Apr 16, 2026 15:58 pm IST

Opinion | Trump's Favourite Field Marshal: How Munir Became The President's Best Man

Pakistan and the United States are not obvious analogues. And yet, their respective leaders have made a comparison inevitable today.

Brig (Retd) Anil Raman Brig (Retd) Anil Raman Columnist

Brig (Retd) Anil Raman Columnist

The photograph of Pakistan's Army chief being received by Iran's Foreign Minister in Tehran this week has its real backdrop not in the Iranian capital - the real context lies in the White House Oval Office in June 2025. A uniformed Pakistani general serving as America's most trusted diplomatic courier in one of the world's most dangerous standoffs is striking. But once you understand how Donald Trump runs American foreign policy, it is entirely predictable. Trump does not send career diplomats when things get serious. He sends people he has personally decided to trust. Right now, that man is Asim Munir.

To understand why, you have to understand not just the President but the remarkable structural symmetry between the two states he and Munir respectively represent.

Two Systems, One Illogic

Pakistan and the United States are not obvious analogues. One is a nuclear-armed developing state with a GDP per capita below $1,500, perpetually on IMF life support, where the military has historically governed from behind civilian facades. The other is the world's largest economy, a constitutional republic with 2.5 centuries of institutional continuity. And yet, under their current leaderships, both countries are governed by a strikingly similar operating logic: institutions are weak or weakened, personalities dominate, and outcomes depend less on process than on who knows whom and what they have to offer each other.

In Pakistan, this is a structural condition. The military has always been the institution that actually decides. Civilian governments come and go; the army remains. Munir has simply made this arrangement more explicit than most predecessors. 

In Trump's Washington, institutional erosion is more recent but directionally similar. Pakistani officials quickly diagnosed it:........

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