THIS is with reference to the article “Rethinking Pakistan’s higher defence” (EOS; Dec 14) and the letter ‘Higher defence’ (Dec 17), which talked of “joint-ness”, “operating in silos” and “inter-services synergy”. It is in the fitness of things to recall what these terms mean in historical terms.

Operation Gibraltar was launched in 1965 with both Pakistan Navy (PN) and Pakistan Air Force (PAF) having no knowledge. When the war broke out in the West on Dec 3, 1971, the navy learnt about the outbreak of hostilities only through a radio news bulletin.

Earlier, under immense pressure from the military command in the East, PN submarine Ghazi had to be sailed for Bay of Bengal. Former Chief of the Naval Staff (CNS) Adm Karamat Rehman Niazi, who at the time was the submarine commander, personally told me that the submarine was technically and operationally not ready to undertake the mission.

Pakistan Army was fighting the Indians across the front and the rebels along the flanks and in the rear. To deflect pressure on land, PN was constrained to generate action on India’s eastern seaboard. Arguably, submarine Ghazi could have played a much better role in northern Arabian Sea along with PN submarine Hangor, which sank Indian frigate Khukri on Dec 9, 1971.

The office of the Chief of Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (CJCSC) (on rotational basis) was set up on the basis of a re-

commendation by the Hamoodur Rahman Commission, which had found ‘jointness’ utterly lacking amongst the three services. The fate of this office in later years need not be retold.

Fast forward to May 1999 when war broke out in Kargil. Neither the PAF nor the PN knew anything about it. In 2007, the National Defence College (NDC) was upgraded to university status, and both air and naval war colleges were placed under it. This was done through a presidential order. To the best of my knowledge, no input was ever sought from the two services.

The ‘nature’ of war (violence) has remained constant since antiquity. It is the ‘character’ (conduct, warfighting) that has seen unceasing evolution. The conflict today envelopes new domains, precision weapons, unmanned systems, cyberwarfare, etc. Underwriting ongoing change is essentially the technology and its innovative use.

Today, both navy and air force happen to be tech-intensive services. On the other side of the border following the May 2025 conflict, scholars intensely argued the utility of humongous manpower-intensive Indian Army when non-contact warfare has brought about a paradigm shift in war-fighting. When PAF shot down Indian fighters, our pilots did not have the enemy in their visual range; they were using the beyond-visual-range (BVR) technology.

Insofar as the possibility of ‘territorial gains’ is concerned, ‘spatial’ is one of the four clearly enunciated nuclear redlines, with ‘full spectrum deterrence’ being a corollary. Sadly, the “lion’s share of strategic assets”, mentioned in the letter, could have been otherwise had some right choices been made previously, and strategic gaze turned seawards. Sea-based deterrence is and has always been the strongest arm in the nuclear triad.

Along with Pakistan Army and PAF, PN requires deep rethinking about a possible Operation Sindoor 2.0. Survival of major surface and sub-surface platforms in battlespace is not going to be without risk.

From the deep paralysis suffered by the Russian Black Sea fleet to vulnerabilities experienced by American aircraft carriers operating against swarm drone attacks, the lessons are crystal clear. One wonders how a ‘joint services doctrine’ would look like as and when it is made available.

Cmdr (retd) Muhammad Azam Khan
Lahore

Published in Dawn, December 22nd, 2025