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The Chief of the Pakistan Army, Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir, last week made his second high-level official visit to the United States in less than two months.
On August 8, Munir, who has been accused by New Delhi of planning the terrorist attack in Pahalgam this April, met the highest ranking US military officer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen Dan Caine, and discussed the “successful US-Pakistan counterterrorism cooperation efforts in the region”, according to a US military readout.
On June 18, during a five-day visit to the US, Munir had met with President Donald Trump over lunch, the first time a Pakistani army chief had been hosted at the White House.
Trump said he was honoured to meet Munir, and the Pakistani military said in a statement that the two men had discussed trade, economic development, and cryptocurrency during their two-hour meeting, Reuters reported.
On Sunday, Pakistani media reported Munir’s comments in a speech to members of the Pakistani diaspora in Tampa, Florida: “My second visit [to the US] after a gap of just one and a half months marks a new dimension in Pak-US relations.”
Munir added that his visits were intended to take relations between the countries on a constructive, sustainable and positive path, Dawn reported.
US-Pakistan ties have seen an unexpected improvement under President Trump, and Munir, who has assumed a bigger public persona since Operation Sindoor in May, has been the face of the renewed relationship.
In Pakistan, the Army Chief has always had an outsized influence over the civilian government. The Pakistan Army is all-powerful, and it is commonly said that while every country has an army, in Pakistan, the army has a country.
Munir has consolidated his power over the civilian government especially since Operation Sindoor. Within days of the ceasefire, the government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif made Munir a Field Marshal, only the second Chief of the Pak Army to be elevated to this rank.
The first Pakistani Field Marshal was Ayub Khan, who served as Army Chief from 1951 to 1958, overthrew President Iskander Mirza in a coup in 1958, made himself a Field Marshal, and ruled the country as a military dictator until 1969.
Ayub was in charge during the India-Pak war of 1965, and his successor, Gen Yahya Khan, was Chief during the India-Pakistan war of 1971, which led to the liberation of Bangladesh. Yahya was an important conduit for the US diplomatic opening towards China under President Richard Nixon.
In 1976, Gen Zia-ul-Haq overthrew the civilian government and ruled Pakistan until his death in an air crash in 1988. The next coup was carried out by Gen Pervez Musharraf, who overthrew Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and ruled from 1999 to 2008.
Munir has consolidated his power, weakened the civilian government, and become the face of Pakistan’s establishment, but without carrying out a coup like several of his predecessors.
Pakistan has had a series of strong Army Chiefs since 2008 — Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, Gen Raheel Sharif, and Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa — but none of these men was able to position himself in the Pakistani system in the way Munir has done.
Munir’s rise has been helped by Pakistan’s weak civilian government and poor economic situation over the last few years.
POLITICAL SITUATION: Shehbaz Sharif’s political coalition is one of the weakest governments in the country’s history, and the Prime Minister’s older brother and patriarch of the PML(N), Nawaz Sharif, is now a pale shadow of his former self.
The PPP, led by Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, son of the late Benazir Bhutto and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, has not quite recovered after being routed by the Sharifs in 2013.
The only leader who has been able to fire the imagination of Pakistan’s youth and a large section of its people, Imran Khan, is in jail. Munir and Imran have a history of animosity, and have been baying for each other’s blood.
Munir’s crackdown on Imran’s party has succeeded in curbing all dissent in the Pakistani political class. The Sharifs and Bhutto-Zardaris have teamed up with the Army against Imran and his party to ensure their own political survival. This situation has handed Munir unchallenged political power.
DESPERATE FINANCES: Pakistan’s economy is in dire straits, virtually kept alive by IMF bailouts. Inflation rates that touched 30 per cent in 2023 decreased to 12 per cent in 2024, and has reduced further since, but the economic outlook remains bleak.
The Army, which corners the bulk of the budget for defence spending, pensions, and has a powerful stake in the crony capitalism of Pakistan, has also positioned itself to manage the country’s economy.
Munir, whose term as Army Chief runs through November 2027, being hosted at the White House is unprecedented — all previous Pakistani military chiefs who visited the US did so as Presidents of the country.
The one exception to this was Gen Kayani, who met with officials in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in 2010. “By design, [President Barack] Obama dropped by, feigning surprise to find Kayani. (Because the Pakistani general was not a head of state or government, Obama did not want to violate protocol or undermine civilian rule in Pakistan by setting up a formal meeting),” journalist Steve Coll wrote in his book, Directorate S.
Field Marshal Munir’s two US visits in rapid succession is a demonstration of his political and diplomatic capital.
In Pakistan, there is candid acceptance of the Army Chief’s political position and role. Defence Minister Khawaja Asif, a close aide of Nawaz Sharif, has said the country is being governed under a civil-military “hybrid model” in which the military enjoys a major share of power. “This is a hybrid model. It’s not an ideal democratic government. So, this hybrid arrangement, I think it is doing wonders. This system is a practical necessity until Pakistan is out of the woods as far as economic and governance problems are concerned,” Asif said in June.
“The only realistic option” for the PML(N) and the Sharifs is “to compromise with the military”, the Minister said.
Dawn noted recently in an editorial, “Once elected office is reduced to theatre, useful only for maintaining appearances, it becomes a stage for managing perceptions rather than exercising power. Politicians quickly find that they have little left to offer but words… And this, perhaps, is the real cost of ceding civilian supremacy.”
New Delhi is not surprised that Rawalpindi is back to holding the remote control in Pakistan. What has surprised analysts is the way in which Munir has wormed his way into the good books of President Trump. It has been noted that a letter from Pakistan recommending Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, and acknowledgment of his role in brokering the ceasefire with India has helped.
Clearly, some in South Block underestimated Munir, the fundamentalist general who has become the numero uno figure from Pakistan on the international stage.
