BORN JOINT, GOVERNED APART Rethinking Bangladesh’s military command

A graffito painted on a wall in Dhaka during the July uprising. — New Age/Sony Ramani

by Abdul Monaiem Kudrot Ullah

BANGLADESH was not born gently in 1971. Nations rarely are. Ours emerged amid the smoke of burned villages, the dull thunder of artillery and the nervous crackle of radios carrying rebellion across a frightened countryside. Independence did not arrive as a constitutional gift; it was wrested from the wreckage of a collapsing state by men and women who decided — some with rifles, others with little more than resolve — that history would no longer be written elsewhere.

The war that gave birth to Bangladesh was not tidy or doctrinal. It was improvised, fluid and — most strikingly — joint in character. Guerrillas moved through riverine networks, naval commandos sabotaged ports and shipping and air operations complemented ground offensives. Coordination was not a matter of institutional design; it was a matter of survival. In war, Bangladesh learned quickly that cooperation across land, sea and air was not a luxury but a necessity.

Yet when the war ended, something curious occurred.

Instead of building a military command structure reflecting the integrated character of its liberation, Bangladesh quietly reverted to a service‑centric system inherited from the colonial and Pakistani past. The Army became the dominant institutional centre, while the Navy and Air Force developed as professional but subordinate arms. Coordination was expected, but it was rarely institutionalised. Command remained fragmented and strategic planning continued largely within service boundaries.

The paradox has endured for more than five decades: a country born through joint warfare has governed its military through separation.

Today, as Bangladesh’s strategic environment grows more complex — particularly in the Bay of Bengal — this paradox deserves renewed scrutiny.

Echoes of March

FOR many Bangladeshis, March 1971 is remembered not through archival documents but through sensation. I recall it as a boy in a small town — too young to grasp the mechanics of insurgency, yet old enough to sense that something irreversible was unfolding. The air felt heavy. Radios stayed on longer than usual. Conversations dropped to whispers.

Then came Major Ziaur Rahman’s broadcast declaring, simply, ‘We revolt.’

The words were not polished rhetoric. They were urgent, almost raw. But they carried the unmistakable force of a threshold being crossed. For the first time, rebellion was no longer an idea; it was a declaration of war.

For a child, it sounded like freedom. For a naval officer reflecting decades later, it also sounds like something unfinished.

The revolt unified a people, but that unity never fully translated into permanent military institutions. The joint spirit of 1971 faded as peacetime structures took shape.

The inheritance we never questioned

BANGLADESH did not ‘build’ its armed forces in 1972 so much as assemble them from fragments left behind by history. The immediate post‑war environment left little room for institutional experimentation. The state was devastated, resources were scarce and survival took precedence over design.

Under such circumstances, reliance on inherited frameworks was understandable. Those frameworks, however, carried their own logic.

The British imperial military system in South Asia was never designed to serve a unified national purpose. Its aim was internal control and imperial security. Fragmentation — between presidency armies, between services and between operational commands — was not an accident but a feature. Integration was viewed with suspicion because unified command implied autonomous power.

Pakistan inherited this architecture wholesale. The Army dominated by virtue of size and precedent, while the Navy and Air Force remained institutionally peripheral. Even operational failures, such as the 1965 war, did little to alter this imbalance. By 1971, Pakistan lacked an effective joint command capable of integrating strategy across services — a failure that proved catastrophic.

Bangladesh, emerging from that very collapse, inherited the same skeletal structure. The Army naturally assumed a central role, while the Navy and Air Force developed within narrower institutional lanes. A civilian-style ‘overlay’ in the form of the Armed Forces Division provided coordination, but not command.

This outcome was not malicious. It was the path of least resistance. But institutional habits, once formed, are remarkably persistent.

Why the joint idea never took root

THE absence of a permanent joint command structure in Bangladesh is best understood not as a failure of design but as the outcome of the broader pattern of civil-military development that followed independence. As Samuel P. Huntington argued in his analysis of political order, institutional arrangements tend to reflect the balance between political authority and organisational autonomy. Where political institutions are still consolidating, governments often favour arrangements that limit the concentration of military power rather than those that maximise administrative efficiency.

In Bangladesh, three interrelated factors shaped the evolution of the military command structure: political caution, institutional patterns within the armed forces themselves and the absence of external pressures demanding structural reform. Together these forces produced a system that was stable but only partially integrated.

Political caution

IN THE years immediately following independence, the central problem confronting political leaders was the consolidation of civilian authority. The experience of subordination under the Pakistan Army had left deep suspicions about the political role of military institutions. For the government led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and the Awami League, the priority was therefore not the refinement of military coordination but the establishment of clear civilian supremacy.

Under such conditions, institutional arrangements that concentrated military authority could easily appear politically hazardous. A permanent Joint Chiefs-type structure might have created a unified military forum capable of articulating corporate interests more effectively than individual services acting separately. Managing the armed forces through distinct channels of communication therefore, seemed a safer arrangement for a political system still consolidating its authority.

Subsequent political turbulence reinforced this tendency. The upheavals of the mid-1970s and the later military regime under Hussain Muhammad Ershad strengthened civilian reluctance to institutionalise centralised military coordination. Even after the restoration of civilian rule, governments tended to view dispersed military authority as a manageable compromise between control and functionality.

Military institutional patterns

WHILE political caution shaped the external framework, developments within the armed forces themselves reinforced service-centred organisation.

After independence, each branch of the armed forces focused on consolidating its professional identity and internal cohesion. In most military organisations, loyalty tends to develop first within the immediate professional community. In Bangladesh this tendency was intensified by the composition of the officer corps, which included both veterans of the liberation struggle and officers repatriated from Pakistan.

Under these circumstances, stability within existing service hierarchies became an important institutional objective. Structural innovations that might redistribute authority across services were approached cautiously, since they risked unsettling established balances within the officer corps.

Consequently, planning, doctrine and procurement developed primarily within service boundaries. Coordination among the services occurred when operational requirements demanded it, but it remained episodic rather than institutionalised. Over time these practices became routine and the service-centred structure acquired the character of established tradition.

The absence of strategic shock

INSTITUTIONAL reform in military organisations is frequently stimulated by external pressures. Wars, crises, or operational failures often expose the limitations of existing command arrangements and create incentives for structural change.

Bangladesh encountered no comparable stimulus for institutional reform. Rather than responding to episodic border provocations by Myanmar and India with escalatory military postures, it consistently prioritised stability and diplomatic restraint. While this approach limited the perceived need for integrated, large-scale joint operations, it also carried strategic signalling effects — most notably along the Myanmar frontier, where restraint was occasionally read as weakness rather than deliberate statecraft.

Comparative experience illustrates how such pressures can shape institutional reform. Pakistan’s evolution towards a joint command framework developed within the context of its enduring strategic rivalry with India. India itself undertook significant defence integration reforms only after operational shortcomings became evident during the Kargil War.

In Bangladesh, no similar crisis compelled reconsideration of the inherited command structure. As a relatively small state emphasising economic development and diplomatic balance, the country adopted a restrained security posture. Under these conditions, service-centred arrangements appeared adequate for prevailing requirements.

Institutional equilibrium

THE resulting command structure represented a form of institutional equilibrium. Political leaders preferred arrangements that limited the concentration of military authority; the services themselves favoured stability within their established hierarchies; and the external environment provided little incentive for change.

Over time, this equilibrium hardened into institutional orthodoxy. What had initially been a pragmatic response to the uncertainties of a newly independent state gradually became an accepted feature of the defence establishment.

In this sense, the absence of a permanent joint command structure reflected not neglect but the historical trajectory of Bangladesh’s civil-military development. Institutions evolved in response to political priorities and organisational realities, producing a system that balanced control and functionality, even if it did not fully integrate the strategic capabilities of the armed forces.

The cost of fragmentation

FOR many years, Bangladesh could afford this structure. The strategic environment was relatively benign and the country’s security posture emphasised diplomacy and development. Informal coordination among the services proved sufficient for peacekeeping, disaster response and internal support operations.

But fragmentation carries long‑term costs.

Strategic planning conducted within service silos inevitably reflects service priorities. Procurement decisions are evaluated through narrow lenses rather than a unified national strategy. Modernisation programmes, however well‑intentioned, risk duplication or imbalance when not anchored to an integrated command vision.

This is not a question of professionalism. Bangladesh’s armed forces have demonstrated competence and discipline at home and abroad. The issue is structural coherence.

Coordination, however effective, is not the same as command.

These costs remain manageable — until geography and strategy begin to collide.

When the horizon hits the coast

THE strategic conditions surrounding Bangladesh are changing and they are doing so quietly but decisively.

The Bay of Bengal is no longer a peripheral maritime space. It is an increasingly crowded arena of trade, energy exploration, undersea infrastructure and regional competition. Ports such as Chattogram, Payra and Mongla are not merely commercial assets; they are strategic lifelines.

Maritime security, however, is never purely naval. It involves air surveillance, land‑based missile systems, cyber resilience and intelligence integration. A crisis at sea quickly becomes a joint problem.

Instability along the Myanmar frontier, particularly in Rakhine State, illustrates this reality. Spillover effects — whether humanitarian, security‑related, or economic — do not respect service boundaries. They demand integrated responses.

Modern security challenges rarely announce themselves as single‑domain problems. They arrive as complex systems of risk.

In such an environment, reliance on informal coordination becomes increasingly fragile.

Learning from others, without imitation

COMPARATIVE experience offers useful perspective.

In the United States, serious joint reform emerged only after operational shortcomings exposed during military operations in the late twentieth century. The Goldwater-Nichols reforms strengthened the authority of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and established unified combatant commands.

The United Kingdom operates under an integrated structure led by a Chief of the Defence Staff, with operational coordination managed through a permanent joint headquarters. Even smaller European states have moved towards consolidated command arrangements as modern warfare becomes increasingly multidimensional.

The lesson is not that Bangladesh should copy any particular model. Institutional design must reflect national context.

The broader principle, however, is clear: effective defence planning increasingly depends on mechanisms capable of integrating capabilities across services.

Jointness and civilian control

ONE persistent misconception deserves clarification: that a joint command structure weakens civilian oversight.

In reality, the opposite is often true.

Fragmented military advice forces civilian leaders to arbitrate among competing service perspectives. A unified military voice — properly institutionalised and legally defined — allows for clearer accountability and more coherent civil‑military dialogue.

A joint system does not concentrate power arbitrarily; it clarifies responsibility.

Civilian control is strengthened when political leaders engage a single, integrated professional assessment rather than a chorus of institutional interests.

What might change — carefully and gradually

INSTITUTIONAL reform in defence rarely appears urgent. Military organisations value stability, continuity and predictable chains of command. These qualities are essential for operational effectiveness. Yet the strategic environment surrounding Bangladesh has evolved and institutional arrangements must occasionally adjust to reflect changing realities.

The armed forces of Bangladesh today possess considerable professional experience. Their record in international peacekeeping, disaster response and maritime security demonstrates a capacity for cooperation across services when circumstances require it. What remains less developed is the institutional framework through which such cooperation can be planned systematically rather than improvised when necessary.

Over time, Bangladesh could benefit from establishing a permanent mechanism for joint strategic coordination. Whether structured as a Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee or a comparable body, such an institution would provide a forum for integrating military advice at the national level. Its role would not be to alter existing command hierarchies but to strengthen strategic coherence across the services.

The purpose of such a body would be integration rather than authority. By synthesising strategic assessments, coordinating long-term planning and reviewing major procurement decisions, it could help ensure that defence priorities reflect national requirements rather than the perspectives of individual services.

Professional development would play an equally important role. Expanded joint education programs, tri-service exercises and cross-service postings at senior levels would gradually encourage officers to view national defence from a broader institutional perspective. Over time, these practices could cultivate a shared professional culture that complements existing service traditions.

None of these measures require abrupt transformation. Institutional change, when introduced incrementally and supported by professional consensus, tends to prove more durable than sweeping reform. Gradual integration would therefore allow Bangladesh to strengthen strategic coordination while preserving the stability that remains essential to effective military organisation.

History seldom demands immediate transformation. Yet institutions that adapt before necessity forces change are often better prepared to meet the challenges that follow.

The long watch: completing the map at fifty-five

HISTORY, in its ceremonial form, is tidy. It marches through anniversaries, medals and carefully rehearsed speeches. But those who have spent their lives in uniform — especially at sea — know that the deeper story of a nation lives elsewhere. It lives in the quiet watches after midnight, when the bridge is dim and the radar sweeps patiently across a dark horizon. It lives in the slow rhythm of a ship’s engines and in the knowledge that beyond the steel hull lies an ocean both protective and unforgiving.

At sea one learns something simple and enduring: survival depends on cooperation. No vessel sails safely because one compartment functions perfectly while the others work alone. The bridge, the engine room, the deck crew — each depends on the other in a quiet choreography of trust.

Bangladesh discovered a similar truth in 1971.

The Liberation War was not written in doctrine or staff manuals. It was forged in urgency and conviction. Soldiers, sailors, airmen and the young fighters of the delta came together in a shared national struggle. Coordination was often improvised, but unity of purpose was unmistakable. Across land, sea and sky, different strengths converged in the same tide of history.

When independence arrived, the nation faced the long work of building institutions. The Army, the Navy and the Air Force developed their own traditions and professional cultures — natural steps for a young state learning to stand on its own feet. For many years that arrangement provided stability and continuity.

Yet the strategic horizon of Bangladesh has steadily widened.

The waters of the Bay of Bengal are no longer simply a geographical boundary. They are a space of commerce, resources and strategic movement. Trade routes pulse through them like arteries, while regional currents — political and economic — shape the future of the nation.

Modern security challenges rarely remain confined to a single domain. What begins at sea may quickly involve the air; what begins on land may ripple outward across the littoral. In such a world, the effectiveness of national defence depends less on the strength of individual services than on the harmony with which they act together.

Naval life offers a useful metaphor for this moment.

A ship at sea moves through darkness guided by small lights: the glow of the compass, the sweep of radar, the quiet voice of a lookout calling bearings into the night. None of these alone ensures safe passage. Together, however, they form a system of awareness that allows the vessel to navigate safely through uncertain waters.

National defence works in much the same way. The Army, Navy and Air Force each provide their own instruments of strength. The challenge for the coming decades is to ensure that these instruments operate in concert — through shared planning, joint training and institutional mechanisms that bring their perspectives together.

As Bangladesh approaches the 55th anniversary of independence, this reflection carries particular resonance. Fifty-five years is long enough for the passions of war to settle into memory, yet close enough for the lessons of that struggle to remain alive.

The men and women who fought in 1971 did not ask whether unity was convenient. They understood that unity was necessary.

Today the nation faces a quieter responsibility: ensuring that its institutions reflect that same spirit of cooperation. A framework for deeper joint planning — whether through a Joint Chiefs-type forum or a strengthened national defence staff — would represent not a break with tradition but its natural evolution.

Bangladesh’s rivers offer the final reminder. They rise from distant places, carrying different soils and histories, yet they meet in the delta before entering the sea. Their power lies not in their separation but in their convergence.

So it may be with the services of the republic.

The Army, the Navy and the Air Force have each written proud chapters in the national story. As the country marks 55 years of independence, the next chapter may well be written together — guided by the same spirit that once united the fighters of 1971.

The watch continues. The sea is wider now. And the strength of Bangladesh will increasingly lie in how steadily its institutions sail that shared horizon — together.

Abdul Monaiem Kudrot Ullah is a retired captain of the Bangladesh navy.