Pakistan has been successful in deterring India's aggressive designs by developing tactical nuclear weapons and the government should reject Western pressure to limit its nuclear programme, said Zamir Akram, Pakistan's former representative to the UN office in Geneva and Conference on Disarmament. He was delivering a lecture on 'Politics of Nuclear Non-Proliferation, NSG and Way Forward for Pakistan', here at Strategic Vision Institute (SVI).
"A pressure is being exerted to restrict Pakistan's nuclear and missile programme," he said adding that Pakistan should categorically convey to Western powers that it could not cap its strategic programme. He suggested that Pakistan could counter the pressure on its nuclear programme by leveraging its strategic importance for the Western powers in the context of its counter-terrorism efforts.
Rejecting the Western concerns about Full-Spectrum Deterrence, he said that it could be achieved at the minimum level and there was no contradiction between the two concepts. On one hand, he said India had adopted Cold Start Doctrine, while on the other Pakistan was left with the choice of either matching India's Defense expenditure or opting for the cost-effective tactical weapons. He opined that the strategy of developing short-range missiles had worked for Pakistan, which should be kept continued.
He was of the view that the West had been particularly biased towards Pakistan's nuclear and missile programme. "On one hand it [West] does not acknowledge Pakistan's national security compulsions for maintaining the programme and spares no opportunity to criticise us, while on the other hand, Pakistan is not being given the opportunity to build its case, particularly in the Western media," he added. According to him, the campaign against Pakistan's nuclear programme was an orchestrated effort instead of an occasional criticism.
Referring to the discriminatory attitude of the West towards Pakistan, he said that India was being given a free hand to expand both conventional and nuclear capabilities. He further said that India was globally one of the top spenders on Defense acquisitions and had also developed triad of delivery systems. He pointed out that India was pursuing second strike capability, besides building Ballistic Missile Defense System and reportedly making a secret effort towards producing a thermonuclear device or a hydrogen bomb.
Zamir Akram further said that India was a beneficiary of dynamics of international strategic environment where the US wanted to promote it as a mean to counter China's rise as a global power. "The attempts to admit India in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) is manifestation of the hypocrisy of the global non-proliferation regime," he said, adding it was ironic that NSG, which was set up after India's nuclear tests of 1974, for preserving the non-proliferation regime, was now considering to include the same proliferator in its ranks.
He said that India's entry into NSG would be a disadvantage to Pakistan, adding such an eventuality should be prevented. About importance of getting NSG's membership, he said, "it is a measure of one's status as a nuclear power. Otherwise Pakistan is not to gain much in terms of access to civilian nuclear technology, for which it already has a well functioning arrangement with China".
He further said that an export of civilian nuclear technology could possibly be another area where Pakistan could benefit in case it got NSG membership. "Nevertheless, it is not a question of do or die for Pakistan. The US may have been mistaken in assuming we are desperate for it," he observed. Earlier, Dr Zafar Iqbal Cheema, President, SVI, said it was illogical to ask Pakistan to revert from Full-Spectrum Deterrence to Strategic Deterrence and unilaterally sign the CTBT that the US itself had not ratified.
He pointed out that India was not only given a free hand to augment its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile capabilities but in fact was being offered advanced nuclear technologies and systems like ballistic missile Defense (BMD) that would undermine strategic stability in South Asia.
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