.. by Raza Muhammad Khan

Soon after the 1971war, federal studies were initiated by the government to re- appraise the performance of our military system during that war. A key recommendation of these deliberations and the subsequent ‘White Paper’, published the same year, included the proposal of creating a‘ unified high-command structure to oversee all military work, combat coordination, and joint missions.’ This took five years to materialize in March 1976, leading to the establishment of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee(JCSC) for the purpose. However, the JCSC was assigned only a diluted role‘—of providing military advice to the government, synchronizing jointness and coordination among the Army, Navy, and Air Force’. Later, this mandate was gradually enhanced to include development of strategic weapons systems and organizations as well.

The chairman JCSC, was the principal adviser to the government in war time, but in peace or tension period, he usually formulated recommendations to the government, on issues of more than one Service, through a committee system. When there was divergence of views among the Services, he presented alternatives for a final decision by the government, as he did not wield executive authority over the Armed Forces. Till it’s recent replacement, this system worked well, despite its limitations. These included the following: First; the Services Chiefs and the CJCSC, had direct access to the prime minister for military matters concerning their own spheres, which was mainly beneficial for individual Services, but unhelpful for tri-services issues and judicious allocation of scarce resources.

It also diminished and masked the need for unity of command and control, evolution of the system, to cater for rapid and continuous revolutions in military affairs or the vicissitudes of regional and global milieu. Second; many practical opinions often flew around the Committee conference table, in the JCSC meetings, but a single option that made absolute, unqualified sense, could be lost in the debate to build consensus. Deliberations by this Committee were thorough but sometimes wasteful in time, that was unaffordable during tension periods or wars and weren’t conducive to produce timely decisions, in fast and fluid conduct stages of operations. Three; the first principle of war, ‘selection and maintenance of aim’ wasn’t easy to pick, while unity of purpose in training, preparation, interoperability, joint and integrated employment of forces, with optimum utilization of resources was wanting.

This caused some disharmony in the structural growth, formulation of doctrines and the standardization of the wherewithal for war fighting. To avoid these problems, a key provision of Pakistan’s 27th Constitutional Amendment, enacted this year, reformed the command-and-control structure of the armed forces, that was long overdue. This progression of the military system, from the JCSC to the Chief of Defense forces, (CDF) is now in congruence with the prevailing national security environments, our threat perception, response parameters, lessons from recent, conflicts with India and global rivalries, UN peace keeping and stability missions, interactions with foreign armed forces and obligations in multi- nation military assignments. The switch is also compatible with the nuclear factor that has brought fundamental changes in the nature and conduct of conflicts, complicated the linkages between conventional and nuclear thresholds and blurred the line between deterrence and defense.

The CDF office could now provide better counsel on bilateral defense pacts, international treaties like the NPT, CTBT, MTCR etc. and tri- services inputs, to the government about development and employment of forces. Additionally, the new arrangement now satisfies-two globally established principles of war i.e., ‘Unity of Command’ and ‘Economy of Effort or Force’. This shall in turn, facilitate adherence to allot her, fundamental guidelines for war fighting and military success. For these reasons, fifteen countries have adopted the Chief of Defense Staff (CDS)system and thirteen are using the CDF system, wherein, a single authority acts as the principal advisor to the government or head of armed forces, respectively, to deal with all spectra of military matters, including operations, training, logistics, guidance, monitoring, evaluation and inspections. Within this framework, the Services have full autonomy of action. This change will undo the trend of working in silos by the Services intelligence, security or logistic components, enable their integration and introduce joint procurement, training, employment and deployment. This will act as a force multiplier, toward achievement of common objectives, at an affordable cost, at all rungs and tiers of conflicts, wars, counter- terrorism and duties in aid of civil power. Unity of command shall also ensure an enabling environment for the Services to merge, minimize turf battles and promote collaborative planning, preparedness and operations.

Depending on the situation, the change shall enable easy shifting from a single service dominated, to a bi-service, or multiple service-oriented, mutually supportive strategies to respond, to future threat spectrums. It shall ensure fiscal efficiency, remove redundancies, minimize combat frictions, rationalize single service war fighting visions and preserve operational assets. Most importantly, it will ensure arriving at clear and timely key-decisions, under one umbrella, for coherent, seamless, and effective responses.All this will lead to a military system and strategy that is based on harmonious and shared perspectives. Such an atmosphere is the hallmark of complex military technologies, maturity of doctrines and organizations, command, control, communications, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; along with their innovative software. This will ensue strategic advantage of information dominance, superior situational awareness for precision strikes and resilient operations astride multiple domains (land, sea, air, space, cyber, AI); that cross traditional service boundaries. It’s gratifying that we-successfully defended ourselves in the past, throughout military system, supported by our patriotic people and this was witnessed and acknowledged by the world, during Operation Bunyan-Ul-Marsoos. The paradigm shift in our higher defense apparatus shall further reinforce our deterrence and defense capabilities, boost our military production and diplomacy and permit adoption of a flexible, dynamic and bold, ‘offensive-defense’ posture to protect ourselves, better in the future. This inevitable change must therefore be embraced swiftly and earnestly by all and sundry.  —The writer, a retired Lt Gen, is former President NDU.  
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