Defense experts call for adopting new strategies

Experts of nuclear armament, counterterrorism and Afghanistan and FATA issues on Friday urged the government to get rid of its old thinking and adopt modern strategies in fields of defense, law and order and counterterrorism to deal with the menace of militancy, insurgency and sectarian problems and focus on development of non-conventional weapons rather than keeping huge military.
The proposals were made at an exclusive brainstorming session of the Senate Standing Committee on Defence held to formulize policy guidelines for the government and parliament over the contentious issues.
Dr Shireen Mazari, Salim Safi and Tariq Khosa made their respective presentations during the session chaired by Senate Standing Committee head Mushahid Hussain Sayed and attended by Farhatullah Babar, Syed Faisal Raza Abidi, Senator Sehr Kamran, Col (r) Tahir Mashhadi, Haji Mohammad Adeel, Raja Zafarul Haq and Ishaq Dar.
The session, which was the first-ever public hearing of any committee of parliament, was also attended by a 13-member delegation of faculty and students of National Defense University (NDU), experts, NGOs, civil society bodies and journalists.
Mushahid said the session’s theme was “towards a new defense strategy” which was aimed at making policy briefings for parliamentarians.
“We want to provide input by different segments of society in devising a robust defense policy. In this regard, we have recorded all the proposals given by our analysts. Eventually, we would make public the Defense Policy Strategy as policy guidelines which would be unveiled in January 2013,” he added.
He said defense policy guidelines would cover different aspects of defense strategy, as in today’s world defense included key non-military components, including economy, social sector, parliament, rule of law and human security.
“The people of Pakistan are the major stakeholders of our defense policy and we would work to spread awareness amongst the public, parliament and the media,” he added.
Mushahid said the Senate committee aimed at covering three objectives through public hearings, including a review of current issues pertaining to the defense sector, to determine what changes were needed in the defense policy and to provide new policy ideas, inputs and guidelines so that the country’s national defense policy represent emerging ground realities to better serve the people in an effective manner, discarding tried, tested and failed policies.
He said it was time the issues needed not to be kept secret from the public and there could not be any “holy cows” anymore.
He said parliament could not become supreme without practical policy contribution from civilian rulers and it could only play a leadership role through innovation in ideas, better performance and taking initiatives.
Former FIA DG Tariq Khosa covered militancy and counterterrorism areas and said the government should ban office-bearers of the banned outfits rather than banning militant organizations.
He said since the government had introduced effective laws to curb illegal transactions to banned outfits through “Hundi and Hawala”, annual remittances had grown manifold.
Regarding Balochistan unrest, Khosa said the government should revive policing across the province and FC should be sent to bordering areas and police should replace Levies.
Moreover, he added that the monitoring of highways should be assigned to Frontier Constabulary.
Khosa said Baloch youth were very much loyal to the state of Pakistan and there was a false impression that the Baloch youth was violent. However, there was a need for the government to engage the Baloch youth and they should be employed properly to end poverty.
Senior journalist Salim Safi gave an overview of the law and order in Afghanistan and FATA. He pointed out that new grouping was emerging in Afghanistan and in the fast changing scenario, no single group could emerge victorious in the war-torn country.
He proposed that Pakistan should support an Afghan-owned and Afghan-led solution to the problem, as keeping eggs in one or two baskets had proved counter-productive. He said the situation in Afghanistan was fluid and any mistake could prove fatal for Pakistan, urging strongly to discard such “silly notions like strategic depth”.
Calling for a dialogue between the civilian government and the military vis-à-vis Afghan issue, Safi said there was a need for both to go in tandem to evolve clarity and get rid of misunderstandings, as, in his view, there was a disconnect on Afghan policy between the “Khaki and Mufti”.
He said the people of FATA had been sandwiched by rival forces and it was imperative for the government to bring the Tribal Areas into the mainstream and annul FCR and other black laws.
Dr Mazari made her presentation on nuclear program. She gave an overview of the country’s achievements in the non-conventional defense sector, giving a comparative narrative between the country’s nuclear and missile program and other nations, especially India.
Mazari proposed that Pakistan should insist on its stated position on FMCT to safeguard its advantage against other nuclear countries as fissile material control may jeopardize its future endeavors in nuclear field.
She said Pakistan should launch a diplomatic lobbying to get India-like treatment waivers on FMCT. She urged for inducting Nasr Missile to the country’s armory to counter the “Cold Start” doctrine or limited war doctrine of India.
Mazari said Cruise Missiles could break missile shield program of India which the neighboring state had evolved with assistance from US.
She said the country should spend more on nuclear program which was useful deterrence in the modern era and it should now acquire a small but efficient conventional military.