KARACHI, Nov 20: The need for privatising the defence industry and adopting a holistic global strategy to deal with the root-causes of terrorism was advocated by experts at a seminar during which the American unilateralism and double-standards were scrutinised and the evolving Asia-Pacific security doctrine was also mooted.
The international seminar on the Expanding Global Security Environment’ was organised as part of Ideas-2006 on Monday, ahead of the formal inauguration of the hardware display at the Expo Centre.
Although Pakistan’s defence-related industrial base in the private sector was very small, Abdul Rahman Allana, Managing Director of Alsons Industries, mooted the idea knowing well that the government had built huge industrial complexes with military controls. For it to be privatised and handed over to private entrepreneurs was impossible since no big players had emerged in the private sector.
Mr Allana cited experiences of many western countries in this regard and noted that in Pakistan the incentives for the private sector investing in defence industry were scant.
Nevertheless, he proposed that our industrial vendor capability be given incentive in indigenisation of spare parts for machinery and equipment in military use while transferring logistic and servicing of equipment to the private sector.
He emphasised that maintaining huge infrastructure for exclusive military support was wasteful and that using civilian competent institutions providing training, accounting maintenance services and human resource development did not compromise a nation’s combat capability.
He stressed that privatisation of defence production and services had to be transparent and accountable to impartial government institutions which must ensure non-monopolisation of self-serving private lobbies.
Former French permanent representative on the North Atlantic Council, ambassador Benoit d’ Aboville’s presentation on `Expanding the reach of NATO -- Impact on the Future Asian Security Dynamics’ was of great significance ahead of the next NATO summit meeting in Riga (Nov. 28-29) where the ISAF operation in Afghanistan would loom large.
This is a significant statement when NATO is claiming that ‘Afghanistan is my baby’.
He was of the view that the difficult American experience in Iraq and NATO’s growing engagement in Afghanistan would weigh heavily on the future implication of the Alliance outside of the trans-Atlantic zone.
He referred to the growing realisation among the Americans and the Europeans that the new Asian security dynamics would directly affect the world in which they were living.
His concern for Asia-Pacific security paradigm with a trans-Atlantic security organisation’s role clearly pointed at the containment of China’s emerging power, especially after North Korea’s detonation of nuclear capability. It was indicative of emerging pillars of containment of extremists in the Muslim world and emergence of China as the leading world power in the second quarter of the 21st century.
Shireen Mazari’s paper on the root-causes and trends of future of terrorism contained brief assessment of the war of terror following the 9/11 incident besides examining the debate and lack of international consensus on what exactly should come under the purview of terrorism. She also dealt with types of terrorist threats and alternatives of present structures of war on terrorism.
In her paper, the director-general of the Islamabad-based Institute of Strategic Studies maintained that without adopting a holistic global strategy to deal with the problem of terrorism, which focused on causes and politico-social measures to accompany the military means, the international community would allow terrorist to continue, if not increase, political space.
Simply by using heavy weaponry as means of reprisal against suspected states and groups would not end the problem, she said, emphasising that “asymmetrical warfare, if fought in this traditional manner, is ineffective and costly, and merely aggravates the problem.”
Framing the terrorist issue in religious terms was equally counterproductive since terrorism had political roots. She said that a major factor in creating the breeding grounds for future terrorists was the growing human dignity deficit. The US policies in Afghanistan and Iraq were creating breeding grounds for supporters and sympathisers of groups which were increasingly seen to be challenging US oppression towards Muslims.
If Islam continues to come under the sort of attack one was seeing in the Western media and among Western political circles, then Muslims of all shades would feel under threat and react.
She also urged the Muslim world to realise that it could not continue propagating a democracy deficit. She called upon the Muslim countries to treat all citizens equally and called upon civil societies within Muslim states to reassert the inclusiveness of their religion and to reject extremists among them.
Amid growing insurgency and suicide attacks and resistance against the world’s finest and strongest armed forces Turkey’s Bulent Meric dealt with the issue of small arms control and its impact on developing countries.
He said that since 1990s, proliferation and uncontrolled and unauthorised use of SALW (small and light weapons) in many parts of the world had become a priority item in the international security agenda.
In this context he said control over transfers, without prejudicing the legal transactions between states, was the basic issue. Transparency was yet another problem. He called upon states to harmonise their activities to eliminate illicit SALW and integrate their disarmament and non-proliferation programmes.
Dr Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, while making a presentation on the ‘Shifting Paradigm of Gulf Security’, focused mainly on the developments since 9/11. Gulf security could not be separated from the Palestinian-Israeli question.
He maintained that the USA’s record with regard to Gulf security during the last three decades had been one of the resounding failures. The US had not lived up to its promises and had failed to bring stability to the Gulf region. He said that the basic deal between Washington and the various oil producing countries was “oil for security”. But while the Gulf states provided oil at reasonable price and quantity, the US did not bring the urgently needed security, stability and peace to the region.
He maintained that it was becoming increasingly clear that the US occupation of Iraq, its confrontational attitude towards Iran and indeed its overly visible military presence all over the Gulf was the problem and not the solution to the Gulf security dilemma.
Growing American as well as the other foreign military presence in the Gulf region was not one bit reassuring. The fourth Gulf war, which he said, was becoming a distinct possibility would be largely a product of America’s unilateralist, militarist and aggressive policies globally and in the Gulf.
China’s Li Chang-he focused mainly on Chinese military’s role in natural disasters and humanitarian endeavour.
Bernard Fook Weng Loo had a longish presentation on ‘Military Growth in South East Asia’ which at times has been described as a sort of regional arms race.