This document provides an analysis of the 1965 war between India and Pakistan in three parts. It discusses how the British colonial legacy influenced both the Pakistani and Indian armies, including their outdated equipment, inter-arm rivalry, and lack of leadership tradition among Indian officers. The analysis seeks to separate myth from reality in examining how the Pakistani army performed based on this colonial inheritance. It aims to provide a detached perspective on the qualitative efficiency of the Pakistani military during the 1965 war.

1. 1965 WAR -A DETAILED ANALYSIS-PART ONE
By
Major Agha.H.Amin (Retired)
1999
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History of Pakistan Army- Volume Three- 1965 War
Analysed: Analysis of 1965 War Paperback – May 11, 2017
by Agha H Amin
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7. This is a chapter of my book The Pakistan Army since 1965 published
in August 1999

8. CHAPTER FOURTEEN ANALYSIS - 1965 WAR
Havelock said that ; "In philosophy,it is not the attainment of the goal
that matters,it is the things that are met with by the way".So it is with
war.The most important thing for the student of military history or the
art of war is not whether a country lost or won the war but how it was
fought,how units performed in action,how decisions were made in face
of the stress and strain of battle,the difference between practice
and precept in short all matters pertaining to strategy tactics
leadership equipment etc.In other words to simply analyse the war to
answer the questions like "Whence"? "Whither" ? "Why"? and "How"?In
this analysis of war we have to go beyond probabilities and examine
various facets of a particular situation and arrive at conclusions that
will assist us in face of a similar crisis situation in future.War is the
final audit of an army in which unit efficiency as well as higher and
lower leadership is gauged and no book on an army is complete
without analysing in detail the qualitative efficiency of an army in
actual War.Unfortunately most books written on both Pakistan and
Indian Armies by foreigners and therefore meekly accepted by
the subcontinentals who suffer from a subtle inferiority complex;as
the final authority; do not discuss the qualitative efficiency of both the
Pakistan and Indian Armies in any actual war; both as British Indian
Army and as two different armies after 1947!Instead these books beat
round the bush discussing vague and largely irrelevant issues which
their authors have decided to highlight,merely because they have
decided to write a book and want to write their book without going
into the subtleties of actual wars fought by the Indo Pak armies.
In the following paragraphs an attempt has been made to analyse
the conduct of 1965 war and to answer certain questions about the

9. qualitative efficiency of the Pakistan Army in a detached
manner separating myth from reality and fact from fiction.This analysis
is important because a considerable part of Pakistani military history
has been deliberately or inadvertently distorted based on nationalistic
parochial personal and inter arm prejudices and jealousies.
THE BRITISH COLONIAL LEGACY
We have already discussed in detail the impact of the British military
tradition on the Judo Pak armies in our earlier chapters dealing with
the armies of the English East India Company and the pre 1947
British Indian Army.This was not something confined to Judo Pak
subcontinent alone but an all Asia trend.From the late eighteenth
century the "European Way of Warfare" was generally borrowed and
follow as the gospel truth by many East European and Afro-Asian
armies.The trend of "importing the European way of war" started
around 1600 when the Ottoman Turks came into contact with the
European powers in Eastern Europe and Russia.Till 1500 the Europeans
who had as a matter of fact military failed in the Crusades against
Asia enjoyed no significant military advantage over Asia.Till the
invention of gunpowder the cavalry remained the dominant arm in
battle and the infantry was relegated to a secondary role.The
ascendancy of European methods of warfare starts with the advent of
Gustavus Adolphus(1496-1560) of Sweden who introduced
a renaissance in the art of warfare by "harnessing modern technology
to a practical military philosophy" .Gustavus principal contribution
was the introduction of a relatively superior conceptual framework
of integrating military organisation with weapons and tactics.He
created an infantry organised in brigades of two to four regiments
each of which had eight battalions of four companies etc.He
introduced similar reforms in cavalry and artillery integrating artillery
with infantry and cavalry in battle and restructured infantry formations

10. in such a way that their firepower was enhanced.One of his most
important reforms was employment of cavalry as a "shock weapon".
Gustavus's methods were copied by the French and
the British.Gustavus 's tactics were improved by Turrene of France and
Cromwell and Marlborough of England and were further improved by
Napoleon who was able to benefit from the analytical studies of great
military thinkers like Gribeauval Maurice de Saxe Bourcet Joseph Du
Teil and Guibert.Formal military schools were organised in France
where the art of war was studied while similar institutions were
founded in Prussian and Sweden.By 1600 Russia was the first country
outside mainland Europe to realise that there
was something conceptually and organisationally superior in the West
European way of warfare which enabled them to defeat numerically
superior but more primitively organised armies.lt may be noted that
as late as 1592 the Russians were no match to the Muslim Tartars of
the Golden Horde who sacked Moscow in 1571 and managed to
penetrate into suburbs of Moscow as late as 1592.1t may seem
unbelievable to many but as late as 1660s the Crimean Muslim
Tartars were one of Russia's most feared enemies2
..A similar pattern
of imitation was followed in the Ottoman Turk Army from
approximately 1750 to 1914 when the Ottomans discovered that
medieval tactics of cavalry assault were of little utility against
relatively numerically superior or equal strength European armies
with superior organisation'.It was adoption of superior West European
military tactics which enabled the Russians to defeat the Ottomans
during the period 1699-1878.A similar effort was made in the Egyptian
Army of Mohammad Ali during the period I803-304
.The Chinese started
organising their army on European lines from approximately 1850

11. onwards following disastrous military performance in the Opium War
of 1840-42.The Japanese learnt a similar lesson from the humbling of
China by the Europeans in the Opium Wars and invited a French
Military Mission in 1867 to organise and train their army in modern
military methods5
.
We have seen that a similar trend was followed in India when the
European companies appeared on the Indian scene as major
participants in the struggle for political supremacy in the period 1740-
1800 in the situation created because of the vacuum which
developed as a result of the decline of the Mughal Empire.The Indian
native states discovered that smaller armies with a European nucleus
and larger number of Indians trained in the European way of war could
defeat numerically much larger armies of the Indian rulers.Thus all
Indian states imitated the European companies and imported military
advisors from France Italy Germany Ireland etc to train their armies on
European lines.By 1849 however the English East India Company had
defeated all native states employing as we have earlier discussed a
largely native army led by British officers and based on a smaller
European core element.From 1757 to 1947 for a period
of approximately 190 years India saw an army of Indian mercenaries
led by British officers which dominated India.This army was primarily
an internal security army which was theoretically supposed to defend
India against a possible Russian invasion from the northwest.Later as
w-
e saw the outbreak of first world war forced the British to employ
the Indian Army as a desperate remedy against the German invasion
of France.After the first world war the Indian Army was once again
relegated to its major role of internal security.This was followed by
the Second World War which forced the British to once again re equip
and modernise the Indian Army in order to fight the second world
war.This was followed by the partition when the British Indian Army

12. was divided on religious lines and was bifurcated into two blocks of a
tree whose sapling was planted by Clive in 1757.Any discussion or
analysis of the performance of Pakistani or Indian Armies based on
the assumption that these armies came into existence in August 1947
is meaningless and incomplete.The organisational tactical and social
development of both the armies had a 190 year old connection with
British rule in India and influenced their conduct in 1948 1965 1971
wars and even today in many aspects.We will therefore first of all
analyse the conduct of Pakistan Army in 1965 with particular
reference to the influence of the "British military Legacy".An attempt
was made by sycophants in the period 1958-69 to prove that the
Pakistan Army was largely the creation of Ayub Khan!There are two
types of men in history;ie those who follow the status quo and those
who are originators or executors of dynamic ideas which change the
course of history ! Both Indian and Pakistan Armies were
dominated by men of the former category.In India primacy of civilian
leadership did not allow the growth of dynamism in the army while in
Pakistan concentration on improving personal fortunes and
in perpetuating military dictatorship ,kept the military usurpers
attention fixed on non military things!In other words no major change
or reform was undertaken in both the armies as far as doctrine staff
procedures and military organisation were concerned .The armies
which fought the 1965 war were led by men who were the products of
the British Colonial heritage. We will examine the influence of British
military colonial legacy on Pakistan Army's conduct in 1965 war in the
following paragraphs.
British Indian Military Tradition:-Britains power was never based on
its army but on its naval power and superior diplomacy which enabled
it to defeat its various European mainland rivals by
coalition warfare.Thus after Marlborough British Army's role in land

13. warfare on European mainland decreased and during the Napoleonic
wars Britain's main contribution consisted in naval warfare or in
providing finances for sustaining the various coalitions against France
than in actual war against France.Thus Napoleon was destroyed in
Russia and in the campaigns of 1813 and 1814 in which the British
Army had no role.Even Waterloo was a coalition affair in which the
Prussians played as major a role as the British.In short the foundation
of British supremacy or British power was not military excellence but
other factors like naval power,super.ior diplomacy and an overall
superior political system.In this sense the British legacy which the
Indo Pak armies inherited was certainly not the finest in the world.But
the difference did not end here.The British Indian Army which was the
father of the post 1947 Indo Pak Armies was an even more
outdated organisation than the regular British Army.This was so
because the regular British Army was designed to fight Britain's
European enemies and thus got more attention in terms of finances
equipment and was more vigorously reformed by a concerned
parliament.The British Indian Army which was primarily an internal
security army was far more backward than the regular British Army
because it was not designed to face any European foe till 1914
except the Russians whose military potential or effectiveness was
regarded as far more inferior than Britains West European rivals like
Germany and France and which in any case performed very poorly in
the Crimean War of 1854-56 and was later defeated by an Asiatic
power in the Russo Japanese War.In terms of equipment the Indian
Army as we have already seen was deliberately kept one generation
behind the regular British Army whether it was infantry weapons or
artillery (which was taboo for Indians except few mountain batteries

14. in which Indians could serve as common soldiers).The Indian Army
was trained as late as 1900 to fight primarily as battalions or brigades
against frontier tribesmen. We have already discussed that the First
World War forced the British to slightly modernise the Indian Army and
the massive Indian contribution to the British war effort forced the
British to grant the Indians the privilege of Regular commission in the
army.The Indians selected for officer rank were from the most loyal
classes with proven record of loyalty to the British Empire.Even
Indianisation (introduction of Indian Army Officers) was resisted by
the British Indian Army officers and as late as 1939 twenty years after
Indianisation had started there were just 333 regular Indian officers in
the Indian Army as against 3,031 British officers6
.We have already
seen that after 1918 it was felt that the Indian Army would not be
required to fight in a European war and this led to massive reduction
in the size and resource allocation of the Indian Army.Thus the Indian
Army was so outdated in 1938 that General Auchinleck observed in
1938 that in terms of modernisation and equipment it was behind even
the Iraqi Egyptian and Afghan Armies '!There was another serious
misconception in many minds and has been carried forward till today
that the Indian Army was the finest army in the world and played a
major part in many British victories.There is no doubt that the Indian
Army played a significant role in British Empires wars.However it must
be remembered,as we have just discussed, that Britains wars right
from the time of Marlborough were coalition wars and British Army's
role in these successively became lesser and lesserin this context
the Indian Army's share in the relatively limited contribution made by
the British Army in both the world wars was even more limited.In any
case the Indian Army was Indian only as far as the rank and file was
concerned and its principal strength was its British officer cadre.Even
beyond battalion level each Indian Brigade was stiffened by one pure

15. British battalion and the Indian Army always functioned as part of a
larger team and mostly in circumstances where the British enjoyed a
comfortable numerical material and logistic superiority over their
adversaries.The Indian Army at its best was used only as a defensive
force in France in 1914.The British final success in both world wars
had a deeper connection with US aid and Russian blood than with the
Indian Army.In any case the principal force multiplier of the
Indian Army was the British officer and the vast resources of the
British Empire rather than the Chakwal Jhelum men who were merely
cannonfodder.In this regard there was absolutely no comparison
between the quality of performance of the pre 1947 Indian Army and
the post 1947 Indo Pak armies.In Pakistan specially it was mistakenly
assumed that the British Indian Army did well because their soldiers
i.e. the Punjabi Muslims were more martial than the Hindus !These
naïve commentators failed to see the essential fact i.e. that it was the
British officer who was able to organise and lead Indians of all
nationalities and religions equally well in battle .The cardinal factor in
the whole equation was not the martial race,as has been mistakenly
asserted by many Pakistani officers, but the white officer who
inspired the espirit de corps and the relatively superior organisation
skill that created the Indian Army.
Legacy of inter arm compartmentation and rivalry:-One of the most
negative legacies which inhibited the performance of both the armies
in 1965 and even in 1971 was a purely British inculcated and British
inherited legacy of inter arm and even inter regimental rivalry within
the same arm.While German successes in the WW II had a deep link
with emphasis on fighting as a division with intimate
coopertion between all arms,many British military failures had a deep
link with inter arm rivalry which severely retarded their ability to fight
as combined arms teams.Thus at Gazala in 1942 the 2nd
Highland

16. Infantry was overrun by German tanks "whilst a superior British tank
force looked on"8
Lack of leadership tradition:--We have briefly discussed the fact
that the West European way of warfare was imported by many Asian
and East European countries like Russia.There was a major
difference between the other countries who imported the European
way of warfare and the British Indian Army.While the entire officer
corps in the Ottoman ,Russian,Japanese,Egyptian and Chinese
Armies consisted of their
own people,there was no leadership tradition in the British Indian
Army as far as Indians were concerned.The English East India
Company was very careful in not allowing native Indians from
becoming officers in their native Presidency Armies and did not allow
even Anglo-Indians to become officers after 1805 barring few
exceptions like Colonel Skinner etc.The objective of the company
was simple i.e. not letting a leadership tradition grow in the natives
and also not to let the natives master the European methods of
warfare.The US War of Independence convinced the British
Government that it was dangerous to let any colonial subjects from
mastering the art of warfare by getting the officers commission.This
policy played rich dividends when the native soldiers of the Bengal
Army failed to handle units larger than platoons and companies and
were easily defeated by the British despite their relative numerical
superiority at least in the initial stages of the rebellion.The Sepoy
Rebellion reinforced the British determination not to allow Indian
to become commissioned officers and till 1919 there were no Indian
officers in the Indian Army.This meant that there was no leadership
tradition in the Indians who became officers.The Indians selected to

17. become officers from 1917 onwards were from classes with proven
loyalty and men meant to be groomed for lower level command ranks
only.After the formation of Indian Military Academy a large
proportion of cadets were from the ranks which never attracted the
best available young men in India9
.Many of these were sons of rankers
or VCOs who had spent their whole lives in serving the juniormost
British officers and had inherited from their family a narrow approach
of a life spent in playing sycophant par excellence with the juniormost
British officer who was senior to the seniormost Indian VCO in rank
and authority.In future analysis this will be referred to as the
Ranker/VCO approach which was found in plenty in the 1965 Indo Pak
Armies!Colmar Von der Goltz spoke of the "aristocracy of education"
which constituted the corps of German officersIn India bulk of the real
aristocracy had been eliminated when the British emerged
victorious.The new aristocracy which they created was an
aristocracy of toadies The German aristocracy which constituted the
bulk of the German officer corps was basically an
impoverished aristocracy„butrich in tradition of contributed many
generations of officers to the Prussian/German Army.In Indo Pak
armies bulk of the men who reached the officer rank were neither an
aristocracy of education nor possessed a long tradition of leadership
by virtue of having ancestors in the officer ranks!The Germans on the
contrary did not encourage NCO to become officers and Von Seeckt
the founder of the Reichswehr which was the iron frame of the
Wehrmacht deliberately increased educational qualifications to
discourage ex NCOs from getting officer rank.Thus in 1928 just 117
out of 4000 officers were ex NCOs In the Indian and Pakistani Armies
a much larger proportion of rankers or rankers sons were in the
officer rank. Contemporary evidence suggests that the British
preferred these over directly commissioned Indian officers with good

18. college or university education since the ex rankers or rankers sons
who were educated at the military schools of Ajmer Jullundhur and
Serai Alamgir (schools for rankers sons education) were more pliable
and easier to handle materiall°
!h is not difficult to understand that the
small number of Indians who joined the army as commissioned
officers were viewed as a necessary evil arising as a result of a
civilian governments policy to accept Indians in the commissioned
ranks.These men were not held in much high esteem by their British
superiors and viewed the army as just one career where they
could improve their personal lot and as an avenue of social
advancement.What leadership tradition could be expected from such
mercenaries.The real hero of the British Indian Army was the British
officer who was from the first thirty cadets in the Sandhurst entrance
examination, and was fighting for his King Emperor!His Indian
counterpart was just a mercenary for whom serving the British was
just a job!
Conservative Military Doctrine:--The British Army being an
extremely snobbish and class conscious army was the bastion of
conservatism.There was no threat to Britain in the period till 1933
and military reform or radical change was never serious agenda in the
British Army.Thus the British Army that fought the WW Two was an
out of date machine which performed extremely poorly in France and
North Africa till overwhelming material superiority,thanks to US aid
finally enabled it to turn the tables at Alamein.Thus progressive and
dynamic military thinkers like Fuller were sidelined from the
British Army before the war in an atmosphere where Polo and social
contacts were more important than strict
professionalism.Thus the British approach towards warfare was
extremely conservative and outdated .If this was the case in the
regular British Army which was supposed to defend Britain in a war

19. against European adversaries it is not difficult to imagine the
rudimentary and primitive approach that dominated the British Indian
Army which was designed to imperial policing jobs in countries like
Iraq and Persia after the end of First World War.
Lack of Permanent General Staff-The British Army lacked a
permanent General Staff unlike the German Army.This was a serious
drawback and played a major role in relatively poor performance of
the British Army in the two world wars.Organisationally the British
Army was not as efficient in carrying out
military operations as the German Army.Cardwell the revolutionary
British Secretary of State and the father of reform in the British Army
was in favour of having a permanent General Staff like the German
Army but was frustrated in his attempts to do so by the conservative
elements in the British Army led by Duke of Cambridge" .Just because
the British did not have a permanent General Staff,the post 1947
officers of both the Indian and Pakistani Armies saw no need to have
one.Thus Staff work and procedures stayed as poor and rudimentary
in both the armies as in the pre 1947 Indian Army or the
British Army.There was an ocean of qualitative difference in between
the British and German Staff institutions of instruction.The British
Staff College at Cambrai in words of Montgomery's biographer Nigel
Hamilton was an institution preoccupied with "hunting and
socialising"12
.The same was the case with US institutions like Fort
Leavenworth where in words of General Bradley to rose to great
heights in the US Army the system of education was
"predictable....unrealistic and did not encourage unconventional
tactics" 13
In addition while the German General Staff course lasted for
three years that at Staff College Quetta lasted for two years and was

20. later reduced to six months from 1940.Most of the senior officers who
held important command and staff assignments in the 1965 war were
graduates of this six months crash course in which entry was by
nomination.ln 1965 as we shall discuss many opportunities
were primarily lost because of poor staff work.in words of a British
Army officer ; "The British Army lacked an institution which
deliberately cultivated and carefully fostered a self-conscious
intellectual existence like the German general Staff.For the German
Army this institution became the focus for professional debate and a
vehicle for operational innovation.The officer corps to which it gave
rise received a thorough grounding in military history and an
induction into the critical methods of historical study.These
formidable intellectual foundations conferred on the minds of staff
trained German officers a powerful and sensitive analytic approach
to the problems of managing violence"I4
General Von Mellenthin who
served as a general staff officer in North Africa noted a
major different in the quality of thinking of the British about their staff
officers and the measure of trust that was placed in British Army in
the staff officers; "The officers of the German General Staff were not
mere clerks or mouthpieces of their commanders (as was the case
with British and their corrupted off shoot i.e. the Sub Continental
Indian and Pakistani Armies) ,but were trained to accept
responsibility for grave decisions and were respected accordingly.In
contrast the British fighting commanders tend look down on the
staff,and the British show a curious reluctance to appoint capable
staff officers to operational commands15
.
Orders Oriented British Legacy:-Another legacy common to both the
Indo Pak armies was an orders oriented approach.This was the
opposite of the German approach of Auftragtstaktik under
which commanders at all levels were trained to function without

21. waiting for orders in case a tactical or operational situation warranted
it and valuable tactical or operational opportunities were being lost in
case one waited for orders from higher headquarters.The famous
British staff officer Dorman Smith observed that ; " Essentially in a
professional army the commander is left to carry out an order without
wet nursing.In the British system,on the contrary a subordinate will do
nothing until he will have the next above breathing down his neck.The
result is that everyone is doing the proper job of of the next
below instead of his own battle job.This is the main cause of
stagnation in the British tactical mind" 16
. The
Indo Pak armies suffered from another subtle drawback in this
case.On one hand the British were conservative in attitude towards
orders and secondly Indians till the second world war were mostly
very junior officers barring few exceptions who commanded
companies or battalions or one who commanded a brigade.The Indian
was fighting the White Man's war and took no interest in exercising his
initiative always pursuing a safe course of waiting for orders.The same
bunch of people who fought the second world war constituted the
Indian and Pakistani armies who fought the 1965 war from
Lieutenant Colonel onwards.These men as subalterns and captains or
majors were not trained to take mission oriented decisions,nor were
they motivated to risk their career by exercising any initiative since
they were fighting the white man's warlA large number of them like
Musa Tikka etc were ex rankers who were even more limited and
conservative in their typical "ranker approach".Thus when these
men became brigadiers and major generals they expected the same
from their juniorsJt was the case of a habit getting instilled and
internalised as an essential part of ones personality.Thus
many opportunities were lost since all commanders from
squadron/company till divisional level preferred to wait for orders

22. rather than do anything on their own initiative.Gul Hassan's memoirs
is full of examples of approach of senior Pakistani officers using the
weight of their rank and intimidating their juniors by use of court of
inquiries and warnings!Anyone who is keen to know about the
"Conspiracy against originality boldness and initiative" should read
General Gul Hassans " memoirs which though otherwise not wholly
accurate provide an excellent image of the attitudes of senior
officers of that time as regards cultivation or rather discouragement
of initiative!
Analysis continues.This is just a part of the 120 page chapter on
analysis.
AND WHAT WE IN PAKISTAN HAVE . A CULTURE OF BIAS ETHNICITY
FAVOURITISM AND PAROCHIALISM
THAT IS IF THERE IS AN ARMY CHIEF FROM PINDI , PREFERENCE IS
TO PINDI DISTRICT ,IF A PASHTUN KAKAR WAS CHIEF ANY ONE
THAT HIS FAVOURITE FROM NWFP WANTED COULD BE DONE !
MUSHARRAF FAVOURING HIS MOHAJIRS !
NO DOUBT A STONE AGE STATE !
A PROOF IS A BELOW ARTICLE WITH QUOTES FROM MY ARTICLES
PUBLISHED IN LEADING PAKISTAN ARMY JOURNALS

23. What was wrong with Assessment of Officers and Military Training-
Pakistan Army and What continues to be wrong till to date as
research indicates
Major Agha H Amin (Retired)

24. Selection and Assessment of Commanders in Pakistan Army-Pakistan
Army Journal-Citadel-Command and Staff College
These articles published in military journals of Pakistan Army
endeavour to subject the highly defective system of assessment of
officers to criticism despite strict censorship.
One must add that some discussion became possible in the army only
after 1988 when General M.A Baig took over .
In the Zia era , with intellectual honesty buried and hypocrisy and
sycophancy being hallmark of the army for 12 long years (1976-88)
this was impossible.
After 1998 once Brigadier Riaz took over as DG ISPR the situation
improved.
Three editors of Pakistan Army Journal were outstanding , all in
succession , i.e Colonel I.D Hassan (a chronic bachelor and very
cereberal and well read) , Lieutenant Colonel Syed Ishfaq Naqvi
(outstanding) and Lieutenant Colonel Syed Jawaid Ahmad (soft
spoken but bold as far as publishing articles and extremely
knowledgeable).
In the command and staff college there was Lieutenant Colonel
Ashraf Saleem (later lieutenant general) , Lieutenant Colonel Tariq
Khan (now lieutenant general) and Lieutenant Colonel Ahsan

25. Mahmood (now major general) , all three were well read and had a
high intellectual calibre particularly Tariq Khan.
After these three the pedants came and pedants and the conformists
off course are in preponderance !
I would say the assessments that I made in faulty and fallacious
assessment of military commanders continue !
If Tariq Khan became a three star it was a triumph of destiny over a
thoroughly rotten system !
But then we must remember that Moses survived in Pharohs palace
and finally overcame the Pharoah !
This unfortunate country Pakistan needs a Moses , a man who purges
this rotten country !
If not , then I dont have the least doubt that Pakistan will be
destroyed ! It will cease to exist as a country ! This is my conviction !
This country Pakistan has no soft solutions !
If Pakistan has to survive it will have to go through night and blood !
And the blood of the elite !
WHEN ORDERS SHOULD BE OBEYED AND WHEN DISOBEYED OR
MODIFIED AS SEEN IN MILITARY HISTORY-MARCH 1991

27. On the first page a question is raised " if selection and assessment
system in an army is realistic" .
There was a big question mark in 1991 when I wrote this , it remained
when I retired in December 1993 because the army then was run on
whims and likes and dislikes and no one bothered how good an officer
was in real command and intellectual ability ! I fear that the large
gaps and question marks remain to date ? The very Kargil operation
proves that an overambitious man with myopic strategic vision like
Musharraf can rise to the highest ranks ,shamelessly abandons bodies
of soldiers and then proclaim Kargil as his greatest success ! One
could see an ambitious man in him in 1993 , who was obsessed with
self projection ! I had asked Lieuenant Colonel Ashraf (then CO 46
Field and my platoon commander in PMA , also GSO 1 , 14 Division
what he thought of Musharraf his brother gunner officer .Ashraf an
outstandingly honest and straight man hailing from Kalar Saidan near
Pindi stated " what can you make of a man who uses generator of his
locating unit for his house "

28. No one in kargil had the courage to point out that the operation was a
wild gamble ! Brigadier Simon confided that that General Tauqir Zia
was against it but then Tauqir Zia never gave his dissent ?
PROBLEM WITH MILITARY TRAINING , MILITARY EXERCISES AND
ASSESSMENT OF OFFICERS

29. A real soldier in the peacteime environment of jee hazoori and yes
man ship hardly has any chance of being promoted ! True in 1992
when I wrote this and true today ! Can Pakistan afford this ?

30. PROBABLY IN OUR SCENARIO A QUALITY TERMED AS LOYALTY ,
WHICH IN REALITY IS DOCILITY AND OVERCONFORMITY IS HIGHLY
VALUED !AND LOYALTY OF A PERSONAL NATURE IS SHEER
INTELLECTUAL DISHONESTY !

32. WHY ASSESSMENT OF OFFICERS QUALITIES IS OF CARDINAL
IMPORTANCE

48. THE ABOVE ARTICLES MAY BE DOWNLOADED IN COMPLETE FROM
FOLLOWING LINKS:---
http://www.scribd.com/doc/27648037/Orders-and-Obedience
http://www.scribd.com/doc/27384291/Intangible-Forces-Behind-a-
Military-Manoeuvre-an-Examination-of-the-Clausewitzian-Model-of-
Military-Leadership

49. http://www.scribd.com/doc/27386132/Plain-as-Well-as-Subtle-Aspects-
of-Military-Decision-Making
http://www.scribd.com/doc/40295974/Resolution-Cardinal-Command-
Virtue
Historical Proof of the argument presented above
War Performance had nothing to do with promotion to higher ranks in
Pakistan Army
Major Agha H Amin (Retired)
Altaf Gauhar Ayub’s close confidant inadvertently proves this fact
once he quite uncharitably, and for reasons, other than dispassionate
objective historical considerations, described Yahya as one "
selected…in preference to some other generals, because Yahya, who
had come to hit the bottle hard, had no time for politics and was
considered a harmless and loyal person".
Major General Abrar, who had proved himself as the finest military
commander, at the divisional level, at least by sub continental
standards, was sidelined and ultimately retired in the same rank!
Lieutenant Colonel Nisar of 25 Cavalry who had saved Pakistan’s
territorial integrity from being seriously compromised at a strategic
level at Gadgor on the 8th of September 1965 was sidelined.
Lieutenant Colonel Nisar of 25 Cavalry who had saved Pakistan’s
territorial integrity from being seriously compromised at a strategic
level at Gadgor on the 8th of September 1965 was sidelined. This may
be gauged from the fact that at the time of outbreak of the 1971 War

50. Nisar although promoted to brigadier rank, was only commanding the
Armoured corps recruit training centre, a poor appointment for a man
who had distinguished himself as a tank regiment commander in
stopping the main Indian attack. A man whose unit’s performance
was described by the enemy opposing him as one "which was
certainly creditable because it alone stood between the 1st Indian
Armoured Division and its objective"23 was considered by the
Pakistani General Headquarters pedantic officers as fit only to
command a recruit training centre while one who was instrumental in
failure of the main Pakistani intelligence failure as DMI was promoted
to Major General rank and trusted later with the command of
Pakistan’s 1 Corps with disastorous results !

53. Brigadier Qayyum Sher who had distinguished himself as a brigade
commander in 10 Division area in Lahore was also not promoted!
Qayyum Sher was one of the few brigade commanders of the army
who had led from the front.
Major General Shaukat Riza who rarely praised anyone had the
following to say about Sher’s conduct while leading the Pakistan
army’s most important infantry brigade counter attack on Lahore
Front as a result of which the Indian 15 Division despite considerable
numerical superiority was completely thrown off balance. Shaukat
stated that "Brigadier Qayyum Sher, in his command jeep, moved from
unit to unit and then personally led the advance, star plate and
pennant visible. This was something no troops worth their salt could
ignore".

54. But the Army’s Selection Boards ignored Qayyum Sher once his turn
for promotion came! Qayyum Sher did well in war and was awarded
the Pakistani D.S.O i.e. the HJ!
But war performance or even performance in peacetime training
manoeuvres was, and still is, no criteria for promotion in the Pakistan
Army! Qayyum retired as a brigadier, remembered by those who
fought under him as a brave and resolute commander, who was not
given an opportunity to rise to a higher rank, which Qayyum had
deserved, more than any brigadier of the Pakistan Army did.
Brigadier Nisar of 25 Cavalry who was praised by Indian historians as
outstanding in delaying battle in Shakargarh as commander of
changez Force was also sidelined because he was not close to Tikka
Khan and company and did not possess Zias mastery of art of
sycophancy and appeasement of seniors !
It was typical of Pakistan Army that Brigadier Rahimuddin who did not
join his brigade in Chamb on pretext of martial law duty was promoted
to general rank while Nisar who fought both the 1965 and 1971 wars
exceedingly well sidelined !
In 1965 Nisar by his singular action at Gadgor had literally saved
Pakistan ! But promotion in Pakistan Army had nothing to do with war
performance or real soldiering ! Pathetic !
Interestingly Brigadier Irshaad heading the military intelligence in
1965 and guilty of Pakistan Armys greatest intelligence failure of
1965 i.e disregarding a genuine report that Indian Armoured division
was in kashmir , dismissing it as a deception plan , was promoted to

55. two and three star after the war .He played hell with Pakistans 1
Corps in 1971 War !
Major General Sarfaraz whose conduct as GOC was outstanding in
1965 War was not promoted because his ability was regarded as a
threat by Ayub Khan !
Brigadier Tajammul Hussain Malik was praised as an outstanding
commander by a person no less than the Indian opponent of his Major

56. General lachman Singh .
A special commission was appointed by Indian Army to study
Tajammuls brigade actions !
The tragedy is that all starting from Liaquat Ali Khan sidelined
officers with outstanding war performance ! The first being the
elevation of Ayub Khan to army chief with a proven record of tactical
timidity in Burma !
Ayub Khan ,Tikka Khan and Bhutto sidelined the best officers of 1971
! Tajammul was sidelined because he was not a pathetic sycophant
with no war record like Zia ul Haq ! This is a man whose war
performance was so outstanding that the Indians appointed a high
level commission to study his epic brigade battle at Hilli where he
literally repelled a division plus! His direct Indian opponent Major
General Lachman Singh praised him as an outstanding and very brave
man in his book Indian sword penetrates East Pakistan ! But the
Pakistani selection boards criterion for promotion was certainly not
war performance !
Major General Abdul Ali Malik noted by Major General Fazal i Muqeem
for launcjing the most ill planned and failed counter attacks of 1971
War in Shakargarh Bulge was promoted to three star rank after the
war !
General K.M Arif who had no war record in 1971 and no command
experience beyond a brigade command for few months was promoted
to two three and four star rank !

57. Brigadier Ameer Hamza who conducted a brilliant brigade offensive
battle at Sulaimanke was similarly sidelined as a Lieutenant General
whereas many others who had no war record in 1971 war as brigade
commanders became corps commanders !
Major General Tajammul Hussain Malik in an interview with this
scribe in September 2001 summed up these promotions in the
following words:--
The peculiarity about these promotions was that except for Jahanzeb
Arbab, who had been superseded earlier because of having been
found guilty of embezzlement of huge amount of money while in East
Pakistan by a Court of Inquiry, headed by Major General M H Ansari
but continued to remain in an officiating Command of a Division with
the rank of a Brigadier for nearly two years upto as late as February
1976 when he was promoted to the rank of a Major General, all others
were those who were on staff in GHQ.
Major General Iqbal was doing as Chief of General Staff, Major
General Sawar Khan was Adjutant General, Major General Chishti was
Military Secretary and Major General Ghulam Hassan was Director
General Military Training.
The Division Commanders that is to say myself, Major General Akhtar
Abdur Rehman, Major General Fazal e Raziq, Major General Mateen,
Major General Ch Abdur Rehman, Major General Jamal Said Mian,
Major General Amir Hamza (DG Civil Armed Forces), Major General
Wajahat Hussain (Commadant Staff College) were all superseded.”

58. General Zia ul Haq had seen my conduct during the Division
Commanders conferences expressing my view very candidly. He,
therefore, thought that he would not be able to control me. He
selected a team of ‘yes men’ who were more docile and prepared to
accept his command without any hesitation.”
Even the normal and highly defective ACR system in the army was
disregarded in promotions.
Thus while Major General Tajammul had been graded as
“OUTSTANDING”, as a Brigadier, in his last Annual Confidential
Report and again as a Division Commander was graded “Above
Average” by the then Corps Commander Lieutenant General Aftab
Ahmad Khan, his contemporaries Lieutenant General Faiz Ali Chisti
and Late General Akhtar Abdur Rehman were adjudged on the lower
side of the “Average” grade were promoted to three star rank .Chishti
in 1976 and Akhtar Abdul Rahman in 1977-78.
Tajammul Hussain thus well summed up Pakistan Armys tradition of
promotions when he stated:--
“In our Army, Field Marshal Ayub Khan since he became Commander-
in-Chief in 1951, made sure that only those people were promoted to
higher ranks, who proved their personal loyalty to him rather than
loyalty to the state.
He did so because he had the ambitions of becoming the Head of
State from the very beginning. As I said before, he had a contempt for
the politicians and with the passage of time he went on getting
extension of his tenure till he finally took over in Oct 1958.

59. From amongst the senior officers anyone who expressed his opinion
against the Army indulging in politics was immediately retired. Some
of the very capable generals who had passed out from Sandhurst
were superseded when General Musa was appointed Commander-in-
Chief. Now that he is dead, it is not proper for me to pass any remarks
against him but I have no hesitation in saying that he was a typical
Gorkha Soldier, who had learnt to obey the command of their
superiors whether right or wrong. The junior officers following
examples of the seniors, had also learnt that perhaps sycophancy,
rather than professional capabilities, was the only criteria for
attaining the higher command.
Exceptions are always there, but as a general practice many good
officers who would have become very good Generals could not go
beyond the rank of Lieutenant Colonel because they were
intellectually and professionally far superior to their seniors and
always expressed their views without any hesitation whenever and
wherever required.
Commanders who attain the higher ranks through following the path
of sycophancy soon crumble in the face of danger and cannot stand
the test of battle fatigue. That has been an inherent weakness in our
Army, which perhaps continues till today.
I had not intimately known General Zia before he became the Chief of
the Army Staff but from his conduct during the Divisional
Commanders Conferences, he appeared to me an incompetent and
low grade officer.

60. In one of the Division Commanders promotion conferences, I even
saw him sleeping with his mouth open.
He surpassed all limits of sycophancy when meeting the Prime
Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. While in uniform, he used to bow when
shaking hands with Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
I remember my old Brigade Commander, Brigadier Hayat, with whom I
served as his Brigade Major, once told me that he had written in Major
Zia ul Haq’s ACR when he served under his command, “Not fit to go
beyond the rank of a Major”. It is an irony of fate that a person of such

61. a calibre had ruled Pakistan for a long period of eleven years till he
was finally killed in an air crash.”
There is no second opinion possible about how Pakistan Army
suffered because of military rule.Thus Major General Fazal Muqeem
Khan in an officially sponsored book admitted this cardinal fact when
he wrote :--
"We had been declining according to the degree of our involvement in
making and unmaking of regimes. Gradually the officer corps,
intensely proud of its professionalism was eroded at its apex into
third class politicians and administrators. Due to the absence of a
properly constituted political government, the selection and
promotion of officers to the higher rank depended on one man’s will.

62. Gradually, the welfare of institutions was sacrificed to the welfare of
personalities. To take the example of the army, the higher command
had been slowly weakened by retiring experienced officers at a
disturbingly fine rate. Between 1955 and November 1971, in about 17
years 40 Generals had been retired, of whom only four had reached
their superannuating age. Similar was the case with other senior
ranks. Those in the higher ranks who showed some independence of
outlook were invariably removed from service. Some left in sheer
disgust in this atmosphere of insecurity and lack of the right of
criticism, the two most important privileges of an Armed Forces
officer. The extraordinary wastage of senior officers particularly of
the army denied the services, of the experience and training vital to
their efficiency and welfare. Some officers were placed in positions
that they did not deserve or had no training for"
The tradition continued till to date.Lieutenant General Mahmood and
Usmani with all their drawbacks was far superior to Generals Aziz
Yusuf and Ahsan Saleem Hayat promoted to four star rank but
sidelined because feared as more resolute and thus dangerous ! It
would be actually comical to match these two groups at all ! Usmani
was so upright that he risked his career twice as a brigadier and
major general when he took a righteous stand with his direct
superiors Malik Saleem Khan in Karachi and Mumtaz Gul
at Peshawar !
It is no secret that had Yusuf or Ahsan Saleem Hayat been
commander 10 Corps in place of Mahmud on 12 October 1999 ,
Musharrafs coup would have failed ! Perhaps that was the key
selection criterion for both ! Lack of resolution ! But that’s

63. what Pakistan is all about !
A Conspiracy against originality and boldness ! An undoubted failure !

64. Pakistan has no short of talent and military genius but our military
system is a conspiracy against talent originality and boldness.Below
is an article of this scribe published in Daily Nation summarising
whats wrong with Pakistan Army published :---