With India continuing to threaten Pakistan's stratego-economic interests from east, the $46 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) seems to have created a major paradigm shift in the policy approach of Pakistan's armed forces. Guarding Pakistan's 990-kilometer-long coastal belt through maintaining a "credible deterrence" against the country's conventional and non-conventional enemies, Pakistan Navy (PN) has started thinking more in economic than strategic terms while determining traditionally-ill-defined terminologies like national security.
In a recent media show at PN Dockyard Tuesday, Commander Pakistan Fleet Syed Arifullah Hussaini coined the term "comprehensive national security" which entails sustainable politico-economic stability. "I believe in achieving comprehensive national security," said the vice admiral. The naval officer's remarks came in the backdrop of Commodore Owais Bilgrami's presentation comparing numerical asymmetry of Indo-Pak navies.
Putting the conventional balance of power between Pakistani and Indian navies at surface, sub surface and aviation level at 1:4, 1:3 and 1:6, Owais tended to attribute the negative to insufficient budgetary allocations. Pakistan, he said, was spending $7.5 billion on its naval buildup against $40.4 billion of India which's 50 mega warships, 18 continental submarines and as many petrol aircrafts were threatening Pakistan's sea-specific strategic interests from the east. "Despite that we are capable of mitigating any threat by targeting their major vulnerabilities," Commodore Owais said.
Admiral Hussaini would not say he was getting less finances to bridge the existing 1:5 ratio gap in balance of power. "I support less expenditure on security," said the bearded vice admiral, who believes that Muslims in general and Pakistanis in particular had been unable to tap the mammoth economic benefits seas offered. This is despite Hussaini's subordinates' emphasis on the strategic threat Pakistan was facing from its eastern border.
New Delhi, where PM Narender Modi has recently been extending olive branches to his Pakistani counterpart, stays in the category of "conventional" threat when it comes to the safety of multibillion-dollar CPEC. "Gwadar Port is the backbone of CPEC," asserted Commander Atif Sultan, commanding officer at PNS Akram Naval Base Gwadar, while talking to a group of visiting journalists from Karachi and Islamabad. Gwadar Port is located 255 nautical miles off Karachi.
PN even has calculated what Commodore Owais said "economic dividends" Pakistan would be reaping from CPEC. Once operational, the officer said, the Gwadar-Kashghar trade route would take the volume of $230 billion Sino-Africa trade to $600 billion by 2020. Similarly, 2013's $386 billion Sino-EU trade would balloon to $800 billion. "We maintain a balanced fleet to guard CPEC," Commander Hussaini said insisting, however, that "We don't want to go into an arms race with India".
Citing the doctrine of "credible deterrence" Pakistan has been boasting about to keep its conventional rivals at bay, the vice admiral said gone were the days when PN used to depend on enforcements from "Cherat" to deal with a military offensive. "We can't tell you everything but we have the confidence that we would do this (when time comes)," he said. Drawn to radicalisation within armed forces and the consequent attacks on naval installations in past, the commander said PN had a strong system in place to contain ideological threats like the self-declared Islamic State (IS). "I call it indoctrination".
But force is not the only mean the country's military and civilian establishments are employing to make Gwadar Port thus CPEC a success. At Amanullah Hall of PNS Akram, Commander Atif told reporters that deteriorated law and order, lack of education and health facilities and limited economic opportunities were major areas his force was working on to give the politically-alienated Baloch people a "sense of belonging".
"Our two-pronged strategy in Balochistan is based on security and social uplift," he said. Last three years or so, he recalled, saw PN having recruited about 1000 Baloch youth in its various cadres. The navy claims to have revised downward its education criterion for making these recruitments. "The recruitments were made on 40 percent marks, 20 percent down from the required 60 percent," the officer said. However, such inductees had to undergo a six-month pre-joining training.
Two Baloch officers, from Turbat and Panjgur, were inducted in navy recently, said Commander Atif. "The number of Baloch officers is increasing," he said. Besides, according to Lieutenant Commander Faizul Bari, in March-April three-week NCC trainings were also imparted to the students of Government Degree College Gwadar and GDS School to create a soft image of the armed forces.
What about insurgency? The government is paying Rs 500,000 to each of the Baloch insurgents laying his weapons down voluntarily. "This is to enable them (surrendered militants) start a business to make sustenance," an officer, requesting anonymity, told Business Recorder. Base Commander Turbat Captain Zahid Shah claims locals had started recognizing the positives Gwadar Port offered, especially after the development of CPEC.
On August 14 last it was for the first time that the 69th Independence Day celebrations were held in the insurgency-hit province's "civilian areas". "Such show of patriotism in Balochistan believed to be a rare sight," said Commander Bari recalling last Pakistan Day gala. "They were in thousands. Both men and women," he was visibly excited.
Commander Atif claimed that militancy had only confined to Turbat and Awaran districts. "One brigade is coming to take care of these areas," he said. "If they voluntarily surrender they would be offered jobs and other incentives". Otherwise, these reporters assume, the number of missing persons in Baluchistan would keep rising.