Reviews for Military Inc.: Inside Pakistan's Military Economy

The average rating for Military Inc.: Inside Pakistan's Military Economy based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-10-18 00:00:00 Ilene Grimes The author starts the book by defining Milbus. Milbus refers to military capital that is used for the personal benefit of the military fraternity especially the officer cadre but is neither recorded nor part of the defence budget. Milbus in Pakistan is part of the tribute that the military extracts for providing services such as national security. The exploitation of national resources by the elite is a result of the peculiar nature of the precapitalist politico-economic system. The deliberate concealment of Milbus is meant to project the military as being more honest and less corrupt than civilian players. Milbus compromises of two broad but distinct set of activities: 1. Profit making through the privatization of security - this trend is mostly followed by the developed economies 2. Military engagement in non-traditional roles such as farming or running businesses like hotels, airlines, banks or real estate agencies - this occurs mainly in developing economies The businesses run by the four foundations: the Fauji Foundation, Army Welfare Trust, Shaheed Trust and Bahria Foundation are very diverse in nature, ranging from small scale ventures such as bakeries, farms, schools and private security farms to corporate enterprises, such as commercial banks, insurance companies, radio and television channels, fertilizers, cement and cereal manufacturing plants. Whereas, the Fauji Foundation and the Army Welfare Trust are the largest business conglomerates in the country. Over the 72 years of Pakistan's history, the army has experienced direct power four times and learnt to negotiate authority when not directly in control of the government. Pervez Musharraf formed the National Security Council in 2004 and transformed the status of the military from being an instrument of policy to an awesomely powerful organization that could protect its interests as an equal member of the ruling elite. Milbus is both politically and socially expensive. Politically it nurtures the military's power ambitions and socially it reduces the society's acceptability of the military as an arbitrator and increases the alienation of the underprivileged, the dispossessed and the have nots. Military rules takes 3 forms: 1. Personal - the political system is dominated by the dictator who distributes restrictively along his sycophants 2. Oligarchic - the ruling class relies on support of an otherwise autonomous military institution 3. Corporatist - the institutional involvement of the military in politics and governance Pakistan's politics have had a highly elitist nature because the ruling elite tried to partner with the military to pursue their political and economic interests. The civil military bureaucracy played a key role in giving birth to the indigenous bourgeoisie or the business-industrialist class which formed part of the dominant elite. All military regimes create clients which act as the civilian face of the military and legitimize the military's control and are nourished by the defense establishment for the times when the bulk of the military has to withdraw to the barracks. The military basically replaced one set of corrupt politicians with another in order to sustain its own power base. The main controlling authority for the defence establishment is the Ministry of Defence (MoD). The MoD controls four main planks of Milbus: the Service Headquarters, the Department of Military Land and Cantonment (ML), the FF and the Rangers (a paramilitary force). Other institutions such as the National Logistic Cell (NLC), The Frontier Work Organization and the Special Communications Organization are controlled by the army. NLC instead of revitalizing the Pakistan Railways which had until the creation of the military transport company been the main cargo transporter in the country. The creation of NLC was not a case of privatizing cargo transport but of shifting work from one public sector institution to another and hence creating a duplication of efforts. The blatant use of intelligence agencies to manipulate and overthrow governments had left civilian governments too insecure to challenge the military's involvement in business. The Accountability Ordinance passed by Musharraf precluded the military and judiciary from being questioned under the new accountability rules, because the military have their own accountability procedures. Military feudalism denotes a set of economic and political relations and a pattern of social behavior. The monopolization and control of land is understood as a symbol of power which adds to the powerful image of the armed forces. Military uses three methods for acquiring and developing housing schemes: 1. Houses constructed on state land 2. Private land appropriated with or without enough compensation and developed into housing schemes by military subsidiaries 3. Private land acquired bu DHAs, the management of which falls under the purview of the Army GHQ Investment in real estate became rampant after 9/11 and also during the Afghan War when there was an extraordinary flow of dollars in Pakistan as aid. People have greater faith in investing in military-controlled schemes because there are fewer instances of fraud than in civilian schemes. Military personnel attribute this to their indisputable capacity for discipline and better management. Pakistan's military welfare system is based on two distinct models 1. Fauji Foundation Model - the conservative method of providing health, educational and employment facilities to retired personnel and their dependents 2. The Army Welfare Trust Model - formed on the principle of generating profit to buy additional welfare for armed forces personnel and to provide post-retirement employment for retired personnel This system might serve the interests of the armed forces personnel and help the organization retain better quality staff but it has substantial socio-political costs. The four foundations were established under the Charitable Endowment Act 1890, hence the accounts of these foundations are not audited by the government;s prime accounting agency the Auditor General of Pakistan, therefore correct estimates about their loss/profit are unknown. On the other hand, AWT was thrice (1997,1999 and 2001) given financial aid from the government despite it falling under the private sector. Milbus as a whole is a unknown territory as not much data is available hence it is not discussed much. Ayesha Siddiqa was brave enough to write about it. Though the book was quite repetitive but the information was mindbogglingly new for me. Blog | YouTube | Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn

Review # 2 was written on 2013-08-20 00:00:00 Sarah Roesler Stephen Cohen defines the Pakistan army succinctly, there are three types of armies that guard their nation's borders, there are those that are concerned by protecting their own position in society, and there are those which defend a cause or an idea. The Pakistan army does all three. Islamic Pakistan was defined in reaction to a Hindu India. Another interesting observation is that the Army was sort of encouraged by Jinnah to act independently when he was convinced into receding his earlier order of attacking Kashmir in 1947 by the British COAS. Notice India still had a British governor general, thus avoiding any friction in carrying out orders. Coming from an army background myself, there was little I didn't know of Pakistan Army's business ventures, but the book still provided a comprehensive breakdown of the huge numbers involved. Milbus has managed to create a new class of urban feudal class in Pakistan, one which seems even lucrative to the legacy feudal of the rural variety. I found the book very difficult to digest as it reads like a PhD dissertation crammed with heavy stats, numbers and pretty boring facts. Ayesha could have masse the book a lot more interesting by introducing some candid interviews of army personal who do make very interesting interviewees.