Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir’s recent speech in Florida, seems to have raised many eyebrows in India. In his speech given at a dinner hosted for over a hundred members of the Pakistani diaspora, a confident general spoke about using tens of missiles to destroy any dam if India constructed one to stop the existing flow of water. As ThePrint exclusive story revealed, he also claimed that if there was a threat of Pakistan going down (and he surely meant militarily), it would take half the world with it.
Hiding behind the fact that no one was allowed to take their phones inside the dining hall, Pakistan’s Foreign Office later denied that any such comments were made by the army chief. The intent was to save Munir from any embarrassment without realising that he has a habit of belligerence. It was not just India but also Afghanistan that he lambasted in his speech. Many of the comments were made by him even during his earlier visit to Washington.
The speech used a language and context unlike anything before, even from Pakistani generals who have fought more serious wars with India. What was Asim Munir up to?
Obviously, it drew a sharp reaction from New Delhi, particularly the Ministry of External Affairs, complaining that a nuclear threat had been made to India from the soil of a friendly State. However, in Munir’s mind, the US is no longer friendly to India—and perhaps it’s kosher to make nuclear threats, especially when following the footsteps of US President Donald Trump.
As long as it is framed as an existential threat to a country’s national security, any language and any threat now seems fair game as per the new norm being set by the White House. While certain circles in Pakistan quietly debate where this newfound camaraderie with Washington will lead, the army chief seems confident that New Delhi’s diplomacy has failed and the shine of the old US-India relationship won’t return—at least for a while, or as long as Trump is around. At home, Munir will claim to have returned from the US with another victory of convincing the State Department to put the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) and the Majeed Brigade in the list of foreign terrorist organsations whom, as reported by many present at the dinner in Florida, he linked with India.
Wooing Imran Khan’s supporters
Foolhardy as it is to bet so much on a relationship with a fickle-minded US president, Munir’s audience was not American. It was the Pakistani diaspora—whom he sees as part of the problem—whom he sought to impress with a language exuding power and confidence, signalling that under him the country was regaining its lost strength. Not too long ago, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) supporters in the US—many from this very diaspora—had allegedly paid for a full-page advertisement in The New York Times to highlight jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s plight. Thus, it was a speech of a politician also wearing a military general’s hat.
Munir’s problem is that he is de facto running the Pakistani State without being constitutionally or legally empowered to do so. The Imran Khan problem is directly his to deal with, not Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s—who is a direct beneficiary of rigged elections but not the architect of the policy regarding the peculiar power arrangement in the country.
Close to completing his three years in power, Munir is still unable to dissuade the general public from supporting Imran Khan. The post-Pahalgam Indian Operation Sindhoor came as a blessing for him: he could claim to have “won a war” and get promoted to a field marshal’s post. But the narrative hasn’t held. The war was used to boost the military’s image, especially in the province that matters to the armed forces, Punjab. It was also an excuse to clamp down further on media and free speech – but it provided a temporary relief.
The fact is that Munir calling all the shots exposes the military even more to the public eye—especially the citizens frustrated by an economy that the general promised to build into a trillion-dollar one but has failed to deliver. Surely, Pakistan’s macroeconomic indicators have improved, but it is the microeconomic reality that pinches the man on the street. Munir is part of the problem for this fragile economy. People continue to see how the politicians, corrupt and irresponsible as they may be, are not the real masters. So, the only magic trick that the army chief knows is to sell an imagined victory from a four-day “near war”.
Also read: Munir’s threat to ‘take half the world down’ highlights Pakistan’s ‘true colour’, say govt sources
Deterrence vis-à-vis India
It is also worth pointing out that India’s power did not impress Pakistan, and both sides made some gains and incurred some losses. Any claim of victory is fanciful—but for Munir, it is a political compulsion to impress his domestic audience to turn the political tide.
Asim Munir and his military have some serious strategic concerns as well. One of them is regarding India’s threat to stop water. A former Pakistani foreign minister I met in London a couple of months ago, made a similar claim about using missiles if India tried to dam the water. Munir’s mention of that threat suggested that he wasn’t just showing off. This is the Pakistan military’s version of deterrence vis-à-vis India. If a threat is meant to stop a certain course of action, then this is what Rawalpindi is trying to achieve. After all, it is a matter of food security for 250 million people. But given that India is nowhere close to building a dam—constructing a dam that blocks all flow of water is hardly doable—can Pakistan not resolve the issue diplomatically instead of wielding such threats?
After all, Islamabad could seek China’s help with this particular Indian problem. Not to forget that neither India nor Pakistan has fully used internationally available diplomatic and legal channels to secure itself. The only possible explanation is Asim Munir’s tendency to demonstrate his military prowess to the world and to show the domestic audience that he is turning Pakistan into a military power that must be taken seriously.
In fact, Munir is in a hurry to use this moment of rather opaque and clouded US-India relations to establish Pakistan as a significant regional force that cannot just be ignored due to its dire political or economic conditions. His Florida speech—and the message that a team from Islamabad carried to Indian counterparts at a recent track-II meeting in London—was clear: an eye for an eye.
Ayesha Siddiqa is a senior fellow at the Department of War Studies at King’s College, London. She tweets @iamthedrifter. Views are personal.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)
The “water-bomb” from a destroyed upstream dam will wreak havoc downstream in Pakistan. His claim is quixotic, and dangerous to his own people. Hello?