Elevating self-styled Field Marshal Asim Munir as Pakistan’s Chief of Defence Force (CDF), under the recent 27th constitutional amendment, threatens to erode the institutional autonomy of the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) and Pakistan Navy (PN), subordinating both as functional appendages of the Army.

By placing the entire military and nuclear architecture under a single, army-led authority, the amendment dilutes the operational latitude the PAF and PN once exercised in their respective domains, narrowing their ability to shape doctrine, influence strategic planning, or secure resources aligned with their service-specific priorities.

The near-unanimous passage of the 27th Amendment in the National Assembly and Senate last week, has effectively ushered in what several analysts describe as a “new-model military dictatorship” – one that no longer needs tanks or marching army columns across Islamabad. Instead, it relies on legal engineering and compliant lawmakers functioning under implicit Army pressure but operating under a democratic process.

A one-point national power centre

The Amendment is also legally unchallengeable, because it simultaneously restructures Pakistan’s judicial architecture by creating a new Federal Constitutional Court with exclusive authority over all constitutional questions relating to defence, security, and the powers of the CDF.

And since this new court is itself a product of the same amendment that expands Munir’s and the army’s supremacy, the entire arrangement becomes self-validating: only the new Constitutional Court can review the amendment, yet that court has been purpose-built to uphold it. Hence, the amendment has created a system that almost automatically certifies its own legality.

Meanwhile, open-source research and commentary from veteran Pakistani military officers and analysts indicate that the force-employment opportunities, budgets, and procurement decisions of the PAF and PN would henceforth be overseen by the Army. They warned that this shift risked weakening – or potentially even eliminating – service-specific planning and further destabilising the already fragile balance within Pakistan’s tri-service framework.

The 27th Amendment, which consolidates authority under the army-dominated CDF, has formalised a shift that threatens the autonomy of the PAF and PN, even as details of command, control, and resource allocation were reportedly still being finalised. Until now, the PN held command of sea-based second-strike nuclear assets, while the PAF oversaw air-deliverable weapons and strategic operations that comprised the core components of Pakistan’s “first-use” nuclear doctrine.

However, as per details available, Munir will now exercise full command over the Strategic Plans Division, which manages Pakistan’s expanding stockpile of 170-odd strategic and tactical nuclear warheads. Pakistani analysts, however, warned that such centralisation could undermine morale in the Navy and Air Force and compromise decision-making at senior levels in these two services. Furthermore, it could also distort their long-term force development at a juncture when Pakistan faces complex, multi-domain security challenges from India’s larger and stronger conventional military.

The amendment goes further by abolishing the office of the chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (CJCSC) – established in 1976 to preserve inter-service balance. With the CJCSC now removed, the final institutional check on Munir’s authority vanishes, leaving him not only Pakistan’s singular military commander but effectively a one-point national power centre, singlehandedly shaping his country’s military, political, economic, and strategic future.

A personalised legal shield for Munir

The landmark legislation also extends Munir’s tenure in office by three years, until 2030, while granting full immunity from prosecution to all five-star military officers. Since Munir is Pakistan’s only officer holding this five-star rank – a position he effectively secured for himself after Operation Bunyan-ul-Marsoos and India’s Operation Sindoor – and no other officers are likely to be promoted to it, the clause functions as a personalised legal shield. It insulates Munir from all civilian, judicial, and parliamentary scrutiny for life.”

In short, the amendment codifies the Pakistan army’s political and strategic supremacy, transforming decades of informal dominance into concentrated, legally enshrined authority. For the PAF and PN, however, it marks an unfortunate turn of events, placing both firmly under Army authority, curbing their operational autonomy, narrowing their strategic roles, and diminishing their influence over long-term force development.

In response, former Pakistan Defence Secretary Lt Gen Asif Yasin Malik (retired) told Dawn that appointing an Army officer as CDF with full authority over the PAF and PN risks “institutional imbalance and potential disaster.” He also stated that the reform appears to be tailored to benefit a specific individual – Munir – rather than to strengthen Pakistan’s defence architecture.

Dawn also quoted defence analyst and former Federal Human Rights Minister Shireen Mazari, stating that the amendment granted the army a ‘monopoly’ over promotions, transfers and postings across the two other services, threatening morale and inter-service harmony.

“If promotions in the PAF and PN are determined by an army-origin CDF, it could lead to festering resentments,” she warned. Mazari, who was the former Director General of the Institute of Strategic Studies in Islamabad, also cautioned that all nuclear weapons would be under army control, including the second-strike missiles that were traditionally controlled by the navy.

A self-exiled Pakistani defence expert in London concurred, saying the amendment merely codified what has long been the reality of the Army’s functioning as the de facto head, not only of Pakistan’s military, but also its political establishment. With 5,60,000 active troops, it not only dwarfs the PAF’s roughly 70,000 and the PN’s 50,000 personnel but has ruled the country directly through coups, or indirectly via compliant civilian governments, for most of Pakistan’s 78-year history.

During this extended period, it had shaped defence strategy, internal security management, foreign relations, and retained near-exclusive control over the nuclear programme – an accumulation of power that reinforced its supremacy and sustained the oft-repeated adage: while most countries have armies, in Pakistan the Army has a country.

“Under the 27th Amendment,” the aforementioned analyst observed, “the PAF and PN have effectively been downgraded to administrative appendages of Army Headquarters in Rawalpindi, their operational agendas subordinated to land-forces priorities.”

The result of such a reconfiguration, presented as military reform, was bound to be fragile and uneven, he added, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Unlike the Army, neither of the other two Pakistani armed forces has been politicised to the same extent. Their institutional cultures prioritise technical proficiency, mission-focused professionalism, and operational specialisation, rather than political intervention, regime manipulation, or the removal of civilian governments.

Their commercial ventures have also remained modest compared with the Army’s vast economic empire, and under the revised Constitutional military restructure, the autonomy of the PAF’s Shaheen (Falcon) Foundation and the PN’s Bahria (Sea) Foundation could be further constrained, analysts said. Historically, both foundations maintained limited business portfolios focused mainly on welfare, education, and service support – a sharp contrast to the Army’s sprawling economic network.

The Shaheen Foundation focused on the welfare of serving and retired air force personnel and their families, providing education and scholarships through its schools and training programmes. Its commercial ventures – including aviation services, maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) facilities, as well as limited housing projects  – primarily existed to fund these welfare initiatives.

The PN’s Bahria Foundation, for its part, centred on marine services, vocational training, and shipping-related activities such as dredging, diving, and maritime salvage. It also supported welfare for ex-naval personnel and maintained a modest portfolio of commercial real-estate projects. These ventures generated revenue to sustain welfare operations and back the Navy’s broader social programmes.

Deeper consequences of the amendment lie within the armed forces themselves

By comparison, the Pakistan Army commands one of South Asia’s largest and most diversified military-business networks, rivalling in scale and ambition even some of China’s military-commercial enterprises.

Through entities like the Fauji Foundation, Army Welfare Trust, and Defence Housing Authority (DHA), to name a few, the Army controls sprawling portfolios in fertiliser and energy production, food processing, transportation, cement and construction, banking, insurance, real estate, agribusiness, and consumer goods – from sugar to cornflakes.

Collectively, these enterprises generate billions annually, creating a self-sustaining ecosystem that amplifies the Army’s economic and political clout far beyond that of the PAF’s Shaheen Foundation or the PN’s Bahria Foundation.

The Army’s economic dominance is further mirrored in its recruitment patterns: unlike the PAF and PN, it has long drawn from a largely homogeneous Punjabi pool, with shared regional, linguistic, and cultural roots that reinforce cohesion, loyalty, and political assertiveness – factors that have profoundly shaped its institutional character since independence.

Another major concern raised by experts over the 27th Amendment is the extended timeline of Munir’s authority. With the command tenure of the newly empowered CDF until 2030, his designated term now spans the full term of the Shabazz Sharif government and the 2029 general elections. This effectively places Pakistan’s entire democratic cycle under a security framework designed and overseen by Munir, raising familiar risks associated with the Army’s repeated past conduct: political engineering, institutional manipulation, and the potential rigging and shaping of electoral outcomes.

The concentration of power via the 27th amendment would, doubtlessly, give the Field Marshal the capacity to entrench military influence across state institutions, leaving civilian governance heavily subordinated to his authority.

But, until then, the deeper consequences of the amendment lie within the armed forces themselves, in which the PAF and the PN risk becoming operational contractors, executing land-centric directives while the army seizes total control of Pakistan’s military, politics, and state institutions.

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