Pakistan’s quid pro quo plus: a key strategic determinant
It is pertinent to highlight that the ‘Quid Pro Quo Plus’ (QPQP) is based on an assertion that India would not be allowed to consider Pakistan’s nuclear capability as a bluff, and that Pakistan reserves all other options as well to protect its territorial and ideological integrity. In addition to Full Spectrum Deterrence (FSD), Pakistan has maintained credible conventional responses, keeping in view India’s desire to wage either a limited or low-intensity conflict. Pakistan’s tactical missile ‘Nasr’ for instance, is believed to have been introduced essentially in response to India’s limited war doctrines. This provides further assurance that India would be denied the initiation of a low-intensity conflict and escalating the situation which could provoke Pakistan towards a massive retaliation.
Pakistan is already punching well above its weight, and nuclear deterrence along with conventional preparedness would be the only way through which Pakistan can maintain a precise balance of power to preserve its security. This could be further carried out by deterring India with a resort to restrain based on ‘quid pro quo plus’ policy.
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Pak Army”s secret book reveals its new tactics for proxy war against India
New Delhi, April 27 (IANS) Shaken by the two significant actions of the Modi government last year — the air strike on terror camps in Balakot and the nullification of special status of Jammu & Kashmira — the Pakistan Army has recalibrated its proxy war tactics against India. Pakistan Army has decided to go big on psychological warfare, revive home-grown native terrorism in Kashmir against India and use Indian authors like Arundhati Roy”s criticism of India as propaganda material to Islamabad”s advantage. All this and more was revealed in the latest edition of the Green Book 2020 published by the general headquarters of the Pakistan Army.
The Green Book is a confidential internal publication of the Pakistan Army which outlines its geo-political understanding, vision and strategies. Apart from Pakistan Army chief”s views, it includes essays on policy recommendations written by specialists of defence forces and strategic thinkers of the country.
In the 200-page book, a copy of which was accessed by IANS, Pakistan Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa has written that the two decisions taken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last year, the Balakot strike on February 26 and reorganisation of Jammu & Kashmir state on August 5, will have “lasting imprint on the geopolitics” of the region.
Bajwa described the Balakot strike as a “coercive attempt to carve out space for war under nuclear overhang and enforce compellence.” Modi”s Kashmir decision, Bajwa said, has “raised the ante for the entire world.”
Other authors like Lieutenant General (retired) Raza Muhammad Khan (former corps commander and former President of National Defence University, Islamabad), Senator Mushahid Hussain and Peshawar-based journalist Farzana Shah made several anti-India policy recommendations.
Recognising that India is backed by the US and American efforts to contain China”s rise are promoting India, one of the suggestions was to warn Washington that Pakistan will shift its forces from its Western borders, which can adversely affect peace in Afghanistan, if New Delhi was allowed to pursue its Kashmir policy.
The book also contained conspiracy theories like “increased proliferation of WMDs, due to Indo-US nuclear deal and the RSS hold over Indian nuclear weapons and its armed forces” and Indian external intelligence agency RAW “established a special cell at a cost of $500 million” to sabotage the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.
China as a reliable strategic ally was repeatedly emphasised in the book. In one of the essays, Chinese President Xi Jinping”s quote — “No matter how things change in the world and the region, China will firmly support Pakistan in upholding its sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity and dignity” — was highlighted.
The other recommendation was to take Pakistan”s proxy war against India into the “non-kinetic domain” like information or cyber or electronic warfare. For this, Pakistan Army has been advised to run propaganda using video clips and pictures about “brutalities of Indian oppressive forces” in Kashmir to alter the perception about India, which it has “built so painstakingly over the years”.
“Modi”s India is bound to get stuck and sink in the Kashmir quagmire,” the essay by Senator Hussain said, while Ambassador Shamshad Ahmad Khan wrote, “Kashmiri youth are dying on the streets, not asking for jobs and employment opportunities. They are holding the Pakistan flag; it is a clear verdict!”
One major suggestion offered to the Pakistani Army was that it should revive “local uprising” in Indian Kashmir and make it difficult for “India to keep selling the terrorism card” in Kashmir.
“Only a native uprising will be just and politically defendable for Pakistan on international forums. Even such an uprising will need support in the information domain,” an essay said.
Professor Tughral Yamin in his prescription about future wars with India said that as long as Kashmir was unresolved, “there will be plenty of triggers to cause another crisis (for India) in the future.”
Yet another writer advised that “Indian masses and liberal intellectuals” should be the recipients of Pakistan”s information dissemination campaign on Kashmir.
The only scholarly piece in the book, ”Security Competition between US & China and Impact on Regional Strategic Balance of South Asia”, was written by Rizwana Karim Abbasi who recommended bilateral dialogues between the US and China and simultaneously between India and Pakistan.
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Pakistan Navy conducts successful anti-ship missile live-fire demonstration
By News Desk : April 25, 2020
The Pakistan Navy on Saturday successfully conducted a live-fire demonstration of an anti-ship missile from multiple launch platforms, said the service’s spokesperson Rear Admiral Arshid Javed. The spokesperson added that the missiles were fired from surface ships, fixed and rotary-wing aircraft. The Navy did not give further details about the anti-ship missile used.
The target of the live-fire drill was an old decommissioned surface ship.
“The successful demonstration of missile firing is a testament to the Pakistan Navy’s operational capability and military readiness,” the spokesperson added.
Chief of the Naval Staff (CONS) Admiral Zafar Mahmood Abbasi, who witnessed the demonstrations as the chief guest said, “Pakistan Navy is always ready to thwart any aggression against Pakistan’s maritime frontier”.
“Pakistan Navy is fully capable to respond to enemy’s aggression befittingly,” the navy chief added.
(Source: THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE)
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RSS-Modi Nationalist ideology and threat of nuclear war between Pakistan and India
The ideology carried by RSS and Modi is not based on rationality and justice rather on killings innocent people of Kashmir, deaths, destruction, humiliation, and other kinds of multiple atrocities. At the time when whole the World is wrapped with pandemic disease named novel Covid-19 and fighting hard against it to eliminate this destructive disease. Policies and actions by PM Modi could compel Pakistan to take stark action that resultantly leave severe impacts on India-Pakistan, region and the world ultimately. This craziness and madness at the hands of PM Modi could cause for the escalation of war between both the nuclear power states which ends with the deaths and destruction of both the nations.
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Global war on terror: positive effects of Pakistan’s policy transformation
It is mentionable that the US has not taken any practical action to the tune of sanctions against India in response to the continued lockdown in the Indian-occupied Kashmir. Meanwhile, the US, which clearly prefers India over Pakistan, is not favouring Islamabad in connection with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) that has still kept Pakistan on the grey list. Pakistan’s gradual transition from a country struggling to fight terrorism and religious militancy to a peaceful and tolerant society with more potential for economic progress in the digital age has been appreciated by the international community. Despite policy changes, Islamabad will continue to have a cordial relationship with Washington. The latter must also show a positive response; taking note of Pakistan’s key role in the US-Taliban agreement and its efforts for regional peace.
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20,000 Afghans cross Torkham in four days
More than 20,000 stranded Afghans went back to their country via Torkham during the last four days of border reopening. Officials told Dawn that the last day was comparatively calm as only about 1,100 Afghans, mostly men, crossed the border prior to its closure. The total number of returned Afghans during the four days was 20,066, they said. Officials said that the second and third day (April 7 and 8) were very tough for them as the ‘influx’ of the stranded Afghan was beyond their expectations. “Cumulatively, almost 18,000 Afghans, including men, women and children, went back home in these two days as the government had relaxed its immigration policy by allowing just all and sundry to cross the border,” an official told this scribe on condition of anonymity.
Official figures showed that on Thursday, 485 Afghans with valid visas on their passports, 461 with their Afghan national identity cards and 57 with Proof of Registration Cards (POR) were allowed to go back to their homeland. Pakistan had earlier announced to resume bilateral trade with Afghanistan on a restricted basis with more emphasis on the health screening of both drivers to check transmission of corona virus on any side of the border.
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COVID-19 lockdown sparks harvest crises in Pakistan, India
Trees have bent, bearing the load of ripened summer fruits and a bumper crop of wheat in a golden hue is ready for harvest in the fields, spread across the plains of Pakistan and India. But in the absence of labor and means of transportation due to lockdown to stem the spread of COVID-19 or corona virus, millions of farmers are staring at another disaster, watching their produce rotting in their fields. The harvest of famed fruit of the region mango is also just a month away. Experts believe that the phenomenon will have cascading effects on the region’s food security.
Around 70% of Pakistan’s small farmers rely on traditional farm laborers, who come from the remote or the low-income areas before the harvesting season. They could not make it this time due to weeks-long lockdown. The governments in both the countries have also delayed procurement of crops from farmers, an annual exercise to a full-up buffer stock of food grains, which also acts as an incentive to farmers to ensure a minimum support price.
In India, the central government has asked the farmers to delay harvesting given the situation. Experts fear that the delay in the harvesting of crops, mainly wheat may lead to serious food security issues in the two nuclear neighbors, which together share 1.5 billion of the total world population.