Military on parade—more than meets the eye. Ayesha Siddiqa breaks more than one stereotype: she’s a woman, and she’s a civilian. But that didn’t stop her from working for the Pakistani navy. As a military analyst, she is also the first person ever to uncover in detail the secret workings of the military’s vast economic power—a business whose worth is estimated at 15 billion euros and whose holdings range from gas stations to heavy industry, from cement to corn flakes. The precise range and depth of the military’s interests have always been off limits, a taboo subject on which the recently published Military Inc.: Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy has now shed a bright and revealing light.

Musharraf has his hands in everything. For more than half the history of this country that has fought three wars with India since its independence in 1947, the military has maintained a virtual stranglehold on all vital economic institutions. The ISI secret service intervenes regularly in the country’s political life and head of state Pervez Musharraf, who took power in a bloodless coup in 1999, is also president and chief of the Pakistani armed forces. The military controls real estate and property holdings via five conglomerates known as “welfare foundations.” They have bank accounts, insurance policies, universities and—according to Siddiqa—they control a third of heavy industry and more than seven percent of private companies.

Ayesha Siddiqa: business is business. The aim of these foundations is to finance schools, hospitals, and other social structures—funds that reach 10 million people, according to military sources. But figuring out the exact extant of such investments is difficult, if not impossible, since the companies financed have virtually no accounting transparency. Of the 96 companies directly controlled by the foundations, only nine have books that can be publicly consulted. Military authorities have systematically ignored requests from parliament to provide balance information and account registers. The generals’ business is constantly thriving thanks to government subventions, donations of land, and no-interest loans. “It’s amazingly inefficient,” says Siddiqa, “and the system is up to its neck in a kind of clan-style capitalism. The military’s primary objective should be to wage war, not to run a corporation.”

Well aware that her book might ruffle some feathers among the military, a sector that has always been a sort of “sacred cow” here, the author told the British daily The Guardian that over the past three years friends have strongly advised her not to publish the book. “They think I have a death wish,” she joked.