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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Pakistan
Index
Artist's rendition of tile mosaic of horseman with lance from the
Pictured Wall, Lahore Fort, Punjab. Artwork represents seventeenthcentury tile work of the Mughal period.
THE ARMED FORCES OF PAKISTAN have traditionally played
a
distinctive role in the life of the nation. As in many
other
developing countries, they are an important modernizing
force in
society and a key tool of national integration. As
defenders of
the nation's interests in Pakistan's troubled and volatile
geopolitical neighborhood, the armed forces are accorded a
particularly high status in public opinion. Less welcome,
however, has been the repeated interference of the armed
forces
in the internal affairs and politics of the country. The
military
has frequently been called in to gain control of unrest
that has
gone beyond the ability of the police to cope; some of
these
intrusions have had a major impact and have been of fairly
long
duration. The military has assumed political as well as
security
control of the entire country three times under
proclamations of
martial law. Indeed, since it became an independent state
in
1947, Pakistan has been under military control for much of
its
existence.
At the same time, however, democracy has always been
seen as
the "natural" state of the Pakistani polity, and the
military has
ultimately returned power to civilian hands. Thus,
although the
armed forces dominated the country to a certain extent,
they have
not perpetuated a military dictatorship. The military has
been a
permanent factor in the life of the country, but in a role
that
has ranged from complete control to vigilant observer. As
political scientist Leonard Binder has observed, "Even
[Pakistan's] dependence upon the military does not
necessarily
make of it a praetorian state, because there is little
evidence
that the state works in the sole interest of the military.
Rather, it was the military which intervened in order to
prevent
the breakdown of the patrimonial system." Much of the
political
history of Pakistan has been set in this drama of
contending
influences, and the military in early 1994 was still
searching
for a role that would reconcile its interests and the
broader
needs of a country whose politicians were struggling to
establish
a credible authority of their own.
Data as of April 1994
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