Pakistan's diplomatic victory conceals its weakness

Mint

22-05-2025

Nothing boosts a Pakistani general's flagging domestic popularity like being able to claim he won a confrontation with his country's archenemy, India. Asim Munir, Pakistan's army chief, has been on a victory lap since President Trump announced an abrupt end to a four-day subcontinental conflict May 10. On Tuesday the Pakistani government promoted Mr. Munir to field marshal, a self-promotion for the country's most powerful man.
Mr. Munir has emerged stronger from his confrontation with India, but the same can't be said of his country. Though Pakistan may have scored diplomatic points, beneath its breathless claim of victory lie inconvenient facts. By striking terrorist infrastructure and air bases deep in Pakistan's heartland, and by suspending a 65-year-old bilateral river water-sharing treaty, India has weakened Pakistan's strategic position.
For the U.S., the simmering conflict presents challenges and opportunities. A successful U.S. strategy in the region would achieve two interconnected goals: curbing the Pakistani army's support for transnational jihadist groups and ensuring that any subcontinental conflict doesn't go nuclear. America must also recognize that China's military and diplomatic support for Pakistan has made the subcontinent a site of U.S.-China competition.
Nearly three years ago, when Mr. Munir became army chief—the most powerful position in a country where generals call the shots—he was widely seen as an outsider with a shaky grip on power. Unlike many of his predecessors, Mr. Munir entered the army through the Officers Training School rather than the more prestigious Pakistan Military Academy.
The son of a schoolteacher who doubled as an imam, Mr. Munir advertises his piety. He uses the honorific hafiz, given to those who have memorized the Quran. Unlike many predecessors, Mr. Munir wasn't trained in the U.S. or U.K. His foreign exposure was mostly limited to serving in Saudi Arabia when that country was still synonymous with hard-line Islam.
Mr. Munir became chief after a feud between the army and former Prime Minister Imran Khan, a 72-year-old charismatic populist who became prime minister with the army's help in 2018 but later fell out with Mr. Munir's predecessor, Qamar Javed Bajwa. Mr. Bajwa reportedly helped oust Mr. Khan in 2022. Mr. Bajwa and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif saw Mr. Munir as a safe pick because Mr. Khan and Mr. Munir had clashed during the latter's brief tenure as head of the country's military spy agency in 2018-19. Mr. Munir had reportedly angered the prime minister by investigating alleged corruption by his wife.
Despite Mr. Khan's popularity, the army outmaneuvered him. Since August 2023, Mr. Khan has been imprisoned on a raft of charges, most of them widely seen by independent observers as politically motivated. In an interview last week, Mr. Khan's sons, who live in England, alleged that their father has been kept in solitary confinement and denied basic rights such as medical care and regular phone calls with family.
The persecution of Mr. Khan made Mr. Munir arguably the most unpopular Pakistani army chief in living memory—that is, until India bombed nine 'terrorist infrastructure" sites on May 7 in retaliation for a terrorist attack on Indian tourists in Kashmir. The conflict has allowed Mr. Munir to reinvent himself as a hero.
The version of events publicized in Pakistan goes like this: First, India lost at least five fighter jets in its initial attack on May 7, including three French-made Rafales, the most advanced jet in India's air force. Second, Mr. Trump's Truth Social post announcing the cease-fire and his subsequent remarks about the conflict handed Pakistan a clear diplomatic victory.
This account contains some truth. India has admitted to losing fighter jets, though it hasn't said how many. Reporting by the Washington Post suggests India likely lost at least two jets. And Mr. Trump has indeed set back Indian diplomacy by casting India and Pakistan as peers and offering to mediate their dispute over Kashmir.
But if you look past Indian embarrassment, the balance clearly tilts in New Delhi's favor. India has shown that it can hit targets across Pakistan at will, raising questions about the effectiveness of Pakistan's Chinese-made air defenses. Indian air defenses largely neutralized hundreds of Pakistani drones and missiles.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on May 12 announced a new doctrine according to which India 'will not differentiate between the government sponsoring terrorism and the masterminds of terrorism." India says the current lull in fighting isn't a permanent cease-fire but a temporary 'suspension of military operations." In the coming months and years, India will almost certainly seek to increase its capacity to pressure Pakistan by building dams on shared rivers.
For now, the Pakistani army's skilled public-relations machinery may have turned the once-unpopular army chief into a hero at home. But looked at dispassionately, it's hard to see how Field Marshal Asim Munir has made Pakistan any safer.