Since the first Afghan war of 1980s during which Islamabad had willingly served as a conduit for the US gold and guns meant for the Afghan ‘Mujahideen’ fighting a ‘jihad’ against the occupying Soviet troops Pakistan has been practising a war economy without realising it to be so. Perhaps that is the main reason why despite having had the good fortune of being the most allied ally of the US since mid-1950s until 1988 and then once again having been adopted as the Non-Nato ally since 9/11 presumably to date our economy has continued to refuse to respond to any of the policies framed for a country mistakenly believed to be at peace within and without.
No doubt the compulsions of being forced by the circumstances obtaining at the time of partition to morph into a security state from the very first day of our independence had weighed on the national economy heavily under the ever-increasing demands for equipping our armed forces with the minimum security paraphernalia to defend the country against the presumed intentions of a hostile neighbour almost five times bigger in size and in fire power.
And the three and a half wars (1948, 1965, 1971 and a half war at Kargil heights in 1998) that we fought against India had already surreptitiously rendered our economy into one overwhelmingly tilted towards funding wars rather than financing socio-economic uplift projects.
Even so, until about the time we became in the early 1980s the so called ‘conduit’ between the US and Afghanistan with the US CIA and Pakistani ISI collaborating very closely to oust the Soviets from our North-Eastern neighbour our budgetary allocations for development work would always be more than the allocations shown as defence budgets. But since the mid-1980s the allocations under the two heads just reversed although we were receiving heavy injections of unencumbered assistance, both military and civil, during this period from almost the entire ‘free world’ plus China.
As we entered the decade of the 1990s we found ourselves deeply involved in two almost ten-year long low intensity wars, one between the Taliban ruled Kabul and the Northern Alliance and the other between the Indian troops and the freedom fighters who had launched a ‘jihad’ against the occupying troops in the Indian administered Kashmir. In both these wars our own-trained, funded and equipped non-state actors were found involved for reasons not very opaque. Such a campaign does not come free of cost.
The 9/11 tragedy ended the war between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance while the Kargil adventure brought an end to the Jihad in Indian Kashmir. But there was no respite for us from wars as we once again got involved in Afghanistan troubles as the US needed our help in mounting its campaign against the Taliban. We willingly provided this help and were paid for the job.
And we are now involved in a war within since around 2005 when the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) started challenging our own Armed Forces. They have been attacking security installations since. Even the GHQ did not escape their excesses.
Finally losing patience our Armed forces hit back by launching the Zarb-e-Azb in June 2014 and went after the TTP. Since then the war within has engulfed the entire country. The TTP is said to have fled across to Afghanistan and are now mounting its campaigns from across the Durand Line with support from the Afghan Taliban who too are said to have been uprooted by the Zarb-e-Azb campaign from the safe sanctuaries in Pakistan’s tribal belt. Some of the elements within the Afghan government who are said to be hostile towards Pakistan are also said to be helping the TTP in their war against Pakistan.
Indeed, we have been at war since the early 1980s without a break. But every annual budget that we have prepared since has been framed for a country at peace within and without. And that perhaps is the reason why our education system has gone from bad to worse; our heath cover has shrunken to next to nothing; we have a housing problem that seems to have no solution; our population is galloping by leaps and bounds and; our public transport is in a shambles. Our economy has remained so much focused on the wars all these years that it has continued to fail to add to our depleting infrastructure like water, energy, roads, bridges and communication.
It is not possible to carry out the 36-year-long war efforts without any financial cost to the nation and most of these efforts especially weapons systems that we acquired over this period were not purchased on concessional terms. In fact some of these weapons systems were bought from borrowed money carrying heavy interest rates. Last year we were tenth heaviest arms buyer on the world ranking with India occupying the first position. Add to this the expenditure that we are incurring for the development, upkeep and security of our nuclear arsenal including that of the tactical weapons that need to be honed at regular periodicity.
Our need to develop nuclear weapons was necessitated by India’s grandiose nuclear weapons’ ambitions. Had we not done what did on this front the Indians would have simply crossed our border during our Kargil misadventure as they had tried to do in 1965 when the two countries did not have nuclear weapons. And then their cold start doctrine forced us to develop tactical nuclear weapons.
There was a clear justification for becoming a security state from the very word go. And then we found ourselves willingly getting involved in wars in the region that the US had waged in its own global national interests. And our compulsions for becoming a nuclear weapon state are too obvious for us to be offering any justification to anybody.
But being at war all these years has seriously and adversely impacted our economy. We need to realise this and keep this elephant in the room in sight while preparing our national budgets. It is time, therefore, to stop deceiving ourselves and start budgeting up-front for the ongoing war efforts.
Or perhaps we could try to find ways to keep ourselves out of other nations’ wars and at the same time seek with honour and dignity, a permanent peace deal with our close neighbours so that our economy is liberated from the heavy burden of providing for war at the cost of socio-economic uplift of the nation. But that is easier said than done. http://www.brecorder.com/articles-a-letters/187:articles/28318:elephant-in-the-room/?date=2016-03-23
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