National Military Strategy of Pakistan in the 21st century: In Search of a Framework

This article attempts to develop a possible framework for studying Pakistan's military strategy at the present stage. In the Pakistani context, Armed Forces (AF) are deeply involved in decision-making not only in the military sphere, but also in politics and economics. At the same time, Islamabad currently does not have any military strategic documents in the public domain. Accordingly, there is a need for a comprehensive study of the AF strategic planning process, taking into account a significant number of factors, including non-military ones, from the development of the military industry to partnerships with foreign countries. The author proposes an analytical framework based on the study of the US strategic documents called “National Military Strategy” (NMS). The article identifies key elements of American documents from various years, including the impact of ideological and foreign policy components. Moreover, the country-specific features of Pakistan must be analyzed: determinants of the NMS, its possible periodization, and some features of strategic and doctrinal thinking of Islamabad are shown. The influence of the Chief of Staff of the Army (COAS) is emphasized, in some cases, it even takes the form of “COAS doctrine”. In addition, attention is drawn to the doctrines related to military operations, which can exist both formally and implicitly. The author believes that the key advantage of the developed analytical framework is the ability to integrate a wide range of non-military factors when analyzing the strategic views of Pakistani military leadership.