From Himal Southasian
After Pakistan’s military “win” in the May 2025 confrontation with India, the army under Asim Munir as field marshal has even greater power over the state, the civilian government and the judiciary
In May this year, Pakistan and India engaged in armed hostilities for four days after the Pahalgam attack – the most serious crisis between the two nuclear-armed neighbours in decades. As the conflict ended with de-escalation, without a decisive outcome, both sides claimed victory before their respective national and political constituencies. In Pakistan, the internal perception of a decisive victory over India in the brief, intense and symbolically important exchange of hostilities has triggered deeper entrenchment of its military in national affairs.
Pakistan has long been called a “garrison state” for the outsize role of its military in the country’s politics since its founding in 1947. The military has ruled the country directly three times – from 1958 to 1971, from 1977 to 1988 and from 1999 to 2008. But its political power extends beyond direct rule, and its decades-long ability to influence politics indirectly has been greatly enhanced in recent years by laws that have created jurisdiction for the military to operate at both the federal and provincial levels of government.
The conflict in May helped further raise the profile of the military and its current chief, Asim Munir. Afterwards, he was promoted from a four-star general to field marshal – the highest rank in the Pakistan Army – expressly for his leadership during the standoff. He is only the second person in Pakistan’s history to hold the title; the first was Ayub Khan, the country’s first military ruler. The rank of field marshal is held for life and confers immense prestige and authority on a recipient, both within the armed forces and beyond.
Munir took over as the army chief in 2022 for a stipulated term of three years. However, in November 2024 the Pakistan government passed a law to extend the tenures of the heads of the armed forces from three to five years, and to remove an earlier age limit for four-star generals. This allows Munir to hold the post till 2027. His promotion to the lifetime rank of field marshal renders such an extension a formality. And although he has not made any moves to formally take over political power, the promotion is important in terms of its symbolism and timing. It consolidates his position as the most powerful man in the country, despite not being the head of the government.
Salman Rafi Sheikh is an assistant professor of politics at Lahore University of Management Sciences.
More content from this blog
- China’s Forced Boarding Schools: The Systematic Erasure of Tibetan Cultural Identity, by Tibet Rights Collective – 15 January 2025
- October 7th in Comparative Perspective, by Tom Khaled Würdemann – 24 October 2024
- Sudan’s World War, by Joshua Craze – 17 April 2025
- The Monthly Review’s China Issue Reveals the Narcissistic Inward Gaze, Self-Flagellating Politics of the Western Left, by Brian Hioe – 9 September 2021
- Does this Far Right Group Expose What Israel Tries to Hide? Interview with Natasha Roth-Rowland – 17 January 2020