Three major misconceptions created about army officers that they are well educated, highly efficient and consequently they are superior to civilians are historically fallacious

The former U.S. Commander in Afghanistan, General McChrystal’s recently published article might have political undertones but his humiliating remarks and disrespect toward president Obama and his executive team revealed a clandestine ideological thrust in armed forces all over the world preaching their superiority over civilians. This fascist ideology to construct the army image as a superior institution and the myth of unparalleled efficiency in their ranks seem to be more prevalent in Pakistan than anywhere else in the world. Evidently, the myths projecting the armed forces as highly educated, visionary, politically savvy, and superior to all other sectors of the society, have been more forcefully propagated during the army regimes in Pakistan.

Primarily a fighting machine, armed forces consistently need a psychological environment to develop a sense of respect in the masses and to create legitimacy in the society using the notions of patriotism, nationalism and a highly trumpeted need for national security. Internally they also promote strict discipline, a clear view of goals and a higher level of respect and submission to authorities as institutional values. Creating an institutional culture that reinforces these values is essentially a professional need of the institution, however, nurturing unfounded dispositions against the civilian structure of the society, so typical to the Pakistan Armed Forces, tend to be destructive and even dangerous to the very survival and progress of the society itself.

However, the three major misconceptions created about army officers that they are well educated, highly efficient and consequently they are far superior to civilians are historically fallacious. First, the myth that our army officers are highly educated as compared to civilians, needs some reassessment. Besides the fact that army officers are professionally well trained in their profession, their basic education does not go beyond 12 years of education or the Intermediate level in Pakistan. A small group, however, has bachelor’s or master’s level degrees.

Military education comprises three tiers of institutions:  Pakistan Military Academy (PMA), professional institutions and institutions of advanced learning.  All newly commissioned cadets with an Intermediate degree have to go through the PMA Long Course for two years. This intensive training offers courses in tactical, academic and physical fitness areas, and cadets graduate with a 2nd Lieutenant rank on completing the course. The Academy also offers six month to one-year courses to the recruits with professional degrees in engineering and medical fields who become Captain on completing the training.

Three types of professional training institutions include medical and engineering colleges, Special Warfare Skills Institutions and the Junior Leaders Academy. In the third tier, two Advanced Learning Institutions, the Command and Staff College in Quetta, and the National Defense University in Islamabad provide the highest level of training equivalent to master’s degrees with some research and academic components. However, a very small proportion of officers can get into these institutions because of the required tests and prior training criteria.

The overall philosophy of the military education rests on transforming recruits into soldiers with specialized responsibilities. Its focus on developing linear thinking with a little choice to question, discuss and analyze issues is in quite contrast to university education where critical thinking, research and creativity is encouraged.

The second assumption that our armed forces are very efficient administratively is nothing more than a myth. Although Pakistan Army is a highly disciplined and organized institution internally, they are not successful as civilian administrators. These “Angels” in civilian clothes quickly learn the bureaucratic rules of operation to become part of systematic corruption, sycophancy and the lack of accountability.

With the un-challenged myth that they can improve efficiency of any public, private or educational institution, army officers are also frequently appointed as administrators in educational institutions and even university vice chancellors. In these positions they start humiliating highly educated professors and researchers with doctoral degrees while trying to impose military values and culture. By doing this they tend to damage the basic values of educational institutions that encourage research, academic freedom, creativity and pursuit of knowledge. In the whole process, however, they end up destroying these already deteriorating institutions rather than improving their quality.

Even at the highest level of leadership, every military regime ended in a civil unrest leading to a political chaos and devastation in Pakistan. The much heralded General Ayub Kan’s regime, for example, ended in a prolonged political unrest when finally another dictator, General Yahya Khan ended this anarchy by separating the Eastern wing of the country. Pakistan is still facing the consequences of creating the culture of violence and terrorism promoted by General Ziaul Haq who decided to fight the American proxy war in Afghanistan against the former Soviet Union. Continuing the tradition, General Pervez Musharraf was ousted by the lawyers’ movement with Benazir Bhutto’s blood on his hand. While in power, these military dictators seem to be in control but in reality they create such a huge political vacuum that ultimately develops into a large scale political chaos reversing the political, economic and social progress decades back.

Talking of efficiency, our army failed to be an efficient fighting force considering the 1965 war, the humiliating defeat in 1971 and more recently the unnecessary blunder of Kargil. Paradoxically, despite the negative image of political parties, all visionary and long-term plans have been developed and carried out by civilian governments in Pakistan including the nuclear technology project initiated by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and the gigantic Motorway project launched by Nawaz Sharif, just to mention the two.

Overall, the unsubstantiated ideology to re-incarnate armed forces as an efficient and highly educated institution leads to a superiority complex among the army ranks. This, however, is intentionally promoted to justify the institution’s right to rule and lending credence to its legitimacy among the masses. The ideology itself, however, proves to be fascist politically, erroneous historically and even dangerous strategically!!

Dr. Qaisar Abbas, a U.S. based free lance journalist and grant writing consultant, frequently writes on media, literature and society. With a master's degree in Journalism from Punjab University, Lahore, he worked as Public Relations Officer before he joined PTV as News Producer. In the United States he did Ph.D. from University of Wisconsin-Madison in Mass Communication. After working on administrative and teaching positions at several universities in the U.S., he is currently working as Assistant Dean at the University of North Texas.  He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .