The quiet coup of Field Marshal Munir, and he takes over the Pakistani PMO

By Shyam Bhatia

LONDON. The clearest sign of Pakistan’s new power structure came not with a parade, a proclamation, or even Gen Asim Munir’s own elevation, but with a single appointment. In May, a serving three-star general, one of Munir’s protégés, was named Pakistan’s new National Security Adviser (NSA).

By design, the NSA is a civilian role, a strategic overseer meant to coordinate intelligence and defence policy above the army and other military chiefs, on behalf of the Prime Minister, to whom he offers objective counsel on everything, particularly strategic.

Gen Asim Munir turned that hierarchy upside down.

With the stroke of a pen, he took over the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) by simply placing his junior, the three-star Lt General heading the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) as the NSA.

It’s not the army chief who reports to the NSA now, but the NSA who is responsible to the army chief and accordingly, reports to him. The first-ever such example in the world perhaps.

In other words, the army chief has seized control of the very position meant to supervise him. It is a coup within a coup – an institutional inversion executed without a shot fired.

Within the Pakistani PMO, it’s not Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif whose word carries weight now, but that of ISI DG Lt Gen Asim Malik. If he presents a note to the Prime Minister, his advice would be binding. Why else would he hold the additional, and now primary, title of NSA?

Lt Gen Malik presents his first note to PM

One of the first tasks of Lt Gen Malik was to present a note to the Prime Minister to sign and elevate army chief Gen Asim Munir to the five-star rank of Field Marshal.

Analysts everywhere, in think tanks particularly, were taken aback! How great a coup could be conducted so simply, quietly and efficiently, from the precincts of the ceremonial gloss of the Pakistan army’s General Headquarters (GHQ)?

No national broadcast. No grand parade. Just a 10-minute formality, quietly signed by Sharif; and there is the formalisation of a new order. And maybe, a formal thank you and salute at least from the new Field Marshal to the Prime Minister.

Asim Munir is the second Field Marshal in Pakistan

Only one man before him has held the title: General Ayub Khan, who directly declared himself Field Marshal in 1959, a year after launching Pakistan’s first successful military coup.

Ayub ruled openly, as both President and army chief, cloaking authoritarianism in the garb of modernisation. Munir’s path has been far more opaque – and perhaps potentially more durable.

Where Ayub used tanks, Munir has used procedures. Where Ayub imposed martial law, Munir has made military dominance appear not as an aberration, but as the norm. In a state where the boundaries between civilian and military governance have always been blurred, Asim Munir has erased them entirely.

Operation Sindoor and Pakistan’s ‘request’ for ceasefire

Despite recent military embarrassment during Operation Sindoor – an electronic warfare (EW) clash in which Indian Air Force dismantled Pakistani air defence positions including its most important and deep, fortified, multi layered underground key command, control and communication centre at Nur Khan airbase close to the Army HQ – the civilian government hailed Munir’s “extraordinary leadership”. Critics called it what it was: not praise, but obedience.

All said and done, there is no denial that the Pakistani armed forces are good, but this is also a fact that they have lost to the Indian forces every time they launched their misadventures.

Even this time, during India’s Operation Sindoor, launched on May 7 to hit back on Pakistani ISI’s April 22 Pahalgam attack, it was the Pakistani Director General Military Operations (DGMO), Maj Gen Kashif Abdullah, who called his Indian counterpart, Lt Gen Rajiv Ghai, to request the ceasefire. India in any case had informed him that it was not interested in going forward after destroying the ISI terrorists’ sites on May 7.

There has been a hotline between the two DGMOs for long, since 1971 after the Bangladesh Liberation War, to seek clarifications and clear doubts if something seems to go wrong.

Notably, Pakistan Prime Minister Sharif has openly admitted, in public and on record, that the Indian missile attacks, including that of BrahMos, had cripped the Pakistani commands, and there was no choice for the Pakistani forces but to seek the ceasefire.

He said, on the May 9-10 night “we decided to attack India, led very ably by our Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir to teach a lesson to our enemy, but before that hour reached India again launched missile attacks, BrahMoss, on many places in Pakistan, including the airport in Rawalpindi”. And that Gen Munir had informed him of the destruction at 2:30 am on May 9-10.

How do you solve the problem of military?

“The military has ruled the country directly for the better part of its history and indirectly for the rest,” notes historian Ayesha Jalal. “As a result, Pakistan has not enjoyed uninterrupted political processes for extended periods of time, allowing voters to throw out unpopular and non-performing governments and elect one of their choice.”

Though Jalal wasn’t speaking specifically about Munir, her words now feel prophetic. Munir’s quiet consolidation of control is not just domination, it is redesign.

Since becoming army chief in late 2022, Munir has methodically dismantled institutional counterweights. He oversaw the arrest of former Prime Minister Imran Khan, the dismemberment of his party, and national elections widely described as rigged. Ballot boxes were tampered with, internet blackouts enforced, and dissenting journalists silenced – all under the guise of “order”.

“Ayub ruled with overt arrogance,” said a former senior bureaucrat. “Munir rules through institutional suffocation.”

Nowhere is this more evident than in the judiciary. In March, Pakistan’s Supreme Court upheld the legality of trying civilians in military courts – overturning decades of democratic precedent. The move hands Munir’s army the power to bypass civilian oversight entirely, reducing the rule of law to a theatre of uniformed control.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif – notionally the country’s elected leader – approved Munir’s elevation to Field Marshal without parliamentary debate or public scrutiny. But no one doubts where real power resides.

“The civilian leadership has become a fig leaf,” says journalist Hamid Mir. “They sign what the generals write.”

Behind closed doors, power has been centralised with ruthless precision. Media houses that deviate from the army’s narrative face blackouts. Civil society organisations are harassed or monitored. Even foreign diplomats increasingly engage with military liaisons rather than the Foreign Office.

Ayub used state-controlled media to craft a cult of personality. Munir has refined the toolkit. After the India skirmish, ISPR – the army’s media wing – rolled out slick documentaries glorifying the military’s “surgical response”, even as analysts pointed to tactical losses. Hashtags praising Munir’s “vision” and “decisiveness” trended for days, many boosted by coordinated bot farms.

Cyber units now operate with the status and resourcing of frontline brigades. Information warfare is no longer a support function – it is the main event.

In a surreal flourish, the government declared May 10 a national day of “resolve”, celebrating Pakistan’s unity under military leadership. Schools and universities instructed students to write essays on “Why General Munir is a National Hero”.

And it appears to be working. A Gallup Pakistan poll in May reported that 93 percent of respondents viewed the army favourably – its highest rating since the Kargil fallout in 2001. But seasoned analysts caution against reading too much into such numbers.

As noted by observers, Ayub Khan was once celebrated for his modernisation efforts, such as building canals and introducing television, but his suppression of student protests led to a rapid decline in his popularity.

Indeed, Ayub was forced to resign in 1969 amid nationwide protests. His departure triggered political fragmentation – and within two years, the country split, with East Pakistan becoming Bangladesh.

As of now, Munir holds no political office. He has issued no emergency decrees. He claims no throne. And yet he commands everything.

His control of the NSA – the strategic brain of the state – may prove the most consequential move of all. The post that once offered the government an independent check on military power is now staffed by a general who salutes the army chief.