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In Pakistan, where generals have often ruled with impunity and influence, Field Marshal Asim Munir is scripting a new playbook-quiet, precise, and constitutionally sealed. His rise is not just another chapter in the country’s well-worn saga of military dominance.
It is, as one senior opposition leader put it, “a rewrite of the entire power manual.”
TL;DR: Driving the news
Pakistan’s controversial 27th Constitutional Amendment proposes to recast the country’s military command structure by abolishing the Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (CJCSC) and creating the role of Chief of Defence Forces (CDF) - a position that will be held by the Army Chief, currently Field Marshal Asim Munir.•The amendment vests unprecedented legal and constitutional power in the CDF, giving Munir operational and institutional control over the army, navy, and air force, as well as the country’s nuclear command.•It also grants five-star officers life-long rank, privileges, and immunity, a move seen as creating a parallel unelected authority beyond the reach of civilian or judicial oversight.“This amendment appears tailored to benefit a specific individual rather than to strengthen the defence structure,” Lt Gen Asif Yasin Malik, former defence secretary, told Dawn.The CJCSC post - created after the 1971 war to ensure coordination among services - will be dissolved on November 27, 2025, when the current chairman, Gen Sahir Shamshad Mirza, retires.
Why it matters
The 27th Amendment represents the largest shift in Pakistan’s civil-military balance since the Zia era, codifying the military’s supremacy in a way that future civilian governments may struggle to reverse.•The military will no longer merely influence governance from behind the scenes - it will be constitutionally entrenched at the center of executive authority.•Strategic nuclear assets, previously overseen by the National Command Authority, will now fall under the commander of national strategic command, appointed by the PM on the army chief’s advice, and selected from within the army.“All nuclear weapons and delivery systems will be under army control, including second-strike missiles traditionally under the Navy,” warned Dr Shireen Mazari, former human rights minister, a Dawn report said.•The change grants the army a monopoly over promotions, transfers, and postings across the services, threatening morale and inter-service harmony.“If promotions in the Air Force and Navy are determined by an army-origin CDF, it could lead to festering resentments,” Mazari cautioned.
The big picture
- The Field Marshal’s expanding power evokes a hybrid of Pakistan’s two most dominant military rulers:
- Ayub Khan, who introduced centralized presidential control and laid the foundations for military-led governance.
- Zia-ul-Haq, who used the Army and Islamization to seize power, marginalize the judiciary, and suppress civilian opposition.
- Munir is consolidating power not through martial law, but via constitutional amendments passed by a pliant parliament.
If Zia’s coup was loud and brutal against a strong popular leadership, Munir’s is silent, yet possibly more far reaching, being done through a political front office that’s pliant and dependent on the Army for authority. With Imran Khan in prison, any opposition will come from the streets and the troubled insurgencies to the west of Islamabad.
Pranab Dhal Samanta in the Economic Times
Zoom in
- The transformation follows the India-Pakistan conflict in May 2025, a four-day exchange of air and missile strikes after the Pahalgam terror attack.
- India’s Operation Sindoor targeted Pakistani airbases, radars, and command centers.
- Pakistan requested a ceasefire after intense damage - a request reportedly initiated by Pakistan’s DGMO.
- Donald Trump, who claimed to have brokered the truce(India has repeatedly denied the US President's claims), was effusively thanked by Munir and PM Shehbaz Sharif. Trump now calls Munir his “favorite field marshal.”
- The Financial Times described their dynamic as a “bromance,” with Trump showcased on billboards across Pakistan alongside Munir and Sharif.
- This international validation was followed by Munir’s promotion to Field Marshal, the second such promotion in Pakistan’s history - and the first codified under the Constitution.
Between the lines
- This isn’t just about military command - it’s about rewriting the DNA of the Pakistani state.
- The amendment creates a new Federal Constitutional Court, potentially diluting the powers of the Supreme Court and creating ambiguity about the hierarchy of judicial authority.
- President Zardari is also granted lifelong immunity in the amendment, mirroring the legal shield given to Munir.
- This dual protection signals a strategic alliance between the military and top civilian figures to institutionalize mutual insulation from accountability.
- “Too much has been left to ad hoc and arbitrary decisions,” Mazari warned.
The domestic question: Can repression deliver reform?
At home, Munir is both omnipresent and embattled. According to a Financial Times report, his supporters compare him to Mohammed bin Salman or South Korea’s General Park - ruthless modernisers willing to bulldoze institutions in the name of reform. His critics, however, see echoes of Zia-ul-Haq’s theocratic militarism cloaked in constitutional legitimacy.The judiciary is already split, thanks to a proposed constitutional court that would dilute the Supreme Court’s power.
Journalists are censored, civil rights groups are muzzled, and political opponents - most notably former Prime Minister Imran Khan - are jailed or silenced.And yet, Munir has cast himself as the architect of reform. In his speech at the Pakistan Military Academy, he spoke of “treasures hidden beneath our land” and claimed that Pakistan had begun to “regain its rightful place in the comity of nations.”But the economy tells another story. As per the FT report, Pakistan’s investment rate is the lowest in South Asia, its poverty rate has risen to 25%, and its youth unemployment is dangerously high.
The country remains dependent on IMF bailouts and Gulf financing that has yet to materialise in promised volumes.
The three-front storm: Taliban, TTP, and India
While Munir consolidates power at home, Pakistan finds itself encircled by a resurgent triangle of threats - each historically rooted, each dangerously revived. In the west, the Afghan Taliban’s return to power in 2021 has proved more liability than leverage. Once covertly supported by Pakistan’s security establishment, the Taliban now resist Islamabad’s demands and turn a blind eye to cross-border attacks on Pakistani soil.More ominously, the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an offshoot long declared outlawed, has regrouped in Afghanistan and resumed attacks in Pakistan’s tribal belt and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. This year alone, militant violence has killed over 1,400 people - the highest toll in a decade.“The military simply lacks political support on the ground there,” Iftikhar Firdous, founder of The Khorasan Diary, told FT. “The crackdown has alienated entire communities.”Simultaneously, Pakistan’s eastern border with India remains fragile after the four-day air conflict in May. Add to that domestic insurgencies in Balochistan and the Pashtun belt, and Pakistan now faces not one, but three overlapping security fronts. Instead of acting as a force-multiplier, the military’s expanding political and economic footprint is beginning to stretch its operational capacity thin.
“If you nurture snakes in your backyard, they will bite you,” said Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, the Pakistani military’s official spokesman, referencing the Taliban. What a comeuppance : The remark could just as well apply to all Pakistan-grown terror groups and the TTP, whose resurgence is a grim case of blowback.
The bottom line
The 27th Amendment enshrines military supremacy in Pakistan's Constitution under the guise of reform and modernization.•It moves the country further away from parliamentary democracy, and deeper into military-led constitutional authoritarianism.•As Field Marshal Asim Munir prepares to become the first Chief of Defence Forces, Pakistan’s most consequential question remains: Can a military man fix a failing nation - or will history repeat itself?(With inputs from agencies)
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