annashay 
• CDF to undertake multi-domain integration, restructuring, and jointness creation
• Service strategic commands to be unified under National Strategic Command
THE wiring diagram of national security establishment has been rewritten through the most sweeping overhaul of the country’s Higher Defence Organisation (HDO) since 1976.
The proponents of the restructuring, introduced through Amendment in Article 243 of the Constitution and the subsequent changes in the legislations governing Army, Air Force and Navy, call it modernisation, while its critics warn about centralization.
At the centre of this redesign sits a single office, which is that of the Chief of the Army Staff, who would soon also be the Chief of the Defence Forces. The dual title has conferred new powers to this office with regards to multi-domain integration, restructuring, and creating jointness of the armed forces. The open-ended wording of the legislative amendment raises question as to who would shape the CDF’s role, from joint force integration to structural reforms, which apparently wouldn’t require parliamentary approval.
The legislation also abolishes the Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, the tri-service post designed to maintain institutional balance and coordination within the armed forces in view of the lessons learnt from 1971 War when Navy came to know about the war through news on radio and navy’s ship Khyber was lost after being hit by Indian missile, a retired four-star general recalled while discussing HDO restructuring with Dawn. The dissolution of the chairman’s office, effective November 27, would formally end nearly five decades of joint-service representation in armed forces decision-making at least during war time.
The new command architecture has been projected by the government and the military as a functional necessity. Modern wars move at digital speed. Cyber, space, drones, and information operations don’t respect the boundaries of traditional services. But Pakistan has lived for decades with an HDO that was regularly described by experts as “anachronistic” and “structurally hollow.” In that sense, reform was overdue.
But how reform is done matters as much as why.
Rather than dispersing authority across a joint command or empowering a neutral coordinating chief much like what the United States did through Goldwater-Nichols Act or India with its Chief of Defence Staff, the restructuring has concentrated the logic of ‘jointness’ in the office of the army chief.
“Jointness is not being created between the services, its being created above them,” a retired army general who extensively studied HDO said.
Former PAF Chief Air Chief Marshal Abbas Khattak, while talking to Dawn said, “Historical experience bears testimony to the efficacy of the independent status of the land, sea and air forces, which was achieved after much debate and analysis within the advanced western armed forces decades back.”
“Are we then rejecting the globally accepted and practiced approach and regressing to the previous configuration without what should have resulted from a meaningful debate amongst our senior veterans and serving officers,” he added.
The new system virtually makes almost every top armed forces’ appointment contingent on the recommendation of the CDF-cum-COAS. It has been legislated that the newly created position of CNSC, an office overseeing nuclear forces, would be appointed, reappointed, and his service may be extended solely on the CDF’s recommendation and the process would be shielded from judicial review.
This does not mean hierarchy behind the nuclear controls has drastically changed. The National Command Authority remains civilian-led and structurally intact, but it does tilt the institutional balance inside the military in favor of the Army even though the delivery systems are spread across the three services. The existing service strategic commands will be unified under new National Strategic Command.
“With new appointments of CDF and possibly Commander National Strategic Command becoming part of the NCA, both of whom would be from the Army, and CDF being senior to the other two services chiefs, it is not yet clear how the delicate balance between the three services, and between military and civilian components of the NCA would be maintained,” worried Dr Adil Sultan, dean of Faculty of Aerospace and Strategic Studies at Air University. Dr Adil is former PAF officer and has also served in the Strategic Plans Division.
Section 8E(2) has drawn immediate attention for its sweeping exclusion of judicial review. It states that “the appointment, reappointment or extension of the CNSC… shall not be called into question before any court on any ground whatsoever.” This unprecedented ouster clause looks to shield CNSC appointments and extensions from any legal challenge.
Legal experts warn that such language contradicts with Articles 4, 9, and 199 of the Constitution, which guarantee equality before law and judicial recourse.
Military law expert Col (retd) Inam-ur-Rahim noted: “It has been held by the apex court in a number of cases that any action of the military authorities, if taken without jurisdiction, coram non judice or in bad faith, can be challenged in the high courts as well as in the Supreme Court.”
Although the amended legislations do not link the appointments and extension in services of Air Force and Navy chiefs to the recommendation of CDF, but observers say that the way the system has been designed, it looks that all four-star appointments would be done in consultation with CDF, whereas three star and below promotions and transfers would continue to be done by the respective services chiefs.
Pakistan Army Act
A subtle but significant change in Section 176C of Pakistan Army Act gives the CDF-cum-COAS decisive control over how his own powers are delegated. The amendment allows the federal government to authorize vice or deputy chiefs of army staff to exercise COAS functions, but that has been linked to the recommendation of the CDF-cum-COAS himself. Earlier it was the executive’s prerogative to make such appointments, though they were rarely made by political government. Military rulers, Zia and Musharraf, appointed VCOAS to run the army, while they ruled the country.
A military source, speaking on the background, however, said the current chief does not intend to appoint a vice chief of army staff, for now.
Moreover, an amendment in Section 176A of Pakistan Army Act preserves constitutional primacy for the person with the rank of Field Marshal. It specifies that where inconsistencies arise, Article 243 of the Constitution, which governs command of the armed forces, will prevail.
Military law expert Omar Farooq Adam, while explaining the amendment said: “If there is any inconsistency between the provisions of Section 176A of the Army Act as to the service of Field Marshal then Article 243 of the constitution will be relied on mainly with regards to terms and conditions of service.”
Section 176A of the Pakistan Army Act empowers the federal government to make regulations for the governance, command, discipline, recruitment, terms of service, rank, precedence, and administration of the Pakistan Army, as well as for any other purposes of the Act beyond those covered by rules under Section 176.
The government defends the reforms as “clarity, not concentration”. They argue the position of Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee had long become ceremonial, that duplication needed to be eliminated, that global best practices demanded a single strategic integrator. And in fairness, much of that is true. CJCSC had neither the influence nor the required operational command. The services often behaved more like parallel bureaucracies than components of a joint war-fighting machine.
But modernisation means reducing the power of individual service chiefs and strengthening joint institutions that dilute single-service dominance. This model does the opposite by pulling more levers upward into a single office and lengthens its tenure to at least 2030 and potentially beyond to 2035. Therefore, instead of producing a system that could streamline decision-making the restructuring is risking becoming overly dependent on the personality, preferences, and politics of whoever occupies that seat.
The role of Navy and Air Force in decision making looks diminished precisely at the moment when their roles should be expanding due to maritime competition and emerging airspace threats.
ACM Khattak argues that “modern air forces cannot work well when treated as an ancillary and under some other entity or command”. He further said: “The question before us is not about institutional pride, but whether Pakistan chooses to align with globally proven models or revert to older arrangements that other nations ultimately abandoned after hard experience.”
This is not an argument against jointness. The country’s armed forces need jointness desperately. It needs integrated command structures, a strong civilian led defence ministry, and clear oversight mechanisms that bring coherence to national security planning. It needs what all modern militaries need, which is institutions stronger than individuals.
“I share the general opinion that institutions and traditions are stronger than individuals and must take precedence,” former army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani had said at the time of his retirement.
Header image: Chief of Army Staff Field Marshal Asim Munir holds a microphone during his visit at the Tilla Field Firing Ranges to witness the Exercise Hammer Strike, a high-intensity field training exercise conducted by the Pakistan Army’s Mangla Strike Corps, in Mangla on May 1, 2025. — Reuters
Published in Dawn, November 15th, 2025
