In the 77 years since Pakistan was established, its affairs and politics have long been governed by the whims of powerful military generals.
Yet even now that the country is out of the clutches of martial law, it is still widely understood that the most powerful man in Pakistan is not the head of the government but instead the chief of the army.
Since Gen Asim Munir took over as Pakistan’s army chief more than two years ago, he has been accused of quietly consolidating greater power without even having to topple the country’s civilian rulers. As he kept himself largely out of the limelight, he established an iron grip over the army’s ranks and bent government policy and even the supreme court to his will.
Yet in recent weeks, as arch-enemies Pakistan and India have come closer to all-out war than they have in decades, all eyes have been on Munir. After India launched its most intensive airstrikes on Pakistan since the 1971 war in the early hours of Wednesday, hitting nine targets and killing 31 people including children, Pakistan has vowed to respond to this “act of war”.
India’s initial strikes on Wednesday were a direct retaliation for an attack in Indian-administered Kashmir late last month, in which militants killed 25 Hindu tourists and a tour guide.
Pakistan’s military was swiftly granted complete authorisation by the government to decide how respond to the Indian attack. The decisions for any retaliation plan will now be largely shaped by Munir. On Saturday morning, after India was accused of firing missiles at three Pakistani military bases, Pakistan said they had begun their counterattack.
One figure familiar with discussions being held by senior Pakistani military leadership said: “The message from the Pakistan side it is that they are going to hit back very strongly to the Indian provocation.”
It was verified by another senior security source in Pakistan. “It will come in a big way. When we do it, everyone will know. Munir is waiting for the right time for the big blow to be delivered,” he said.
Munir is known to cut an unusual figure for an army chief. Rather than coming from an elite military family, his fled to India during partition and his father was a teacher. Munir entered the army through the officers’ training school rather than the more prestigious route of Pakistan’s military academy. However, he worked his way up the ranks quickly, becoming the director of military intelligence in 2016, followed by the director general of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), one of the most powerful military roles, in 2018.
It was here he fell foul of the then-prime minister, Imran Khan. After Munir reportedly briefed Khan that his new wife-to-be was allegedly implicated in corruption, Khan furiously removed Munir from his post as ISI chief in 2019, beginning a highly acrimonious battle between Khan and the powerful generals.
However, Munir was moved to another senior military post and was selected by the prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, to become the new army chief in 2022.
By this time, Khan had succeeded in turning large swathes of the country against the military, which for decades had commanded a devout loyalty among the masses. As Khan, the country’s most popular political leader, was jailed and the 2024 election was marred with allegations of rigging against Khan’s party, it was widely felt the crackdown was the work of Munir, who also ruthlessly purged the military of all Khan loyalists.
Yet some analysts said that the recent aggression from India may have presented Munir with an opportunity. As hyper-nationalist fervour has gripped Pakistan, with calls for all-out war with India, the military has been back in favour, with calls for Munir to stand up for the whole of Pakistan.
Aqil Shah, a professor on south Asian affairs at Georgetown University, said: “As army chief, he has already been quite brutal – Khan in jail, the election rigged, civilians facing military trial – which has dented his reputation. But a military response that is seen as appropriate to this crisis could reduce the stain of political repression and allow him to burnish his credentials as an army chief who stood up to arch enemy India.”
Munir’s own ideology on India is known to be hardline. Like many in the army, he subscribes to the “two nation theory”: that the Muslims of Pakistan fundamentally cannot live in the same country as Hindus. In comments made last month, which were seen as highly antagonistic to India, he said that “our religions are different, our cultures are different, our traditions are different, our thoughts are different, our ambitions are different”.
He has also proved bullish and unyielding in the face of antagonism and militant activity from neighbouring Iran and Afghanistan, launching retaliatory cross-border strikes on both countries in the past year.
The retired general Muhammad Saeed, the former chief of general staff (CGS), said: “I have served with him for many years, I know Gen Asim Munir is a fearless man. The government has given the nod to him to plan the response [to India] but it won’t be only his decision. When he makes the plan, he will go in all guns blazing.”
In terms of their military might along the contested border, while India’s army is around double the size of Pakistan’s – about 1.2 million active Indian personnel compared with about 650,000 for Pakistan – the two sides are “fairly evenly balanced”, said Sushant Singh, an author and political science lecturer at Yale who spent two decades in the Indian army.
Singh emphasised that, since 2020, India had deployed huge amounts of military personnel and resources towards its mountainous border with China, after the India-China border crisis swiftly escalated. India has also had issues with the modernisation of its armed forces and faced a systematic recruitment problem, leading to a shortfall of soldiers.
“Despite its size, India doesn’t have the kind of dominance where you would expect India to easily ride roughshod over Pakistan or declare a quick win,” said Singh.
While Pakistan’s rank and file is widely seen, even among Indian generals, to be disciplined and high-performing, Singh said the issue had always lain at the top: “The major problem is that Pakistan’s senior military leadership is heavily politicised and has often acted out of ideology or religious conservatism or even delusional behaviour.”
“Gen Munir is clearly under a lot of political pressure,” he added. “There is also pressure from the co-commanders for him to act strongly so as to be able to demonstrate and restore the credibility of the army as an institution.”
The question of who would have the edge in any confrontation is also a question of equipment. In recent years, India has been shifting away from its reliance on Russian weapons to buying western munitions, including elite French Rafale jet planes and F-16 jets from the US. Pakistan now buys 80% of its military arsenal from China.
According to reports, as tensions with India rose last month, China rushed 100 more of its more advanced PL-15 missiles to Pakistan, which it usually keeps for its own inventory.
On Friday, the Pakistan army claimed it used the PL-15 missiles to bring down several Indian jets during Wednesday’s strikes. Shuja Nawaz, the author of Crossed Swords and a known expert on Pakistan’s military, said this showed that “China is not only helping Pakistan, but it is using it as a kind of testing ground for its weaponry against India.”
For Nawaz, the use of precision strikes and unmanned drones on both sides made this conflict unlike any other in India and Pakistan’s bitter history, and made the chance of high-risk escalation even greater.
“Munir really doesn’t have an opportunity to play a very long game in the current situation. He has to prove fairly quickly that he and the military are prepared and that they will defend the country,” he said.
The concerns of a nuclear escalation had also never been higher, he said. “India and Pakistan don’t fight long wars, they fight short wars. And they throw everything that they have in the shop window into battle. My biggest fear is that Pakistan utilises what they call tactical nuclear weapons – and then all hell breaks loose.”
