Related Research Articles
The Pakistan Armed Forces are the military forces of Pakistan. It is the world's sixth-largest military measured by active military personnel and consist of three formally uniformed services—the Army, Navy, and the Air Force, which are backed by several paramilitary forces such as the National Guard and the Civil Armed Forces. A critical component to the armed forces' structure is the Strategic Plans Division Force, which is responsible for the maintenance and safeguarding of Pakistan's tactical and strategic nuclear weapons stockpile and assets. The President of Pakistan is the Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistan Armed Forces and the chain of command is organized under the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (JCSC) alongside the respective Chiefs of staffs of the Army, Navy, and Air Force. All branches are systemically coordinated during joint operations and missions under the Joint Staff Headquarters (JSHQ).
Nuclear warfare, also known as atomic warfare, is a military conflict or prepared political strategy that deploys nuclear weaponry. Nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction; in contrast to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare can produce destruction in a much shorter time and can have a long-lasting radiological result. A major nuclear exchange would likely have long-term effects, primarily from the fallout released, and could also lead to secondary effects, such as "nuclear winter", nuclear famine, and societal collapse. A global thermonuclear war with Cold War-era stockpiles, or even with the current smaller stockpiles, may lead to various scenarios including the extinction of the human species.
In nuclear strategy, minimal deterrence, also known as minimum deterrence and finite deterrence, is an application of deterrence theory in which a state possesses no more nuclear weapons than is necessary to deter an adversary from attacking. Pure minimal deterrence is a doctrine of no first use, holding that the only mission of nuclear weapons is to deter a nuclear adversary by making the cost of a first strike unacceptably high. To present a credible deterrent, there must be the assurance that any attack would trigger a retaliatory strike. In other words, minimal deterrence requires rejecting a counterforce strategy in favor of pursuing survivable force that can be used in a countervalue second strike.
Mutual assured destruction (MAD) is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy which posits that a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by an attacker on a nuclear-armed defender with second-strike capabilities would cause the complete annihilation of both the attacker and the defender. It is based on the theory of rational deterrence, which holds that the threat of using strong weapons against the enemy prevents the enemy's use of those same weapons. The strategy is a form of Nash equilibrium in which, once armed, neither side has any incentive to initiate a conflict or to disarm.
In nuclear ethics and deterrence theory, No first use (NFU) refers to a type of pledge or policy wherein a nuclear power formally refrains from the use of nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in warfare, except for as a second strike in retaliation to an attack by an enemy power using WMD. Such a pledge would allow for a unique state of affairs in which a given nuclear power can be engaged in a conflict of conventional weaponry while it formally forswears any of the strategic advantages of nuclear weapons, provided the enemy power does not possess or utilize any such weapons of their own. The concept is primarily invoked in reference to nuclear mutually assured destruction but has also been applied to chemical and biological warfare, as is the case of the official WMD policy of India.
Deterrence theory refers to the scholarship and practice of how threats or limited force by one party can convince another party to refrain from initiating some other course of action. The topic gained increased prominence as a military strategy during the Cold War with regard to the use of nuclear weapons and is related to but distinct from the concept of mutual assured destruction, according to which a full-scale nuclear attack on a power with second-strike capability would devastate both parties. The central problem of deterrence revolves around how to credibly threaten military action or nuclear punishment on the adversary despite its costs to the deterrer.
Pakistan is one of nine states that possess nuclear weapons. Pakistan began developing nuclear weapons in January 1972 under Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who delegated the program to the Chairman of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) Munir Ahmad Khan with a commitment to having the device ready by the end of 1976. Since PAEC, which consisted of over twenty laboratories and projects under reactor physicist Munir Ahmad Khan, was falling behind schedule and having considerable difficulty producing fissile material, Abdul Qadeer Khan, a metallurgist working on centrifuge enrichment for Urenco, joined the program at the behest of the Bhutto administration by the end of 1974. As pointed out by Houston Wood, "The most difficult step in building a nuclear weapon is the production of fissile material"; as such, this work in producing fissile material as head of the Kahuta Project was pivotal to Pakistan developing the capability to detonate a nuclear weapon by the end of 1984.
Massive retaliation, also known as a massive response or massive deterrence, is a military doctrine and nuclear strategy in which a state commits itself to retaliate in much greater force in the event of an attack.
Flexible response was a defense strategy implemented by John F. Kennedy in 1961 to address the Kennedy administration's skepticism of Dwight Eisenhower's New Look and its policy of massive retaliation. Flexible response calls for mutual deterrence at strategic, tactical, and conventional levels, giving the United States the capability to respond to aggression across the spectrum of war, not limited only to nuclear arms.
The military history of Pakistan encompasses an immense panorama of conflicts and struggles extending for more than 2,000 years across areas constituting modern Pakistan and greater South Asia. The history of the modern-day military of Pakistan began in 1947, when Pakistan achieved its independence as a modern nation.
In military doctrine, countervalue is the targeting of an opponent's assets that are of value but not actually a military threat, such as cities and civilian populations. Counterforce is the targeting of an opponent's military forces and facilities. The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., records the first use of the word in 1660 and the first use in the modern sense in 1965 in which it is described as a "euphemism for attacking cities".
Operation Brasstacks was a major combined arms military exercise of the Indian Armed Forces in Rajasthan state of India, that took place from November 1986 to January 1987 near Pakistan border.
A strategic nuclear weapon (SNW) refers to a nuclear weapon that is designed to be used on targets often in settled territory far from the battlefield as part of a strategic plan, such as military bases, military command centers, arms industries, transportation, economic, and energy infrastructure, and heavily populated areas such as cities and towns, which often contain such targets. It is in contrast to a tactical nuclear weapon, which is designed for use in battle as part of an attack with and often near friendly conventional forces, possibly on contested friendly territory.
Air Chief Marshal Mohammad Anwar ShamimNI(M) HI(M) SJ SI(M) OI LoM ; was a senior air officer of the Pakistan Air Force and was the Chief of Air Staff, appointed to the post in 1978 until retiring in 1985.
Cold Start is a military doctrine that was developed by the Indian Armed Forces for use in a possible war with Pakistan. It involves the various branches of India's military conducting offensive operations as part of unified battlegroups. The doctrine is intended to allow India's conventional forces to perform holding attacks to prevent a nuclear retaliation from Pakistan in case of a conflict. The first Integrated Battle Group is expected to be structured by the end of August 2019.
The Pakistan Air Force Strategic Forces Command, known as AFSC, is one of the major commands of the Pakistan Air Force responsible for air force elements of strategic deterrence. The command is headquartered in Islamabad and directly reports to the Strategic Plans division, Chief of Air Staff, President, and the Prime Minister of Pakistan.
The Naval Strategic Forces Command, is one of the three major unified commands of the Pakistan Armed Forces responsible for the defence and protection of naval and naval-nuclear assets in the country. The command was commissioned on 24 June 2004, at Naval Headquarters (NHQ) after the concept was approved by then-Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Shahid Karimullah. The Naval Command is responsible for operational planning, directives, and deployment of nuclear weapons on its naval vessels.
Minimum Credible Deterrence is the defence and strategic principle on which the atomic weapons programme of Pakistan is based. This doctrine is not a part of the nuclear doctrine, which is designed for the use of the atomic weapons in a full-scale declared war if the conditions of the doctrine are surpassed. Instead, the policy of the Minimum Credible Deterrence falls under minimal deterrence as an inverse to the Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), which is widely regarded as designed to dissuade India from taking any military actions against Pakistan, as it did in 1971, when Pakistan started the war. Pakistan refuses to adopt No first use policy, while the other regional powers India and China had adopted the policy. Pakistan's foreign minister Shamshad Ahmad had warned that if Pakistan is ever invaded or attacked, it will use "any weapon in its arsenal" to defend itself.
The Threat Matrix is an intelligence-based measure and thorough assessments database program that Pakistani government officials and military science circles use in evaluating perceived external and internal threats that challenge the national security of Pakistan. Development began in 2011 under the government of Prime minister Yousaf Raza Gillani. The program identifies the military's operational priorities and goes beyond in comprehensively describing both existential and non-existential threats to the country. The Threat Matrix program is viewed to become a permanent fixture of the national security policy of Pakistan.
Bleed India with a Thousand Cuts is a military doctrine followed by the Pakistani military against India. It consists of waging covert war against India using insurgents at multiple locations. According to scholar Aparna Pande, this view was put forward in various studies by the Pakistani military, particularly in its Staff College, Quetta. Peter Chalk and Christine Fair cite the former director of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) explicating the strategy.
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 Lodhi, Lieutenant-General (retired) FS (April 1999). "Pakistan's Nuclear Doctrine". Lieutenant-General Sardar FS Lodi, former operationals commander of Pakistan's joint special forces command. Islamabad, Pakistan: Defence Journal of Pakistan. p. 1. Retrieved 19 July 2012.
- ↑ Dixit, J. N. (2 September 2003). India-Pakistan in War and Peace. Routledge. ISBN 9781134407583 – via Google Books.
- ↑ Dixit, J. N. (2 September 2003). India-Pakistan in War and Peace. Routledge. ISBN 9781134407583.
- ↑ The Military Balance 2010, p. 367, International Institute for Strategic Studies (London, 2010).
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 ISS; International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). "IISS: Nuclear policy". International Institute for Strategic Studies. Retrieved 19 July 2012.
