KARACHI: Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee General Rashad Mahmood has said the traditional paradigm of strategic stability has been consigned to the past by new realities in world affairs, and changing domains of military and political powers.

He was speaking as the chief guest at a seminar titled “Matching Research and Production to the Challenges of a Dynamic Security Environment” held under the aegis of the Defence Export Promotion Organisation and organised by the Centre for International Strategic Studies at Ideas-2014 here on Tuesday.

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Gen Rashad said the defence and security operations were no longer restricted to the realm of physical space because in the current environment, the primary objectives of any state’s security institutions were to achieve domestic peace, maintain harmony, and ensure defence of the country against internal and external challenges.

Referring to the challenges confronted by the world today, he said old security threats are changing to adapt to new technologies.

He emphasised that the event signified the accomplishments of Pakistan’s defence industry and its research and development facilities despite serious security challenges confronting the country.

Former ambassador Dr Maleeha Lodhi, in her presentation titled “Security issues confronted by Pakistan: Challenges and Response”, said the country’s principal challenge lay within — defeating militancy and extremism, reviving the economy, resolving the energy crisis, and educating children and creating jobs to match the youth bulge in population to avert a looming demographic disaster.

She said Pakistan’s weapons and nuclear materials were under tight control and were better than those adopted by many other nuclear and nuclear-capable countries, including India.

Air Marshal Javaid Ahmed in his speech on “Challenges and opportunities for the defence industry to meet emerging security threats” argued that as the challenges grew, so did the opportunities for defence industry.

“UAVs, persistent and accurate ISR; autonomous ground and aerial robots; PGMS; directed energy; non-lethal weapons; are response to emerging threats,” he said.

He said Pakistan’s defence industry had responded well to looming security threats.

Mr Viladimir Kozin from the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies in his presentation on “Militarisation of Outer Space and its impact on Global Security Environment” said the outer space could well be the arena of the arms race between states in future.

He said the Russian Federation was still committed to the idea of keeping outer space as the heritage of the entire world community, for making it totally demilitarised in terms of combat weapons (naturally, non-combat military satellites like meteorological, navigational, reconnaissance should not be prohibited).

Dr William Stevenson in a presentation on “Cyber warfare as a security threat to regional strategic stability” argued that revolutionary changes in technology and military affairs had pushed security beyond the terrestrial frontiers and cyber space had emerged as a new battlefield frontier. “Survivability and operationalisation of command and control centres for strategic and conventional forces are essential conditions for strategic stability,” he said.

Earlier, Director General of the Defence Export Promotion Organisation Maj Gen Agha Masood Akram in his opening remarks set the tone of the seminar by arguing that even though no major war had been fought between developed countries after WW-II, their defence industries continued to produce more and innovative military equipment, based on R&D.

Some of this equipment, he said, was sold to the less developed countries at fairly high financial and some time political cost.

The presiding officer, Ambassador Munir Akram, said in his concluding remarks that technology had been and remained the prime instrument for enhancing security and development. “In the 21st century, the speed of technological advances is unprecedented. The process of change is rapidly converting yesterday’s fiction into today’s reality,” he added.

Published in Dawn, December 3rd, 2014