who would have made a better CoAS?

[fatman17]

would Gen. shameem wyne, the current CJSC made a better CoAS then giving the incumbent CoAS Gen. Kiyani a 3-yr extension on his 1st 3-yr term?

 

[All-Green]

At that time we all saw Kayani as a capable COAS and were in favor of such an extension due to ongoing insurgency.
With the luxury of hindsight one may now safely conclude that perhaps it would have been better to let things run as per standard process, simply because this insurgency is not a 3 year affair.

Coming back to whether Gen Wyne could have done a better job.
The key criteria here would be War on terror which is too harsh a criteria since it is a highly complicated conflict which simply cannot be sorted out through military strategy alone.
However if we keep successful elimination of terrorists as a key objective then Kayani has not shone very brightly here; whether Wyne could have done better is mere speculation.
As long as we do not have a comprehensive national strategy to remove extremism from our society through all the tools available, there is no real success to be had in this regards.

One thing which Kayani did well was to address a lot of issues faced by soldiers which was one of the priorities due to the cruel and thankless nature of this war the soldiers were thrown into.
It is never easy to fight wars within ones own border but to top it off, the passionate criticism of our alliance with NATO/American forces makes the job of a soldier much more difficult and much less rewarding.
Wyne could not have done much more than what Kayani tried to do for the betterment of lower ranks, so i do not expect he could have outshone Kayani.

At the end of the day the one thing which this extension definitely disrupted was the normal growth of the military commanders.
It also set a precedence of government sanctioned extension to COAS, the impact of such a precedence on the internal politics of our state shall only be revealed by time.

 

[Last Hope]

As a personal opinion, I was never in favor of Lt. General Zaheer-ul-Islam to take the seat of new DG of ISI. I favored Major-General Noshad Kayani for this post and willed Lt. General Zaheer-ul-Islam to be the next COAS of Pakistan.

Lt. General Zaheer has done a tremendous job as Corp Commander of V Corps, Karachi. For this reason I believe he would have proved to be a reasonable manager of the whole force.

On keynotes, the new COAS must have experience dealing with intense pressure, domestic and international, be calm and cool-minded like Lt. General Shuja Pasha (this was the greatest thing I admired in him) and most importantly he must have experience of the WoT and General Shameem Wyne has good experience in this war. Some people favor General Tariq Majeed, on my recent visit to Pakistan Army regional quarters and officers' mess, I was asked to confirm about General Tariq Majeeb being the new COAS.

 

[Jango]

Well, some of the cons of the extension are that it has left alot of people disgruntled, they were pushed towards retirement.

The positive though was the continuity in the WoT, and the betterment of the lower ranks and OR's, Gen Kayani did it tremendously.

Reasons for the extension can be debatable though, IMO the NRO had a big hand in getting him an extension.

As for somebody being a better CoAS, that is a difficult and too broad a question to answer. As All-Green said, nobody could have done a better job for JCO's, and NCO's than Gen Kayani. He also did a good job of trying to hold back the army of politics.

As for a candidate for the next CoAS, that is a tough one. When is Gen Kayani about to retire?

 

[niaz]

Who would have made a better COAS?

Division is relatively new concept evolved during the French revolution and fine tuned by Napoleon. In addition to the combat units (Artillery, Armour & Infantry) there is also units of engineers, logistics, reconnaissance & intelligence. Thus a Division is in effect a mini army capable of independent operations. It is an excellent platform for judging management capabilities of an officer; a must for leader of an army. If the promotions are on merit; theoretically, all the officers promoted to Lt General Rank should be capable of performing COAS duties efficiently. Thus it make little difference as to who is the lucky man.

You never know how a person will perform as COAS unless he has been tried. Problems arise because qualities which help in promotions such as following of orders meticulously and doing the things by the book only produce mediocre leadership. A good COAS should possess something extra and not afraid to think outside the box such as cutting the Gordian Knot instead of undoing it the normal way.

In my Esso days, in one of the Effective Management Seminars, US Military saying “You are an insubordinate SOB, you will get far” came up for discussion:

Apparently if you performed your job well and according to prescribed norms, you will gradually rise up the corporate ladder probably reaching Senior Management level by your retirement age, but seldom to the board level. In order to get accelerated promotions and possibly on route to the Board of Directors, one had to question the way the things were done and improve them. This often led to conflict with the boss. If proven right, chances were that your boss would be reporting to you. If you were wrong, you would get side-lined (khudday line in Pakistan).This is a cruel way but Esso (now ExxonMobil) philosophy was that a true leader is never afraid to take a calculated risk.

Looking at the history of Pak Army, don’t think one would come across any subordinate general who dared to openly contradict his boss. It is said that Sahibzada Yaqub Ali Khan did that to Yahya when he was GOC Dacca, but I am not sure.

Finally, should a COAS be given extension?

My answer will be ‘No’. This results in stifling the promotions. Also every army Chief has his own ideas of defence & offence. Changing COAS every 3 years brings in fresh approach to resolving the problems.

 

[fatman17]

Well, some of the cons of the extension are that it has left alot of people disgruntled, they were pushed towards retirement.

The positive though was the continuity in the WoT, and the betterment of the lower ranks and OR's, Gen Kayani did it tremendously.

Reasons for the extension can be debatable though, IMO the NRO had a big hand in getting him an extension.

As for somebody being a better CoAS, that is a difficult and too broad a question to answer. As All-Green said, nobody could have done a better job for JCO's, and NCO's than Gen Kayani. He also did a good job of trying to hold back the army of politics.

As for a candidate for the next CoAS, that is a tough one. When is Gen Kayani about to retire?[/QUOTE]

nov-2013 i think