4 RECAPTURING THE STATE
Defeated and disgraced, the military yielded power to Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), which had won the 1970 elections in West Pakistan (what remained of Pakistan). Decisive defeats in war can erode a military’s professional cohesion, undermine its morale, and badly tarnish its professional reputation. Thus they can mortally weaken the political influence of authoritarian militaries and open the way for their depoliticization. The Pakistani military’s political and professional defeat presented the PPP leadership with a similar opportunity to establish authority over the armed forces and reduce its political clout. Stephen Cohen observed at the time, “Conditions for civilian control in Pakistan are probably better now than they ever have been.”1 A Pakistani writer noted the “total eclipse of the army,” arguing with optimism that the “only contingency in which it would reacquire political control would be the total breakdown of civilian control and a law and order situation verging on anarchy. Short of that, the political role of the army has been effectively neutralized for a long time to come.”2 Bhutto had the mass legitimacy and public mandate to challenge the political power of the discredited military officer corps. 119
