Overview

"""This bold book explains why it will be so difficult to persuade the Pakistani military to renounce political power and return to the barracks. It is a must read for anyone who cares about Pakistan or its future."" Lee H. Hamilton, President and Director, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars ""Siddiqa demonstrates [how] economic impunity and political impunity are closely related."" Nicole Ball, Senior Fellow, Center for International Policy, Washington DC ""No one else has so comprehensively [explained] the army’s involvement in Pakistan’s economy, nor linked it so clearly with the army’s growing and seemingly permanent role in Pakistan’s politics."" Stephen P. Cohen, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy Studies, Brookings ""Complex, riveting, absorbing, Siddiqa has written a vitally important book which enhances our understanding of the army on the front line in the war on terror."" Ahmed Rashid, Far Eastern Economic Review ""An incisive look at the largely hidden economic empire run by and for the benefit of Pakistan's military. This courageous book will not please Pakistan's generals. But no Pakistani, civilian or military, can afford to ignore its sobering analysis."" Robert M. Hathaway, Director, Asia Program, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Pakistan is a strategic ally of the US in the ""war on terror"". It is the third largest receiver of US aid in the world. Yet Pakistan is a state run by its army. Siddiqa shows how the power of the military has transformed Pakistani society, where the armed forces have become an independent class. The military is entrenched in the corporate sector. So Pakistan's companies and its main assets are in the hands of a tiny minority of senior army officials. Siddiqa examines this military economy and the consequences of merging the military and corporate sectors. Does democracy have a future? Will the generals ever withdraw to the barracks? Military Inc. analyses the internal and external dynamics of this gradual power-building and the impact that it is having on Pakistan's political and economic development."

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9780745325453

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Ayesha Siddiqa's book covers a major gap in the literature on contemporary Pakistan. For many years journalists and other analysts, on the basis of anacdotal evidence, have remarked that Pakistan's military has a major interest in the economy. Military Inc. is the first serious attempt to provide some facts and figures to substantiate that claim. -- Owen Bennett Jones, Asian Affairs, March 2008 This bold book explains why it will be so difficult to persuade the Pakistani military to renounce political power and return to the barracks. It is a must read for anyone who cares about Pakistan or its future. -- Lee H. Hamilton, President and Director, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars In examining the nature and consequences of the Pakistani military's involvement in the economy, Dr. Siddiqa shows in great detail how the economic benefits that military officers can obtain when in or close to the seat of power stimulate them to solidify their political position in order to retain and expand those economic benefits. -- Nicole Ball, Senior Fellow, Center for International Policy, Washington DC This book for the first time links two literatures: the comparative study of the role of the military in the politics and economics of states around the world, and the study of the role of the Pakistan army. ... As Dr. Siddiqa points out, this relationship raises profound questions about Pakistan's future. ... A must-read. -- Stephen P. Cohen, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy Studies, Brookings, and author of The Pakistan Army and The Idea of Pakistan A vital piece of the complex puzzle as to why the Pakistan army have become so powerful. Complex, riveting, absorbing, Siddiqa has written a vitally important book which enhances our understanding of the army on the front line in the war on terror. ... Siddiqa provides us with the first understanding of the workings of one the most secretive armies in the world -- Ahmed Rashid, Far Eastern Economic Review An incisive look at the largely hidden economic empire run by and for the benefit of Pakistan's military. This courageous book will not please Pakistan's generals. But no Pakistani, civilian or military, can afford to ignore its sobering analysis. -- Robert M. Hathaway, Director, Asia Program, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Author Information

Ayesha Siddiqa is a research associate at the SOAS South Asia Institute. She is the author of Military Inc. (Pluto, 2016).

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