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SASSI warns of Indian unilateral strikes
Staff Report
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
ISLAMABAD: South Asian Strategic Stability Institute (SASSI) organised a three days' workshop on Monday, which was, inaugurated by Minister of State for Information Samsam Bukhari.
Talking to the inaugural session, Samsam said that India has seemingly war-gamed its strategy since 2004, which is based on the assumption that occupation of limited Pakistani territory, following a surgical military strike, could be used as a haggling chip to force Islamabad to heel. "But I am happy that there is someone (SASSI) who are monitoring whole the current scenario and have courage to aware Pakistanis," he said.
More dangerously, it assumes that it can be done without crossing the nuclear verge, he said, and this doctrine has serious basic flaws. It assumes that Pakistan will accept any Indian military adventurism passively, but if anything, the opposite is true, he said. No government, especially one that is politically weak, can survive without being seen to be reacting decisively in the face of attack, he said. It is also a fallacy that once started the war will remain confined to a small geographic location, he said. He said Pakistan can be expected to strike back in areas of Indian weakness and things are bound to escalate from there.
He further added that we are a strong nation and have a capability to face and fight any aggression against Pakistan. Pakistan's Nuclear Weapons and System are safe and invincible.
Maria Sultan, SASSI DG, in her speech said the main objective of the workshop is to address the core issues and aware nation regarding "Cold Start Doctrine".
The strategy unveiled in 2004 has taken a significant importance with the statement given by the Indian Chief of the Army Staff General Deepak Kapoor in November 2009 that the possibility of a limited war under a 'nuclear overhang' in the region was likely to exist and reality, he said. Stating his reasons he had argued that 'South Asia along with West Asia had emerged as 'one of the epicenters of conflict and instability', and with absence of a common consensus to combat this threat the possibility of 'territorial disputes, provocation by proxy wars, religious fundamentalism, radical extremism, ethnic tensions and socioeconomic disparities' were to further exacerbate the situation on ground, said Sultan. This, the Indian Army chief argued, would invariably link 'sub conventional conflicts to situations leading to preemptive action/strikes under the 'cold start' doctrine'.
The 'cold start doctrine' is based on the concept of pre-emptive strike and it calls for rapid deployment of 'Integrated Battle Groups' comprising major elements of Army with the close support of the Air Force, and if the need arises fronts may be opened and expanded to include Naval operations: the primary thrust of the operations aimed at creating conditions for limited war. These battle groups could be used individually for limited operations, or in conjunction for operations of a greater scale based on the concept of blitzkrieg, she said.
Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan