AbstractsSociology

The Pakistan Army Officer Corps, Islam and Strategic Culture 1947-2007

by Mark Briskey




Institution: University of New South Wales
Department: Humanities & Social Sciences Canberra
Year: 2014
Keywords: Army; Pakistan; Islam; Strategic; Culture
Record ID: 1049289
Full text PDF: http://handle.unsw.edu.au/1959.4/53990


Abstract

This thesis examines the use and manipulation of Islam as a form of identity and important element of the strategic culture of the Pakistan Army Officer Corps between 1947 and 2007. Despite the ethnic and cultural disparities within the population that made up the new nation of Pakistan the Army has continued to rely on a rump of Punjabi and Pakhtun Officers who have relied on Army interpretations of Islam for identity. The thesis also argues that the Army from its outset has consistently conflated notions of the discredited ‘Martial Race’ theory and Islam as the basis of the Army’s superiority in comparison to other armies - most notably the Indian Army. Apart from the relationship between ‘Martial Race’ and Islam the thesis also draws links between Islam and a number of other significant influences on the Army. An important method of understanding the role of Islam in the Officer Corps is argued as usefully being understood through the prism of ‘strategic culture’ theory. Strategic culture theory highlights the relevance of an organisation’s history. In particular the theory argues the importance of major ‘strategic’ shocks’ and disasters upon an organisation.. In this way the thesis argues that the tribulations of partition and the first Kashmir War of 1947-48, the 1965 War and above all the ‘strategic shock’ suffered in the Army’s humiliating defeat to India in 1971 were influential in shaping an Army culture in which Islam was prominent. The thesis concludes that in a time period when Western or other Asian powers may consider it anachronistic to call upon a religion and an uncompromising belief in a deity to provide an advantage in combat, there are Officers in the Pakistan Army in the last decade of the twentieth century and in the first decade of the new century who hold these beliefs as innate truths and an essential element of their Army culture.