ISLAMABAD: Institute of Strategic Studies on Thursday launched a book titled “Emerging Threats and Shifting Doctrines: Challenges to Strategic Stability in South Asia”.

The event was hosted by the Arms Control and Disarmament Centre (ACDC) at the Institute of Strategic Studies (ISSI).

Speakers on the occasion included retired Major General Ausaf Ali, who is Advisor, SPD, Malik Qasim Musfata, who is Director ACDC-ISSI, Ghazala Yasmin Jalil, who is Research Fellow ACDC-ISSI. Other speakers included Dr Aqeel Akhtar, from ACDA, SPD, Dr Ahmad Khan, ACDA, SPD, Aamna Rafiq, who is Research Associate, ACDC-ISSI, retired Air Commodore Khalid Banuri, who is former DG, ACDA, SPD and Dr Adil Sultan, Dean, FASS, Air University, Islamabad.

“India has feverishly indulged in unprecedented increase in its fissile material stockpile and acquisition of all kinds of weapon systems and technologies, posing risk to this region and beyond,” stated retired Lieutenant General Sarfraz Sattar, former Director General, Strategic Plans Division (SPD), in his keynote speech at the launch.

Retired Lt Gen Sarfraz Sattar said that this book was a second breath of fresh air coming out of Pakistan’s strategic community. Topics covered in ACDC’s book were contemporary in nature, arranged in a logical sequence, and related to the subject of strategic stability.

He added that Pakistan needed to brace itself for future contingencies where it could see the application of such a course to gain ascendancy over a short span of time. There was already talk of such a thing happening around the next Indian elections. He concluded that India with its nuclear power had a hegemonic design and it would continue to pressurize Pakistan and force it to either fight or give in.

Earlier, in his welcome remarks, Ambassador Sohail Mahmood, Director General ISSI, said that it was no exaggeration to say that the world, today, was at a major inflection point. There was an intensification of geopolitics and the proliferation of old and new threats, both in traditional and non-traditional security domains.

Major power competition; raging military conflict in Europe; interlocking food, fuel, and financial crises; and long-standing unresolved disputes in different parts of the world, served to accentuate the existing fault lines and exacerbate tensions across regions. Meanwhile, a trend toward weakening of multilateralism was discernible. The strategic arms control and disarmament regime was crumbling. The process of re-armament of several countries and regions had commenced. The unregulated growth of AI and emerging technologies was raising risks of further global instability. On the other hand, there was still no comprehensive action to address the existential threat of climate change.

Different chapters of this book had focused on these challenges and their impact on strategic stability in South Asia. He shared his views on the uniqueness of each chapter of this book and concluded that in the rapidly transforming global landscape, it was vital for a state like Pakistan to be cognizant of the challenges in its neighborhood and find ways to effectively deal with them. Besides adding to the existing literature the book helps engender an informed discourse on the subject, he added.

Malik Qasim Mustafa, Director ACDC-ISSI, and editor of the book, stated that each chapter of this book was unique. Each highlighted the impact of shifting doctrines and various emerging threats and when all were put together, presented a bigger picture.

He added that India was shifting away from its positions and developing conventional and nuclear war fighting doctrines, modernizing and enhancing its conventional and nuclear weapons capabilities, pursuing hypersonic and ballistic missiles programs, increasing its naval build-up, adding a nuclear dimension, wanted to control the Indian Ocean as a so-called “net security provider; militarizing space developing LAWS and weaponizing AI, and the cyber domain.

Published in Dawn, September 1st, 2023