President Trump’s unprecedented meeting with Pakistan’s Army Chief reveals America’s preference for military over civilian leadership in Islamabad and risks straining US-India ties during rising regional tensions.
In international diplomacy, protocol is never accidental, it is intentional. It conveys power, performance, and pecking order. So, it was no trivial matter when President Donald Trump, never one for subtlety or statecraft, chose to break bread not with Pakistan’s elected prime minister or the ceremonial president, but with its Army Chief, General Asim Munir, now elevated to the rank of Field Marshal.
It was a well-calculated breach of protocol that reveals a far deeper reality about Pakistan’s “hybrid regime.” With a single lunch at the White House, Trump, a politician with an allergic disdain for complexity, has conferred legitimacy upon Pakistan’s Army and its chief.
Does the Military Control Pakistan Now?
Since its creation, Pakistan has been plagued by a contradiction: a republic founded by civilian visionaries has been governed by and for ambitious military leaders. The military’s first formal seizure of power in 1958 under General Ayub Khan was just the beginning. The experience of the subsequent decades confirmed that Pakistan’s Army was not a mere institution of the state, it was the state.
Civilian governments have reigned but never ruled. Prime ministers who tried asserting their constitutional authority were surgically removed from the political scene, one by execution, others by exile or courtroom attrition, or shady maneuverings. Those civilian leaders, who complied, were initially embraced, only until their tactical utility expired.
It is no coincidence, then, that Washington has long preferred to deal directly with Pakistan’s generals. Whether negotiating supply routes to Afghanistan, de-escalating nuclear tensions, or seeking cooperation on counterterrorism, the White House has often found Rawalpindi more willing than Islamabad to comply with American requests. American presidents’ meetings with Pakistan’s Army Chiefs, Zia ul Haq and Pervez Musharraf, have coincided with strategic inflection points like the Russian invasion of Afghanistan and the War on Terror.
Trump’s lunch with Munir fits squarely within this historical lineage. However, it is not the encounter per se, but the context that is far more ominous.
What Happened Before Trump’s Lunch with Field Marshal Munir?
On April 22, Pakistan-based terrorists killed 26 tourists in Indian Kashmir. The Indian response was swift and emblematic of its strategic posture in recent years. The message Delhi has sought to send Islamabad is that terror attacks will be viewed as an act of war and that India believes it has sufficient space for conventional strikes under a nuclear umbrella. India is increasingly reluctant to allow Pakistan to use sub-conventional warfare backed by nuclear threats.
Pakistan’s counter-response, Operation Bunyan-un-Marsoos, followed swiftly, striking Indian military installations.
However, the standoff with India allowed General Munir to claim that he was the real defender of Pakistan’s sovereignty. His promotion to the ceremonial yet potent title of Field Marshal soon followed, a quasi-monarchical gesture, cementing his status as the powerful custodian of the Pakistani state.
The four-day conflict ended with a ceasefire, which Trump announced with theatrical flair. Though India publicly downplayed the United States’ role, Pakistan had every reason to applaud Trump.
While many in India may have been surprised by President Trump’s public posts and references to Kashmir, it is not new. In July 2019, President Trump met with then-Prime Minister Imran Khan and offered to mediate on the Kashmir dispute.
Coming within weeks of an India-Pakistan skirmish, Field Marshal Munir’s US trip is not the under-the-radar visit of a military general but rather a victory lap. The last time an American President met with a Pakistani general was during the war against terrorism when President George W Bush met with Pakistani dictator, President and General Musharraf. The lunch with the US President is a historical moment for Munir, setting him apart from several of his predecessors.
Historically, American military and economic largesse have enabled the army’s impunity and oversized role in domestic governance. This recent American action will marginalize and undermine the civilian leadership inside Pakistan and hurt the deepening strategic alignment with India.
It is ironic that, during his first term, President Trump questioned Pakistan’s reliability as a counterterrorism partner and castigated the US policy of giving billions of dollars to the country. In the seven years since Trump made the statement on social media, Pakistan’s economy totters on the edge, its internal security has worsened, and its society is more fragile. The military’s hold on the country, however, has become even stronger.
While President Trump’s public post claiming credit for the ceasefire won him praise in Pakistan, they have hurt him in India. Further, his constant reference to his role in ending the India-Pakistan skirmishes and offers to mediate are grating to an India that has come to regard itself as a significant American partner.
Pakistan Is OK with Trump’s Transactional Foreign Policy
Pakistani leaders may complain publicly that the United States seeks a transactional, not strategic, partnership with them. However, they have been incredibly well-versed in transactionalism over the decades. Understanding that this administration prefers a transactional and tactical approach, Pakistan has positioned itself as a country that can make offers in various arenas, from geopolitics to geoeconomics. This Pakistani approach appears to be attuned to the prevailing mood in Washington.
The continuing military tensions between Tehran and Tel Aviv, the recent American strikes on Iran, and Pakistan’s unique geographic and ethnic proximity to Iran all point toward a potential auxiliary role in the unfolding tableau of regional realignment. Here again, the Pakistani military, adept at straddling duplicity and deniability, finds itself courted for its capacity to operate in its shadow. In his public remarks after the lunch with the Pakistani army chief, President Trump intimated that the two sides had discussed Iran.
Similarly, on the economic front, Islamabad has proposed a zero-tariff trade agreement, pledged to increase oil exports, and strategically entered into a cryptocurrency agreement with a firm that has ties to the Trump ecosystem.
How Has India Reacted to Trump and Munir’s Lunch?
For India, any US action that re-hyphenates India and Pakistan, a Cold War-era lens that viewed the two nations as strategic equals, is an affront to India’s vision of its rising regional and global role. India’s alignment with the United States in the Indo-Pacific, whose primary purpose is to counter Chinese assertiveness, has also been predicated on breaking that equivalence. By entertaining the fiction of equivalence, Trump’s transactional diplomacy reopens a dangerous symmetry in South Asia.
For the last three and a half decades, India has been playing the strategic long game, building a close partnership with the United States through successive presidential administrations. In the last decade, India and the United States have also grown closer due to the need to counterbalance the rise of China’s military and economic power.
For the United States, the rise of China is a threat to its hegemony, while for India, China’s rise has meant strategic encirclement within its geographical sphere of influence.
An emboldened Pakistan Army, validated by Washington, shielded by Beijing, and buoyed by economic overtures, is more likely to act aggressively against India. Misjudged signals from Washington can invite catastrophic miscalculations in Rawalpindi. This has often happened in the past when the Pakistani military has felt confident in its relationship with the United States and thus sought to indulge in adventurism across the border in India.
However, justified concern aside, India must resist the temptation to return to its failsafe, knee-jerk nonalignment or hedging, as this will not serve its long-term interests.
Instead, a long-term pragmatic approach would be for India to focus on building its economy, modernizing its military, maintaining a cohesive polity and society, and strengthening its relationships with the United States and other partners in both the Global North and South. The next three decades are critical for India’s future trajectory, and there needs to be a focus on that, rather than any provocations by China or Pakistan that might divert India’s attention.
About the Authors: Aparna Pande and Vinay Kaura
Aparna Pande is Director of the Initiative on the Future of India and South Asia at the Hudson Institute. Dr. Pande wrote her PhD dissertation on Pakistan’s foreign policy. Her major field of interest is South Asia with a special focus on India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, foreign policy, and security. Aparna has contributed to The American Interest, Hindustan Times, The Times of India, Mint, Huffington Post, The Sunday Guardian, ThePrint, and RealClearWorld. A 1993 graduate of Delhi University, Dr. Pande holds a master of arts in history from St. Stephens College at Delhi University and a master of Philosophy in international relations from Jawaharlal Nehru University. Dr. Pande received a doctorate in political science from Boston University in 2010.
Vinay Kaura is an assistant professor in the Department of International Affairs and Security Studies at Sardar Patel University of Police, Security & Criminal Justice, Rajasthan, India. He is also an adjunct faculty on the Program on Terrorism and Security Studies at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Germany and a Non-Resident Scholar for Afghanistan and Pakistan Studies at the Middle East Institute, Washington, DC.
Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons/The White House.
