The Pakistan Precedent

Pakistan’s 27th Constitutional Amendment represents a watershed moment in the country’s civil–military balance, codifying a structure of power that places Field Marshal Asim Munir at the apex of Pakistan’s political, judicial, and strategic architecture. Signed by President Asif Ali Zardari (November 13, 2025) after being rushed through both houses of Parliament with unprecedented speed, the amendment marks a decisive shift toward military absolutism, effectively erasing the already thin line existing between elected authority and the military establishment. For India and the broader South Asian region, this concentration of power in Pakistan’s Army Chief will make the strategic environment of the region far more volatile and perilous.

Here, at the core of the 27th Amendment lies an institutional redesign that elevates the Army Chief to the position of Chief of Defence Forces (CDF), placing the Army, Navy, and Air Force under a single military commander. This restructuring also introduces a new Commander of the National Strategic Command, responsible for overseeing the country’s nuclear and strategic assets, with the condition that the position must be filled by an Army officer recommended by the Army Chief. Most consequentially, the amendment grants lifelong legal immunity to five-star officers, effectively ensuring that Munir, only the second such officer in Pakistan’s history after Ayub Khan, stands above any judicial scrutiny for the rest of his life. The amendment thus substantiates the long-held claim of Pakistan watchers worldwide that the Army does not serve the State of Pakistan, but the State of Pakistan serves the Army.

Equally troubling is the amendment’s direct assault on Pakistan’s judiciary. The establishment of a new Federal Constitutional Court (FCC), empowered to overrule the Supreme Court on constitutional matters, eliminates the judiciary’s role as a check on arbitrary state action. Judges of the new court will be appointed by the executive, and even the transfer of high court judges now requires no consent from the judges themselves. If a judge resists, mandatory retirement is always available as a coercive tool. Two senior justices, Syed Mansoor Ali Shah and Athar Minallah, chose to resign as a sign of their protest. These measures decapitate the independence of Pakistan’s judiciary by further weakening an already fragile system. Legal experts within Pakistan have described the development as the “funeral of democracy,” emphasising that no meaningful debate, public consultation, or civil society engagement accompanied such a radical restructuring.

For Pakistan’s nuclear command-and-control system, the implications are profound. Historically, Pakistan’s Nuclear Command Authority (NCA), although dominated by the military, maintained at least a formal structure of collective oversight, with the Prime Minister holding a casting vote and the Strategic Plans Division (SPD) serving as a technical intermediary. The abolition of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (CJCSC) coincides with the end of the tenure of the current CJCSC on November 27, 2025, and the subsuming of the SPD under the new National Strategic Command eliminates the few remaining institutional filters in the nuclear decision-making chain. Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, with a growing tactical component, now rests essentially in the personal domain of one unelected, highly ideological and radicalised military figure.

In light of this, Field Marshal Asim Munir’s personality, therefore, becomes central to understanding the risks generated by this amendment. Munir’s ideological worldview, deeply informed by religious conservatism and a doctrinal interpretation of the two-nation theory, colours his approach to national security and India. His public remarks, including the now widely cited statement warning that Pakistan, if it “goes down,” will “take half the world down with it,” suggest a readiness to view nuclear weapons not merely as deterrents but as instruments central to Pakistan’s national identity and survival.

In this context, the 27th Amendment effectively fuses personal power with strategic authority at a time when Pakistan’s internal politics is increasingly unstable, and the political opposition has been structurally dismantled. The relationship between the Army, Navy, and Air Force was not already very cordial, given the superior role the Army has always played in Pakistan. Institutionally placing the head of the Army over the Navy and the Air Force may also throw Pakistan into internal strife within the defence forces.

Further, international dimensions complicate this picture, particularly the evolving equation between Pakistan’s military leadership and US President Donald Trump. Munir’s two high-profile visits to the White House under Trump—something unprecedented for any Pakistani Army Chief—have cemented a personal rapport, with Trump publicly referring to him as his “favourite Field Marshal.”

Only a couple of days after the Pakistan-sponsored brutal terrorist attack in Pahalgam in April 2025, Pakistani investments were channelled into World Liberty Financial (WLF), a crypto venture associated with the Trump family. Its Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Zach Witkoff, son of Steve Witkoff (a long-time Trump ally and real estate partner), has raised concerns of political patronage and quid-pro-quo arrangements. Such financial engagements suggest that Pakistan is seeking to leverage personal relationships within the Trump orbit to secure political cover, economic concessions, or strategic legitimacy, particularly in the context of Washington’s renewed great-power competition with China.

Also, Trump’s transactional approach to foreign policy offers Pakistan’s military a pathway to bypass institutional diplomacy and is enhancing Munir’s external legitimacy at a moment when his domestic legitimacy is manufactured through constitutional manipulation. This external sense of empowerment intersects with the internal militarisation of Pakistan’s governance, and Munir is using this legitimacy to justify his undemocratic and dictatorial ambitions.

India now faces a Pakistan where political institutions have been hollowed out, the judiciary subordinated, and nuclear command highly centralised. For South Asia, a region already prone to crisis instability, the removal of institutional brakes in Pakistan dramatically increases the probability that conventional incidents, border skirmishes, or miscalculations could escalate far more rapidly than before. Pakistan’s longstanding reliance on tactical nuclear weapons and its willingness to engage in nuclear signalling during crises with India become significantly more dangerous in the hands of a single actor with ideological convictions and unrestrained authority.

India’s policy response must therefore be multi-layered. At the strategic level, while maintaining the credibility of its no-first-use doctrine, India needs to reinforce its second-strike capability, while also ensuring that Pakistan’s offensive nuclear posturing does not constrain conventional deterrence or counter-terrorism responses. India should prepare for the possibility of increased internal instability within Pakistan—whether political, economic, or extremist-driven—by strengthening border management, counter-radicalisation programmes, and refugee-contingency planning.

Secondly, diplomatic efforts must focus on sensitising global actors, particularly the United States, the European Union, and influential Gulf states, to the perils posed by the concentration of nuclear authority in the Pakistan Army, emphasising the need for institutional oversight mechanisms and crisis-management frameworks. At the regional level, India must expand intelligence coordination with Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Afghanistan to monitor potential escalation vectors that Pakistan could possibly exploit. Moreover, India also needs to ensure that, through social media or other means, Pakistan is not able to indoctrinate vulnerable elements through its radicalised religious rhetoric.

Ultimately, Pakistan’s 27th Constitutional Amendment is not merely a domestic constitutional change; it is a structural transformation of the Pakistani state with direct consequences for South Asian security. By elevating Field Marshal Asim Munir to an unassailable position that combines political authority, military command, and nuclear control, Pakistan has arguably engineered the most centralised military regime in its history. For India, the path ahead requires vigilance, strategic foresight, and a calibrated approach to deter, contain, and navigate the dangers emanating from an increasingly volatile and unpredictable neighbour.

Views expressed are personal. The writer is a retired IPS officer, Adviser NatStrat, and a former National Security Advisor in Mauritius