The Chief of the Air Staff exercise its responsibility of command and control of the operational, administration, combatant, logistics, and training commands within the Air Force.[3]: 140 Due to its statute, the Chief of the Air Staff maintain its importance of providing the strategic control and final decision-making issues relating the nation's national security.[4]
The appointment, in principle, is constitutionally subjected for three years but extensions may be granted by the President upon recommendations and approvals from the Prime Minister. The Chief of the Air Staff is based at the Air Headquarters, and the current Chief of the Air Staff is the Air Chief Marshal Zaheer Ahmad Baber.[2]
History
The Pakistan Air Force was created from the partition of the Royal Indian Air Force after the partition of India in 1947, and were commanded by the appointments approved by the British Air Council. The position was then-known as the Commander in Chief who would directly report to the Governor-General who was also under British monarchs.[5]: 238 At first, the office was held by the two-star rank air officer, an Air Vice Marshal, and later upgraded to a three-star rank, Air Marshal. The British Air Council continued making the appointment at the command level until 1957, when Pakistan had promoted a local air officer to the commanding position.[5]: 238
On 20 March 1972, the title of the office was changed from "Commander in Chief" to the "Chief of Air Staff" with Air Marshal Zafar Chaudhry being appointed as the first person to hold the latter title.[6] The Air Force had its first four-star rank officer, an Air Chief Marshal, in 1974.[7] The term of the superannuation was then constrained to three years in the office as opposed to four years and air chief was made a permanent member of Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee.[6][4] Since 1974, there has been 14 four-star rank air force officers who have commanded the air force as its air chief.[6]
The Chief of the Air Staff is nominated and appointed by the Prime Minister whose appointment is then confirmed by the President.[2] The air force leadership is based in the AHQ in Islamabad, at the vicinity of the Navy Headquarters.[4]
The Chief of the Air Staff leads the functions of the AHQ, assisted by the civilians from the Air Force Secretariat-II of the Ministry of Defence (MoD).[1] The Chief of the Air Staff exercise its responsibility of complete operational, training and logistics commands.[4] In addition, the Air chief has several staff officers:-
Vice Chief of Air Staff
Deputy Chief of the Air Staff Aerial Support (DCAS(S))
Deputy Chief of the Air Staff Training and Evaluation (DCAS (T&E))
Deputy Chief of the Air Staff Air Operations (DCAS AO)
Deputy Chief of the Air Staff Personnel (DCAS P)
Deputy Chief of the Air Staff Engineering (DCAS (E))
The following tables chronicle the appointees to the office of the Chief of the Air Staff or its preceding positions since the independence of Pakistan.[8]
^ abMoD, Ministry of Defence. "Organogram of MoD"(PDF). mod.gov.pk/. Ministry of Defence Press. Archived from the original(PDF) on 18 September 2017. Retrieved 22 July 2017.
^ abCheema, Pervaiz Iqbal (2002). "Defence Administration". The Armed Forces of Pakistan(google books) (1st ed.). New York, U.S.: NYU Press. p. 225. ISBN9780814716335. Retrieved 25 July 2017.
^ abcAlam, Dr Shah (2012). "Modernization under Bhutto"(googlebooks). Pakistan Army: Modernisation, Arms Procurement and Capacity Building. Vij Books India Pvt Ltd. ISBN9789381411797. Retrieved 27 July 2017.
^Ramsey, Syed (2017). "Recovery from 1971 war"(google books). Pakistan and Islamic Militancy in South Asia. Vij Books India Pvt Ltd. ISBN9789386367433. Retrieved 27 July 2017.
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