Bøker av Agha Humayun Amin

In March 2001 I was Assistant Editor of Defence Journal Karachi and a chapter from my book Pakistan Army till 1965 was serialized in Defence Journals March 2001 issue assessing 25 Cavalry's true role on 8 September 1965.The account ruffled many feathers in Pakistan.Below is a account of this debate.In 1965 War Pakistan Army was still a very intellectually backward and biased army.Old units regarded themselves as families and regimentation was a religion combined with ethnic chauvinism.In this situation the fact that a newly raised tank regiment actually repelled an entire Indian tank division to retreat was unpalatable to the forces that controlled Pakistan Army !Field Marshal Ayub Khan a self promoted Field Marshal saw his parent Punjab Regiment as ultimate army and was heavily biased in favour of Punjab Regiment. Other infantry units and other arms like armour were looked down.Partly it was a Britis inherited tradition.In this situation 25 Cavalrys crucial role was simply downplayed.Truth slowly emerged when Pakistan Armys official history was written and published around 1985-89.

The US strategy lacked that burning fire to beat the enemy. While US strategists rightly saw China as consolidating Pakistan as its western corridor to Gulf oil and mineral resources of West Asia their support to secessionists in Pakistani Balochistan was weak and instead of strengthening Baloch nationalism has actually weakened Baloch secessionism.Similarly US attempts to destabilize Pakistans Northern Area also lack serious strategic resolve. The US 2008 plan to establish civilian supremacy in Pakistan was also a strategic failure and has destabilized Pakistan rather than stabilizing Pakistans civil military equilibrium.The US strategists lacked the long term vision to create new states which could have stabilized the region which they had destabilized i.e Iraq and Afghanistan.Thus Iraq was shamelessly abandoned to become a haven of terrorism, whereas Iraqs division into Kurd, Sunni and Shia regions would have stabilized it and restrained and checked Iranian ambitions.Similarly US failure to divide Afghanistan will again go a long way to destabilize the whole region with a new Afghan Civil war.US failure to utilize its unique central position in Afghanistan to deal with Iran was also a failure and the US leaves the region greatly destabilized than it was on eve of October 2001.The report card for the US strategists is FAIL and FAIL in both Afghanistan and Iraq while in case of Pakistan again it was a grand failure.The US as it leaves the region in 2014, leaves it with a feather in its cap of having created greater instability than was the case in 2001.