Options for the pakistan navy US naval war college

A nuclear weapon embarked on a submarine operating underwater provided an assured ability to respond. These platforms constituted what could easily be termed as the most robust component in the deterrent equation (triad). One cannot overstate that it was the nuclear submarines that managed and sustained overarching international security order during much of the Cold War. The problem compounds when national debate on nuclear subjects remains exceedingly narrow, mostly restricted to a select group of officials from the strategic community. Until recently, the syllabus of the CSS examination barely had any worthwhile content on maritime issues. And in FO press briefings there are rarely any questions on maritime security. The country’s diplomatic corps is quite wanting on maritime issues the Foreign Office seldom talks about the Indian Ocean or Indo-Pacific. 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.

Seas, oceans or maritime matters are alien not only to commoners, but amongst large segments of the country’s intelligentsia as well.

They have grown up hearing and learning about land-centric matters, wars fought on land, trifling non-issues in domestic politics and so on. 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. A few 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’.

Options for the pakistan navy US naval war college