Climate change has further compounded natural disasters to become more complex and challenging to manage as security issues, specifically for climate-at-risk states with inadequate infrastructure. Pakistan, being one of the most climate-risk-exposed countries for the past two decades, has consecutively seen regular occurrences of floods, heatwaves, earthquakes, and glacial incidents. Pakistan’s disaster management framework, as a concept of human security, would analyze the involvement of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and the role of the Pakistan Army as the supporting agency for mass-scale disaster relief activities. The role of NDMA, aided by the Pakistan Army’s infrastructure and rapid action force, has been an essential part of state resilience to date. During the command of CDF Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir, the stress on disaster preparation and post-action learnings has improved the role of disaster response as a non-coercive factor of strategic validity in the climate-challenged state.
Climate Change and Human Security
There has been a growing emphasis on the link that has been identified between climate change and the concept of security. Extreme weather events have been characterized as “threat multipliers,” exacerbating pre-existing risks and placing an unusually high level of demand on state capacity as a consequence. Pakistan represents a vivid example of implications of linkages between climate and security. Pakistan has been identified as one of the least-polluting countries on the international climate chart and has been impacted by climate-linked events of disasters, including floods that happened in 2010, 2022, and 2025.
In this regard, the matter of dealing with disasters is no longer a matter of charity; instead, the management of disaster affairs requires the same capacity and legitimacy of the State to cope with the matter at hand. This is most especially the case where the State is supposed to be responsible for the survival of its citizenry, among other basic services such as water, health, and electricity, to name a few. This is the situation in the context of the State of Pakistan.
NDMA and Pakistan’s Disaster Governance Framework
Founded as the primary civilian body responsible for disaster management, the NDMA is essentially a coordinating body at the federal, provincial, and local levels of government. The NDMA is charged with the planning and assessment of risks, issuing early warnings, and coordinating the response to disasters during emergency situations. Significantly, the NDMA is essentially a civilian body that utilizes the capacity of various actors in cases of disasters, including non-state entities.
Nevertheless, the scope and scale at which disasters occur in Pakistan sometimes outgrow the capabilities of the civil agencies. The areas affected by floods may include remote areas with challenging terrains, instructed regions, as well as areas requiring evacuations with time constraints. It is at this point that the coordination function of the NDMA relies on state capabilities.
The Pakistan Army as First Responder
In the framework initiated by the NDMA, the biggest leading first responder entity that has been observed is the Pakistan Army, owing to its presence all across the country and its heavy lifting capacity. This is largely operational, and the Army is mostly technical, offering airlift, engineering, health, and communication services after the natural mechanism fails.
In the scale of flood-relief measures in major floods, military helicopters have played important roles in massive evacuations in flooded areas, while engineer units have contributed to the repair of roads, bridges, and embankments. Units in the medical corps have also provided temporary medical services in rural areas, focusing on immediate medical needs that arise in the wake of disasters. These activities are well in line with the notion of human security.
Most importantly, this division of labor civilian-led coordination by the NDMA, along with military support for its implementation assists in maintaining civilian authority and the capacity to provide effective responses.
Flood Relief Operations as a Case Study
The flood relief activities offer a good example of how Pakistan’s disaster response system has developed over time. In some of the recent large-scale flood crises, relief activities were organized by the NDMA, while the involvement of the Pakistan Army was limited to swift response actions such as evacuating people stranded due to flooding, unloading relief supplies, and regaining easier access to some isolated areas.
These activities have reflected a kind of learning on the part of the institutions. On the whole, in comparison to the past, the response capacity in dealing with disasters has enhanced the processes of prior positioning, planning, and communication. Even now, there are issues in the field of long-term rehabilitation and adaptation to climate change.
Institutional Learning and Leadership under CDF Field Marshal Asim Munir
Even if disaster response is not a personal but an institutional task, leadership priorities determine its preparedness and coordination. Readiness, discipline, and inter-agency synergy have been prioritized during CDF Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir’s appointment. Preparedness drills, contingency planning, and the support of civilians in leading disaster governance are becoming the focus, rather than reactive mobilization.
This is part of a larger concept of security that goes beyond traditional threats. Apex Military Leadership reinforced the state’s capabilities to cope up with non-traditional security challenges through an institution-based approach and by extending support to NDMA-led frameworks, without giving a political color to humanitarian operations.
Crucially, this stance stresses that the Army is a facilitating agent within civilian and constitutional establishments, reinforcing norms of professionalism while fulfilling immediate human demands.
Sar Sabz o Shadab Pakistan
In addition to immediate disaster response measures, Pakistan’s security strategy in a climate-stressed future consists of both promoting ecological stability and creating sustainable resiliency over time. Sar Sabz o Shadab Pakistan’s approach is based on the premise that recovering the environment contributes to the broader concept of sustainable human security. For example, large-scale afforestation and olive tree planting efforts in the drier and semi-dry regions, coupled with extensive mangrove restoration and watershed management practices, are being utilized to alleviate soil erosion, reduce the impact of flooding, and promote sustainable livelihoods.
Civil institutions will support these programs; however, when necessary, state entities will provide logistical and planning assistance to enhance civil efforts in order to address vulnerabilities at their source rather than just their symptoms. The climate security strategy of Pakistan is thus built around the interrelationship between environmental recovery and planning for future resiliency so as to shift the paradigm from reacting to disasters toward preventing them in a warming climate.
Disaster Response and Strategic Legitimacy
From a governance perspective, a successful response to disaster helps to build a type of strategic legitimacy that does not come from coercive power. When citizens feel that relief and rescue activities have been carried out, it helps to build their trust in the state through performance. For a climate-change vulnerable state like Pakistan, it plays an extremely important role.
Internationally, the Pakistan experience in responding to natural disasters has several take-home lessons for other developing nations that find themselves at risk due to climate change. The blending of civilian response mechanisms and the use of the military’s logistics capacity appears to offer a sensible way of dealing with disasters.
Conclusion
With increased occurrences of natural disasters brought about by climate change, it is the capacity of states to respond that is emerging as a core measure of human security. The situation in Pakistan reveals the vital role that NDMA and the operational capacity of the Pakistan Army play in making the country resilient in a climate-stressed scenario.
During the leadership of CDF Field Marshal Asim Munir in CDF, there have been characteristics that have shaped the emerging paradigm. Although disaster response by itself cannot affect structural vulnerabilities, it remains a key aspect within the context of saving lives and enhancing state legitimacy in the aspect of service delivery. This will remain fundamental, especially in the case of Pakistan and other countries facing the threats posed by climate-related risks.
Filza Asim is a researcher and analyst specializing in climate policy, political economy, and conflict studies in South Asia, with a focus on environmental governance, regional politics, and socio-economic development in the Global South.