Standing atop the 13,620-foot ridge along the Line of Control (LoC) in December 2012, a senior Indian commander found himself staring not just at Pakistan’s rugged terrain, but at the heart of a doctrine that has defined South Asian security for decades. As he braced against the biting wind, the realization crystallized: Pakistan’s military was not merely fighting for tactical advantage, but for the continuity of its own institutional dominance—a doctrine forged in the trauma of Partition, honed in the crucible of repeated wars, and now, in 2025, entering its most dangerous phase yet.
That phase arrived on November 12, 2025, when Pakistan’s National Assembly—amid opposition boycotts and street protests—passed the 27th Constitutional Amendment. As reported by Firstpost, this amendment marks an unprecedented consolidation of military power, formalizing the supremacy of Field Marshal Asim Munir and effectively transforming Pakistan’s hybrid democracy into a uniformed autocracy. For a nation long governed in the shadow of its generals, the shadow has now become the daylight.
This evolution is not without precedent. As Fair Observer details, Pakistan’s doctrine of perpetual conflict with India has deep roots. The army’s “strategic depth” doctrine, institutionalized by General Zia-ul-Haq in the 1980s, fused Islamization with proxy warfare, creating a template for controlled instability that persists to this day. American political scientist Christine Fair puts it succinctly: “For the Pakistan Army, simply retaining the ability to challenge India is victory. To acquiesce is tantamount to eroding the legitimacy of the Pakistani state.”
Yet, where Zia seized power through a coup, Munir has achieved something more surgical. The 27th Amendment, rushed through parliament, rewrites key constitutional articles—most notably 175 and 248—granting lifetime immunity to a sweeping category of officeholders, especially Munir himself. As Firstpost reports, this shields him from civil and criminal proceedings, effectively granting perpetual protection for past abuses and carte blanche for future ones. The amendment also recasts the Supreme Judicial Council, giving military-aligned judges expanded influence and introducing a “national security clause” that empowers the military to intervene in sensitive cases. Two Supreme Court justices resigned in protest, calling the changes “an annihilation of judicial independence.”
The impact is immediate and profound. Civilian oversight, already fragile, has become irrelevant. Parliament is reduced to a ceremonial echo chamber, provincial governments operate at the mercy of military intelligence, and the media—placed under aggressive censorship—cannot report freely on the transformation. Opposition leaders languish in prison or are silenced, and protests in Lahore, Karachi, and Quetta have been met with harsh crackdowns. For the first time since Zia, Pakistan is effectively a one-man military state, but now with a constitutional framework designed to make this centralization of power permanent.
But the most consequential aspect of the 27th Amendment lies not in domestic politics, but in its regional and global implications. The amendment places Pakistan’s nuclear strategy firmly in the hands of Munir, who now holds the newly created role of Chief of Defence Forces (CDF), merging the powers of the Chief of Army Staff and the abolished Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee. All defense, intelligence, and nuclear decisions now flow directly through him.
As Firstpost explains, this accelerates a dangerous trend: the fusion of tactical nuclear signaling with state-sponsored proxy warfare—a doctrine analysts call “nuclear terror fusion.” For years, Pakistan’s “full-spectrum deterrence” was interpreted as a euphemism for using the threat of low-yield nuclear weapons to shield terror activities against India. Under Munir, this doctrine mutates into something sharper and riskier. The amendment empowers the CDF to “pre-emptively deploy strategic assets in scenarios posing existential threats,” effectively granting Munir unilateral authority to mobilize battlefield nuclear weapons, such as the Nasr/Haft-IX, without civilian consultation. This institutionalizes a first-use nuclear posture and blurs the line between conventional and nuclear conflict.
Even more alarming, the amendment entrenches a more aggressive integration of proxy warfare with nuclear brinkmanship. After the Operation Sindoor crisis earlier in 2025—when India knocked out most of Pakistan’s airfields and air defense sites, exposing glaring weaknesses in Pakistan’s defense—the army spun the skirmish as a triumph, showcasing Munir as a “strategic genius.” Now, terror attacks in India, followed by aggressive nuclear deployments and escalatory messaging, are woven into a single operational fabric. As Fair Observer notes, this represents a dangerous escalation beyond Zia’s jihad-era policies. Zia used terrorists as instruments of covert warfare; Munir is weaving nuclear signaling directly into the operational fabric of terror networks.
The risks of miscalculation are enormous. India, increasingly reliant on preemptive counterforce strategies, now faces a Pakistan whose nuclear chain of command is centralized in the hands of a single leader prone to escalatory doctrines. Even a seemingly local incident—a drone strike or terror attack—could spiral into a confrontation with catastrophic consequences. Military analysts warn that even a tactical nuclear exchange could result in hundreds of thousands of fatalities within minutes.
This new doctrine is not limited to the India-Pakistan dyad. Pakistan’s army has long leveraged its relationships with the United States and China to enhance its capabilities while retaining autonomy. During the Cold War and the Afghan Jihad, the US funded conventional buildup and intelligence expansion. In the post-9/11 era, Pakistan maintained counterterrorism cooperation while nurturing proxies in Kashmir and Afghanistan. Parallel to this, China has provided advanced weaponry, training, and diplomatic cover. The China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) exemplifies the material and strategic interdependence between Beijing and Rawalpindi. Yet, as Fair Observer notes, China is a responsible actor, wary of internal instability and far less willing to risk economic or military overreach, while Pakistan’s pursuit of perpetual conflict is ideologically and institutionally driven.
The domestic fallout is already visible. Trade bodies warn that Pakistan’s preferential GSP+ trade benefits with the European Union are at risk due to democratic backsliding. International financial institutions, including the IMF, have grown uneasy about Pakistan’s governance decay and the military’s capture of economic policy. Civil society groups fear prolonged dark times of enforced disappearances, sedition cases, and sweeping digital surveillance measures designed to quash dissent. Youth activists, who played a pivotal role in the 2022–23 political mobilizations, now argue that the amendment leaves no meaningful avenue for civilian oversight or constitutional accountability. As Firstpost reports, Pakistan’s democracy, fragile and flawed from its inception, has collapsed into a militarized political order with no remaining institutional checks.
For India, the security dilemma is acute. As Fair Observer’s commander cautions, Pakistan is the immediate, persistent hazard, while China is a long-term, disciplined competitor. Strategic planning must reflect this distinction. The logic of perpetual war preserves Pakistan’s institutional authority, but reliance on irregular warfare carries high internal costs—blowback from militant networks, undermined economic growth, and eroded international credibility. Yet, the army manages these contradictions with remarkable resilience, prioritizing continuity over immediate stability.
Pakistan’s 27th Amendment is not merely another turn in its long dance with military rule. It is a structural overhaul that places absolute authority in the hands of Field Marshal Asim Munir, institutionalizing a doctrine that fuses nuclear brinkmanship with proxy warfare. For the region and the world, the danger is not abstract, but immediate and structural. The specter of accidental or intentional nuclear escalation looms larger than ever, and unless Pakistan’s society and international partners confront this peril, the consequences could be catastrophic.
