During my years in uniform, I learned that an army’s strength lies not in the weapons it carries, but in the restraint with which it wields them. Pakistan’s tragedy is that its army never learned this truth.

From its inception, Pakistan’s army has been both sword and sultan, claiming the right to rule under the pretext of protecting a fragile faith. What began as a professional institution in 1947 has now become a theocratic corporation, governing politics, economy, ideology and even religion. It is no longer the guardian of the republic; it is the republic itself.

Having watched this transformation over decades through wars, crises and dialogs, I have observed Pakistan’s army work on its ideological project. By 2035, we can rest assured that the army will continue to dominate Pakistan. By then, this army will not be a rational institution serving a nation but a radicalized oligarchy that believes it is serving god.

In 1947, Pakistan’s army was the guardian of a newly created Islamic republic. Over the decades, the army has transformed into the most dominant political, ideological and economic force within Pakistan. The Pakistan paradox is simple: the army professes to be the custodian of national defense while, in reality, it is the captor of the Pakistani state.

Today, the army controls everything in Pakistan, from guns and nuclear weapons to governance and national narrative.

Historical evolution and institutional DNA

Pakistan’s army was born out of fear, fear of India, fear of disintegration and fear of irrelevance. In 1947, as Partition tore the subcontinent apart, the new nation of Pakistan emerged without institutions, industry or administrative depth.

Its army, composed largely of Muslim officers of the old British Indian Army, inherited not a state but a siege. Unlike India, which quickly stabilized under a democratic framework, Pakistan’s generals found themselves surrounded by uncertainty and hostility, real or imagined. From the very beginning, they were taught that India sought to undo Pakistan’s existence.

This siege mentality fused nationalism with theology. Every officer was taught that Pakistan was not merely a new state, but an Islamic mission born in opposition to Hindu India. When General Ayub Khan seized power in 1958, it was justified not as a coup but as salvation. The army declared itself the most patriotic and competent guardian of the nation.

The collapse of East Pakistan in 1971 did not humble this institution; it hardened it. Instead of introspection, it chose indignation. Civilians were blamed, politicians were vilified and the army emerged from defeat even more entrenched in power.

The DNA of the Pakistan Army is deeply influenced by the circumstances of Pakistan’s creation in 1947. Unlike India’s army, which inherited a stable administrative and political framework, Pakistan’s army was traumatized by insecurity, partition violence and the perception of an existential threat from India.

The early leadership, drawn almost entirely from the Muslim officers of the British Indian Army, internalized a siege mentality that fused nationalism with religion. From the very beginning, the army projected itself as the ultimate guardian of both Pakistan’s territorial and ideological frontiers.

The first major shift came after the failure of the civilian elite in governance during the 1950s, allowing General Ayub Khan to seize power in 1958. This marked the beginning of the military’s self-perception as the only competent and patriotic institution in Pakistan. Ayub’s era institutionalized military dominance in the domestic bureaucracy, foreign policy and the economy. The 1971 debacle — the dismemberment of Pakistan — intensified the army’s insecurities but did not erode its dominance. Instead, it reinforced the military’s conviction that politicians and civilians were inherently incapable of safeguarding the state’s interests.

General Zia-ul-Haq’s coup in 1977 marked the next decisive transformation of the army. From now on, Islamization became the name of the game. Luckily, the Cold War was in full swing and the Soviets had invaded Afghanistan. Flush with American support and Saudi money for the Afghan mujahideen, Zia infused religious doctrine into the military ethos, merging professional military education with Islamic indoctrination. From now on, jihad became an instrument of foreign policy and Islamism an ideological glue to unify the fractious Pakistani polity.

Present composition and ideological drift

Years of Islamist indoctrination have created a new officer class. These officers have been shaped by decades of exposure to jihadist narratives and anti-India diatribe within the National Defence University and Command and Staff College curricula. Studies have noted a measurable increase in religiosity among mid-ranking officers and a tendency to conflate faith with patriotism.

The army’s radicalization is not overtly visible in uniform. However, it manifests subtly through the army’s choice of narratives, public statements and policy preferences. The military establishment continues to project India as an existential threat while covertly nurturing Islamist groups as “strategic assets” in Kashmir and Afghanistan. Despite occasional purges of extremist officers, the institution’s tolerance for religious militancy remains structural. This ideological environment blurs the line between professional soldiering and ideological warfare.

The influence of the Tablighi Jamaat, Jamaat-e-Islami and Barelvi movements within cantonments is well documented. Retired generals have publicly defended the Taliban and Osama bin Laden as “martyrs,” reflecting how deep the radical narrative runs through the officer corps.

Economic empire and the military-industrial complex

Parallel to its ideological control, Pakistan’s army has constructed an enormous economic empire that sustains its autonomy and patronage networks. The “Milbus,” or military business complex, encompasses vast holdings in agriculture, industry, construction and banking. Pakistani journalist and scholar Ayesha Siddiqa estimates that Milbus controls assets worth over $20 billion. Foundations such as the Fauji Foundation, Army Welfare Trust and Shaheen Foundation operate like conglomerates, generating profits that feed directly into the military welfare system, bypassing civilian oversight.

This economic empire serves multiple strategic purposes. First, it ensures institutional cohesion through material incentives, making loyalty to the military hierarchy financially rewarding. Second, it entrenches the army’s political control, as retired officers populate corporate boards, bureaucracies and even diplomatic positions. Third, it immunizes the army from fiscal accountability, enabling it to extract a disproportionate share of the national budget while retaining off-book sources of revenue.

By 2035, unless checked by systemic reform, this militarized economy will further weaken Pakistan’s civilian institutions. The army’s corporate empire will evolve into a state within a state, controlling both coercive power and economic capital, a combination that effectively subordinates the civilian state apparatus to military supremacy.

The nexus of Islamism, nationalism and military identity

One of the most dangerous developments in Pakistan’s strategic culture has been the fusion of Islamism with militarized nationalism. The army presents itself as the “Fortress of Islam,” positioning its military campaigns, particularly against India and in Afghanistan, as religiously sanctioned struggles.

A selective reading of history reinforces this self-image: the narrative of a hostile Hindu India, the betrayal of Muslims by the West and the divine destiny of Pakistan as the leader of the Islamic world holds sway over the public imagination. Within this framework, the army perceives jihadist groups not as existential threats but as tools of strategic depth. This “jihadist calculus” led to the nurturing of organizations like Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad and the Haqqani Network, which have been deployed as proxies while the army maintained plausible deniability. 

The army has long been portraying its campaigns not as conventional conflicts but as divinely sanctioned missions in defense of the faith. This narrative has proved potent in mobilizing domestic legitimacy and regional influence, giving the army a moral veneer for what are essentially geopolitical pursuits.

The ideological contamination is circular; the army radicalizes society, and the radicalized society, in turn, legitimizes the army’s dominance. In effect, Pakistan has become a praetorian-theocratic hybrid, where the military’s authority is sustained by religious legitimacy.

From defender of borders to defender of faith, a praetorian-theocratic hybrid

The origins of this ideological transformation lie in the trauma of Partition and the theological justification for Pakistan’s creation. In 1947, Pakistan was dominated by Punjab and Bengal, which suffered the most during Partition. The Muslim League propagated the two-nation theory, claiming Hindus and Muslims were two separate nations. Right from the outset, the Pakistani elites gave the slogan: Islam is in danger. Over the decades, Pakistan’s army appropriated this slogan to build a doctrine where national security became synonymous with the survival of Islam itself.

The 1947–48, 1965 and 1971 wars with India were framed not merely as territorial disputes but as existential battles between Islam and Hinduism, good and evil, belief and idolatry. As stated earlier, this militarized religiosity deepened after Zia’s coup in 1977. Now, the army adopted Islamic mottos, military manuals invoked Quranic injunctions and officers were encouraged to see themselves as mujahideen in uniform.

The Afghan Jihad of the 1980s turbocharged jihadist organizations. Now, they were no longer threats but strategic assets. Groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad and the Haqqani Network became instruments of what analysts have termed the jihadist calculus, the use of religiously motivated proxies to secure strategic depth in Afghanistan, bleed India in Kashmir and expand Pakistan’s influence across the Muslim world. The army supported a façade of plausible deniability even as these groups were nurtured, funded and protected.

As Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid notes, “Pakistan created the Taliban, and the Taliban, in turn, created a Pakistan that could never return to secular politics.” The result has been an irreversible ideological contamination: the army radicalized society, and the radicalized society, in turn, sanctified the army’s political supremacy.

Today, Pakistan stands as a praetorian-theocratic hybrid, a state where the army and Islam sustain each other. The army no longer derives authority from its capacity to defend borders, but from its self-declared role as the defender of the faith. The state’s legitimacy has thus migrated from the constitution to the Quran, and from the ballot box to the barracks.

This ideological weaponization of religion has not remained confined to domestic politics. It has acquired an increasingly international dimension. Pakistan seeks to align its army with the broader Islamic world, not as a partner, but as a potential vanguard of pan-Islamic defence.

Pakistan’s expanding Islamic military ambitions and flirtations with neo-Ottomans

Saudi Arabia has long been Pakistan’s principal ideological and financial sponsor. The relationship, cemented during the Afghan Jihad, rests on three pillars: religious affinity, economic dependency and security collaboration. Riyadh’s oil wealth and Pakistan’s military manpower formed a symbiotic equation; the Saudis funded Pakistan’s economy, while Pakistan provided trained soldiers and nuclear assurance. 

Pakistan’s participation in the Saudi-led Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition (IMCTC), set up in 2015, is emblematic of this relationship. The appointment of Raheel Sharif, a retired army chief, as the first commander of the IMCTC is a signal of Pakistan’s aspiration to command, or at least represent, the collective military strength of the Muslim world.

Behind the rhetoric of counterterrorism, however, the IMCTC’s structure and orientation reveal deeper ambitions to project a Sunni military bloc under Saudi influence, with Pakistan’s army as its professional backbone. This alignment has allowed Pakistan to receive Saudi loans, deferred oil payments and defense contracts, effectively intertwining religion, geopolitics and economic survival.

Türkiye’s resurgence under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has given Pakistan another ideological and strategic partner. Erdoğan’s vision of neo-Ottoman revivalism resonates with Pakistan’s own quest for Islamic leadership. Both countries see themselves as wronged by the West, both use religion to legitimize power and both promote militarized nationalism wrapped in Islamic symbolism.

Defense collaboration between Ankara and Islamabad has grown rapidly. Pakistan has acquired Turkish-made drones, attack helicopters and naval systems, while Turkish defense industries are helping modernize Pakistan’s armament production. Religious overtones of Muslim brotherhood accompany joint military exercises such as Ataturk XI. In 2024, Pakistan’s military media even described its cooperation with Türkiye as part of “the unity of the Muslim world in the face of global injustice.”

For Pakistan, Türkiye represents not only a technological partner but an ideological mirror, a fellow Muslim state reclaiming strength through faith and arms. Together, their rhetoric hints at a larger ambition: to reforge a collective Islamic identity that challenges Western dominance and Indian ascendancy alike.

Central and West Asian outreach and the “Army for Islam” fallacy

Beyond Saudi Arabia and Türkiye, Pakistan has expanded its engagement with the Islamic states of Central Asia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan, under the banner of regional Islamic solidarity. The rationale is dual: economic integration via connectivity corridors and strategic alignment through shared religious identity.

Islamabad’s active promotion of defense pacts and training programs with these countries — many of which are secular in governance but Muslim in demography — reflects an attempt to craft a broader Islamic security architecture. Pakistan’s military academies regularly host officers from these states, while its defense exports, especially small arms and training aircraft, are promoted as symbols of Muslim technological capability.

Even more telling is Pakistan’s rhetorical positioning within the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). It has increasingly attempted to project itself as the military conscience of the Muslim world, the only nuclear-armed Islamic power capable of defending the ummah (“Muslim community”) against external aggression.

The idea that Pakistan’s army could evolve into the “Army for Islam” is not new. It has been implicit since Zia’s era, but recent events have made it dangerously explicit. The army’s rhetoric often emphasizes the “defense of Muslim causes”, be it Palestine, Kashmir or Afghanistan.

Pakistan’s participation in the IMCTC, its military training of Gulf forces and its cultivation of ideological partners across West and Central Asia have combined to create the perception of a pan-Islamic military role. Within Pakistan’s strategic community, this notion is presented as both a moral duty and a leadership opportunity.

Domestically, it strengthens the army’s grip on national identity. Internationally, it promises prestige and influence in the Muslim world. But beneath the surface lies a dangerous delusion, that a state born of faith can impose its religious identity upon its foreign policy without consequence.

In practice, Pakistan’s attempt to become the army for Islam could fragment the Islamic world rather than unite it. Its Sunni bias alienates Iran; its dependence on Saudi funding limits autonomy and its association with jihadist proxies tarnishes its credibility. Moreover, the weaponization of Islam in foreign policy fuels sectarianism at home, undermining Pakistan’s internal cohesion and economic stability.

The strategic consequences of Pakistan’s fusion of Islamism with militarism are profound and far-reaching. By intertwining faith with force, Pakistan has become a source of regional destabilization, exporting instability across South Asia, the Gulf and Central Asia, regions already fractured by sectarian and ideological divides.

Its reliance on Islamic patronage, particularly from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies, has discouraged meaningful economic reform and entrenched a cycle of dependency that undermines sovereignty. At the same time, the army’s self-conception as the defender of Islam has ideologically trapped the state, preventing reconciliation with India and alienating secular or moderate Muslim allies who view Pakistan’s militant religiosity with suspicion. This ideological rigidity has eroded Pakistan’s strategic autonomy, gradually reducing it to a client power within the competing spheres of influence of Saudi Arabia and Türkiye.

Most dangerously, the deliberate conflation of jihadism with state policy has deepened international distrust of Pakistan, reinforcing its image as a sanctuary for extremism rather than a responsible regional actor. In seeking glory as the “Army of Islam,” Pakistan risks losing the very foundation of its stability, its credibility, its independence and its place in the community of nations.

The transformation of Pakistan’s army from a national defense force to an ideological vanguard represents one of the most significant and dangerous shifts in South Asian strategic history. What began as a doctrine of national survival has evolved into a theology of militarism, where faith and firepower are inseparable.

Yet this ambition is as unstable as it is audacious. It rests on the illusion that Islam can be unified through military means and that Pakistan’s fractured polity can sustain such a mission. The fusion of Islamism, nationalism and military identity has trapped Pakistan in a self-perpetuating cycle, a state where soldiers preach, clerics strategize and jihad becomes policy. The danger is not only to Pakistan’s neighbors but to the entire Islamic world, which risks being drawn into the orbit of a militarized faith that confuses piety with power.

[Shokin Chauhan published a version of this piece on Substack.]

[Kaitlyn Diana edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.