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Pakistan
Pakistan Becomes a Frontline State
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan made Pakistan a country of
paramount geostrategic importance. In a matter of days, the United
States declared Pakistan a "frontline state" against Soviet aggression
and offered to reopen aid and military assistance deliveries.
For the remainder of Zia's tenure, the United States generally
ignored Pakistan's developing nuclear program. Other donors also
rallied to Pakistan as it stood firm against Soviet blustering,
hospitably received over 3 million Afghan refugees who poured
across the borders, provided a conduit for weapons and other support,
and gave a safe haven to the Afghan mujahidin (see Glossary).
Pakistan's top national security agency, the army's Directorate
for Inter-Services Intelligence, monitored the activities of and
provided advice and support to the mujahidin, and commandos
from the army's Special Services Group helped guide the operations
inside Afghanistan. In the Muslim world, Pakistan increasingly
assumed a leading role. As a long-term goal, Zia envisioned the
emergence of an Islamic government in Kabul that would provide
Pakistan with geostrategic depth, facilitate access to Muslim
West Asia, and forswear a revision of the Pakistan-Afghanistan
boundary.
Pakistan paid a price for its activities. The refugee burden,
even if offset in part by foreign assistance, created dangerous
pressures within Pakistani society. Afghan and Soviet forces conducted
raids against mujahidin bases inside Pakistan, and a
campaign of terror bombings and sabotage in Pakistan's cities,
guided by Afghan intelligence agents, caused hundreds of casualties.
In 1987 some 90 percent of the 777 terrorist incidents recorded
worldwide took place in Pakistan. The actual danger to Pakistan,
however, was probably never very great. There is no concrete evidence
to support the revitalized "Great Game" argument that the Soviet
invasion was a modern manifestation of Russia's historic drive
to garner access to a warm water port and that it was but a first
step on a road through Pakistan to the Arabian Sea. Nor was it
likely that the Soviet Union would have conducted major military
operations against Pakistan as long as Islamabad did not flaunt
its support to the mujahidin.
The Soviet invasion enabled Pakistan's army to present itself
as the defender of the nation in times of trouble, making criticism
of military rule almost unpatriotic. Zia used the situation to
strengthen his grip on internal affairs by appealing to national
unity and pointing to Pakistan's growing international stature.
In addition, the substantial amounts of aid money coming from
various sources boosted the economy and, in the short run at least,
more than offset the costs of the refugees and rearming the military.
Overall, the economy grew rapidly in the Zia years, in large part
because of remittances from many Pakistanis who worked abroad
(see Impact of Migration to the Persian Gulf Countries , ch. 2;
Labor , ch. 3).
Zia's ability to obtain high levels of support and modern weaponry
strengthened his position within the military establishment and
enabled Pakistan once again to build up a credible military capability.
Under the United States assistance program, Pakistan bought F-16
aircraft, upgraded M-48 tanks, Harpoon naval missiles, helicopters,
and artillery, and received second-hand frigates on loan. In the
four years after the invasion, Pakistan's armed forces grew by
nearly 12 percent, from 428,000 to 478,000 persons. A substantial
amount of the costs of modernization and expansion were covered
by United States aid and financial contributions from Saudi Arabia
and Persian Gulf countries.
Zia was extremely skillful in protecting his base in the military.
To ensure control, he was concurrently chief of the army staff,
chief martial law administrator, and president, and he carefully
juggled senior military appointments. The satisfaction of the
military was also enhanced by arrangements under which Pakistani
service personnel were seconded to the armed forces of Persian
Gulf countries, where emoluments were much more generous than
in Pakistan. Retiring officers received generous benefits, sometimes
including land allocations, and often found lucrative positions
in government service or in parastatal economic enterprises. The
assignment of serving officers to approximately 10 percent of
the senior posts in the civilian administration also provided
opportunities for economic gain, sometimes in ways that were ultimately
harmful to the army's image of itself. For example, some military
personnel reportedly participated in the rapidly growing narcotics
business.
Zia had learned well the lesson of 1965 and was careful not to
allow the nation to return to the status of a client state of
the United States. Even as Pakistan faced the Soviet Union in
Afghanistan, it kept that threat in perspective. Immediately after
the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979, Zia declined
the Carter administration's assistance package offer of US$400
million as "peanuts." It was not until 1981 that Pakistan concluded
an assistance agreement with the United States, which provided
for US$3.2 billion over six years, divided equally between economic
and military aid. This agreement was extended in 1986 to provide
an additional US$4.0 billion over the next six years. Zia was
careful to avoid the trappings of a formal alliance, preferring
continued involvement in the Nonaligned Movement--which Pakistan
joined in 1979--and with the Islamic nations of the Middle East
through his leading role in the Organization of the Islamic Conference
(see Pakistan and the World During the Zia Regime , ch. 1). ))
Credit for the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan lay mainly with the
mujahidin and their Pakistani mentors, but would hardly
have come about had Mikhail S. Gorbachev not decided to cut back
drastically on Soviet foreign entanglements. After tedious negotiations,
an agreement was reached in April 1988, providing for the withdrawal
of Soviet troops by February 15, 1989.
Zia's policies inevitably led to a worsening of relations with
India, which was disturbed by the reentry of the United States
into the South Asian security equation and by what India saw as
the impetus to a new arms race. India responded with large-scale
arms purchases of its own, primarily from the Soviet Union, which
more than matched anything that the United States provided to
Pakistan. Zia took considerable pains to reduce tensions and launched
several peace initiatives, which New Delhi, however, failed to
accept. Whether Zia saw his own efforts merely as diplomatic maneuvers
was unclear, but they reflected a growing realization in Pakistan
that unconstrained enmity with India was simply too dangerous
and beyond Pakistan's means.
There were periods of considerable tension between Pakistan and
India. In November 1986, India launched its largest maneuver ever,
Operation Brass Tacks, menacingly close to the Pakistan border.
The Pakistan Army responded with threatening countermovements,
and in early 1987 there was serious concern that war might break
out. The India-Pakistan hot line was brought into use, and Zia
skillfully seized the initiative by traveling to India to view
a cricket game, using the opportunity to meet with Indian leaders
to defuse the situation.
Among the major disputes between the two countries, only that
over the Siachen Glacier, which is located in a remote area of
northern Kashmir where boundaries are ill defined, has led to
fighting in recent years. The two armies had been in desultory
but very costly (primarily because of exposure to the elements)
high-altitude combat there since 1984, when Indian forces moved
into previously unoccupied territory at the extreme northern end
of the Kashmir Line of Control.
Aside from Afghanistan, the most problematic element in Pakistan's
security policy was the nuclear question. Zia inherited an ambitious
program from Bhutto and continued to develop it, out of the realization
that, despite Pakistan's newly acquired weaponry, it could never
match India's conventional power and that India either had, or
shortly could develop, its own nuclear weapons. Even after the
invasion of Afghanistan, Pakistan almost exhausted United States
tolerance, including bungled attempts to illegally acquire United
States nuclear- relevant technology and a virtual public admission
in 1987 by the head of Pakistan's nuclear program that the country
had developed a weapon. As long as Pakistan remained vital to
United States interests in Afghanistan, however, no action was
taken to cut off United States support. Pakistani attempts to
handle the problem bilaterally with India led nowhere, but a significant
step was a nonformalized 1985 agreement that neither India nor
Pakistan would attack the other's nuclear facilities.
Zia showed a remarkable ability to keep himself in power, to
promote Pakistan's international position, and to bring a modest
degree of economic prosperity to Pakistan. His problem was how
to devolve power. Beginning in 1985, a process of demilitarization
of the regime was launched, and Zia was elected civilian president
of Pakistan through some highly dubious maneuvering (see Zia ul-Haq,
1978-88 , ch. 4). In late 1985, he ended martial law and revised
the 1973 constitution in ways that legitimized all actions taken
by the martial law government since 1977 and strengthened his
position as president. Mohammad Khan Junejo, whom Zia appointed
prime minister in March 1985, managed to develop some degree of
autonomy from Zia and persuaded him to allow political parties
to reform; Junejo also watered down some of Zia's constitutional
proposals, notably blocking the creation of the National Security
Council that would have institutionalized the role of the military.
The experiment in controlled democracy floundered in May 1988,
when Zia abruptly dismissed the Junejo government for reasons
that were not altogether clear but may have involved Junejo's
attempt to gain a voice in security matters. Zia promised new
elections, but most observers assumed that he would once again
postpone them rather than take the risk that Benazir Bhutto, Zulfiqar's
daughter, who had returned from exile abroad to a tumultuous welcome
in Pakistan in 1986, would come to power. Benazir's program included
revenge for her father's death and punishment of Zia for staging
the 1977 coup, which, under the 1973 constitution, rendered him
liable to the death sentence. The crisis facing Pakistan resolved
itself suddenly, however, when Zia was killed in a mysterious
airplane crash in August 1988. Ghulam Ishaq Khan, a senior bureaucrat
who was president of the Senate, succeeded to the presidency,
and after consultations with the new chief of the army staff,
General Mirza Aslam Beg, rather surprisingly decided to let the
elections proceed as scheduled.
Data as of April 1994
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