By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan promoted Lieutenant General Aamer Raza to four-star general on Friday and named him the first commander of the National Strategic Command, the newly established military body that will oversee the country’s nuclear arsenal and wider strategic capabilities.
The appointment fills a post created just last year, when Pakistan’s parliament passed the 27th Constitutional Amendment and fundamentally reshaped the military’s chain of command. The changes did away with the office of chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, handed the chief of army staff sweeping new authority as the country’s chief of defence forces, and established the National Strategic Command as a standalone body answerable to that restructured hierarchy.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s office confirmed the appointment in a statement issued on Friday, saying the prime minister had congratulated Gen. Raza and wished him well in taking on the role. The statement described the promotion as recognition of Raza’s standing within the army’s senior ranks, where he had been serving as chief of the general staff.
Raza is not new to positions of responsibility within Pakistan’s defence establishment. Before his latest role, he commanded the Lahore Corps and headed the Heavy Industries Taxila complex, one of the army’s principal defence manufacturing sites. He has previously been decorated with the Hilal-i-Imtiaz (Military) and the Sitara-i-Basalat, awarded for distinguished service and valour respectively.
The National Strategic Command effectively inherits responsibilities once held by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, a post scrapped entirely under the constitutional changes. Its commander is chosen by the prime minister from serving army generals, acting on the recommendation of the chief of defence forces, and serves a three-year term. Notably, the amendment stipulates that decisions on the commander’s appointment, reappointment or extension cannot be challenged in any court on any grounds — a provision that has drawn scrutiny from legal commentators.
Field Marshal Asim Munir, who holds the dual role of chief of army staff, became Pakistan’s first chief of defence forces last year following the amendment’s passage, placing him at the apex of the newly unified command structure that now oversees the National Strategic Command.
Beyond restructuring the chain of command, the 27th Amendment also gave formal constitutional standing to the ranks of field marshal, marshal of the air force and admiral of the fleet, meaning officers elevated to these positions hold them for life. Taken together, the reforms represent one of the most consequential shake-ups of Pakistan’s military hierarchy in decades — and one that has not gone unchallenged. Opposition parties criticised the changes at the time as a further concentration of power within the military establishment, at the expense of civilian oversight.
Pakistan remains one of just nine nuclear-armed states worldwide. Responsibility for its nuclear weapons policy rests with the National Command Authority, the country’s senior civilian-military decision-making body on strategic matters. The creation of the National Strategic Command sits within that wider architecture, forming part of a broader effort to bring military oversight of the country’s strategic forces under the restructured command system established by last year’s amendment.
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