The Defence College Experience

Those were the golden days of Zia’s era when, back in the eighties, I attended the National Defence College, Rawalpindi, as an air force participant.

Every word spoken by the general was taken as gospel truth. His was the ultimate example to be emulated. Many of my colleagues not only started praying all of sudden, but made it a point that their piety was amply visible. Loyalty was the prime consideration for upward mobility. A blind hate for the Bhutto family was another plus point. Even if you hated him, it was prudent to sing the general’s praises in public.

While the course was about military strategy and a bit of national strategy, what I found more educative was the exposure I got to the organizational cultures and the psyche of the armed forces, especially that of the men at the top.

The army had the strongest organizational culture. It effectively moulded its men in such a way that they all had the same thought processes. They even had a similar gait and the same habits. Our army friends were very willing to compromise on their originality for the sake of assessment. In war planning, they preferred the safer approach – remaining vague and non committal and not taking any undue risks. More positively, they would resolve differences and reach a consensus in an amicable manner.

Unlike them, we the Air Force pilots, had a pronounced individualistic streak, nurtured subconsciously, over the years through flying single-seat fighters; and finding our own solutions to problems. We were always overly engrossed in our own high-tech environment, were more volatile, held strong personal opinions and were ready to take risks. Conflict and confrontation came easily to us.

I thought that our naval compatriots were the most balanced. They were highly professional and had a certain coy civilian easiness about them, possibly a result of long assignments in a cosmopolitan city like Karachi. They also displayed the maximum institutional loyalty; and ensured that their personal views were in line with the official Navy view.

A major noticeable difference among the officers of the there services was that while the air force and the naval officers generally confined themselves to their narrow professional fields, the army officers relished foraying into domains beyond those of the gun and tank. They claimed they could justify that. They argued that external security was linked to internal security and internal security operated within the overall internal political climate. They said that war itself was a means of resolving political differences through ‘other means’.

Each war game began with the back drop of a political situation between the two imaginary states of Greenland and Foxland. First a political objective was given. Based on that political objective, a military objective was formulated. Then the detailed war planning began, bringing in the air force and navy for the achievement of the land objective.

The operational strategies of the three forces were unique. The army had a fascinatingly simple way of working out its strategy. First, they discussed threadbare the position of the terrain from where they were to operate. Then they positioned their troops. The purpose of troop movement was to create a relative strength superiority within a defined space in a given time frame. In actual practice, however, this simple philosophy was transformed into a complex concept of operations. High flown jargon and a mass of statistical data did not make things easier.

The air force’s strategy was invariably based on a few important decisions like the ratio between the offensive missions and the defensive missions. And when to switch over from fighting the enemy air force to supporting our own land and naval forces. The army officers used to point out, and in my opinion quite justifiably so, that during the initial days of war when the enemy army was positioning its troops and was highly vulnerable from the air, our air force was busy fighting its own war with the enemy air force. Another shortcoming in our operations was that while the army talked about the terrain, the medium in which it operated; and the navy discussed the sea conditions threadbare, the air force did not really integrate the ‘condition of the air’, into its operations.

The navy’s pace of working was rather leisurely with everything moving at about 20 knots. Half of the challenge lay in finding out where the enemy submarines were hidden and whether to deploy our own submarines in an offensive or defensive role. There was always a lively tussle between the air force and the navy on the question of air support to the navy. The navy wanted support aircraft to standby on the ground for them. The air force group, supported by the army, always tried to reason that once the enemy sea targets were located, they could not escape an attack from the air because of their slow speed. Therefore, keeping the aircraft permanently on standby was a waste of valuable war effort.

Many Guest speakers came to deliver lectures. The guest speakers’ circuit in Pakistan is small and almost the same set of speakers goes to all the institutions to deliver lectures. Most of the speakers, it appeared, only changed the dates on their presentation slides as the years went by. Since those were the ‘Islamization days of positive results’, we got more than our fair share of male guest speakers whose lectures smacked of preaching from the pulpit. We also actually got Mullas as guest speakers who presentations sounded like Friday prayer sermon. My written comments to college on Mulla guest speakers were that we did not need any preaching on the religion itself and a presentation on the comparative study of religion was perhaps more appropriate.

Buzz words like Tsarist Russia’, our ‘ideological frontiers’ and the ‘Hindu dream of Akhand Bharat’ were in full cry. The Strategic depth theory was just about getting initiated.

One of the good speakers was Jamal A. Khan who was then heading the air force. He had a pleasing, genial personality. One day Hakimullah also spoke. He sounded rather ordinary, bordering on mediocrity, and it was surprise to later find him heading the air force. Professor Manzoor Ahmed of Karachi University gave a very scholarly talk. Mr. Khalid Ishaq was quite successful in further confusing us about the ‘ideology of Pakistan’. I have always wondered whether Mr. Jinnah actually ever spoke these three highly misused words ‘Ideology of Pakistan’.

Listening to Zia was another experience. Master of deceit that he was, one was never really sure whether to believe or to disbelieve him. When somebody from the audience extolled the virtues of democracy, he gave the familiar sly smile and, with gleaming teeth, marked, "one has to face realities." Those were the days when the Bhutto family was perceived to be the biggest devil on the face of the earth. The easiest way to snuggle up to the general’s heart was to curse Benazir. One of my colleagues, who was otherwise far removed from the ideals that Zia preached, got up and said, "Sir, blah, blah, blah, . . . why don’t you arrest Benazir?" Zia smiled, seemingly happy that the college was doing a good job, and gave a roundabout reply. Not to be left behind, our commandant, while summing up Zia’s speech, besides using other superlatives, added that Zia was a fakir president, hinting that he was very honest and was not making any money.

Sitting at the dinner table the same evening across Akhtar Rehman (ISI boss), I innocently pleaded the hopeless case of our ‘poor’ politicians’. I spoke about the honesty of Asghar Khan and the unimpeachable political track record of Wali Khan. While Akhtar Rehman seemed uncomfortable hearing the anti-establishment views from a student, he still laughed derisively.

My views were unambiguous – reduction in Armed Forces, no role of religion in politics, undiluted democracy and normalization of relations with India. I was making all the wrong moves and, though initially upset, it was a great mental relief when the ‘system’ finally rejected me. Sooner than I had thought, I began to enjoy the joys of freedom of thought and action. And got to fly all over the world and got to see how normal the rest of the world was. The military system tolerates idealism and professionalism upto the ranks of majors and colonels. For brigadiers and above, political alignment with the system’s philosophy is an essential criteria.

I opted for the foreign study tour of Bangladesh, Malaysia and Indonesia, having been already to the Middle East, Europe and America. Our first stop was Bangladesh. Going abroad for a Pakistani in those days, was quite a liberating experience, My permanent roommate Sardar Iqbal from the army signals, who was tremendous company, can vouch for it. Our’s was the first military group to go to Bangladesh after 1971. We were unsure of the kind of reception we would receive. The Bangladeshis received us with open arms. They were emotional, there was a touch of nostalgia, and they went out of their way to make our stay pleasant. I can never forget the colourful and scintillating dance and music show that they arranged for us at the Sonar Gaon Hotel. As West Pakistanis, we could never match their rich cultural heritage. Our group leader, Javid Nasir (latter ISI boss) sat with his back towards the show during the entire evening because of his misplaced interpretation of our faith. I thought that this was being extremely rude to our hosts.

We met the Bangladesh foreign secretary the next evening. True to tradition, he was wily bureaucrat not giving way anything more than what was absolutely essential. One of our staff members (Ashraf Qazi – later ISI boss) asked him about the Teen Begha issue. He tried to brush it off saying that like other issues, this would also be resolved with India. But when pestered with provocative arguments such as the ‘equality of sovereign states’ and ‘big and small neighbours; etc, the secretary said, "They have gotten us the country, The Teen Beegha issue will also be resolved." That was quite a dampener.

Nations, like other living organisms, grow up from infancy to childhood to teens to maturity. We are no exception and are probably in our teens. We think that the world revolves around Pakistan. In a fit of patriotic fervour, we suggested to our Malaysian hosts that they should build up a strong navy because of the ‘hegemonic designs’ of India. They replied, in a matter-of fact style, that they did not perceive any threat from India and their defence expenditure was a balance between security and prosperity. Their main problem, they said, was the economic and social uplift of the local Malay majority vis-à-vis the Chinese minority.

The college year finally ended with much fanfare and with relief. It was nice to have been there and met some wonderful people like Mushtaq, Niazi and Ali Kuli, our senior man, in particular, was a thorough gentleman. Besides the study of ‘military strategy’, we also touched, perhaps superficially, on other national issues ranging from ‘economy’ to ‘national planning’ and had begun to have a false feeling of ‘knowing it all’. That false confidence, I thought, was the college’s most lethal contribution to us.