Indian Strategic Studies: Pakistan’s military elite

Paul Staniland
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The Pakistan Army is a politically important organization, yet its opacity has hindered academic research. We use open sources to construct unique new data on the backgrounds, careers, and post-retirement activities of post-1971 corps commanders and directors-general of Inter-Services Intelligence. We provide evidence of bureaucratic predictability and professionalism while officers are in service. After retirement, we show little involvement in electoral politics but extensive involvement in military-linked corporations, state employment, and other positions of influence. This combination provides Pakistan’s military with an unusual blend of professional discipline internally and political power externally – even when not directly ruling.

Pakistan's Army is central to questions of local, regional, and global stability. To better understand this pivotal organization’s inner workings, we analyze unique individual-level data on the corps commanders of the Pakistan Army and directors-general (DGs) of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) since 1971.11 This includes the nine standard corps, plus Army Air Defence (AAD) and Army Strategic Forces Command. This comes to 183 officers over 45 years. There have been 18 DGs ISI A number of these DGs were also corps commanders.View all notes The corps commanders are of enormous importance, working with the chief of army staff (COAS) to launch coups, withdraw from power, forge external and internal security policies, and shape the politics of Pakistan. We gathered data from open sources on the personal and career backgrounds of the corps commanders and ISI DGs, their trajectories within the military, and their post-retirement activities, both immediately after leaving service and later in retirement. These data provide systematic, detailed information on the military’s elite personnel and, crucially, how it has managed to keep them largely on board with a complex, politically demanding project. The data have numerous and important limitations, but they are also, to the best of our knowledge, unique in the Pakistani case, and among a small number of similar studies.22 For other similar studies, see Lee and Laksmana, ‘Why Do Retired Military Officers Enter Politics?’; Nakanishi, Strong Soldiers, Failed Revolution; Poczter and Pepinsky, ‘Authoritarian Legacies in Post–New Order Indonesia’ and Kammen and Chandra, Tour of Duty.View all notes

We first show strong evidence of high levels of bureaucratic institutionalization and professionalism within the Pakistan Army. Despite its recurrent praetorianism and ongoing political influence, the rules within the organization seem to be generally followed, with limited factionalism and consistent promotion pathways. There is a stark contrast between this cohesive, rational–bureaucratic organization and other political militaries racked by internal fratricide, plagued by factional rivalries, or vulnerable to divide-and-rule strategies by ruling elites, like those in 1960s Nigeria, 1970s Bangladesh, or 1990s Indonesia.

We then examine what corps commanders do after they leave the military. We show a clearly institutionalized transmission belt that shifts retired elites into military-owned charitable foundations and affiliated corporations, posts in the civilian government, and other positions of real and/or symbolic authority. These positions of influence, in addition to generous pensions and other benefits provided to retired generals, provide powerful incentives to toe the organizational line while serving and to avoid directly participating in politics after retirement.33 Pensions are independent of what a retired officer earns as a salary in such positions.View all notes Importantly, these ‘off-ramps’ are centrally controlled by the high command: the COAS and senior officers at General Headquarters (GHQ), including especially the adjutant general and the DG of the Welfare and Rehabilitation Directorate.

We find that strikingly few retired corps commanders go into electoral politics, and most only join the private sector late in retirement (often working for multinationals). Over 60% of corps commanders in our data work for the government immediately after retiring. We further show that the placement of retired elites has not shifted much across periods of military and civilian rule since the late 1980s: even when back in the barracks, the army has deep reach into the economy and bureaucracy. As they move deeper into retirement, more tentative data suggests greater involvement in the private sector and civil society, but still little direct embrace of electoral politics. Similar patterns hold for the smaller number of ISI chiefs.

This fusion of internal bureaucratic discipline with placement of retired elites in positions of power helps us understand why the Army’s formal withdrawals from governance do not lead to growing civilian authority. The carefully managed flow of personnel inside and outside the organization has important implications for how we think about militaries and politics more broadly. First, the Pakistan Army challenges the dichotomy between politicized and professionalized militaries: the two can coexist within the same military.44 Huntington, The Soldier and the State; Finer, The Man on Horseback; Staniland, ‘Explaining Civil-Military Relations in Complex Political Environments’; Barany, The Soldier and the Changing State.View all notesThe language of professionalism in this context tells us little: this is a highly ‘professional’ army in some respects, and remarkably ‘unprofessional’ in yet others. The very same individuals perform both its military–technical and political–interventionist activities.

Second, our evidence of deep continuities over time in the military’s management of its elite personnel shows that distinguishing between military and civilian rule can be very difficult: the end of formal army rule may not usher in civilian control of key areas of national policy.55 Major efforts to distinguish democracy and dictatorship, as well as variants of authoritarianism, include Geddes, Wright, and Frantz, ‘Autocratic Breakdown and Regime Transitions’; Svolik, The Politics of Authoritarian Rule and Boix, Miller, and Rosato, ‘A Complete Data Set of Political Regimes’.View all notes Some militaries are able to, borrowing from Cook, rule without governing.66 Cook, Ruling but Not Governing.View all notes In Pakistan, Egypt, Myanmar, Turkey (until recently), Bangladesh, and Thailand, among others, we have seen militaries that continue to exert power even when technically withdrawn to the barracks. Pakistan has been coded as a democracy in the Polity IV data set since the end of the Musharraf regime in 2008 – but the military continues to exert remarkable power within its political system.

The army’s ability to manage its serving and retired personnel is central to this power. The overlapping infrastructure of military corporations, leverage over the media and political parties, a network of retired officers in prominent roles, and internal cohesion provides numerous resources – material, political, and symbolic – for Pakistan’s military to hold civilian authority at bay. While scholars have focused on military coups as the most dramatic instance of military intervention, there are other important mechanisms of influence, coercion, and insulation that militaries can use to protect their interests and target their enemies. These are especially important as the international community has come to increasingly frown on overt coups.77 Goemans and Marinov 2014.View all notes Carefully studying the circulation of Pakistani army officers during and after their service provides valuable new insights into how military influence is reproduced even after a formal withdrawal to the barracks.

New evidence on Pakistan's Army

Our ‘micro-military politics’ approach differs from the existing literature on the Pakistani security state in two ways. First, extant work is dominated by macro-historical narratives.88 Cohen, The Pakistan Army; Fair, Fighting to the End; Shah, The Army and Democracy, Wilkinson, Army and Nation, Siddiqa, Military, Inc; Cloughley, A History of the Pakistan Army; Nawaz, Crossed Swords;Rizvi, The Military and Politics in Pakistan.View all notes These are excellent and important, but without further access to the military’s archives, there are serious limitations to conducting research of this kind. Adjudicating among existing narrative accounts is difficult without further access to primary evidence. Some scholars and journalists have been able to conduct interviews with current and former military officers, but access is uneven and restricted, the results are often contradictory, and the data are only helpful for certain research questions.99 For instance, Ahmed, The Pakistan Garrison State and Schofield, Inside the Pakistan Army.View all notesReliance on the military’s publications has many of the same limitations. Though prior research has been fruitful, a new approach can bring distinctive insights to bear.

Second, Pakistan is almost always compared to India. India is the praetorian road not taken, the historically similar matched pair that followed a more appropriately ‘objective control’ model of the military and politics.1010 See Mukherjee 2013, Staniland ‘Explaining Civil-Military Relations in Complex Political Environments’, Wilkinson, Army and Nation.View all notes This is a helpful comparison for the first decade of South Asia’s post-colonial history. But after the 1958 coup, or even as early as the entry of General Ayub Khan into the civilian cabinet in 1954, the comparison loses value. To understand the origins of Pakistan’s military politics, comparative analysis with India is essential; beyond that, it devolves into an apples-and-oranges comparison. Instead, we argue that other praetorian militaries, such as in contemporary Egypt and Myanmar, and their patterns of personnel management are more informative comparisons.

Micro-data on Pakistan’s military elite

We used open sources to gather data on soldiers who became corps commanders from 1971 onward. We also gathered the same data for the DGs of the ISI, some of whom never became corps commanders, providing a small complementary data set; this is, to our knowledge, unique data about elite military personnel in Pakistan.1111 Others have focused on the rank-and-file: Fair and Nawaz, ‘The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps’ on district-level recruitment patterns and Fair, ‘Using Manpower Policies to Transform the Force and Society’, which combines these data with household surveys.View all notes The top position in the Army, COAS, presides over a tight pyramid of control. Technically, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (CJCSC) is a higher position with jurisdiction over all three services, but in reality CJCSC is fairly powerless, and is mainly used as a way for worthy senior officers to achieve a fourth star before retirement.1212 Of the seventeen chairmen, two were drawn from the Navy and one from the Air Force; the remainder were army generals.View all notes Below the COAS are GHQ staff positions, combat commands at corps and division levels, positions heading military academies, and a variety of other postings, from running ordnance factories to staffing UN peacekeeping missions. The corps commanders are the collective elite who work with the COAS to manage this sprawling military establishment: as Blom argues, ‘Although the COAS is all-powerful, he needs the support of the CCC (Corps Commanders Conferences) for any major change in foreign policy.’1313 Bloom, ‘The “Multi-Vocal State”’, p. 289.View all notes

We used internet resources, journalistic coverage, government documents, and published secondary sources to gather data on the corps commanders from 1972 through February 2017. These ranged from newspaper articles to Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) press releases to annual reports of military-affiliated corporations to Wikipedia with cross-checking. We created individual documents for each officer, which vary in quality and extent because of variation in the amount of data available, with coding and sources to provide maximum transparency. In addition to the data set, these materials will be made publicly available, which will help improve their quality over time. We focused on the post-1971 period because data was more readily available and this time frame allowed us to examine three periods of civilian rule (1972–1977, 1988–1999, 2008–present) and two periods of military rule (Zia, 1977–1988, and Musharraf, 1999–2008). The data set and accompanying coding materials are available for public use. It will be periodically updated as new corps commanders and DGs of ISI enter the elite.

The unit of analysis is the individual officer who became a corps commander or ISI DG after 1971. The definition of corps commander we adopt is broader than just the nine ‘standard’ combat corps: we include Army Air Defence Command and Army Strategic Forces Command. We assigned each individual a unique ID, since some individuals had multiple commands of a corps and/or the ISI, which would lead to replication of the same individual data if the command was the unit of analysis. We ended up with a corps commander data set of 183 officers and an ISI data set of 18 officers. Eighteen of these officers were still serving as of February 2017 – when we refer to ‘serving’ or ‘current’ officers we mean as of February 2017 – but the vast majority are retired. Two former corps commanders died while serving, both as COAS: Asif Nawaz in 1993 and Zia ul Haq in 1988. Two former ISI DGs died while in service, Akhtar Abdur Rahman – in the same plane crash as Zia while CJCSC – and Major General Riaz Hussain.

The main challenge we faced was data availability and quality. As we discuss below, for some variables there is extensive missing data. We transparently identify particularly problematic variables and the conclusions we can credibly draw. By providing sourcing information and transparently producing the data upon publication, we hope that mistakes can be corrected and gaps filled in as part of a cumulative process and that this effort can help to further advance the collection of systematic qualitative and quantitative data on Pakistan’s military and its implications for broader politics.1414 Excellent recent work in this vein includes Siddiqa, Military, Inc; Nawaz, Crossed Swords, Fair and Nawaz, ‘The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps’; Fair, Fighting to the End; Shah, The Army and Democracy; Paul, The Warrior Stateand Wilkinson, Army and Nation.View all notes We fully acknowledge the limitations of our data, but hope that our efforts can lay the basis for improvement, expansion, and correction over time.

Becoming a corps commander: Bureaucratic predictability

We first discuss pre-corps command characteristics of the corps commanders in our sample, separating analysis of the DGs of the ISI for a distinct section later in the paper. Our main finding is that the Pakistan Army, consistent with extant accounts, is a highly professionalized and bureaucratized organization, showing substantial continuities along a range of outcomes. There are some exceptions, mainly surrounding the top commanders in periods of military rule or extreme political instability, but there is little evidence of the pervasive factionalism that has plagued many other political militaries. While there is a baseline level of friction within the organization on particular decisions, especially concerning the wide latitude army chiefs have to choose corps commanders, by and large, the Pakistan Army does not see splits either among top commanders or between commanders and the ranks. This is not a given: as Geddes has argued, and cases like Thailand highlight, political militaries often fracture among factions and personalities.1515 Geddes, ‘What Do We Know about Democratisation after Twenty Years?’ On the Thai military, see Chambers, Knights of the Realm.View all notes Thus, Pakistan stands out for its praetorian cohesion in comparative perspective, in line with militaries in Egypt, Myanmar, and pre-Erdogan Turkey.1616 Cook Ruling but Not Governing, Nakanishi, Strong Soldiers, Failed Revolution.View all notes

Demographic and education characteristics

Data on personal background was, by far, the most difficult for us to gather. Our findings are therefore highly caveated. Eighty-seven of 183 observations are missing, but of the sample, 55% were born in Punjab and 21% in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KPK). Only 3% of our sample were born in Sindh, 3% in Azad Kashmir, and 2% in Balochistan. KPK is thus moderately over-represented while Sindh is very heavily under-represented, affecting both Muhajirs – Urdu-speaking migrants from India at Partition – and Sindhis. Earlier generations of officers had substantial numbers born in present-day India, but this cohort has obviously diminished dramatically. While missing data is a massive problem, this basic finding aligns entirely with other accounts of the demographics of the Army.1717 Fair and Nawaz, ‘The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps’.View all notesGiven that we expect better data on more prominent officers, this further suggests that these provinces contribute the bulk of the military elite.

Place of birth provides indirect insight into ethnicity, a variable we badly struggled to code. Though not everyone born in Punjab is Punjabi or in KPK is Pashtun, it is highly suggestive. We also explore how these dynamics have shifted as the generation of Urdu-speaking officers born in India before Partition, prominent in the decades after independence, retire. Of officers whose first corps command came after 2004, 61% are from Punjab, 18% from KPK, and 7% from Sindh. This suggests a tilt toward Punjab and continued Sindhi under-representation at the highest levels of the military, which aligns with the findings of Fair and Nawaz (2011) that showed Sindhi under-representation and over-representation from KPK in recruitment. They identify something of an increase over time from Sindh, however, which may eventually translate into representation in the military elite. Similarly, the military has made recent efforts to increase recruitment from Balochistan; these recruits will reach senior ranks in a decade.

What is the distribution of taking the first corps command over time? Figure 1 shows the incidence of first commands by year. There are some obvious periods of instability that lead to reshuffling: when Musharraf tried to bring the Army under tighter control in the face of American pressure in 2001–2002, the late Zia years (1985–1988), and the last years of Musharraf’s rule (2005–2007). All army chiefs have the discretion to form their own ‘management team’ upon ascending to the position, though from a pool of two- and three-star generals that is relatively fixed. In addition, the elevation to army chief of a general who has officers senior to him will lead to their premature retirement, thus opening three-star positions. The one spike fitting none of these categories – around 2010 – is an idiosyncratic result driven by General Kayani being granted an extension, which forced multiple retirements and a reshuffling among the corps commanders.

Figure 1. Distribution of first corps commands by year.

Fair and Nawaz identify an expansion of Pakistan Military Academy-Kakul (PMA) intakes in the 1980s, resulting in a general increase in the size of the candidate pool, thereby necessitating more and quicker reshuffles.1818 Fair and Nawaz, ‘The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps’.View all notes Quicker reshuffles can also be a symptom of greater politicization and favoritism at the very top of the pyramid. As we discuss in the second half of the paper, experience as a corps commander – as a position of recognized leadership – can serve as a boon to future career options, within and outside the military. An army chief may thus seek to reward loyalists with this status, however briefly. Consistent with this view of such positions as a leadership credential, we find that the on average, the length of time spent in command of a corps has reduced significantly over the last few decades (Figure 2). The typical officer beginning command of a corps in the 2010s spends just over half of the time (19 vs. 33 months) in such a position relative to their predecessors in the 1980s. Tellingly, of the nine officers who spent less than a year commanding a corps, eight assumed command after 2001.

Figure 2. Time commanding corps over time.

We have plausible evidence of the beginning of military service for 133 of 183 corps commanders (Figure 3). Because of missing data, this may not be representative, particularly of those who ascended before 1998. If correct, though, the spike in the sample around 1971 is striking. Two explanations are possible for why these PMA classes did so well. First, 1971 would have produced the lieutenants who entered the military at its nadir after the loss of East Pakistan, uniquely positioned to advance as a regenerative force. Second, they entered corps command eligibility in the Musharraf years, when the COAS needed political support. His ISI chief and future two-term COAS, Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, graduated from the PMA in 1971. Handing out promotions to this cohort may have been a way of maintaining internal support, especially in the tumultuous 2005–2007 period of insurgency and popular unrest. The prominent roles played by the 1971 generation bely the expectation that military officers who have experienced a heavy military defeat or crisis are less likely to seek political power, as Peter White has recently argued.1919 White (2017).View all notes He contends that ‘major crises that end poorly create both an initial professionalizing shock and long-lasting pressures for professionalization and depoliticization’2020 White (2017): 576.View all notes for armies, but such a dynamic is not evident here. This stems from an important implication of our argument: the dichotomy between professional and politicized militaries is a false one, at least in the Pakistan case: it is possible for a military to, at once, remain professional in some domains and deeply politicized in others.

Figure 3. Year of entry into military service.

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How long does it take to become a corps commander? We use the year of service beginning outlined above and the year of the first corps command to estimate the amount of time in the military before commanders reach a corps command. Of the 133 officers with data on this variable in the sample, they average 33 years in service prior to first corps command, meaning they take this command around 53–55 years old. As we see in Figure 4, notwithstanding outliers in each direction, most corps commanders take command around the same time in their lives and careers. The time to first command in the sample is 31.3 years for corps commanders who left service before 2000 and 33.7 for those who have retired since. If this is right, it may mean that the growing number of officers over time competing for slots, as shown in Fair and Nawaz, is delaying promotion, pushing careers backward compared to the 1980s and 1990s.2121 Fair and Nawaz, ‘The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps’.View all notes With the average lieutenant-general retiring at 57–58, it is little surprise that this is the last posting for the plurality of corps commanders. This is also why a difference of a couple of years in time to first corps command is potentially meaningful: taking command at 56 means an officer is likely to be at retirement age upon its completion, while taking command at 54 opens the possibility for one or more postings before retirement.

Figure 4. Time to first corps command.

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The general clustering of the retirement age suggests an institutionalized organization. In personalized or factionalized militaries, we would expect much higher variance, with favored officers – the son-in-law of the dictator, members of the dominant faction – being promoted early and often. The average time to first corps command of those officers who became army chief was 31.5 years, with 28 being the fastest (the ill-fated Khwaja Ziauddin) and 35 the oldest (the current COAS, Qamar Javed Bajwa). The relative youth of even the highest commanders at retirement puts a premium on what to do with these elites after they formally leave military service.

Military pathways to initial corps command

This section considers the military characteristics of the corps commanders. As noted already, our lack of a comparison pool of officers who were not selected for corps command limits inferences we can draw, but the strict pyramidal structure of the military – particularly the fact that key staff positions are fixed and can only be filled by one person at a time – does at least somewhat mitigate these concerns. Though similarly qualified with respect to skillset and talent, there are likely to be very few individuals who are identically positioned with respect to experience and specific postings at any given point in time.

The Pakistan Army is dominated by the infantry. We have data on the sub-branch affiliation of the corps commanders for 151 out of 183 cases. Within these cases, 66% are from the infantry, 15% from armor, 14 % from artillery, and less than 5 % from engineering or from air defense. This blend has not dramatically changed over time. Table 1 shows the sub-branch composition, estimating the proportion of officers departing service in four time periods by sub-branch. There is not much of a trend, beyond an apparent decline in artillery representation at the highest levels, and some variation in armor. Engineering and air defence are, unsurprisingly, marginal among the elite. This is an infantry army, and eight of ten army chiefs came up through the infantry according to our data. Such a proportion of infantry men at the higher echelons reflects the composition of the military as whole. Presently, the Army has 25 divisions, of which 21 are infantry divisions, two are armored divisions, and 2 are artillery; there are additionally 2 Army Air Defense divisions, and the Corps of Engineers, which is integrated into combat divisions.

Table 1. Sub-branch percentages of corps commanders (periodized by service end).

Our data on education suffer from severe limitations. With this caveat, we find that 74 out of the 183 corps commanders received some sort of foreign training, meaning that at least 40% of the command elite have been exposed to international military experiences. Every PMA graduate has a BA in Military Arts and Sciences, and at least 96 have a Master’s degree; chances are that the real proportion is higher. This is consistent with a professional military that educates its elite, especially in the last two decades, a period which has seen a greater emphasis on senior officers attaining post-graduate degrees.

We next examine the types of positions held by officers just prior to their first corps command. Here, we present the general categories, and then examine more specific positions. We have data for 150 out of 183 officers. Table 2 presents the overall distribution of posts held prior to the first command.

Table 2. Pre-first corps command posts.

The primary category of posting prior to the corps command is a staff position at GHQ. The second most common is being a general officer commanding (GOC) of a combat unit – usually a division such as those at Bahawalpur, Murree, Multan, Sialkot, Okara, or Kharian – but also units like the commando Special Service Group (SSG), or Force Command Northern Areas (FCNA). Following these two core pathways, we see leading a military school (the PMA, the post-graduate Command and Staff College Quetta, National Defence University [NDU]), having a position in ISI, and serving with the Frontier Corps or Rangers, the main paramilitary forces. Corps commanders are coming up through the pathways we would expect from a professional military organization, after serving for a long period in various capacities.

Specific jobs prior to a command are numerous, and widely spread across responsibilities. Within the GHQ staff positions, the most common jumping-off points to a command are adjutant general (N = 10), military secretary (N = 7), vice chief of general staff (VCGS; N = 7), and chief of general staff (N = 6). Interestingly, leading PMA (N = 7), NDU (N = 6), and Command and Staff College (N = 7) are also common steps to becoming a corps commander: though none of these are important operational/political positions, this suggests the importance of education within the army. Other positions have become more important over time: the DGs of the Rangers and inspectors-general (IGs) of the Frontier Corps were once considered bureaucratic backwaters and represented the end of one’s career, but today are considered important assignments after counter-insurgency operations gained prominence in the 2000s.

There does appear, tentatively, to be some shift in the composition of these pathways, with a greater reliance over time on staff and educational assignments directly prior to corps command. As Table 3 shows, of the 54 officers who left service in or prior to 2000 about whom we have prior command data, 35% held a GHQ staff position, 33% held a combat formation command, and 15% commanded an army school. By contrast, of the 96 retirees after 2000, GHQ positions accounted for 48% of pre-corps positions, heads of army schools for 16%, and a combat formation command for only 11%. The importance of attaining a GHQ position seems to have shifted over time fairly dramatically since the mid-1980s. Of the 24 individuals who attained corps command post prior to 1984 for whom we have data, only two had previously held a GHQ position; by contrast, of the 130 individuals for whom we have data who became a corps commander after 1984, 60 (46%) held a GHQ posting. Only one-third as many officers were jumping directly from a combat unit into a corps command after 2000. While missing data remains a major concern, we know everyone who has commanded PMA, CSC Quetta, and NDU, which means we are at least not missing military education commandants in the earlier period. Of the command elite as of February 2017, there is a mixed picture in between these extremes.

Table 3. Patterns in pre-corps command roles over time (percentages).

If there is in fact a trend, this suggests a more layered, bureaucratized promotion pathway over time, with greater emphasis on staff and educational leadership experience. A growing, increasingly complex military may require more of the skills that such positions demand, rather than just battlefield experience. Many major generals have experience in combat command; their ability to handle other types of tasks may further differentiate them. Or this may also be a way to manage a growing set of potential elites, due to an increase in officer intake in the 1980s, while the number of senior corps commands remains fairly static. As noted above, there is tentative evidence that officers have to wait longer to get a corps command than previously, and cycling through staff and academy slots may be one way they spend this time. This may have been a particular issue in the late Musharraf years, when 1971 graduates received a striking number of commands at a time of political tumult and escalating domestic insurgency. Time at headquarters or at the academies also separates field commanders from trusted subordinate officers, which is critical for internal coup-proofing.

Overall, our evidence suggests that the Pakistan Army is a highly bureaucratic organization with quite routinized, institutionalized, and professionally relevant career pathways. There does not appear to be the wild factionalism, personalization, or weak institutionalization of some other highly political militaries: the wars in the streets among the 1980s Armed Forces of the Philippines and palace intrigues of Royal Thai Army factions are missing.2222 See McCoy, Closer than Brotherson the AFP and Chambers, Knights of the Realm on the RTA.View all notes The very top of the ladder, selection to corps commander, relies almost entirely on the personal preferences of the army chief, who enjoys latitude in appointing his leadership team, but even here, public or explicit splits among senior generals, even those passed over, are rare. Rungs below the corps commander follow a systematic and predictable path. Employing such a routinized meritocratic system has the benefit of minimizing internal disagreements and grievances, an important consideration for an organization intensely conscious of its public image as unified and cohesive. Indeed, combined with the evidence of post-retirement landing spots we discuss below, the military aligns with Svolik’s description of how single-party regimes can provide long time horizons for their members that enhance cooperation.2323 Svolik, The Politics of Authoritarian Rule.View all notes The only evidence of the academy year-based preference we can find involves the 1971 graduates, but even this has multiple possible interpretations. These data do not radically change the conventional understanding of the Pakistan Army, but they do provide greater detail and clearer insights about trends over time. We now explore what happens to individuals once they have joined the elite.

After the first corps command

For most of the Pakistani military elite, their first corps command is their last major command (Figure 5). Of the 140 corps commanders for whom we have reliable end-of-service dates, we find that 43% leave service the year that their first command ends, 11% the year after it ends, and 16% 2 years after the end of their first corps command. The average is 1.67 years from the end of the first corps command to the end of service. Only 15% make it to 3 years, and then only a few beyond that. The three key outliers are Zia ul Haq (12 years, then death in plane crash), Pervez Musharraf (9 years, ‘retired’ by being pushed out of power), and Ashfaq Pervez Kayani (9 years, retired). The first two were military dictators; the third was DG ISI from 2004 to 2007 under Musharraf, then COAS during the volatile years of 2007–2013. That these are the outliers is reassuring for data quality – we are not getting random individuals being coded as being in service for a decade longer than average for unclear reasons.

Figure 5. Time from end of first corps to end of service.

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We also have estimated ages at retirement. In the cases where we lack a confirmed end of service date, we assume that on average corps commanders retire 2 years after the end of their first command and compare that to the date of service entry for the cases in which we have that data. The mean of the 120 cases we can make this calculation for is 57.8 years. Depending on the specifics of the rank and the assignment, retirement age for corps commanders ranges from 57 to 60 years, not including individual extensions granted by the government. Figure 6 provides the distribution of end of service ages. Two of these are deaths in service – Army Chief Asif Nawaz (57) and President/COAS Zia ul Haq (64); the rest are actual retirements. The list of oldest leavers of service is topped by Zia, Musharraf, and Kayani, who we will see again below as having the longest gaps between end of first corps command and end of service.2424 If our age estimates are basically right, it is noticeable that of the ten other elites who retired after 60 years of age, six took on their first command between 2004 and 2011, during the chaos of the post-9/11 wars and political transitions.View all notes

Figure 6. Estimated end-of-service ages of corps commanders.

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There is a minor difference in time from end of first corps to command to end of service between those who ended service in or before 2000 (1.9 years) and those who left service after 2000 (1.52 years). This is barely suggestive, but, along with the evidence of a somewhat longer time to first corps command, it could indicate that the greater crowding at the top is pushing people out a little bit more quickly. The Pakistan Army looks like a bureaucratic organization in which retirement rules usually bind. The exceptions that we identify are easily explicable.

Last military post before retirement

We also tentatively coded the last command held by a corps commander, or in the case of serving (as of February 2017) officers, the one currently held. To be clear, we lack systematic data on full career trajectories, so officers may very well have had a position in between their first corps command and their final command that we do not identify. Of those who are not in service and for whom we have data, Figure 7 summarizes their post at end of service (N = 155).

Figure 7. Roles at end of service.

Of those corps commanders who do not retire immediately after this posting, to which positions do they proceed?2525 We can only measure these transitions at the level of the year, so some may do something for a few months after leaving their corps.View all notes Sixteen corps commanders moved to another corps command, including one who is currently serving, with Strategic Forces Command being the primary location (N = 4); no other corps for which we have data gets more than two repeat commanders. Of these, eight retired as a corps commander and one is still serving as commander of Army Strategic Forces, four moved to a GHQ position, two to the CJCSC, and one as head of the NDU.

That leaves 167 individuals who held a single corps command. Data on final commands are missing for 11 officers, while 15 single-corps commanders are currently serving. Of the one-time corps commanders who have left service and about whom we have final command data (N = 141), ten became COAS, three retired as DG of the ISI, seven ended service as CJCSC, 38 ended up in a GHQ staff position, eight took over an army school, four became the head of a government agency, three became a martial law administrator, two headed an army organization, and three held international roles: one ambassador and two at the UN. Because we also gathered ISI data, we know that two COASs and one CJCSC were DG of the ISI after their first corps command.

A near-majority (N = 63) of one-time commanders, consistent with our data on time to end of service, retired after their first corps command. Of the 38 who took a GHQ position, there is a cluster of 11 top staff slots for post-corps command elites: adjutant general (N = 5), chief of general staff (N = 4), chief of logistics staff (N = 5), DG of the joint staff (N = 6), the now-defunct deputy COAS (N = 2) and vice COAS (N = 2), IG arms (N = 3), IG training and evaluation (N = 4), military secretary (N = 2), and quartermaster general (N = 3). Of the 17 current/former corps commanders serving when data collection ended, one is on his second corps command appointment, one is DG ISI, ten are currently serving in their first corps command, one is COAS, one is CJCSC, and three are in GHQ (as IG training and evaluation, military secretary, and DG joint staff).

There are some noteworthy, if tentative, patterns in who makes it up the command chain. First, Punjabi and Pashtun dominance continues. Only one of the ten COASs is not coded as one of these ethnic groups (he is a Muhajir: Musharraf). Of the ten CJCSCs who came from the Army, we believe that one was a Muhajir (Shamim Alam Khan), two were Kashmiris, and the rest likely either Punjabi or Pashtun. Second, the infantry continues to lead the way: nine out of ten of Army CJCSCs and eight out of ten COASs come from the infantry. However, the other ranks at retirement are roughly proportional to the overall balance of sub-branches within the army: infantry is only dramatically over-represented at the very highest posts. Third, there may be overrepresentation of these top ranks by people who were in GHQ positions prior to their first corps command. Of the 20 top ranks, 11 had a GHQ slot, three were in charge of an Army educational institution, and only two had a GOC position as their jumping-off point into command. They almost all held a combat command earlier in their career, but moved into corps command from a staff position.

This pattern of early staff positions is more pronounced than for the 45 officers who moved from a corps command to a GHQ slot but did not advance further: 11 were a GOC, 13 had a GHQ staff position, with a smattering of other commands. Yet the same pattern that holds for the very top commands also holds for the commanders whose career ended after a single corps command: 27 had a GHQ position, nine a divisional command, and the rest a variety of other roles prior to their corps command, missing data excepted. We end up with, if the data are right, a curious mix of staff-heavy elites at the top and bottom of the distribution, with the intermediate layer more broadly blending command and staff jumping-off points into corps command.

This analysis suggests several things about the internal workings of the Pakistan Army. First, the plurality of corps commanders end their careers after their first command. The age profile of those who take on high commands and leave service is remarkably consistent. Second, there is a clear set of high-prestige staff positions into which elites move after a corps command. These data provide a way of identifying the power nodes of the military based on where the upwardly-mobile cluster after entering the elite. Third, the Army seems quite professionalized – the pyramid narrows, and most fall by the wayside. Those who do not retire move into an identifiable set of professionally demanding slots.

Managing the elite after retirement

Data on the military elite after service

Measuring the post-retirement fates of the military elite has been the most interesting empirical challenge. We coded the first post-retirement position (both specific posts and broad categories). We also tried to identify post-retirement roles after the first, though the number of observations drops and patterns become hazy.

It is very difficult to find evidence of absence; there are a few cases in which sources explicitly say officers retired entirely from activities, but in most cases of missing data we are uncertain about what happened. We nevertheless have surprisingly substantial data. English as Pakistan’s elite language and the military elites’ political importance have made these officers more visible than would likely be the case in many other contexts. Seventeen officers were still serving when data collection was completed and we know that at least two died in office. This leaves 164 possible retirement trajectories to measure. Twenty-five cases are missing, and we have some kind of data on 141 corps commanders, or 85% of those retired from service. Table 4 lists the professional categories into which the non-currently-serving corps commanders moved (for whom we have data).

Table 4. Overall distribution of post-service outcomes.

As we can see, the dominant post-retirement slot is into a blend of foundations and associated corporations we group together as ‘Fauji Companies.’ These are almost entirely senior leadership positions, like board chairman and managing director. This builds on Siddiqa’s excellent monograph on the importance of the military’s involvement in Pakistan’s private sector economy.2626 Siddiqa, Military, Inc.View all notes

Preliminary analysis suggests that at any given time, around seven former corps commanders serve as either the managing directors of the Fauji Foundation or the Army Welfare Trust – who also serve as chairmen of the board of affiliated companies – or as managing directors of key enterprises, such as Mari Gas, Fauji Fertilizer, Fauji Cement, Askari Cement and Askari Bank. Personnel in these positions seem to change roughly every 3 years, providing opportunities for the newly retired. And while serving as an executive director is a well-compensated position, it is both term-limited and dependent on competence in providing value for shareholders and stakeholders. This is not a path to independent oligarchic wealth. These foundations and related companies are also fairly professional: while many directorial and managerial positions are filled by retired officers from major generals to captains, there are also many civilians in leadership roles.

To be clear, there are also other aspects of the Pakistani economy in which the military is involved, notably the acquisition of land for the purposes of real estate, both to provide retiring officers with residential property and to participate in the lucrative property market in Pakistan. Retired officers often own more than one property; the pyramidal structure of the Army is operative when it comes to land perks. After 15 years of service, officers are entitled to one residential plot, after 25 a second, after 28 a third, and after 32 a fourth. Thus, selling or renting housing to civilians is a common practice, and military officers and civilians commingle in most of the ostensibly military housing companies, which have become some of the most elite locations in urban Pakistan. The participation of senior military leadership in the political economy of real estate is an important area of further research.

Aside from economic and commercial positions, diplomatic appointments are also valued. A common practice in times of military rule, retired military personnel are often appointed to ambassadorships even under civilian governments. It is likely, however, that ambassadorships have lost some of their previous appeal as Pakistan’s economy has liberalized, with elites gaining access to consumer goods and opportunities to travel abroad that had previously required official sanction through overseas postings. Moreover, as the Pakistani military has established mechanisms and practices of ‘defence diplomacy’ that ensure its interests abroad, the military does not need to monopolize ambassadorial positions in foreign capitals to maintain influence beyond Pakistan’s borders.2727 Alam, ‘The Pakistani Army’s Defence Diplomacy’; Syed, ‘Bajwa Briefs Commanders on Military Diplomacy’.View all notes

Overall, the bulk of elites continue to be employed by the state or extensions of military-affiliated civil society (87/141; 62%) even after leaving formal military service. The foundations, ambassadorships, the post of defence secretary (nominally the highest civilian bureaucrat in defence affairs), provincial and federal agencies, provincial governorships, and federal cabinet appointments before 2008 are all ways retired elites have continued to be involved in governance. The military aims to provide its senior officers comfort and influence even in retirement. Interference in decision-making of current senior officers by retirees is looked upon extremely unfavorably; former Army Chief Raheel Sharif, considered quite popular during his tenure, was even told to cease his organizing of social activities with serving generals after retirement.2828 Jamal, ‘Raheel Sharif: The Chief Who Could Be King’. We thank Hamid Hussain for this point.View all notes Yet they remain bound to the broader institution.

Strikingly, almost no one goes directly into politics after retirement. This is in stark contrast to, for instance, Indonesia and its plethora of retired-military politicians in mainstream electoral and party politics.2929 Lee and Laksmana ‘Why Do Retired Military Officers Enter Politics?’. The United States, too, has seen significant veteran involvement in electoral politics, both for national and state office. See Teigen (2018).View all notes The array of state-affiliated, private sector and civil society destinations for retired Pakistani military elites keeps them away from electoral politics – and also extends the influence of the military into domains that are reserved for civilians in other systems. There is, furthermore, a long-cultivated cultural distaste for politicians among the military fraternity, and the geographic concentration of the military and military officers in garrisons and cantonments, with regular circulation, provides little opportunity to cultivate a geographic constituency required for electoral mobilization in Pakistan’s first-past-the-post system. For such a politically-involved military, its command elite have remarkably little directly to do with electoral politics after they retire.

The non-Fauji private sector is, at least initially, also not a popular destination. Though this becomes a more common pastime after the first retirement position (as we show below), the initial post-military phase is dominated by state employment of some variety. Other pursuits include running schools and NGOs, doing defense analysis, writing, farming, and advising foreign governments and multilateral organizations. Interestingly, none of the COAS or CJCSC have joined a Fauji company and only one entered the private sector, suggesting these are fallback or ‘safety’ options for the highest echelon.

Trends by regime

We wanted to see how destinations vary by the period in which officers left service (Table 5). We roughly group service end periods into four, as above: the Zia era (1978–1988), the ‘democratic decade’ under Bhutto and Sharif (1989–1999), the Musharraf era (1999–2007), and the contemporary democratic period (2008–2017). There is some messiness around the end of the Zia and Musharraf eras, but almost all of these officers retired cleanly under one of the regimes.

This data is striking: it is difficult to differentiate the Musharraf era of military rule from the two democratic decades around it. The military continues to put the same kinds of people in the same kinds of positions both when in formal power and out of it. If anything, there is evidence of new forms of military influence even after the withdrawal from power in 2007–2008: there has been an increase in the number of retired corps commanders who have become Defence Secretaries since 2008.3030 See Shah, The Army and Democracy, pp. 266–267 for discussion of military influence over MOD, including the prominence of retired lieutenant-generals as Defence Secretary.View all notes Why does this matter? The Defence Secretary is supposed to be the top civilian bureaucrat in Pakistan’s Ministry of Defence. Yet since 2008, only one actual civilian, Nargis Sethi, has held this post, for about 7 months in 2012. The importance of this position lies not in its policy implications, as foreign and defense policy is de facto planned and executed at GHQ, not in the civilian bureaucracy. Rather, the position matters because any removal or appointment of the army chief has to be approved by the defence secretary. In turn, the military regularly advances its preferred candidates for the post, leading at times to tension when the civilian government is skeptical of the military’s candidate.3131 Syed, ‘Gen Zamir Made Defence Secretary as Govt Backs Military’s Nominee’.View all notes More broadly, the defense secretary is a key node of communication between the government and the military. Thus, even when not ruling, the military is able to put its just-retired personnel into positions of high civilian influence in defense. We do not see the same former military involvement in other sections of the federal bureaucracy.

There is a stark difference between the Zia era and the post-Zia era. Under Zia, it appears that the military was used more directly to govern: federal ministers and provincial governors formed a substantially higher percentage of the first retirement slots than after 1988. We cannot make general assumptions about how military regimes relate to civilian governance: Zia offered a more overtly ‘khaki’ government than Musharraf, with the latter appointing only a few veterans as ministers or governors. The economic network surrounding the foundations really comes into its own following 1988 and the liberalization of the overall economy; the percentage of retired elites going into Fauji companies shoots up and stays high across the three ensuing periods.3232 Siddiqa 2007 also notes that the rise of ‘Military Inc.’ occurred in the 1980s.View all notes

This analysis also suggests that we should be careful making assumptions about obvious differences between civilian and military rule, which would predict much clearer differences between the Musharraf era and the democratic periods. Instead, while obviously much was different in macro-politics, the management of military elites looks almost identical across the post-1988 era. For those who do not go into government or a military corporation, being a retired senior officer opens up opportunities in the world of think tanks, overseas fellowships, or the higher echelons of Pakistani civil society. One two-time corps commander and CJCSC founded the Polo Club at the Lahore Garrison; another later reinvigorated and expanded it. The military elite’s post-service life chances are largely unaffected by whether the military is directly ruling.

Deeper into retirement

We also have data (N = 89) on the most recent activity we can find retired elites doing after their first post-retirement post: this requires an individual moving into a new category, or moving between specific posts within a category. We go from 141 observations of post-retirement to 89, reflecting elites not finding a second job, dying, or simply fading away, i.e., the data being unavailable. This is therefore a hazy, but still illuminating, representation of retired senior officers several years out of service. Table 6compares how the first retirement activity differs from later retirement positions.

We see a substantially larger move into the private sector – this suggests, in alignment with qualitative evidence, that there is a period in which elites find respectable things to first do before making money. The particular activities in the private sector are also worth noting. For those 13 corps commanders that have ‘head of a private company’ as a final occupation post-retirement, six were previously Fauji company executives, suggesting that these foundations are a gateway to broader opportunities in the private sector. The types of business they run are particular, however: largely either in similarly rent-rich public sector-adjacent activities, such as the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation, Coastal Refinery or Alphagas, with foreign multinationals such as Philip Morris or Nissan, or in managing military-associated service businesses such as in private security. None of these are allied with any of the powerful domestic corporate groups in Pakistan and thus maintain a level of insulation from the civilian intersection between business and politics, even as they engage with the national economy.

There is a substantially smaller share of elites who still hold government posts in their later retirement: 87 out of 141 (62%) work for the state in their first post-retirement position, while only 30 out of 88 (34%) do so later in the retirement. No one in our sample serves as secretary of defense in a later retirement position, making apparent how tight and immediate the pipeline is from military into the larger security bureaucracy. The recently retired are a power resource for the military that likely decreases in effectiveness over time, as elites age, start to lose their connections to those serving, or get interested in new activities. Despite their connections to the state diminishing, they continue to be part of a broader elite social milieu, living in housing developments specifically intended for retired defense personnel, and frequenting elite clubs and golf courses. The private sector and NGO world became far more prominent in the later stages of retirement, while electoral politics rises a little but still remains remarkably small.

A ‘state within a state’? Inter-Services Intelligence

Since 1971, there have been 18 DGs of ISI, the infamous intelligence organization.3333 Kiessling, Faith, Unity, Disciplineidentifies 17, and then Naveed Mukhtar, previously commander of 5 Corps, took over as the 18th in late 2016.View all notesThough there have been a small number of accounts dedicated to the ISI, systematic evidence on the organization is quite scarce.3434 Kiessling, Faith, Unity, Discipline.View all notes Our data can only offer a limited perspective on this secretive organization, but does provide some interesting insights. The ISI is often described in near-mystical terms as a ‘state within a state,’3535 For instance, Walsh, ‘The ISI, Pakistan’s Notorious and Feared Spy Agency, Comes in from the Cold’.View all notes even operating outside the control of the Army. This is why we specifically gathered data on the DGs of the ISI since 1971, including those who never held a corps command (according to our data, 8 of the 18 DGs ISI).

The number of cases is small, and so we proceed with great caution. It is also crucial to note that selection as DG of the ISI is the prerogative of the Prime Minister in periods of civilian rule. Thus, under civilian rule this is not a purely military selection process, in contrast to most of the other positions discussed above. The termination of a DG’s position can also be highly political as premiers come and go, or as coups reshuffle the deck.

What can we say about the ISI command elite? Like the broader set of military elites, this is primarily a Pashtun–Punjabi demographic: ten were born in Punjab, two in KPK, two in Kashmir and one contemporary India (we lack data on three). We know that at least 9 of the 18 received foreign training. They are spread out more broadly across the sub-branches than the corps commanders: 41% from the infantry, 23% from artillery, 18% from armor, and 18% from engineering or signals.

Ten of the 18 DGs ISI held the ISI directorship and a corps command at some point during their career, while eight never held a corps command. Five of the 11 retired as DG ISI, two retired as corps commanders, one as CJCSC, and three in GHQ positions (DG ordnance, adjutant general, IG training and evaluation). Of the seven DGs ISI who took the position after a corps command – particularly prevalent since the Musharraf years – three retired as DG ISI, one as CJCS, and one is still serving. Two retired as COAS. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani is the only DG ISI to have become COAS under normal circumstances; Khwaja Ziauddin was extremely briefly tapped to be COAS by Nawaz Sharif in his effort to get rid of Pervez Musharraf, but he was put under military detention once Musharraf seized power in the 1999 coup. This is an important position, but one in which a plurality of DGs ISI retire from the position, just like first corps commands.

Though obviously ultimately determined by a political decision, the basic professional qualifications of DGs ISI appear very similar to elevation to the other elite ranks of the military, particularly in the more recent past. Of ten DGs ISI since 1995, all but three either were appointed after corps command or left ISI for a corps command. Of these exceptions, the first went from a divisional command to ordnance chief at GHQ via ISI and became defense secretary upon retirement, the second served as DG Military Operations before ISI, and the third, the currently serving (as of February 2017) DG ISI, previously served as the DG Sindh Rangers, responsible for the paramilitary response to urban violence in Karachi.

The ISI seems to be deeply integrated into the Army, a standard command for a variety of types of officers despite its outsized political importance, though there is a clear bias toward those with previous intelligence experience, with eight serving as the DG of military intelligence or having previous ISI experience before appointment. The non-intelligence specialists had similar professional backgrounds as the corps commanders, ranging from commanding a division to managing logistics to directing paramilitaries. While the ISI was the final post for just under half of those we have data on, the rest moved into other senior posts in the military once they finished their ISI posting, including corps commands, key positions at GHQ, and CJCSC.

We see this relative normalcy in the data on retirement as well: the ISI does not seem to generate a distinctive set of post-retirement trajectories. One died in office and we lack data on four others, so our N is only 13. Of these, two became defense secretary, one became an ambassador, one became President of the NDU, one became head of a military company, one became a federal minister and another head of a federal agency, and the rest were an assorted mix of authors, executives, think tankers, and the president of the Pakistan Golf Federation.

To the extent that we can draw conclusions from this limited data, it seriously complicates claims of ISI exceptionalism or ‘rogueness.’ The ISI leadership is part of a highly cohesive military organization, staffed at the top by the same kind of senior officers who command the rest of the Army. It is neither a clear stepping stone to the top, nor an irrelevant dead end. While it is biased toward intelligence specialists, it is not restricted to them. At least at its top the ISI can only be considered an integrated part of the Pakistan Army and highly aligned with the rest of the military elite. Even with prime ministerial discretion over selecting and managing its DG, the ISI remains the Army.

Conclusion

This paper provides insights into how the Pakistani Army maintains cohesion and influence amidst deep political involvement. Using unique data, we show that the Pakistan Army has maintained professional internal processes while using retired personnel to maintain influence in the state and broader society. We have transparently identified data limitations throughout and hope they can be rectified in future work. Despite these limits, this empirical approach provides a foundation for new ways of studying Pakistan’s military politics.

Future research can build on these insights. First, more complete and extensive data will provide valuable detail on the military elites’ backgrounds and career trajectories. This includes forward-looking data on the current command elite. We are pursuing these tasks in ongoing work.

Second, the puzzle emerges of why the Pakistan Army has been able to build a cohesive and unitary ‘military enclave,’3636 Cook, Ruling but Not Governing.View all notes even while many other political militaries have fractured internally in the face of political involvement.3737 Geddes, ‘What Do We Know about Democratisation after Twenty Years?’.View all notes Cross-national comparisons with currently or historically praetorian political militaries – such as Thailand, Indonesia, Egypt, Turkey, Myanmar, and Chile – will be essential for answering this question. The importance of the ‘Fauji companies’ as a post-retirement destination for Pakistan’s military elites is intriguing, and suggests that military-linked corporations and businesses may play a more important role in military politics than previously appreciated.3838 On military business in Egypt, see Abul-Magd, Militarizing the Nation; in Southeast Asia, Chambers and Waitoolkiot, Khaki Capital.View all notes

Third, Pakistan provides an opportunity to re-think the standard distinctions between military and civilian rule so common in studies of political regimes. Pakistan’s military has not given up control of key policy areas even when withdrawing from power, and this has been accomplished through informal practices rather than formal pacts; Aqil Shah has argued that the preservation of key "prerogatives," without formal or overt control, is characteristic of Pakistan's praetorian politics.3939 Shah, “Constraining consolidation.” See also Adeney, “How to Understand Pakistan’s Hybrid Regime.” Nordlinger, Soldiers in Politics and Albertus and Menaldo, Authoritarianism and the Elite Origins of Democracy more broadly explore the ways through which militaries can continue to protect their prerogatives even after formal democratization.View all notes New theory and data is needed to understand why some militaries – like Pakistan’s and Myanmar’s – are able to successfully ‘rule without governing’4040 Cook, Ruling but Not Governing.View all notes in the wake of formal democratization, while others are eventually brought under firm civilian control. Managing, co-opting and/or coercing serving and retired military elites is essential for civilian dominance. Pakistan’s experience shows how difficult this project can be and the ways in which autonomous military elites can complicate democratic transitions.

Acknowledgments

Michael Albertus, Jason Brownlee, Christopher Clary, Hamid Hussain, Sana Jaffrey, Mashail Malik, Asfandyar Mir, Vipin Narang, Dan Slater, seminar participants at the University of Texas at Austin, and editors and reviewers at The Journal of Strategic Studieshave provided valuable advice and feedback. The project benefited from financial support from the Center for Global Studies at George Mason University. Extraordinary research assistance was provided by Yusuf al-Jarani, Sunaina Kathpalia, and Eyal Hanfling.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 This includes the nine standard corps, plus Army Air Defence (AAD) and Army Strategic Forces Command. This comes to 183 officers over 45 years. There have been 18 DGs ISI A number of these DGs were also corps commanders.

2 For other similar studies, see Lee and Laksmana, ‘Why Do Retired Military Officers Enter Politics?’; Nakanishi, Strong Soldiers, Failed Revolution; Poczter and Pepinsky, ‘Authoritarian Legacies in Post–New Order Indonesia’ and Kammen and Chandra, Tour of Duty.

3 Pensions are independent of what a retired officer earns as a salary in such positions.

4 Huntington, The Soldier and the State; Finer, The Man on Horseback; Staniland, ‘Explaining Civil-Military Relations in Complex Political Environments’; Barany, The Soldier and the Changing State.

5 Major efforts to distinguish democracy and dictatorship, as well as variants of authoritarianism, include Geddes, Wright, and Frantz, ‘Autocratic Breakdown and Regime Transitions’; Svolik, The Politics of Authoritarian Rule and Boix, Miller, and Rosato, ‘A Complete Data Set of Political Regimes’.

6 Cook, Ruling but Not Governing.

7 Goemans and Marinov 2014.

8 Cohen, The Pakistan Army; Fair, Fighting to the End; Shah, The Army and Democracy, Wilkinson, Army and Nation, Siddiqa, Military, Inc; Cloughley, A History of the Pakistan Army; Nawaz, Crossed Swords; Rizvi, The Military and Politics in Pakistan.

9 For instance, Ahmed, The Pakistan Garrison State and Schofield, Inside the Pakistan Army.

10 See Mukherjee 2013, Staniland ‘Explaining Civil-Military Relations in Complex Political Environments’, Wilkinson, Army and Nation.

11 Others have focused on the rank-and-file: Fair and Nawaz, ‘The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps’ on district-level recruitment patterns and Fair, ‘Using Manpower Policies to Transform the Force and Society’, which combines these data with household surveys.

12 Of the seventeen chairmen, two were drawn from the Navy and one from the Air Force; the remainder were army generals.

13 Bloom, ‘The “Multi-Vocal State”’, p. 289.

14 Excellent recent work in this vein includes Siddiqa, Military, Inc; Nawaz, Crossed Swords, Fair and Nawaz, ‘The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps’; Fair, Fighting to the End; Shah, The Army and Democracy; Paul, The Warrior State and Wilkinson, Army and Nation.

15 Geddes, ‘What Do We Know about Democratisation after Twenty Years?’ On the Thai military, see Chambers, Knights of the Realm.

16 Cook Ruling but Not Governing, Nakanishi, Strong Soldiers, Failed Revolution.

17 Fair and Nawaz, ‘The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps’.

18 Fair and Nawaz, ‘The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps’.

19 White (2017).

20 White (2017): 576.

21 Fair and Nawaz, ‘The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps’.

22 See McCoy, Closer than Brothers on the AFP and Chambers, Knights of the Realm on the RTA.

23 Svolik, The Politics of Authoritarian Rule.

24 If our age estimates are basically right, it is noticeable that of the ten other elites who retired after 60 years of age, six took on their first command between 2004 and 2011, during the chaos of the post-9/11 wars and political transitions.

25 We can only measure these transitions at the level of the year, so some may do something for a few months after leaving their corps.

26 Siddiqa, Military, Inc.

27 Alam, ‘The Pakistani Army’s Defence Diplomacy’; Syed, ‘Bajwa Briefs Commanders on Military Diplomacy’.

28 Jamal, ‘Raheel Sharif: The Chief Who Could Be King’. We thank Hamid Hussain for this point.

29 Lee and Laksmana ‘Why Do Retired Military Officers Enter Politics?’. The United States, too, has seen significant veteran involvement in electoral politics, both for national and state office. See Teigen (2018).

30 See Shah, The Army and Democracy, pp. 266–267 for discussion of military influence over MOD, including the prominence of retired lieutenant-generals as Defence Secretary.

31 Syed, ‘Gen Zamir Made Defence Secretary as Govt Backs Military’s Nominee’.

32 Siddiqa 2007 also notes that the rise of ‘Military Inc.’ occurred in the 1980s.

33 Kiessling, Faith, Unity, Discipline identifies 17, and then Naveed Mukhtar, previously commander of 5 Corps, took over as the 18th in late 2016.

34 Kiessling, Faith, Unity, Discipline.

35 For instance, Walsh, ‘The ISI, Pakistan’s Notorious and Feared Spy Agency, Comes in from the Cold’.

36 Cook, Ruling but Not Governing.

37 Geddes, ‘What Do We Know about Democratisation after Twenty Years?’.

38 On military business in Egypt, see Abul-Magd, Militarizing the Nation; in Southeast Asia, Chambers and Waitoolkiot, Khaki Capital.

39 Shah, “Constraining consolidation.” See also Adeney, “How to Understand Pakistan’s Hybrid Regime.” Nordlinger, Soldiers in Politics and Albertus and Menaldo, Authoritarianism and the Elite Origins of Democracy more broadly explore the ways through which militaries can continue to protect their prerogatives even after formal democratization.

40 Cook, Ruling but Not Governing.

Bibliography

Abul-Magd, Zeinab, Militarizing the Nation: The Army, Business, and Revolution in Egypt (New York: Columbia University Press 2017).

Pages

6 September 2018

Pakistan’s military elite

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