Minimum deterrence
DURING his visit to the Strategic Plans Division, the Secretariat of National Command Authority, on Saturday, Mr Aziz reiterated the government’s commitment to the nuclear and missile programme and said retaining minimum deterrence was the cornerstone of our national security policy. After a briefing, attended among others by Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen Ehsanul Haq and VCOAS Gen Ahsan Saleem Hayat, he appeared satisfied with the effectiveness of the Command and Control structures.
At the same time, he said, Pakistan, being a ‘responsible, declared and acknowledged’ nuclear power, would continue to play a positive role in the international effort against proliferation. His commitment to retaining minimum deterrence is nothing new, but gains significance in the backdrop of the Pakistan-India peace process having run into trouble. But who is responsible for this? India, without a doubt.
It not only failed to positively reciprocate to the CBMs Pakistan unilaterally offered one after the other but also pushed the ongoing composite dialogue to a deadlock. And Mr Aziz’s recent visit to New Delhi brought no breakthrough.
This became evident when his statement that the idea of turning the LoC into an international border was not acceptable to Pakistan, was countered by Dr Manmohan Singh’s assertion that India would not concede the redrawing of ‘existing boundaries.’ It was followed by Kunwar Natwar Singh’s statement that India could, at best, think of granting autonomy to Occupied Kashmir.
So while India keeps dragging its feet on the issue of resolving the core dispute, it becomes all the more important for Pakistan to take every possible measure to safeguard its sovereignty and territorial integrity against any external threat.
The world must rest assured that Pakistan, unlike India, has no hegemonic designs and that despite having attained nuclear capability long ago it did not make it open until compelled to do so to remove a regional imbalance of nuclear power. Before that, Pakistan had constantly supported the UN vote calling for turning South Asia into a nuclear-free zone.
As Pakistan is not a signatory to the NPT it cannot be barred from building its nuclear and missile programme. Despite that, it continues to support the global non-proliferation effort, as it showed by the prolonged debriefing of the country’s top scientist after he was accused of links with the nuclear black-market. But it’s a pity that the USA seems reluctant to rely on the months-long investigation Dr A.Q. Khan had been subjected to, and now may well be planning to take this issue to the UN.
This might be the purpose of the CIA’s slapping a new charge on Dr Khan of having supplied weapons components to Iran for making nuclear warheads. But since the words ‘weapons components’ were not there in the CIA’s original report, being added later in a New York Times story, it seems an attempt to give a new and malign twist to the whole issue.
This is unfair. Washington must stop trusting misleading information and accept that maintaining nuclear deterrence is a question of Pakistan’s survival, which the USA is presently jeopardising rather than securing.
http://www.nation.com.pk/daily/nov-2004/29/editorials1.php
DURING his visit to the Strategic Plans Division, the Secretariat of National Command Authority, on Saturday, Mr Aziz reiterated the government’s commitment to the nuclear and missile programme and said retaining minimum deterrence was the cornerstone of our national security policy. After a briefing, attended among others by Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen Ehsanul Haq and VCOAS Gen Ahsan Saleem Hayat, he appeared satisfied with the effectiveness of the Command and Control structures.
At the same time, he said, Pakistan, being a ‘responsible, declared and acknowledged’ nuclear power, would continue to play a positive role in the international effort against proliferation. His commitment to retaining minimum deterrence is nothing new, but gains significance in the backdrop of the Pakistan-India peace process having run into trouble. But who is responsible for this? India, without a doubt.
It not only failed to positively reciprocate to the CBMs Pakistan unilaterally offered one after the other but also pushed the ongoing composite dialogue to a deadlock. And Mr Aziz’s recent visit to New Delhi brought no breakthrough.
This became evident when his statement that the idea of turning the LoC into an international border was not acceptable to Pakistan, was countered by Dr Manmohan Singh’s assertion that India would not concede the redrawing of ‘existing boundaries.’ It was followed by Kunwar Natwar Singh’s statement that India could, at best, think of granting autonomy to Occupied Kashmir.
So while India keeps dragging its feet on the issue of resolving the core dispute, it becomes all the more important for Pakistan to take every possible measure to safeguard its sovereignty and territorial integrity against any external threat.
The world must rest assured that Pakistan, unlike India, has no hegemonic designs and that despite having attained nuclear capability long ago it did not make it open until compelled to do so to remove a regional imbalance of nuclear power. Before that, Pakistan had constantly supported the UN vote calling for turning South Asia into a nuclear-free zone.
As Pakistan is not a signatory to the NPT it cannot be barred from building its nuclear and missile programme. Despite that, it continues to support the global non-proliferation effort, as it showed by the prolonged debriefing of the country’s top scientist after he was accused of links with the nuclear black-market. But it’s a pity that the USA seems reluctant to rely on the months-long investigation Dr A.Q. Khan had been subjected to, and now may well be planning to take this issue to the UN.
This might be the purpose of the CIA’s slapping a new charge on Dr Khan of having supplied weapons components to Iran for making nuclear warheads. But since the words ‘weapons components’ were not there in the CIA’s original report, being added later in a New York Times story, it seems an attempt to give a new and malign twist to the whole issue.
This is unfair. Washington must stop trusting misleading information and accept that maintaining nuclear deterrence is a question of Pakistan’s survival, which the USA is presently jeopardising rather than securing.
http://www.nation.com.pk/daily/nov-2004/29/editorials1.php