There is an invisible clique that ensures that certain ideas and issues are never compromised. Ayesha Siddiqa, senior fellow at the Department of War Studies at King’s College in London, and author of the acclaimed Military Inc.: Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy, gives her views on this invisible entity
OVER THE YEARS, and especially after the post-Pahalgam conflict with India, elements in the Inter-Services Intelligence have grown bigger and more powerful. And so, my argument is that any Pakistan general who ever tries to cross the red lines will get knocked down. And those red lines are not political or domestic. They are more geopolitical.
There is a deep state sitting within the military, which doesn’t allow the top leadership to cross a certain line. And for me as a Pakistani, that is a matter of concern. You will not get the same answer from somebody else who, like me, also has expertise on the military. We don’t know how this deep state network works. This is a group that comes together to get rid of a leader.
For example, in their mind, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto crossed the line. In one of the last interviews before she left for exile to Dubai, she was asked if she would hand over A.Q. Khan (father of Pakistan’s atomic weapons programme) to the US if they asked for him. She said, “Yes.” She crossed the line. I think getting rid of Benazir was an institutional decision. (Benazir was assassinated in a bomb explosion in Rawalpindi on December 27, 2007).
It needs a careful study at your (India’s) end and our end as well. How does that deep state within the military operate? That mechanism needs to be understood.
On the red lines for the deep state, I think India is definitely another. For example, if General Qamar Javed Bajwa (Pakistan army chief from 2016 to 2022) says, “Oh, we can’t fight India”, that is a red line for the deep state.
The other, of course, is nuclear. For example, if a military leader says “All right, tomorrow I am going to draw down on the nuclear programme,” that would be a definite red line.
The third, I don’t know how and at what level, but it has to be the divide on China versus the US. But how does it operate? How will it come to operate? I haven’t made up my mind.
Since 2016-17, nothing has changed for the Pakistan military. In fact, their economic ventures and their exploitation of the economy have only increased. Now they have more power. In the Imran Khan government (from 2018 to 2022), they were included in the overall national economic decision making. That has increased with the Special Investment Facilitation Council (established in 2023). It oversees all inflows of investment into Pakistan.
And so now, it’s not just one general at the top, but another team of generals who are also included on the operational side of economic decision making.
But the Pakistan military still doesn’t consider its engagement in the economy as its main role. Its main role is still war fighting. That is where it draws its institutional legitimacy from. And that’s how it maximises and builds its relationship with the common Pakistani.
Whatever the military’s economic exploitation is, it continues to invest, and that economic role is very centrally controlled. Exploitation is concentrated at the top. But it also understands that in order to justify this economic exploitation, the military would still have to deliver on the battlefield.
The other thing is that in its own institutional mind, the justification is that if, for instance, the politicians are bad and the economy collapses, the military should have the resources to fall back on an industrial and business base on which they can sustain themselves.
With the recent conflict with India, it will now have an excuse to further justify its economic ventures.
Nor is there an internal challenge from the political class for the military to have institutional accountability. It’s a powerful institution that understands and knows that while it can exploit national resources, it will have to justify all of that on the basis of national defence.
Even if Pakistan has improved relations with India, it would still need a professional and capable military infrastructure to watch out for an ambitious and powerful neighbour like India.
Since 2016, when India launched surgical strikes into Pakistan and created a ‘new normal’ saying that it can come and strike inside, it has created greater acceptance of military expenditure and the military’s economic exploitation.
This 2025 conflict has provided further justification for the military’s political, social and economic expansion because there will be fewer questions asked now.
There were rumblings when General Asim Munir took over (2022). But now, thanks to India, that has died down. There is a consensus in the Pakistan military that the man at the top, with whatever planning, has held India back.