Lt Gen Amer Ahsan Nawaz, a career officer steeped in proxy conflict and cyber doctrines, has been appointed as Commander of 10 Corps.
Photo : AP
Pakistan’s military is quietly aligning its leadership reshuffle with a widening youth mobilisation drive in what observers describe as the most explicit shift yet toward institutionalising hybrid warfare. Lt Gen Amer Ahsan Nawaz, a career officer known for introducing cyber and algorithmic warfare doctrines at the Command & Staff College in Quetta, has been slated as the new Commander of 10 Corps. At the same time, the Directorate General of Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) has enrolled 6,500 students from 150 universities in its “Summer Internship Programme,” training them in digital information operations and narrative shaping.
Analysts argue the timing is deliberate. While one of the Army’s most powerful field commands is handed to a general steeped in proxy and information warfare, ISPR is seeding its next generation of loyalists through indoctrination drives disguised as academic exposure. Together, the developments point to a synchronised strategy: a top-down military adoption of hybrid warfare doctrine, and a bottom-up civilian recruitment pipeline to execute it.
A General Shaped by Proxy Battlefields
Lt Gen Amer Ahsan Nawaz, currently serving as Military Secretary at GHQ, will replace Lt Gen Shahid Imtiyaz as Commander of 10 Corps. His pedigree is entrenched in Pakistan’s military elite — he is a third-generation officer, the son of former 31 Corps Commander Lt Gen Khalid Nawaz Khan and the grandson of a former MS of the Army.
Commissioned in the 82nd PMA Long Course, he is a graduate of Command & Staff College Quetta, Fort Leavenworth in the United States, and the National Defence University Islamabad.
His career trajectory has passed through all the theatres most associated with Pakistan’s proxy strategies. He commanded the 3 Baloch Regiment, 5 POK Brigade in Muzaffarabad, and served as Chief of Staff at 11 Corps Peshawar, the headquarters overseeing counter-insurgency in the tribal belt. Later, he led 12 Corps in Murree. According to senior officers quoted in Dawn, Amer Ahsan Nawaz is regarded as “well-versed in offensive and defensive handling of proxy war,” having spent decades in theatres shaped by militant militias and irregular warfare.
From Quetta to Rawalpindi: Hybrid Warfare’s Academic Architect
As Commandant of the Command & Staff College Quetta, Nawaz introduced cyber and AI components into the curriculum, along with modules on hybrid and algorithmic warfare. Faculty members told local defence reporters that under his tenure, the college “moved beyond conventional manoeuvre warfare” to incorporate information campaigns, digital influence operations, and cyber resilience. This doctrinal shift is now expected to travel with him to 10 Corps, the formation that directly manages the Line of Control (LoC) with India.
For India’s security establishment, this is a worrying prospect. “You’re looking at a Corps commander who doesn’t just think in terms of troop movements and artillery but in terms of information shaping alongside conventional operations,” said one retired Indian Army officer familiar with LoC deployments. The implication is clear: the Pakistan Army intends to fight its battles not only across the physical LoC but also across the digital and cognitive domains.
ISPR’s Youth Army: Indoctrination as Recruitment
Parallel to the reshuffle, the ISPR has rolled out its largest-ever “Summer Internship Programme,” enrolling 6,500 students from 150 institutions across 33 cities, most in cantonment towns. In public statements, ISPR has framed the programme as exposure to “Pakistan’s regional dynamics, geopolitics, history and military studies.” But former participants, sometimes referred to as “Ex-5G Warriors,” describe a more directed process of indoctrination and deployment.
A screengrab from an official PowerPoint presentation on the role of ISPR by Pakistan Army.According to these alumni, the internship includes classroom indoctrination in Pakistan Studies that glorifies the Army’s role, visits to army units to build esprit de corps, and meetings with pro-Army media influencers. More crucially, the programme introduces participants to “digital tools and techniques of social media,” culminating in supervised exercises led by ISPR and ISI’s Media Wing. Once the six-week programme ends, many are informally recruited into the Army’s vast information operations network — functioning as unpaid foot soldiers amplifying military propaganda online.
Civil-Military Synergy in Information War
The internship represents a strategic investment in what Pakistan’s generals have long called “fifth-generation warfare.” In 2020, then DG ISPR Maj Gen Babar Iftikhar declared that Pakistan was under attack from “a hybrid and information war launched by India.” Since then, ISPR has steadily scaled its digital outreach, from social media troll farms to youth-facing media campaigns. By embedding students into its ecosystem, it ensures a pipeline of ideologically primed digital warriors who can be activated during crises.
Representative ImageObservers note the synergy: a general like Amer Ahsan Nawaz, who integrates hybrid doctrines at the top, now takes charge of 10 Corps, while ISPR simultaneously builds a civilian base capable of executing digital campaigns at scale. “It’s top-down doctrine meeting bottom-up manpower,” remarked a South Asia security analyst cited by Reuters. “The Army is ensuring that its information warfare apparatus has both leadership and labour.”
Strategic Implications for India and the Region
For India, these developments signal a shifting battlespace. The LoC has long been a site of infiltration, ceasefire violations, and proxy war. With Amer Ahsan Nawaz at the helm, information operations may become as central as militant infiltration. Fake narratives of Indian atrocities in Kashmir, doctored visuals circulated online, and coordinated campaigns targeting Indian institutions may rise in frequency and sophistication.
Regionally, Pakistan’s approach aligns with Chinese doctrines of “three warfares” — psychological, media, and legal campaigns. Analysts in Islamabad have quietly admitted to the Financial Times that Beijing’s pressure after repeated attacks on Chinese nationals has accelerated Pakistan’s adoption of hybrid tactics. By portraying itself as both victim and vanguard of hybrid war, Pakistan seeks to placate China while keeping its adversaries off balance.