Pakistan at a Crossroads: Ports, Courts, and Power Games

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Michael Kugelman:  Hello and welcome to today’s Federalist Society virtual event. Today, Friday, October 27, we are discussing “Pakistan at a Crossroads: Ports, Courts, and Power Games.” My name is Jack Capizzi and I’m an Assistant Director of Practice Groups at The Federalist Society. As always, please note that all expressions of opinion are those of the experts on today’s call. After our speakers have given their remarks, we will turn to you, the audience, for any questions you might have. If you do have a question at any point during the program, please type it into the Q&A feature at the bottom of your screen, and we’ll handle those as we can towards the end of today’s program.

 

      With that, thank you all very much for being with us. I’ll turn it over to our moderator Nitin Nainani, who is a student liaison for the International and National Security Law Practice Group. Nitin, over to you.

 

Nitin Nainani:  Thank you Jack, and welcome to everyone joining us this afternoon. So today, we’re going to discuss the ongoing multifaceted crisis in Pakistan, which does go somewhat under the radar with all else that’s happened in the world this past year, even though Pakistan is the fifth most populous country with over 240 million people and a nuclear power. And just in the last week, one former Pakistani prime minister was indicted on charges of revealing official secrets. And right before that, another former prime minister returned to Pakistan after four years in exile.

 

      Now, the former happens to be the country's most popular politician, and the latter looks like a solid favorite to be Pakistan's next prime minister. If you're confused by this or wondering whether all this timing is coincidental, hopefully, we'll give you more clarity in the next hour.

 

      We plan to touch on economic challenges that Pakistan is dealing with, the political chessboard and implications for democracy, and Pakistani leaders’ strategic balancing between the United States and China. I’ll start first by introducing our distinguished guests, and then we’ll go into about 50 minutes of directed Q&A. To reiterate what Jack said, audience members are encouraged to leave questions in the Q&A box, and if your question lines up with ones that I’m asking, I’ll try and incorporate it during our structured questions portion. But if not, I’ll get to it afterwards. And so, without further ado, I’m honored to introduce today’s guest Dr. Sahar Khan and Mr. Michael Kugelman, who’ll help us understand what’s unfolding within Pakistan.

 

      Dr. Khan is a defense and foreign policy research fellow at Cato, and her research interest includes state-sponsored militancy and terrorism, counterterrorism policies, anti-terrorism legal regimes, and private military and security contractors. She focuses on U.S. foreign policy in South Asia and Africa, and she's the editor at Inkstick Media. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Irvine, an M.P.P. from the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago, and a B.A. in economics, international studies, and politics and government from Ohio Wesleyan University.

 

      Mr. Kugelman is the director of the Wilson Center South Asia Institute. He’s managed the South Asia portfolio there since 2007, and he leads the Center’s programming in research on the region. His main specialty is Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan and U.S. relations with each of them. In addition, he’s written columns, op-eds, and commentaries for a variety of publications in India, Pakistan, and the United States, including for Foreign Policy magazine’s weekly “South Asia Brief.” And he’s published policy briefs, journal articles, and book chapters on a range of regional issues. He received his M.A. in law and diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts and his B.A. from American University School of International Service.

 

      Thank you both for joining us today.

 

Michael Kugelman:  Thank you.

 

Nitin Nainani:  So I want to get started, Sahar, with a question for you. In a recent blog post of yours, you’ve characterized Pakistan’s economy as flailing. And could you elaborate for the -- on this for our viewers and explain what you meant by that?

 

Sahar Khan:  Sure. Thank you so much for inviting me to this discussion. I’m really looking forward to it. I think on everyone’s mind, Pakistan’s economy is certainly front and center. Inflation is extremely high—something that we haven’t seen before. Pakistan’s always had trouble with its debt and its federal reserves, but things have seemed to have gotten worse ever since Imran Khan was ousted in a no-confidence vote. And Pakistan has had a series of International Monetary Fund, or IMF, plans—I think, right now, it’s on its 21^st or 22^nd plan. So economic problems aren’t something new to Pakistan, but in this current climate, things have gotten worse.

 

      So there are a few things that I wanted to point out that would indicate why I characterize Pakistan’s economy as flailing. I mean, the first is the departure of Shell. Shell has been involved in Pakistan, essentially, since it became independent—so over 75 years. And even though Shell is going through its own issues—or it is divesting from say, Nigeria and Singapore and elsewhere—its departure from Pakistan also is following a trend, where you have other companies like Lotte Chemicals and Puma Holdings and others who have decided to leave Pakistan or at least sell off a bunch of -- a large percentage of their shares. So this indicates that Pakistan's economic environment is a bit unstable and that then bodes poorly for other foreign direct investment or other companies wanting to come in.

 

      We’ve also seen a drop in foreign exchange reserves, and this has mainly resulted in more inflation. So it’s basically like a chicken and egg problem to some extent. And we’ve been seeing this problem since 2019, and then it was exasperated by the finance minister Ishaq Dar’s policies, where he refused to have a flexible exchange rate, where he refused to increase power tariffs, etc., which resulted in Pakistani citizens having -- spending way too much of their income on energy. 

 

      So I think these two things point to Pakistan’s flailing economy. Things have seemed to have gotten even worse, and I think it's the regular Pakistani citizen who is suffering the most because the inflation is just sky-high.

 

Nitin Nainani:  So it’s clear that Pakistan is dealing with a range of economic issues, and earlier this year, there were reports that the government was in talks to transfer terminals at its Karachi  Port to the UAE as a way to raise funds quickly. Michael, I was wondering if you could perhaps elaborate on this and other ways in which the Pakistani government seems to be trying to address its economic woes and perhaps which external sources—whether that’s specific countries or international institutions—has Pakistan turned to, and have there been issues getting assistance from external sources?

 

Michael Kugelman:  Yeah. So thanks. So thanks for having me. Great to be here and always great to be on a panel with Sahar. Just very briefly, to follow on what Sahar had to say about the economic troubles, I agree with that. I would also argue that really proximate cause of this current economic crisis in Pakistan is a balance of payments crisis, which was triggered in great part by bad export performance, which comes from relying on a -- essentially a single export, textiles, which hasn’t been able to compete well, globally, coupled with heavily reliance on very expensive fuel imports from the Middle East. And that meant that when you had these external shocks in recent months, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the impact that had on global food costs, it made Pakistan particularly vulnerable.

 

      And I would also argue that the government that was last in power in Pakistan—the one previous to the caretaker administration that took over just in recent weeks—was widely perceived to have responded to this worsening crisis in ways that didn’t make things better simply because there wasn’t much of a response.

 

      Now, in terms of your question: how Pakistan has been trying to respond, well, I mean, one of the main things that Islamabad has done is what is typically done when Pakistan has economic crises—and it very frequently has economic crises—and that is, to be very frank, look for immediate-term bail-out assistance, relief packages from top partners—and that includes countries in the Gulf as well as China—and also going to the IMF. As you know, there was a deal that Pakistan reached with the IMF—a short-term deal—some months ago.

 

      But the latest thing that Pakistan is doing now is to develop this new entity, which I believe is called the Investment Facilitation Unit or something like that. It has a very unusual name. And the idea there is to very specifically target new investment, new assistance from the Gulf countries—the Saudis and the UAE, the Qataris as well. My understanding is that that effort has not been terribly successful just yet.

 

      But I think this gets into a bigger story about Pakistan and its economic history and its struggles dealing with economic crises -- is that the tendency is very reflexive to focus on immediate-term band-aid initiatives that are meant to tide Pakistan over, to ease its balance of payment crises for that moment, but not to actually delve into the more important longer-term solutions, such as various types of reforms. 

 

      For political reasons, Pakistan’s government -- Pakistan’s governments—this is not a new thing; it’s happened for so long, as Sahar had mentioned—are unwilling to take these longer-term reform steps just because of the political dangers, and there’s so many that one could identify but -- for example, widening the tax base or diversifying exports or trying to limit the government’s involvement in the private sector, reduce government regulation, privatizing public companies that are hemorrhaging debt. There’s so many steps that Pakistan would ideally take, but it hasn’t been willing to do so, really for political reasons, for vested interests, and a variety of other factors as well.

 

Nitin Nainani:  And so, on the topic of foreign debt, we’ve heard quite a bit about the Gulf states in particular. I want to hone in for just a moment on the debt that Pakistan owes China. Now this year marks the ten-year anniversary of China’s Belt and Road Initiative of which the Pakistan -- the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, known as CPEC, was an important piece with China acquiring control of the Gwadar Port. CPEC was launched with much fanfare, and it was really considered a game-changer for Pakistan. Back to you, Sahar. What was the status of this 65-billion-dollar investment, and does this factor into Pakistan’s current issues? And I’m asking this with reference to what’s we’ve seen in Sri Lanka in particular.

 

Sahar Khan:   I mean, yes and no. CPEC, when it started 10 years ago, it raised a lot of eyebrows. It is a lot of debt, and it’s a lot of projects. It comes on three phases, and China is currently very frustrated with Pakistan too because it imagined that some of the projects would be moving faster than they are.

 

      So for example, there’s a project called the Main Line-1 Railway Project, which was a big road project that would have about -- that would spend about 6.8 billion dollars, and it’s been slow—it’s stopped at various points. So China is frustrated, and I think many people rightfully raised eyebrows when CPEC started because China Belt and Road Initiative has nefarious -- it’s known to have nefarious links, and a lot of countries -- Sri Lanka, as you mentioned, is a good example to show what not to do.

 

      But this also ties into the first question you asked about the Karachi Port. Right? And I think it’s important to know that it does -- the Karachi Port situation is very different from what happened in Sri Lanka. So there was a great deal of misinformation and disinformation about the Karachi Port, where, on Twitter especially, you had all sorts of analysts saying, “Pakistan has sold its Karachi Port just like Sri Lanka. This is terrible.” I think it’s important to stress that the Karachi Port has not been sold to anybody. It very much belongs to Pakistan, and it has two wharfs—an east wharf and a west wharf—and in total, it has, like, 30 dry berths and 3 liquid berths. And berths are actually spots allocated for ships. And so it’s a well-functioning port.

 

      What Karachi has done or what Pakistan has done is that to the UAE it’s given over three or four berths for development. And this has been sort of an ongoing project. And this is all, sort of—something that Michael mentioned -- that these are steps that Pakistan takes for immediate relief. Right? They’re building various projects, and Michael also mentioned the Special Investment Facilitation Council, which is like an odd-sounding name, but not so odd when you look closely at Pakistan. Right? Everything is special. But this is sort of a military-civilian council together, and they’re jointly trying to get Gulf states to invest.

 

      And so part of the Karachi Port and development of this is not to simply just get more loans from Saudi Arabia and the UAE but to sort of put them in development projects, or put them in port development and etc. But, yeah, CPEC remains a huge issue. I think the main takeaway from CPEC is that it's not going anywhere, but it’s speed has been very slow and has been frustrating, especially for the Chinese.

 

Nitin Nainani:  Michael, did you want to add anything on CPEC in particular?

 

Michael Kugelman:  Yeah. I would agree with Sahar. The key thing here is that it’s lost momentum in recent years. And the main reasons for that is economic slowdowns: both Pakistan’s economic slowdown, which has made it less -- more reluctant to take on new loans and agree to new projects, and China’s own economic slowdown.

 

      And the other issue is actually security. China has been increasingly concerned about security threats to its assets, its investments, and its nationals in Pakistan, in great part because we’ve seen a resurgence in terrorism in Pakistan over the last year, mainly because of the Pakistani Taliban, which has targeted China in Pakistan, but even more than that, separatist insurgents from Balochistan. And China has become increasingly concerned, and Pakistan has repeatedly ensured that it would make sure that these Chinese assets are better secured. But these attacks keep happening, and it’s made China a bit concerned.

 

Nitin Nainani:  I want to switch gears now to talk about the political context, as Pakistan is experiencing all these economic challenges. As we know, Pakistan is no stranger to political instability. Since independence in 1947, it’s fluctuated between military rule and civilian governments. Of note, only two elected governments have completed their five-year terms. That would be the one elected in 2008 and the one elected in 2013. But no prime minister had lasted a full term in Pakistan’s history. And in my introduction, I briefly mentioned two former prime ministers. Michael, I was hoping you could spell out who I was referring to, and kind of describe how we got to this point. Why was it that the most recent government failed to complete its term?

 

Michael Kugelman:  Yeah. Sure. So the former prime minister that recently returned to Pakistan after four years of exile and is looking to return to power, this is Nawaz Sharif. And then the other one you mentioned, the one who’s now in jail, is Imran Khan. And it’s, I think, such an interesting commentary on Pakistani politics that, as you laid it out, the political figure that’s arguably the most popular figure in Pakistan is in jail, out of the scene, and then the political figure who has a pretty good chance of returning to politics is really not that popular at all these days.

 

      So basically, I think both of these men are such great examples of what I would describe as a recurrent theme in Pakistan’s political history, and that is that political leaders tend to fall in and out of love with the military establishment and vice versa as well. I mean, as you -- as I believe you laid out earlier, Pakistan has a deep legacy of military rule, and even when Pakistan is not directly ruled by the military, the military is heavily influential, including and especially right now.

 

      So Nawaz Sharif, he came of age politically through being a protégé of a notorious military dictator, Zia-Ul-Haq, who, of course, was in control in the late 70s into the 80s until he was killed in a plane crash. Nawaz Sharif then became prime minister several times, including the first time when he ended up tussling with General Musharraf, his army chief. He was overthrown in a coup. But then he managed to patch things up with the military, to the point that he was able to return to power for two more terms as prime minister.

 

      But then his third most recent term as prime minister, he was essentially forced to seed power when he was disqualified—there were corruption allegations that were building against him. But he had become more and more vulnerable during that last year -- that last period when he was prime minister because he disagreed with the army in terms of how to handle the issue of terrorism and also, he tried to push for better relations with India, which the military wasn’t ready for.

 

      And one could be quite confident that the military influence, if not pressured the courts to build up strong case against him. Now, I’m not saying, and many would not say that he is not corrupt. He is quite corrupt, but his -- the charges and his disqualification from parliament, which resulted in having to leave his position, heavily influenced by the military, which wasn't interested in him. 

 

      And yet, here we are now, after his four years of exile, he’s back in Pakistan. He would not have been able to come back to Pakistan if there were not some sort of deal worked out with the military to ensure that he could come back and not be arrested, keeping in mind, as well, that his party was the lead coalition member in the most previous government, which was lead by the prime minister who is his brother, Shehbaz.

 

      Coming to Imran Kahn very briefly—different but similar story. Khan is someone -- huge cricket hero for many years. He became involved in politics in the late 90s, and initially, he wasn’t really a big fan of the military. He was very critical of Pervez Musharraf. He was involved in protests against military rule, which contributed to Musharraf stepping down. This happened in 2008.

 

      But then Khan, he really wanted to become prime minister, and he very slowly starts to build up relations with the military. 2018, he came to power through an election that many would argue enabled him to come to power because the military was -- wanted him to become prime minister and engaged in various pre-election-type activities that tipped the electoral scales in his favor. But then he ended up falling out with the military so that he could not finish his term. And as you said, it meant that, again, we have not had any prime minister that served out a full term in Pakistan’s history.

 

Nitin Nainani:  And Sahar, you mentioned earlier that he was toppled in a vote of no confidence. I think that was one of the first things you mentioned. Could you talk about that process a little bit and I guess, the way that the opposition parties, including Nawaz Sharif’s political party, worked to oust Khan?

 

Sahar Khan:  Sure. So Pakistan’s system is a parliamentary system, which basically means that there are multiple political parties. So unlike in the United States where basically they just have two, in Pakistan, there are about 15 national political parties, even more regional parties. And some parties just have a provincial say or provincial power—they want to remain in the provincial assemblies. And while they contest election at the national level, they don’t expect to win seats at the national level, but they expect to join a coalition. So they can certainly tip the scale.

 

      They do have some larger political parties—national political parties—like Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, which is Imran Khan’s party or Pakistan Muslim League, Nawaz group which is, of course, Nawaz Sharif’s party—or lead by him—and then you have the Pakistan People’s Party. So these are sort of the three, I would say, mainstream political parties that are also well-known internationally.

 

      And so the way it works is you have a general election, and the prime minister is the head of the government. And you have a president in Pakistan, but the president is ceremonial and is often selected by the political party and cabinet ministers. And so the president is not elected in.

 

      So in Pakistan’s system, the prime minister is the main political figure—the main person in power. However, the prime minister—her or him—have to form a coalition government, which means that you have to make friends with other political parties and that you will have other political parties that might share certain aspects of your agenda but don’t always -- but also have their own agenda. 

 

      So I think, in Imran Khan’s case, he’s very famously arrogant, and he’s very famously, sort of, of the opinion that this is my or the highway, and that kind of mentality and ideology doesn’t really work when you’re trying to form a coalition. And so the story basically goes -- is that while he won the election and he formed the majority government in parliament, there were about 22 members from his coalition that ended up going to the opposition that tipped the scale, and then the parliament issued a no-confidence vote.

 

      Now, according to Pakistan’s constitution, as soon a no-confidence vote starts on the floor of parliament, the prime minister, who is the head of the parliament or the national assembly, no longer has power because clearly, the no-confidence vote is to oust a prime minister. What Imran Khan did was that he shut down the national assembly, which—according to Pakistan’s constitution—a prime minister can do if the prime minister is actually in power. So in order to stop the vote of no confidence, he shut down the national assembly.

 

      And then the opposition went to the supreme court of Pakistan asked the supreme court “What Imran Khan did, is this constitutional or not?” The supreme court came back to basically say, “It’s not constitutional because as soon as the vote of no confidence started on the floor, he lost his power.” And so, as soon as the supreme court gave that decision in a very, sort of, dramatic affair—day/night in April—the parliament started its session, the vote was done, and Imran Khan was ousted.

 

      Now there are certain -- Imran Khan accused the United States for bribing these 22 members of the opposition, and he accused the Assistant Secretary Ambassador Don Lu for having a sway in getting the opposition -- in getting folks from the opposition involved. And so there’s been -- that ended up being not true, even though there was a cable that The Intercept published, I think, last -- in September or so, to indicate that there was a cable out there that -- so the U.S. wasn’t entirely innocent.

 

      But that said, I think Imran Khan’s fall from power is really a domestic affair. I don’t think the United States toppled Imran Khan, which is something that he certainly led with. And so I think in Imran Khan’s case, he had a falling out with the military and then also with certain members of his coalition as well.

 

Nitin Nainani:  This has all been really helpful to contextualize what’s happened and who we’ve talked about -- the army's role in sort of helping create conditions for his ouster even though they had initially created those same conditions for his rise to power in the first place. But it's also notable that Imran Khan, in his own way, had -- in a way, gone where few have before, in directly calling out the army chief, picking on specific officers. And his supporters are getting whipped into a frenzy after his ouster, where they’re calling the army chief a traitor and a coward. And this is shocking just because the Pakistani army, of course, is considered above the politicians and is a source of national pride.

 

      So Michael, back over to you for a moment. And what has all this amounted to and, I guess, more specifically, I mean, has Khan’s more confrontational approach left the army bruised, disgraced, tainted, or even fractured in any way?

 

Michael Kugelman:  Yeah. It’s a great question. The army certainly has been put on the back foot in ways that it has not been for quite some time. I mean, this is—I would argue—by far the most powerful political player in Pakistan, and it’s been like that for a long time. And it has suffered some blows to its reputation, to its credibility over the years. And you go back, for example, to the Bin Laden raid, which was very embarrassing for Pakistanis because this happened without them knowing about it. It happened without the army knowing about it, and you actually had—as I understand it—times when -- the army chief at the time, General Kayani, tried to meet with army officers to calm people down because they were so upset. And as I understand it, those were very tense meetings.

 

      And there’s this tremendous anger at the army among the Pakistani public but also even within the lower and middle ranks. But I would argue that what’s happened now is even more significant, in that the level of anger and public anger expressed toward the army and also -- not just the army but the intelligence service, the ISI, and the main intelligence service in Pakistan. This is not necessarily unprecedented but highly, highly unusual. There was one incident some months ago where police officers were targeted in a terrorist attack in Peshawar, I believe—A city in the northwest of Pakistan—and you actually had some protestors that came out and were publicly accusing the ISI of being behind the attack. This is unheard of in Pakistan.

 

      So one reason for all this public anger against the military is that Khan himself has a very large support base. And his support base believes that the previous army chief, General Bajwa, was really the ringleader of the effort that Sahar described that lead to Khan losing the no-confidence vote in the parliament. And there’s been this really nasty crackdown carried out against Khan and so many other leaders of PTI, and hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of Khan supporters have been arrested and remained in jail.

 

      And so you have a very large Khan support base that is enraged by this and has been taking out its -- it had been taking out its anger against the army. You’re not seeing as much of that now just because there’s fear, quite frankly. I think that many of his supporters don’t want to come out on the streets anymore.

 

      But this has put the army on the defensive in ways that haven’t been seen in quite some time, and I would also argue that there are internal tensions within the military. And again, the Khan factor is at play here because even though the previous army chief and the current army chief want Khan out of politics, don’t want him to return, Khan does retain support within pockets of the middle and lower ranks of the military. So that’s a bit of an issue for the senior army leadership to deal with.

 

      All that said, I would agree with you that -- or I would argue that the army is—to use your terms—bruised, tainted, and fractured to an extent, but it’s still getting its way, in the sense -- when you look how politics are playing out right now: Khan is in jail. He’s been in jail for several months. He has many charges against him, including -- he was recently indicted on a very serious one tagged to the -- tied to the diplomatic cable issue that Sahar was describing. Theoretically, he could get the death sentence for that. He likely won’t, but he could get a number of years of prison.

 

      So for now, he’s out of the political picture. That’s what the top army leadership wants. Also, his party has been, not eliminated, not banned, but it’s been significantly weakened. And its new favorite son of the moment, Nawaz Sharif, as we’ve described, has returned. He had a rally the day he returned, last Saturday, with a huge turnout, and he’s now back trying to energize the party. And that’s going to be difficult to do, but that’s what the army wants politics to look like now. It wants Nawaz to come back, energize the party, put Nawaz’s PML-N party in a position where it can come back to power, and at least, at this moment in time—this could change, of course—that’s what the army wants. It wants the PML-N to be leading the next government.

 

Nitin Nainani:  And then I want to talk a little bit more about Imran Khan’s durability here. The recent polling has shown that he’s still outpacing his political rivals, and his approvals are really as high as 60 percent, and that suggests his support has remained intact despite picking fights with the security establishment, being associated with a January 6 moment, being arrested and jailed. And really, the charges that he’s being indicted on just keep piling up by the day. So he’s been given a five-year ban from politics. That’s acknowledged, but what are the implications of his enduring popularity on Pakistan’s upcoming elections and, really, democracy in the country? And for that matter, those elections have already been delayed, correct?

 

Sahar Khan:  Yes. I don't think we have an election date yet. They were supposed to take place in November, but I don't see any signs of those happening. I think that's a great question. I think with the military -- Pakistan's military is used to being in power and not only just used to being in power -- it’s a very different kind of military than what we think of, in general. Pakistan’s military is certainly a professional military—elite, it has various forces, various branches, etc.—but it’s also a big player in Pakistan’s economy. I mean, Pakistan’s military makes cheese. It has vocational centers. It has pharmaceutical companies. It has universities, and so it makes it a very unique player in Pakistan’s political fabric.

 

      That said, I think the military very much miscalculated Imran Khan’s popularity. And Nitin, you’re right to point out that 60 percent popularity, despite everything that’s happened, indicates that Pakistan’s public is -- they’re thirsty for a change. Now just looking at Imran Khan, the type of politician he is, he is very different from the type of politicians that Pakistan has had. Pakistan has had dynastic, feudalistic politicians—Benazir Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif. They didn’t make -- they were born with certain privilege. Imran Khan, not that he grew up poor. I mean, he went to Aitchison and Oxford, and he was an international sportsman, but he made his money with sport. And then, not only that, but he created this political party on the basis that he wanted change in Pakistan.

 

      And then he also has Shaukat Khanum Memorial Hospital—a cancer hospital that he’s named after his mother who died of cancer who has a stellar reputation when it comes to treatment and providing free treatment and also as a charity organization. So I think his popularity is something that’s unmatched, and I think it even surpasses Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s popularity was when he formed the PPP in the 1970s. 

 

      So I think the army absolutely miscalculated Imran Khan’s popularity. I don’t think the military thought that people would come out in the street and support somebody who became antimilitary because oftentimes, I think it’s safe to say in Pakistan’s living rooms and drawing rooms you’ll hear people say, “If you want something done, the military will do it.” Oftentimes, a lot of Pakistanis sometimes prefer the military to be in power because certain things get done. The military is known for its efficiency. It’s known for having a certain process in place, whereas a civilian government is sometimes seen as bumbling all over the place.

 

      And all this to say is that Imran Khan, just because of who he is and all the things that he has said against the military and then how reactive the military has been, I think has hurt the military, absolutely. And now that it’s putting its eggs in the same basket as Nawaz Sharif, it’s going to be interesting to see what plays out in elections, whenever they are. 

 

Nitin Nainani:  Michael, did you want to add anything, specifically, on the note of -- the implications for democracy in Pakistan, when you have this dynamic with -- he’s jailed, yet he also is the most popular political figure in the country?

 

Michael Kugelman:  Right. I mean, I think that to be quite honest, it’s the ever-deepening role that the military has in the Pakistani policy space. I see that as the biggest threat to democracy right now. And I would argue that this is particularly the case at the current moment. Particularly when it comes to the economy, the military has really stepped to the fronts and essentially, not taken over economic policy-making, but is playing more of a role in that space than it has ever before.

 

      But, yeah, Khan has really, I think -- say what you will about Khan, but as I think Khan had -- as I believe Sahar had noted before, he’s not nearly as corrupt as these dynastic political figures. He did great work as a philanthropist, and that’s endeared him to so many Pakistanis, particularly among the young. And Pakistan, demographically, is a very, very young country. He also has been very adept at channeling grievances of significant constituencies—particularly young, conservative middle class—who are disgusted at this dynastic, corrupt political system that they think is a big reason why the country has struggled so much.

 

      And I would also argue that Khan has really mastered victimization narratives that he has been arguing for years that this corrupt political class has it out for him. And we see what’s happened to him. He’s been put in jail. That just strengthens that narrative even more, and I think that’s one reason why he’s been able to maintain the type of popularity figures that you mentioned. But yeah, it’s not good for democracy, for sure. But I would argue that the role the military is playing now is really what worries me the most when it comes to these issues of democracy.

 

Nitin Nainani:  And on the note of institutional independence—as we’ve been touching on—with respect to the military, the supreme court for Pakistan recently ruled that civilians -- that trying civilians—excuse me—in military courts is unlawful. Sahar, do you mind talking about the context behind that decision, and what does this say about -- we talked about the military’s role in, I guess, electoral politics, but what does it say about the judiciary’s independence, relative to the military?

 

Sahar Khan:  I mean, I took this decision as a relatively good thing. The military has its own judicial system, and technically, if you are a military officer, then you can be tried under the military system. Military courts are not for civilians. No civilian, regardless of what charge or what criminal charges are put against him, should be tried in any kind of military court. And Pakistan has a history of trying civilians in military courts, especially when it comes to terrorism. In Pakistan, there’s a law called Anti-terrorism Act, or the ATA, and it has special courts called antiterrorism courts, which are the civilian courts. But oftentimes, these ATCs are filled, and for high-level cases, they’ve taken those individuals to military courts and then tried them.

 

      The problem with military courts is that they’re opaque. You can’t just go into a military court and hear the argument. ATCs are not opaque. I mean, technically -- well, it’s a bit complicated in Pakistan. I mean, technically, you can go in and listen to an ATC hearing. It’s complicated to figure out where they are or when the hearings are taking place, but for the most part, they are available to the public. So I think that this is, overall, a good development that Pakistan ruled that its unconstitutional for civilians to be tried in military courts. And Pakistan’s judiciary has, for the most part, been the most independent branch of the government, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon, which, I think, overall, has been a good thing.

 

Nitin Nainani:  I want to zoom out just a little bit, and so we can consider the international actors and the geopolitics as we’ve seen everything unfold. Now, Sahar mentioned earlier that Imran Khan has claimed that he was ousted as part of an American conspiracy, and he’s attributed this to his defiance of U.S. policy goals as he’s charted what he’s considered a more independent foreign policy. Michael, do you mind talking about how Khan had shifted Pakistan’s foreign policy and why he made some of the claims he did? And feel free to also weigh in on whether you think his allegations have any merit to them.

 

Michael Kugelman:  Yeah. It’s very interesting, given the difficult state of relations between Pakistan and India, but I would argue that Khan by wanting to chart out this independent foreign policy -- he wanted to make Pakistan’s foreign policy more like India’s, in the sense of a nonaligned strategically autonomous foreign policy that would entail not getting too close to any one country, reserving the right to act according to Pakistan’s interest, regardless of what that entails for alliances and all. That’s what he wanted to move toward, and I don’t think that he would admit that. But Khan, I think, was very envious about how India handled the situation after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

 

      As you know, India has a close relationship with Russia, was unwilling to take the U.S. position, was unwilling to take a strong stand against Russia, and the U.S. has accepted that grudgingly -- but accepted that. And I think that Khan was envious of the fact that India did that and was able to get away with it. Now, of course, India's relationship with the U.S. is so different from Pakistan's relationship with the U.S. 

 

      Very briefly, in terms of your question about whether his allegations against the U.S. are accurate: no. I don’t think so at all, though I could understand why so many people, including him, in Pakistan would think that they might be true. His view was that this conversation that Don Lu, a senior U.S. official, had with Asad Khan—the Pakistani ambassador at the time—was an indication that the U.S. was plotting his ouster because Khan -- pardon me -- Lu, according to the account in this conversation that was provided by Asad Khan -- the idea was that Donald Lu had said that relations with Pakistan would be better if Khan was no longer in power. Now he was just giving an opinion. I mean, Khan had caused some problems for the U.S. because of some of the things he had said. No reason to think that that was the opening salvo on some type of regime change operation.

 

      But in Pakistan, there is significant levels of suspicion of the U.S. and mistrust of the U.S., in great part because there is a history of covert activities that the U.S. has undertaken in Pakistan. Not regime change but in terms of having large numbers of intelligence operatives in Pakistan, this goes back to the cold war era, but even up to as recently as 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, when you had a lot of U.S. intel folks kicked out of Pakistan during a crisis in the relationship. And also because there’s been this very unfortunate tendency, in my view, for U.S. officials to privilege their relations with military officials in Pakistan over civilian officials. That means there’s a very strong military-to-military relationship over time. And that also means that there’s not much transparency. This is all happening behind the scenes, and that makes Pakistanis even more suspicious about U.S. intentions.

 

      So that’s why I think that it’s very easy for me and other U.S. analysts to say, “Oh, that’s absurd for him to think that the U.S. is doing a regime change just because of something that Donald Lu says.” But if you think about how Pakistanis perceive America, based on its policies in the past, I think one could understand. But I don’t think that Khan actually succeeded in shifting Pakistan’s foreign policy to a more independent one. 

 

      And if you look at the track record -- yes, I mean, he may have had some successes in diversifying or expanding Pakistan’s group of friends. He was able to expand relations with Turkey to a considerable degree. There was some forward movement in Pakistan’s relations with Russia, but I think on the whole it was the same old story. Right? It was relying on the same small number of allies that Pakistan has long had—China and the Gulf states and so on.

 

      And even his anti-West and anti-U.S. rhetoric, you do hear that in Pakistan from other political figures. He certainly brought it up a notch for sure, and that’s one reason why he got into trouble with the military. But I really think that his -- there’s not much success, in terms of his attempt to transform Pakistan’s foreign policy into something different. 

 

Nitin Nainani:  And so, since his ouster -- back over to you, Sahar. Since his ouster, what sort of adjustments or recalibrations have we seen to Pakistan’s foreign policy? And I’m asking this question, particularly relative to the United States, Russia, and China, but I certainly don’t want to leave out the Gulf states or -- and the other countries you have in mind here.

 

Sahar Khan:  Yeah. No. I mean, I think I agree with Michael. I don’t think Pakistan’s foreign policy under Khan became any more independent. Even though Khan tried his best to use words like regional, cooperation, and economic connectivity, and he certainly tried to build better relations with Iran and Turkey—sort of regional players -- but I agree with Michael that it’s not that much more independent.

 

      In terms of Imran Khan, like what -- or what Pakistan’s foreign policy has been playing out, especially since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, I think the United States was certainly irritated with Khan. I mean, he visited Vladimir -- President Vladimir Putin the day that Russia invaded. Now granted these visits are preplanned and take months to plan, and so -- but the optics weren’t good. And of course, Imran Khan then also saying, “Well, we were just -- we didn’t -- of course, we didn’t know this was happening, but I think it’s fine that we went and visited, and Russia’s a partner,” etc., etc. So I think that hasn’t helped Pakistan at all.

 

      But another thing that we don’t really talk about when we talk about U.S.-Pakistan relations is the aspect of migration. The Pakistani diaspora is growing in the United States. Saudi Arabia and the UAE has the majority of Pakistanis who are overseas, but there’s a sizeable diaspora in the United States. And I think Imran -- one of the main things that Imran Khan wanted to do -- he’s very popular within the diaspora. And so what he was hoping to do is getting the Pakistani diaspora the means to vote in a general election. And this was, sort of, one -- I think, his way of wanting to maintain power.

 

      And I think that this is something that we don’t really talk about when we talk about U.S.-Pakistani relations. But to some extent, Imran Khan, with all of his anti-American rhetoric, he shot himself in the foot because when he did become prime minister, I think he realized that this anti-Americanism is not helping him out. It didn’t buy him any favors at all in D.C. And in fact, what he had promised, which was better people-to-people relations, potentially more visas for -- more American visas for Pakistanis, more transparency, more movement -- that didn’t really happen because of some of his policies.

 

      This is just a long-winded way of saying that I think Imran Khan’s anti-Americanism, while he certainly thought it would be for a domestic audience, it ended up hurting his foreign policy more and just creating more tension between a relationship that’s already fraught with mistrust.

 

Nitin Nainani:  Back over to you, Michael. Did you have anything to add as far as -- I know you said that you don’t think that Imran Khan succeeded in making Pakistan’s foreign policy more independent, but have there been recalibrations or any changes after his ouster, whether that’s the army trying to get back in Washington’s good graces or anything of that sort?

 

Michael Kugelman:  Yeah. So I think that Pakistan’s foreign policy since Khan’s ouster has been very tied to economic goals at home. And in that sense, it’s been focused on ensuring that it maintains ties with the countries and other entities that are most in a position to provide it with economic assistance. So indeed there has been a pretty overt redirect -- or not a redirect, but an overt emphasis coming from the military on trying to make relations better with the United States. And I think that the way it’s expressed, in terms of how I’ve heard it from Pakistani military officials, is that we don’t you to think that we’re all in with China. We want to balance our relations with China and the United States, and we welcome greater partnership.

 

      I think that the generals in Pakistan are also very concerned about the growing terrorism threats to Pakistan, emanating from Afghanistan, mainly in the form of the Pakistani Taliban, separate from the Afghan Taliban, which has ramped up attacks in Pakistan a lot in the last few years. And I think that the Pakistani military wants to renew a security partnership, a new counterterrorism partnership with the United States. And there is some degrees of success with that in the past. There’s also a lot of failure. So I think that that’s the angle through which the Pakistani military is looking at relations with the U.S.: A, wanting to ensure that a country that has historically been a key bilateral donor and a country that has influence over key IFIs, like the IMF, has a workable relationship with Pakistan. But there’s also the element of wanting to deepen security relations, which I don’t think the U.S. is ready for.

 

      On the Russia front, it’s interesting. I will give this to Khan—and I think I mentioned this before. He did manage to push the relationship with Russia forward a bit, in the sense that he got things to a point with Moscow where there was very impactful negotiations happening about new forms of energy cooperation. And that’s why Khan went to Moscow, famously, when Putin was invading Ukraine.

 

      But what we’ve seen since Khan left is that the Pakistani military has been providing arms to Ukraine, and no one in Pakistan has stated this officially, but it’s an open secret. It’s happening. So that’s a very interesting turn. China -- with that, I think it’s very consistent, in that China has long been regarded by many different governments and the military in Pakistan as a key ally. And there’s a view that you have to keep that relationship going.

 

      I would argue that relations between Pakistan and China may have suffered a little bit during the Khan era because Khan was willing to openly question the contracts and the other arrangements that undergirded CPEC. He was concerned about -- that it was too opaque, prone to corruption. The Chinese didn’t like that. But I think that he eventually relented and wanted to push it forward. But I do think that Beijing is more comfortable, certainly dealing with the Pakistani military than with Khan and also will be more comfortable dealing with these other parties that have been in power more recently, including the Sharif family’s party, the PML-N.

 

Nitin Nainani:  Sahar, I want to touch on this dynamic between the U.S., Pakistan, and China a little bit more for our last question. And before I ask this, just as a reminder to the audience, this is an opportunity for you to ask questions as well. So please submit any questions you have in the Q&A, and I’ll get to them after we get through this next question. But the United States, Pakistan, and China do have a storied history. Pakistan famously played an influential role in opening up China for the United States in the 1970s, and circumstances are quite different now.

 

      The U.S. and China are engaged in great power competition, and that’s only intensifying. But with respect to the -- both the security establishment in Pakistan and the civilian leaders in Pakistan, while they acknowledge that the security establishment is more decisive than not in Pakistan’s foreign policy, what does the handling of this political crisis suggest about how the military and, on the other hand, civilian leaders see the role for Pakistan, really, in balancing relations between the United States and China? And I’ll start with Sahar for this question, but we’ll also get to Michael.

 

Sahar Khan:  Sure. I think Pakistan has certainly been in a position where it feels that it's caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to balancing U.S. relations with other states. Pakistan certainly has a lot of mistrust with the United States, especially because of the U.S. war in Afghanistan and etc. When it comes to China though, China has been a friend to Pakistan, not simply in terms of opening up relations -- helping to open up relations with the U.S. in the 1970s, but China has given Pakistan aid.

 

      China helped Pakistan's nuclear program, and China has, for the most part, focused on development within Pakistan, especially with the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, while remaining relatively silent on its domestic affairs. You’ll never hear China say anything about human rights abuses or blasphemy laws or Ahmadiyya communities, or anything like that. And so I think for China -- for Pakistan, it views China as a friend. 

 

      And now, especially since the United States has withdrawn from Afghanistan, Pakistan doesn’t want to be considered a pawn for the United States. And so I think it’s trying to not get involved in the U.S.-China relationship. And Pakistan is very aware that it’s not part of the United States Indo-Pacific Strategy, which is designed to counter China. And that’s something that I think Pakistan has noted, mainly because India is involved. And, of course, Pakistan is not a landlocked country. It has access to the Arabian Sea and then to the Indian Ocean. And Pakistan has a sizeable navy. So Pakistan is aware that the United States is not really coming to it either for aid. So I think we see a little bit -- not necessarily the balancing act that we’re used to, but I think Pakistan, to some extent, is okay with this. But it’s hard to tell also what’s really going on behind the scenes.

 

Nitin Nainani:  Michael, did you have anything to add to that question?

 

Michael Kugelman:  All I’d say here is that given that we’re focusing specifically on how the security establishment looks at this U.S.-China competition and its relations with both countries, one thing that Pakistani military officers like to say, particularly in private exchanges, is that they really feel that Pakistan is much more culturally aligned with the U.S.—and with the West, more broadly—than it is with China and that you have many military officers and generals that have had -- that have kids and family going to school, living, working in the West, including in the United States.

 

      And there’s a long legacy of military education and training programs between the U.S. and Pakistan. There’s a specific program called IMET that’s been very successful quite a few years. And it entails Pakistani military officers spending time in U.S. training academies. And for a while, though this doesn’t happen anymore, you had the opposite as well. You had U.S. military officers spending time in Pakistani military academies.

 

      And so I think that you have these very strong officer-to-officer ties between the two countries, even though Pakistani military policies are a big cause of the tensions and the problems in the relationship over the years, particularly the fact that Pakistan’s military has backed groups like the Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba and so on. So that’s very interesting, and I think that’s another reason why the military has historically, including now, wanted to ensure that it maintains open channels, at the very least, with the U.S. and ideally better relations as well. 

 

      Now obviously, the Pakistani military would love to see the U.S. unfreeze its security aid to Pakistan. It’s been frozen since the early period of the Trump administration. That’s not going to happen, but I do think that those officer-to-officer ties and those perceptions among many within the Pakistani military that -- culturally, Pakistan is more aligned with the U.S. and the West than it is with China. I think that’s a pretty powerful motivator to try to convince American interlocutors that they shouldn’t see Pakistan as all in with China. 

 

Nitin Nainani:  So we do have one question from the audience that I’d like to get to. And as a reminder, if you have any questions for either of our panelists, please leave them in the Q&A box. How much of Pakistan’s economic woes are tied to instability, whether that’s the Kashmir issue or, on the other hand, the Taliban? And we’ll start with Sahar for this.

 

Sahar Khan:  Sure. I mean, I think Pakistan’s economic issues are not necessarily tied to Kashmir. Maybe the Taliban or the Pakistani Taliban, specifically, because the Pakistani Taliban has -- attacks have increased and that, of course, adds to security environments in Pakistan. But I don’t think Pakistan’s economic woes honestly have anything to do with Kashmir. I think Pakistan’s economic woes have to with poor policies and lack of land reform and lack of planning and corruption. And that’s what I think.

 

Nitin Nainani:  Michael.

 

Michael Kugelman:  I mean, I do think there’s some indirect ties between the Kashmir issue and Pakistan’s economy, and that’s that Pakistan has for such a long time, including right now, conditioned better relations with India on India changing its Kashmir policies. And the idea here is if you’re able to get better relations with India, then you might be able to open up trade between Pakistan and India. It’s remarkable these are two neighbors. They barely trade at all. Right? I mean, there have been good and bad times, and there have been some border trade, but there’s never been an MFN relationship. They’ve gotten close sometimes, but it’s been pulled back.

 

      And so I think that Pakistan would definitely benefit economically from more trade with India, but it’s not willing to put itself in a position where it could start having serious talks with Pakistan about -- like a comprehensive formal dialogue, just because it’s insisted that India has to change its policies in Kashmir, including -- specifically, now, reversing its decision back in 2019 to revoke the autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir. India’s not going to do that. Let’s be very clear on that. So I do think that Pakistan holds itself back by sort of maintaining this Kashmir issue as a condition for any type of broader engagement with India and the economic benefits that could come from that.

 

Nitin Nainani:  I see that we’re short on time, so I think we’ll now wrap things up. But first, I want to give a sincere thank you to both Michael and Sahar for being here. Thank you for sharing your time with us. We’re really grateful for your insights and perspectives, and this has been really informative. To those who have tuned in today, thank you for joining us. Have a great rest of your afternoon, and we hope to see you at future programming.

 

      Back over to you, Jack.

 

Jack Capizzi:  Thank you very much, Nitin. I just wanted to echo your comments and thank Sahar and Michael both for being here today and to our audience for being with us. If you do have any feedback, we do offer comments at any time at [email protected]. Apart from that, please keep your eye on our website and your email for notifications about other programs that are coming in the next couple of weeks. And with that, thank you all very much for joining us today. We are adjourned.