SECURITY ISSUES IN PAKISTAN

While there are reasons to be upbeat about Pakistan-Afghan relations, unfortunately, similar
optimism cannot be expressed about Pakistan-India relations. In fact, the conduct of the
Narendra Modi government has significantly compounded the challenges to this long troubled
relationship. Many of the fears in Pakistan about an Indian government led by BJP leader
Narendra Modi are being borne out. Mr Modis inaugural outreach inviting Prime Minister
Nawaz Sharif to his oath taking ceremony proved to be a false dawn.
Since then, Delhi has halted all dialogue with Pakistan on flimsy grounds, instigated artillery and
small arms firing across the Line of Control and Working Boundary and ratcheted up its antiPakistan rhetoric. Cross-border firing reached an unprecedented peak in September-October,
with almost half the violations by India on the Working Boundary.
This belligerent posture a form of brinkmanship has also been evidenced in a series of
statements by Indias defence and home ministers warning of inflicting pain on Pakistan and
that India was powerful enough to give a befitting reply.
The handshake at Kathmandu did nothing to change this. On the contrary, Prime Minister Modis
behaviour at the Saarc summit, and after, has reinforced the perception that India seeks, through
coercive means, to change the parameters of its engagement with Pakistan, particularly to take
Kashmir off the negotiating table.
This is unacceptable to Pakistan. Islamabad has already made it clear it will not agree to any preconditions for the resumption of dialogue. Nor will it accept Kashmir being excluded from the
bilateral agenda. If anything, Mr Modis hardline posture has strengthened the consensus within
Pakistan that Indias domineering approach must be rejected and resisted.
It does not take a sage to predict that if Prime Minister Modi proceeds to promote the goal of
installing a BJP government in Srinagar by manipulation of the state elections underway, tries to
scrap Article 370 of the Indian constitution, that accords special status to Jammu and Kashmir,
and also moves towards trifurcation of the state into Jammu, Ladakh and Kashmir, this could
provoke a strong reaction from the people of Kashmir, even spark another uprising.
If that happens, Indian authorities will no doubt use strong-arm tactics to suppress this, as they
have done in the past. This will evoke a response from the Pakistani people and risk another
major crisis between Pakistan and India, with all the attendant dangers.
Indias hardened posture is not just being driven by the omnipresence of Rashtriya Swayamsevak
Sangh (RSS) hardliners in the BJP government, especially around Mr Modi. It is also being
encouraged wittingly or otherwise by some Western powers by their political pandering to
Delhi and by the military supplies and nuclear and strategic cooperation being offered to India.
Washingtons assumption that India will, or can, play the role of regional counterweight to
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Chinas rising power and influence in Asia could prove to be another strategic miscalculation that
may come to rival the mistakes the US has made elsewhere in the world.
India, now the worlds largest arms importer, has sought to justify its build up by projecting this
as designed to counter Chinas growing military capabilities. Yet, the bulk of Indias military
capabilities land, air and sea continue to be deployed against Pakistan.
Indias arms build up obliges Pakistan to take appropriate measures to retain the ability to deter
and, if need be, to respond to a possible Indian attack, including a surprise attack, as envisaged
by its Cold Start doctrine. Obviously, Pakistan cannot match Indias conventional arms
expansion. Nor should it think of engaging in a conventional arms race with India. Its response
will necessarily have to defensive and cost effective.
The maintenance of Pakistans ability to defend itself by conventional means is not only in the
interest of Pakistan, but also a goal that should be desired by the international community.
Without an adequate conventional balance, an Indo-Pakistan conflict could escalate very quickly
to the dreaded nuclear level.
Unfortunately, this requirement has been completely overlooked by Indias new arms suppliers
and strategic partners. The growing conventional asymmetry has obliged Pakistan to adopt the
posture of Full Spectrum Deterrence, which includes the development of tactical nuclear
weapons. Once India deploys Anti-Ballistic Missile systems, Pakistan will feel the need to
multiply the number of its nuclear capable missiles to preserve credible deterrence.
Already Pakistan has sought to fill the gaps at the tactical level opened up by Indias provocative
war-fighting doctrine, which envisages a limited conventional conflict under the nuclear
threshold. This has obliged Pakistan to embark on developing delivery systems for Full Spectrum
Deterrence and involved the development of short-range, low yield nuclear weapons aimed at
deterring Cold Start and restoring nuclear stability.
In addressing the nuclear danger in South Asia, the efforts of Western policy makers and experts
have been focused solely on the safety of Pakistans nuclear weapons alone. The vital issue of
the credibility of nuclear deterrence has been completely ignored.
As regards safety, it is now widely acknowledged that Pakistans weapons and nuclear
materials are under tight control and its elaborate system of safeguards is better than that adopted
by several other nuclear and nuclear-capable countries, including India.
Preserving the credibility of nuclear deterrence between Pakistan and India will depend on the
present and potential size and quality of their respective nuclear arsenals and their survivability
in the event of a pre-emptive strike. In relations between rival nuclear weapon states, there is
always offensive temptation and defensive anticipation regarding a pre-emptive strike.

A survival second-strike capability offers an assurance against adventurist action by either side.
Indias continuing strategic build up will compel Pakistan to acquire, if it has not already planned
to do so, a second strike capability by enlarging its arsenal and taking a number of actions
including dispersal and disguise and protected launch sites.
A clear and present danger that remains largely unappreciated at the international level is this. In
the Subcontinents volatile environment where a crisis can emerge quite quickly from a terrorist
attack or another Kashmiri spark there is urgent need for a new understanding between Pakistan
and India. At present, there is no understanding on either force levels and deployments or
doctrines that can prevent an escalatory spiral from spinning out of control. During the cold war,
the two principal nuclear protagonists found it necessary to have some understanding on these
issues, backed by hotlines and other crisis-communication mechanisms.
Here, the two countries dont have the luxury of distance, so dialogue and mutual understanding
is absolutely essential to clarify India and Pakistans military and nuclear doctrines and build
political and technical barriers to the eruption of conflict, by miscalculation or mistake.
It is irresponsible not to address these vital issues. It is also hard to understand why the
international community has done little, if anything, to insist on and promote such an
understanding.
Let me conclude this broad review of Pakistans security challenges where I started. Although
Pakistan has to carefully navigate a fraught and unsettled regional environment, the countrys
most critical choices lie within, as do our most urgent problems and their solutions. If we believe
that destiny is choice, not chance, then the factors that will shape Pakistans destiny lie within.
Only an economically strong, internally stable and tolerant Pakistan will have the capacity and
confidence to deal with external challenges.