believed that Muslims were different from Hindus in terms of religion, customs, traditions, and ambitions. His rhetoric, imbued with references to Islam, paints the military as not only as the guardian of national security but also as the protector of Pakistan’s ideological identity. Under his gaze, dissent is heresy, criticism is treason, and the constitution is but parchment trampled under a military boot, with his rule enforced through a network of surveillance, intimidation, and repression.

Consolidation of Munir’s power?

Pakistan under Munir is, in effect, a military-bureaucratic state where civilian institutions are relegated to the sidelines. This consolidation of power has allowed the military to pursue its goals with impunity. A strategic recalibration is underway in Pakistan, where the recent conflict with India, following New Delhi’s punitive counter-terrorist strikes on Pakistani locations, has changed civil-military dynamics. The military’s image has been reshaped to appear as a stabilizing force amid political flux. No longer contested by civilian leadership, the armed forces have regained primacy, with defense spending now seen as a public good vital to national survival. Political parties, once adversarial, now court military favor, abandoning critique for cooperation. The Sharifs and Bhutto-Zardaris are desperate to keep Munir in good humor to secure their positions in government. The public, too, exhibits a utilitarian acceptance of military dominance. In this realignment, critiques of the military’s economic entanglements fall silent, replaced by a tacit consensus on its indispensable role. Only Imran Khan refuses to be subdued, as reflected in his latest call for mass nationwide protests.  

Conclusion

Gen. Munir’s ascent is not a rupture but rather the culmination of a long arc in Pakistan’s history — a pattern wherein the military charts the nation’s course. Democratic impulses, repeatedly suppressed, have yielded to the steady hand of military authority. Whether he is keen to become Ayub or Musharraf, we do not know, but Gen. Munir’s growing control is a worrying sign of institutionalized militarism, one whose influence extends beyond national borders. For South Asia, the implications are destabilizing; for the West, past faith in Rawalpindi as a guarantor of order appears increasingly misplaced. Absent a course correction toward civilian rule, Pakistan risks drifting toward peril — internally, regionally, and globally.

Dr. Vinay Kaura is an Assistant Professor in the Department of International Affairs and Security Studies and the Deputy Director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at Sardar Patel University of Police, Security and Criminal Justice, Rajasthan, India. He is also an adjunct faculty on the Program on Terrorism and Security Studies at the George C. Marshall European Centre for Security Studies in Germany and an Affiliate with the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC.

Photo by Aamir Qureshi/AFP via Getty Images