National Security Strategy
Like any organized entity, every nation needs a roadmap that clearly defines what we are, what we want to be and how to get there. Pakistan today is not the land of Islam the Prophet (PBUH) would have wanted, the vision envisaged by the great poet Iqbal and the nation the Father of the country, Quaid-e-Azam created it to be. We have been laid low by the bankruptcy of the policies that we follow, under pressure internationally from disparate forces with vested interest and under attack domestically by the forces of evil, their appetite for loot and plunder not yet satiated after more than half a century. While we are still far from being a failed State, and that mainly due to the intervention of the Armed Forces Oct 12, 1999, a new set of crisis, part diplomatic and part political, has put us into a near critical condition. At time like these one has barely any moment to reflect, and maybe the corrective measures may be a moot point at this time, however, we should take time-out to ponder what exactly went wrong and why it is still going wrong. While the problems are complex and cannot even begin to be addressed in one column or one day, we can take a cursory look at the failure of mechanics of governance.
Amazing as it may seem, there is no institutionalized decision-making process in Pakistan. True, decisions are made but these are not in strategic harmony, even though at the tactical level we may have been holding our own, but in a very slip-shod, fickle and disorganized manner, taking in the inputs of various public institutions but never turning to private think tanks for input on a whole range of issues. We have been at the mercy of the individual whims and caprices that make for arbitrary decision-making. Instead of a comprehensive examination of causes and affects for adequate analysis, comprehension planning and implementation thereof. The Head of State or the Chief Executive of the Government must have a permanent mechanism that can draw upon all Federal and Provincial resources for information gathering, collation of recommendations and preparation of option papers. This is only possible by having a permanent National Security Council (NSC) Secretariat staffed by the finest brainpower that is available in the country.
Leadership on Merit, not Patronage
Pakistan is home to conceivably the finest manpower in the world, it has also been proven many more times over that barring the solitary and unique magnificence of the Quaid we have had a succession of terrible leaders, only a handful can be counted as being above par. One wonders why when blessed with such positive potential on the one hand, we have repeatedly gone down the path of destruction by those whose negative attributes far outstrip their better qualities. The natural emergence of leadership is stunted because we only give lip-service to the merit system, relying mainly on a client-patron relationship to influence the choosing of our leaders, comparable to marriages among blood relations, the mating of similar genes leading to retardation and deformity. Choosing only from the narrow confines of one coterie rather than selecting from the vast reservoir of talent waters down the quality of leadership. This causes frustration among those with aspiration to rise on their merit, the upwardly mobile, causing a talent drain as people leave service or even the country for greener pastures where merit is recognized and rewarded.
Not recognizing merit and giving it its legitimate due is bad enough, worse is when merit becomes a disqualifier. From very early on those with merit are earmarked for getting “special treatment” meant to never let them rise in their profession, unless of course they have mastered the quality of being double or even triple-faced. The system forces people to have dual personalities, one face for your seniors and another for your subordinates. The best Annual Confidential Reports (ACRs) can only be written by your subordinates, those who see the true self of the individual, not the contrived one. Blunt people can never be appreciated in our society. For the company commander of an infantry unit there is no better judge of character and abilities than his soldiers, they are the best referees. In the Pakistan Military Academy (PMA) a “Mutual Assessment System” is used (or was?) but this is only true in the initial stage, as cadets settle down into military life, they tend to be competitive and jealous, that sullies the purity of the exercise.
The Limits of Accountability?
Third World media has a reflex tendency to quietly bemoan its impotence as regards corruption within the bureaucracy. Unlike in the FIRST WORLD, the media’s enthusiasm to do investigative reporting is dampened by an administrative bag of tricks which would put Merlin the Magician to shame. Since the Government’s advertising releases translate into economic survival of the newspapers and magazines, the name of the game normally is that “fools rush in, where angels fear to tread.”