Costs of Military Dictatorships of Pakistan

Historic Failures of Strategic Doctrines by Dictator Generals in Pakistan

• Are Generals Qualified to Make Long Term Strategy: Costs of Strategic Failures of Military Dictators

• (i) In West Pakistan, the sense of alienation produced by the concentration of wealth in the famous 22 families resulted in the meteoric rise of ZAB that created the conditions for the mass scale nationalization, and roll back of all economic gains made during the 1960s [12]. 
• (ii) In East Pakistan, the sense of alienation created conditions where Bengalis who faught for Pakistan were forced to secede: E.g. Shaikh Mujeeb ur Rehman who had led Fatima Jinnah’s presidential bid in 1965 from East Pakistan got the first major jolt when Gen Ayub won through massive rigging. The 2nd major jolt was the reaction that he faced for his 6 points when Gen Ayub equated it with treason and which eventually made him to lose faith in the united Pakistan, and became a self-fulfilled prophecy of Gen Ayub [15]. 

2: “Defence of East Pakistan lies in the West” was the famous military doctrine of the 1960s which got its first major jolt during the miscalculation of Operation Gibraltar culminating in 1965 war, and later proved to be a disaster with the uprising in East Pakistan with the support of India [13]. 
3: “East Pakistan is a Liability” and the discontent of Bengalis can be subdued through military operations was the strategic thinking of Gen Yahya, which backfired and led to the surrender of East Pakistan with over 92,000 forces as PoWs. As per Hamood ur Rehman Commission report, conditions were created by a clique of five generals that led to the uprising in East Pakistan [8]. 
4: Military is not only the defender of the geographic frontiers but is also the defender of ideological frontiers (chadar aur chardiwari ki hifazat): This Gen Zia’s strategy was instrumental in cultivation of Jehadis that history had proved to be one of the most disastrous of strategies ever.
5: Joining the US’ Afghan Jehad and the chimera of Strategic Depth was Gen Zia ‘s major strategic contribution. It totally ignored the US interests and capacity of CIA to involve the mujahideens into a perenial war. This was then countered by the introduction of Talibans in the Afghanistan which was again responded first through missile attacks during Clinton rule and later after 9-11 through a massive war [19, 21].
6. General Aslam Baig’s strategic doctrine of “Bleed India in Kashmir” of the 1990s [16], ignored the tit-for-tat ability of India to respond through infiltration of Balochistan by RAW agents, and destablization of Karachi and cultivation of Baloch insurgency. Eventually, the strategic assets of Bleed-India-in-Kashmir doctrine turned into strategic liabilities. 
7. Taliban Strategy of 1995: Initially it worked and a pro-Pakistan Taliban government was installed in Afghanistan. But, the strategists underestimated the response of the US when its regional interests were threatened. Starting with the missile attacks during Clinton years, it led to a full scale ground attack by US forces after 9-11 with the famous U-Turn by Gen Musharraf. This resulted in US forcibly taking away the air bases, air space, and even gaining ground access to move troops from Gawadar to Afghanistan [22].  
8. Good-Taliban-Bad-Taliban Doctrine (running with the hare and hunting with the hounds) Doctrine by Gen Musharraf again underestimated the depth of US interests in the region [20]. Their response through blackwater ops and CIA infiltration in Pakistan and with RAW agents supports created a situation of deadly suicide bombings that eventually all had to rolled back with Op Zarb e Azb.  

References [Being Updated]