Sea-based nuclear deterrence and maritime culture

economy is on the rise A private university in Lahore now runs a vibrant Centre of Research and Innovation in Maritime Affairs

Afew years back, a young researcher from an Islamabad-based think tank while contributing an opinion column for a national daily mentioned that sea–based deterrence is not a proven concept’ The writer could be forgiven for we live in a country where successive generations in academia, university graduates, and even scholars in think tanks have ad nauseam used their verbal written and oratory skills dissecting continental issues They have grown up hearing and learning about land-centric matters wars fought on land trifling non-issues in domestic politics and so on Seas, oceans or maritime matters are alien not only to commoners but amongst large segments of the country’s intelligentsia as well

The dominant part of the armed forces is drawn from Punjab a province with rich cultural traditions but abysmally low grasp of anything related to blue water, though its dwellers relish seafood The country s diplomatic corps is quite wanting on maritime issues; the Foreign Office seldom talks about the Indian Ocean or Indo-Pacific And in FO press briefings; there are rarely any questions on maritime security Until recently, the syllabus of the CSS examination barely had any worthwhile content on maritime issues

The problem compounds when national debate on nuclear subjects remains exceedingly narrow mostly restricted to a select group of officials from the strategic community One cannot overstate that it was the nuclear submarines that managed and sustained overarching international security order during much of the Cold War These platforms constituted what could easily be termed as the most robust component in the deterrent equation (triad) A nuclear weapon embarked on a submarine operating underwater provided an assured ability to respond It thus eliminated any incentives for any would-be attacker or adventurer

It was well-established that ground-based strategic bombers and even missiles kept in hardened underground silos could be destroyed in a decapitating (pre-emptive) destabilizing first strike

The initial US war planning was based on pre-emption against the Soviets The retaliatory solution was found in nuclear-weapons-carrying submarines propelled via a nuclear reactor The nuclear propulsion afforded these submarines indefinite submerged time (endurance) without fear of detection This was much against conventional diesel electric submarines with limited staying power underwater and fairly good chances of detection once recharging batteries, a process called snorkelling Suitably deployed hundreds of feet below the surface in the dark swathes of oceans, the inbuilt features of stealth, mobility and flexibility made nuclear submarines a formidable stabilizing element

The retaliatory options began to enter US war planning in the late 1950s This was the time when submarine launched ballistic missile (SLBM) programme, Polaris also got underway By 1971, Poseidon the advanced version of SLBM had started to replace Polaris Both the US as well as British nuclear submarines carried these missiles

At the height of the Poseidon programme (in the late 1970s), 31 nuclear-powered submarines of the US Navy carried 16 missiles each And every missile could carry up to 14 independently targetable nuclear warheads to deliver these with twice the accuracy of the earliest version

The USA today has 5,400 nuclear weapons, 1,744 of which are deployed and ready to be delivered The weapons are kept onboard submarines and in 80-foot-deep missile silos The fully mated missiles include almost 400 silobased ICBMs and a comparable number of submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs)

The United Kingdom has an estimated 120 operationally ready and available nuclear warheads, all aboard submarines France maintains an arsenal of nearly 300 deployed nuclear weapons Most of these are embarked on submarines, with the rest on air-launched cruise missiles Israel has reportedly retrofitted its conventional German Dolphin-class submarines with nuclear tipped cruise missiles

None of the universities in Pakistan, including the National Defence University Islamabad which boasts of a large think tank can claim to have someone accomplished in sea-based nuclear issues or for that matter with deep understanding of larger maritime security-naval and attendant subjects The classical role of navies in deterrence reinforcing strategic deterrence diplomacy or constabulary operations is barely understood For someone to claim a solid grip or perceptive eye on what is currently unfolding in the Indo-Pacific would be nothing short of selfdelusion The discourse in the majority of the national and international conferences organized by local universities, think tanks and even talk shows on electronic media centre on discussions other than naval or ocean-related matters It took seven editions of AMAN exercises (since 2007) underwritten by sustained efforts and resources of the Pakistan Navy to penetrate the thick crust of the country’s continental landscape

Until recently few if any in the universities in Punjab attempted to take up higher studies in the maritime or maritime security related subjects This scribe recalls how in 2012, a young aspiring PhD scholar faced difficulty to find a suitable advisor in a leading university of Lahore when she decided to do her doctoral studies on geopolitics in Indian Ocean Despite having a history that dates back to 1882 the university had never attempted a PhD work on such a subject As luck would have it, not only did the student scholar earn her doctorate with flying colours but today heads a department in another leading woman s university at Lahore her study became a pioneering work in academic circles of Punjab Thanks to the Pakistan Navy and its presence in Lahore, the Pakistan Navy War College with its rich library and diverse faculty extended full support to the prospective scholar

Interestingly, when in 1995-96 the Pakistan Navy first decided to upgrade its staff college to a war college and contemplated moving the institute from Karachi to Lahore, it could only do so in the teeth of stiff opposition from the country’s civil-military bureaucracy There was a strong vocal opposition despite the fact that the Navy had made a strong case for such a move

Over the years, through the Naval War College, the Navy has reached out to bureaucracy, academia entrepreneurs media and others in Lahore and beyond to expand maritime culture

This has resulted in a wider understanding of maritime and ocean matters besides appreciation of the role of the Navy in the economic and national strategic security of the country Several students have since taken up maritime subjects as part of higher studies while interest in blue

A major surface area under the government’s sway is the exclusive economic zone of Pakistan

It’s much larger than most federating units of the country Pakistan’s monthly oil import bill is roughly $1 2 billion All oil goods come via sea

More than 95 percent of global telecommunication traffic travels through 438 transoceanic submarine cables totalling some 1 2 million Km in length These cables crisscross ocean floors and provide voice and data transfer links all over the world Pakistan telecommunication system comprises 11 submarine cable systems with Karachi and Gwadar as landing stations The two stations provide resiliency in the event of a cable fault, damage or failure The bulk of the in-country services, including internet and e-commerce and so on, reside in fully functional and operationally available submarine cables

International reports however cite that PTA, the authority responsible for safeguarding and maintaining these cables in its area of responsibility, is grossly ill-prepared to handle any disruption or digital disaster, much less recovery of cables should it suffer a fault This is so despite Article 113 of the constitution of sea, UNCLOS-82 ratified by Pakistan in February 1997, rendering it mandatory for every State to adopt laws and regulations making it a “punishable offense” for ships or persons subject to its jurisdiction to break or injure a submarine cable beneath the high seas “either willfully or through culpable negligence”

Seas are crucial enablers of Pakistan’s oil transit data transit and trade transit They are also a medium for power projection, diplomacy and deterrence

In June 2020 Stephan Fruhling a professor at the Australian National University while contributing a policy paper for a journal had this to say: No other weapon system embodies the menacing, but also out-of-sight, presence of nuclear weapons better than the stealthy nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) that have for six decades, ceaselessly prowled the world’s cold ocean depths, waiting for an order that has never come SSBNs on continuous at-sea deterrence missions remain the mainstay of the nuclear forces in the United States and France, and the sole platform carrying British nuclear weapons Despite Russia’s significant investment in road-mobile missiles, SSBNs also remain an important element of its nuclear forces

So who is to blame for Pakistan not being able to catch up with India and mature its seabased assured second-strike capability? The answer perhaps resides as much in the history of our wars as in the academic culture prevalent in the professional institutes of Pakistan s armed forces If there is one constant in the politicomilitary chronicles of Pakistan, it is this: obdurately refusing to learn from grave mistakes and massive miscalculations of the past

The academic debate on nuclear issues must open up, particularly in the country s professional military institutes Our intellectuals must not be allowed to blunt nuclear deterrence capacity The self-imposed cognitive shackles on nuclear issues need to be removed Critical national strategic issues require wide ranging debate, from the grassroots to the highest professional and policymaking levels The earlier our intelligentsia wakes up to this reality the better it would be for Pakistan

The writer can be reached at mazamkhan54@gmail com

S e n d y o u r l e t t e r s t o : L e t t e r s t o E d i t o r, Pakistan Today, 4 - S h a a re y F a t i m a J i n n a h L a h o re P a k i s t a n E - m a i l : l e t t e r s @ p a k i s t a n t o d a y c o m p k L e t t e r s s h o u l d b e a d d re s s e d t o Pakistan Today e x c l u s i v e l y

Unity is critical for Palestinian cause

WITh all the barbarism that is going around in occupied Palestinian territories, there is a dire need for the Muslim world to come together and communicate a sense of unity to the larger world The recent World Cup in Qatar, which was supposed to be about football, became an effective platform to display solidarity with the Palestinians by people from across the world

It was heart-warming to watch people from countries as diverse as Japan Brazil, Argentina and others, snubbing the Israelis who were present in Qatar during football matches The occupiers of Palestine thought that with a string of ‘peace treaties’ with various Gulf countries they would be welcomed and accepted by the masses

To their own horror and expense, they found out how wrong they were They were surprised when people from across the world did not even hide their hatred for the occupiers of Palestine The reaction was so harsh that the Israelis preferred not to identify themselves with the Jewish state, and, instead, started mentioning the names of european countries to which they had originally belonged before moving to Israel

Such expressions of love and empathy for the Palestinians by the global population was a slap in the face of the countries that have embraced the occupiers The ‘normalisers’ who watch daily genocide of Arabs and attacks on the third holiest site in Islam, continue doing business with the occupying force The occupiers have always worked with rulers or heads of governments to achieve their goal because dictators can easily be bought or manipulated It would be interesting to see which ruler would embrace the new butchers in occupied Palestine; Benjamin Natanyahu and Itamar Ben Gvir who are shamelessly extending their blood-stained hands with active support from the United States, in their bit to ‘normalise’ Israel’s relations with more entities across the Middle east Netanyahu a Polish has killed over 2 000 Palestinians and Ben Gvir is infamous for his ‘death to Arab’ chants and for supporting european settler mobs in Sheikh Jarrah, a neighbourhood in east Jerusalem, where settlers have been forcing Palestinians out of their homes

During a recent settler rampage, Ben Gvir brandished a pistol, encouraging settlers to shoot directly at the resisting Palestinians

The fact is that the world at large needs Arab cash since europe and the US instigated a crisis that led to war between Russia and Ukraine The conflict has taken a toll on the treasury This means the Palestinians should work with Pakistan Iran Lebanon Saudi Arabia China Oman Kuwait Yemen, Syria, Russia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Somalia, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, Qatar, Bangladesh, South Africa and central Asian countries to stop the colonists from attacking them Iran and Saudi Arabia should unite and help the Palestinians They will be a strong force in the Arabian peninsula, which is why the Israelis are desperately working on keeping them divided The Muslims should work actively and unitedly to send the warmongers in Palestine back to where they come from; just as the Algerians did to the French People have clearly sided with the Palestinians how can any nation embrace the Netanyahu-Zionist axis of genocide? So bad is the situation with this power axis that it even made the US, whose citizens Rachel Corrie and Shireen Abu Akleh, among several others, have been killed by the Israelis, issue a response over the genocide taking place in Palestine It is time for the US and the world to end this occupation, and to give Palestine back to the Palestinians

ANGABEEN AHMAD KARACHI

Blue economy

A LT h O U G h the concept of blue economy emerged a while earlier it gained global spotlight during the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) in Brazil, and has since remained a key area of interest globally

According to the World Bank, blue economy is referred to the sustainable utilisation of seas, oceans and marine resources for preserving livelihoods, creating more job opportunities and strengthening economic growth

Owing to the potential of $25 trillion in the world blue resources, the countries around the world are transforming their economic interests from land resources to water resources Pakistan has also a vast potential of blue resources in the shape of seaports, virgin beaches, minerals and tuna, a fish which is consumed in large quantity in european countries The country is trying to explore and manipulate such worthy resources but due to certain challenges it is lagging behind in this struggle We have been ignoring the potential and opportunities of the sea, because our think tanks do not know how to explore and optimise the resources efficiently We spill millions of tonnes of untreated sewage into the Arabian Sea on a daily basis which results in pollution and destruction of our blue resources Furthermore, Pakistan clearly lags behind in terms of marine technology research and education Our fishing and cargo companies use obsolete methods for fishing and shipping, and, therefore, some of them are banned by various international organisations

Similarly excessive and unregulated fishing use of illegal nets and lack of fish processing techniques are elements that are adding to our burden We need some robust measures to promote and strengthen our blue resources The government should explore and develop its beaches in Balochistan to promote the tourism industry It should also encourage marine education, technology and industry in order to preserve the resources for a long time Although Gwadar seaport has the capacity to offload cargo of 7,000 million tonnes annually, the world is not attracted to the facility owing to the absence of modern technology For that reason, rapid sustainable development of the port should be made possible through effective policy making to make Gwadar port a centre of attraction for the global shipping industry Besides, we need to incorporate the concept of blue economy into maritime policy of the country to exploit the untapped ocean resources As the country suffers from current account deficit, fiscal deficit, poor taxation, informal economy and circular debt, our blue resources can play an effective role not only in strengthening our vulnerable economy but to mitigate the effects of climate change

MUHAMMAD SHAHBAZ DERA GHAZI

KHAN

Bogus domiciles

T h e issue of fake domiciles is a serious one in Balochistan Many a dream of having a bright future is crushed by the holders of illegal domiciles In every examination, be it for employment or education, almost one-third seats are seized by such rogue elements The culprits enjoy a lifetime of financial security at the cost of the deserving candidates Would someone take action to curb the practice?

MALAK MIR WALI MUSAKHEL