PAKISTAN’S DRONES AND STABILITY INSTABILITY PARADOX IN SOUTH ASIA – OPED

By Adeel Mukhtar Mirza

Pakistan took a major leap forward in achieving full spectrum deterrence for all forms of aggression when that country’s military successfully tested its own version of armed aerial drones on Friday, March 13, 2015.

The drone, designated the Burraq, will be equipped with a laser-guided missile capable of striking with pinpoint accuracy in all types of weather, the military said. In the Quran, Burraq is the name of the white horse that took the Islamic prophet to heaven.i

Gen. Raheel Sharif, Pakistan’s Army chief of staff, witnessed the test and commended the country’s engineers and scientists. Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said the drone would “add a new dimension to Pakistan’s defenses.”

The most obvious advantage of the drone is its capacity to save lives as they reduce putting military personnel in combat. Additionally, they are of low cost, as well as low risk. In a nutshell, drones have pinpoint accuracy, are lethal and increase surveillance and are easy to deploy.

Coming to the main point, the purpose of this article is to analyze whether the stability-instability paradox is applicable to the South Asian strategies. The concept was defined by Glen Snyder according to which, the greater the stability of ‘strategic’ balance of terror, the lower the stability of the overall balance at its lower levels of violence.

After the nuclearization of India and Pakistan, the Kargil crises and subsequent conflicts, an immense amount of literature was written by various western scholars to prove the similarity between the Cold War and Indo-Pak conflict strategies. The major emphasis in these debates has been the applicability of the stability-instability paradox in South Asia.

In this regard, Michael Krepon’s “The Stability-Instability Paradox, Misperception, and Escalation Control in South Asia” gives convincing arguments. According to him, there are two tenets of stability-instability paradox. First, offsetting nuclear capabilities will increase tensions between adversaries. Second, despite an increase in tensions nuclear armed adversaries will avoid a major conflict or a nuclear exchange. According to Krepon, both tenets are relevant in South Asia in the shape of the 1999 Kargil conflict and the fortunate ability of both nations to avoid a nuclear exchange. The author concluded with the assumption that instability, risk, vulnerability and the dilemma of brinkmanship have become the fate of both states owing to the presence of nuclear weapons as it happened between the U.S and USSR during the Cold war.ii

On the other hand, Dr. Adil Sultan in his article, “South Asian Stability-Instability Paradox: Another Perspective” negates the relevance of the Cold War and South Asian conflict strategies and instead argues that the concept of deterrence is very much active in South Asia.

According to Sultan, Pakistan, like Israel, faces existential threats from the immediate neighborhood, which has resulted in a cycle of action-reaction phenomenon in South Asia. Further, the author goes on to explain that the existence of lingering territorial disputes and bitter historical relationships with India justifies Pakistan’s India-centric policies.

In addition, Sultan claims that Kargil was not the result of the nuclearization of Pakistan, but rather a part of several limited operations to reclaim the Siachin Glacier and, also, it was unlikely that Pakistan’s nuclear capability was operational at that time.

However, on the opposite side, the presence of nuclear weapons provided India the space and the confidence to inject massive conventional military operations in the shape of ‘hot pursuit’ and ‘cold start.’ For Pakistan this meant that it had to fill the gap to achieve full spectrum deterrence capability to deter all form of aggression, which resulted in the development of ‘NASR’ and other conventional capabilities.iii

Moreover, the writings of Indian scholars like Summit Ganguly who believes Pakistan’s nuclear first use policies are a bluff and encourage India to peruse aggressive strategies against Pakistan. In this regard, the modernization of weapons, conventional as well as strategic, by Pakistan’s military establishment is needed to secure the survival of the state and maintain a strategic equilibrium in the region.

In this regard, the latest news with respect to Pakistan drones will not only help Pakistan defense forces in the war against terrorism, but also to allow the efficient surveillance especially in border areas, as well as being useful to neutralize any aggression.

And, indeed, the development of drones is part of Pakistani efforts to overcome India’s conventional superiority in one way or another. However, such a trend resulted from the arms race between both states, which not only disturbs regional stability but also avoids regional cooperation and growth. Consequently, such a scenario gives leverage to other states to interfere in regional matters and disturbs regional strategic equilibrium.

As far as the stability-instability paradox is concerned, both India and Pakistan are now aware of the dangers of escalation, behaving rationally and focusing on peaceful dialogues as evident from contemporary events. Hence, it can be said that that India and Pakistan have become fully able to overcome the nuclear and conventional dangers that exist in South Asia.

Nevertheless, there is a need for a regional initiative to institutionalize a robust setup to cope up with the current trust deficit, arms buildup and other much needed issues to avoid any kind of instability in the strategic spectrum.