Military Inc.: Inside Pakistan's Military Economy

click here for more details, find new or used items	Ayesha Siddiqa Our price £19.99 New from £10.72 Used from £16.02 Pages: 304 (Paperback) ISBN: 0745325459 Pub: Pluto Press Pub date: 2007-04-01 Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 189640

Reader Reviews:

Well researched but not well presented (3/4 people found this helpful)

This book receives full marks for the research behind it which I am sure would not have been very easy for reasons the author highlights in the book. The book is a must read for anyone interested in Pakistan and its politics. The data and facts presented here are interesting, informative and well balanced.

The area where the book loses out is the style of writing. The book takes an academic rather than a non-fictional approach and therefore like all academic works it tends to become a bit tedious at times. The author's style of writing is good but not in the same league as her contemporary Pakistani non-fiction writers, Ahmed Rashid and Tariq Ali who are absolutely brilliant.

There were two areas I noticed where the book fell down. On page 147, the book draws an analogy between the Pakistan Army's exploitation of land with that of the Europeans in the Congo in 1890. This was most unfortunate because what was taking place in the Congo in 1890 was genocide, a genocide which in its final toll claimed more lives than the Judeocide of world war II. To gain a better understanding of this, I would refer the author to the 1998 Duff Cooper prize winner King Leopold's Ghost. In any case I thought that this was extremely unfair on the Pakistan Army as even the author in her book accuses them of only financial opportunism and not mass murder.

The other point where the book fell was in the closing paragraphs where the author accuses the militaries of Pakistan, Indonesia and Turkey of strengthening the religious right to assert their control over society. This maybe true of Pakistan and Indonesia but anyone who has followed the press regarding Turkey in the summer of 2007 would notice that the Turkish Military is probably the most hostile to religon in the free world. A hostility that would have given the armies of the old communist bloc a run for their money on any day of the week.

Insightful (6/7 people found this helpful)

This is a scholarly work. Well researched, well structured and well edited. It is not, however, an easy read - although it repays the effort of pressing-on with many useful insights. For instance, I now better understand the cantonments and defence housing areas that I have seen in Pakistan.

Despite its catchy title the essence of the work is about "Milbus" which is a particular kind of military capital used for the personal benefit of the military fraternity - as well as an ugly term that reaches into the titles of 6 of the 10 chapters.

The definitions of the 6 types of civil-military typologies are useful. The book is then effectively a case-study for the parent-guardian military type. This is equally applicable to Turkey and Indonesia from which other examples are (briefly) drawn.

There is an underlying impression that the situation is considered wrong but any conclusions are ambiguous. Rightly so. As we know from personal experience, security is a function of one's neighbours and Pakistan is not best placed. A strong military might be appropriate for the time. Even if it was judged time to end it then it is clear that an alternative cannot be wished-in at once. Again, experience would suggest that even if the desired end-game was known it would take 30 - 40 years to achieve (pace Cold War and Northern Ireland).

If Milbus is viewed as a form of public ownership it is not surprising that it is concluded that some of the military-commercial activities are inefficient and in some cases dubious (let us not mention democratic Enron or Parmalat).

The book is strong in the period 1947 to the present, especially the last 8 years. I did feel it could have been better set in the context of the British past. Many of the behaviours described are local versions of a continuation of Empire rule. It is amusing (for want of a better word) that the 4 main military commercial ventures were established under the Charitable Endowments Act 1890 and the Societies Registration Act of 1860.

What is drawn out (only) in the final paragraph is an assertion that the parent-guardian military types systematically use religion to further their control over society, thereby strengthening the religious right. It is suggested as an area for further research. I'd like to read the results of that one, especially if contrasted with the military-industrial complex of the democratic US. Maybe the same author could oblige?

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