By Brahma Chellaney, The Hill Asim Munir (Photo AP)Since its creation in 1947, Pakistan has rarely escaped the grip of its powerful army. Even when not ruling outright, generals have wielded authority from the shadows, making and breaking governments, shaping foreign and security policy, and ensuring that no civilian leader ever becomes truly independent.Now, for the first time, the military has reasserted direct control in a novel way. Instead of staging a coup d’état, it has engineered something more durable and more insidious: a constitutional coup.Army chief Asim Munir — extolled by President Trump as “my favorite field marshal,” “a great, great guy” and “an inspiring personality” — has effectively become Pakistan’s ruler behind a civilian façade.This has been made possible by Pakistan’s 27th constitutional amendment, which formally enshrines the military’s supremacy over all state institutions. By codifying the army’s preeminence, the recent amendment legitimizes its status as the ultimate arbiter of foreign policy, national security and even economic strategy. Civilian leaders have been reduced to little more than figureheads, their authority hollowed out by constitutional design.In effect, Munir has achieved what Pakistan’s past military dictators never quite managed: absolute power with legal cover.He now exercises power without responsibility, enjoying the insulation of a civilian front government while maintaining control over all the levers of state power. Meanwhile, the country’s most popular politician — Imran Khan, who was removed as prime minister in 2022 after falling out with the generals — languishes in prison, even though his supporters won the most parliamentary seats in last year’s elections.The U.S. has watched all this with striking silence. While Trump has chanted “I love Pakistan,” Pakistan’s already frail democracy is being strangled. Rather than push back against an action widely condemned by international human rights and legal bodies, Washington has effectively acquiesced.The International Commission of Jurists has called the amendment a “full-frontal assault on the rule of law,” while UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk warned that it gravely undermines judicial independence and raises serious concerns about the military’s accountability. Yet Trump is openly courting Pakistan’s generals.This marks a remarkable reversal. During his first term, Trump cut off security assistance to Pakistan for failing to sever ties with terrorist groups. He charged that the country gave the U.S. “nothing but lies and deceit” in return for billions in aid, citing how Pakistan secretly sheltered Osama bin Laden for nearly a decade until U.S. Navy SEALs killed him in 2011.What explains Trump’s pivot from punitive isolation to warm embrace?Pakistan invested heavily this year in a targeted Washington lobbying campaign, hiring two of Trump’s closest confidants — George Sorial of the Trump Organization and former Oval Office director Keith Schiller. Pakistan also employed effusive flattery, claims of rare-earth reserves and a lucrative cryptocurrency partnership with the Trump family-controlled firm World Liberty Financial.In June, Trump hosted Munir for a private White House luncheon — the first time a U.S. president had welcomed a Pakistani army chief who was not the country’s official leader. The symbolism was unmistakable: Washington was prepared to work directly with Pakistan’s real power center.Emboldened, Munir moved to secure his dominance. Using a pliable government that he helped install, he maneuvered himself into the rank of field marshal — the first such promotion in almost six decades. Then came the constitutional amendment that elevated him to Pakistan’s first-ever “chief of defense forces,” giving him command over the nuclear arsenal, army, air force and navy. The amendment also hands him lifelong immunity from prosecution and an additional five years in office.Perhaps most extraordinarily, it specifies that any general elevated to field marshal is a “national hero” who “shall retain his rank, privileges, and remain in uniform for life.” This is constitutionalized militarism — the formalization of a praetorian state.Pakistan, a nation of 250 million, has often been compared to a one-party system akin to its longtime patron, China. But the analogy is imperfect. China’s People’s Liberation Army is an arm of the ruling Communist Party; Pakistan’s army is itself the ruling institution. It controls the state, not the other way around.With the amendment, Pakistan has taken a decisive step: The military no longer needs to manipulate politics from the shadows. It can now dictate the direction of the government, economy and society openly, with constitutional legitimacy.Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif warned in 2020 that the army was evolving from a “state within a state” into a “state above the state.” That prophecy has now come true. And as Sharif observed, this dominance is the “root cause” of Pakistan’s dysfunction — sustaining a violence-prone state that nurtures terrorist groups while suppressing democratic forces.What has changed is not Pakistan’s military but Washington’s willingness to look away. By offering tacit approval, the U.S. risks being complicit in cementing a constitutional dictatorship in an unstable, nuclear-armed nation. The cost of that complicity will not be borne by Pakistan alone.Brahma Chellaney is the author of nine books, including the award-winning “Water: Asia’s New Battleground.”