 Hello everyone. Welcome to another IR capsule for the Shankar IAS Academy. Today we discuss a new document which has been released by the Pakistan Prime Minister called Pakistan National Security Policy. This has been done by Pakistan for the first time in its history. They never had a policy on Pakistan national security published ever before. Many countries do issue these documents, national security, nuclear security, comprehensive security. In so many ways, major powers do publish these security documents. Normally these things happen when something dramatic happens, very important issues, or when a new change of government takes place. The government has, of course, various ways of indicating what their policies would be. But occasionally, the governments feel that everything should be put together in a comprehensive manner and presented to the people, to friends as well as enemies, so that they are able to understand the rationale of the policies of these governments. India has done this exercise several times. I was in the National Security Advisory Board some years ago and we did prepare a national security document, but this has not been finalized as yet. But the problem with these documents is that it's a dynamic document. It is very difficult to stop and publish it, thinking that situation will remain so. If you look back at the history of national security policies, you will know that very often these need to be changed without notice because major changes take place, like the collapse of the Soviet Union. You had a security policy that would have become redundant or outdated when the Soviet Union collapsed. Or to look at the pandemic, whatever plans we had before 2019 would have to be revised. Every country will have to revise this security policy, its health policy, etc. So there is a certain danger in putting out a policy for a particular period. But then there is a purpose. There is a purpose to show that that particular government has a vision of the future. How far that future will be is to be determined by the country itself. So what Pakistan has decided is to issue a Pakistan national security policy document announced by the Prime Minister himself on 14th January 2020. But what is released is not a full document. He said that there is a document with 62 pages out of which 42 are unclassified, non-secret. So he has released only the 48 pages and therefore we do not know what is in the classified pages. So that itself is inadequate because what is published may be something, what is not published may be something else. So that contradiction will be there. But still you cannot contradict what is written in 48 pages cannot be very different from what they have written in the other few pages. So we can imagine that there is also a unified document and from the published document we may be able to get some idea about how Pakistan views itself. And since Pakistan is a very close neighbour and we have had very difficult relations with Pakistan, naturally this will be read with great interest in India. And you may have seen that in the last few weeks. This has been discussed virtually every platform and in the newspapers and you may have got some ideas to what this is all about. But the fundamental thing that you remember after you read these 48 pages is that there is really nothing new in it, particularly from India's perspective. We can use the old cliche that is old wine in new bottle because much of what you read, you feel that you have read this before. And there is no real fundamental difference in what Pakistan has done in the past and what Pakistan wants to do or wants the world to know what their expectations are and their strategy is. So, but let us look at the whole purpose of it. To me it looks like a reflection of their desire to get recognized as a country which has a larger view of the world and its security policy, they would like to see it as a part of their economic policy. This much there is a change because they are saying that the security of Pakistan depends on its economic security and therefore the core of the national security policy is economics. This is fair enough. But if you read the rest of the report, rest of the document, you will find that that is just an opening gambit. It goes on to all kinds of usual threats and counter threats and dangers and so on. So, it is presented in this way. Probably part of the reason is that Pakistan is looking for funding from IMF, World Bank and also friendly countries like China. So, by highlighting that Pakistan's priority is economic security. Pakistan is projecting some kind of a benign security policy which is really not so true. And this is prepared by what is called the national security division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Like we did it in the National Security Advisory Board. So, the National Security Advisory Board is a body comprised of former diplomats, military officials, economies, newspapers, editors, etc. So, I presume that the National Security Division must have also consulted not only officials but also non-officials, politicians and others. And it took them seven years of consultation before this could be published. And we have not done it even after seven years. And they have set the target of five years, say 2022 to 2026. This policy is supposed to be applicable during this period. But they also say that this may have to be revised when there is a change of government, when there is any dramatic developments in the world. And therefore, that is conditional. And that will be really true because nobody can work on the basis of a permanent policy while the world keeps changing. But the Prime Minister said that this has been tried before. But this is the first time that we have been able to produce a document of this nature. So, it has about eight sections. I'll just give you a gist of what these sections talk about. As I said, first is economic security is above four. That is the first point. And this has been explained in various ways, how the government will focus on the needs of the people. And that is the angle. But no solution, all the challenges have been mentioned. The economic security challenges have been mentioned, like external problems and internal stability, etc. But no concrete solution has been suggested. They generally speak about citizen security and dignity. And it talks about three changes in the economic situation in Pakistan. Very vague statements. For example, external imbalance doesn't explain what exactly it is. Then vertical inequalities. And then horizontal inequalities. So, these are the three challenges that they mentioned as challenges to the economic security of the country. Then strangely enough, they use the Indian expression, which Pandit Ji, Pandit Nairu used a long time ago. Unity in diversity is totally borrowed from India as a principle of national cohesion. Which we say we have diversity. We concede that. But the concept of India, the unity of India depends on the concept that all these diversities eventually they lead to not only a national consensus, but also an international. Asuthaiva couldn't become the whole family, etc. But here I think Pakistan is just giving it a lip service by saying that unity in diversity as a principle of national cohesion. But in the next sentence, they say Pakistan is an Islamic state. So, where is the diversity? And it suspects that there is an external hand in shaping national discourse in Pakistan. So, they don't mention who the external hand is, which is obvious to imagine who it will be. Then it goes on to say, they forget all about economic. And then they talk about conventional military threats, maritime competition, deterrence in South Asian region, cyber security, space security and importance of defence. So, these are what are called the traditional security concerns. Again, nothing, no surprise in that. The Indian Ocean is mentioned about three times. And as to be expected, India is mentioned about 14 times in the document. In the unclassified document, I don't know how many times I have mentioned India in the secret document. And there is only one positive reference in the whole document on India, which is simply a statement that Pakistan wants to improve its relations with India. And many people think that this is a surprising statement and new, it is new, not new. In every policy statement, all Prime Ministers of Pakistan, all authorities, they always say for the sake of form, Pakistan wants to improve its relations with India. Then immediately they will say, but that's not possible because German Kashmir problem. It has ceasefire violations. Pakistan has a problem looking after the line of control. There should be a working boundary. Then India has triad, that is our nuclear capability to operate from sky, earth and sea. And investment in modern technologies by India, multiplication of armaments, new technology. And what they call a regressive and dangerous ideology. Here again, this is not the first time they are talking about dangerous ideology. They have even talked about Hindutva and how that's a threat from India to Pakistan. So there's nothing new in it. So then they talk about what they intend to do to meet all these threats. And they suspect that some countries, again, obviously it's a reference to India, some countries may use a deliberate policy choice of adversariness or danger to Pakistan. And therefore Pakistan is committed to defeat any threat to Pakistani territory, strengthening Pakistan's capabilities. As a deterrent regime, we must have our nuclear capability and also develop technology for Pakistan. So they have said what the threats are from other countries, external countries and what are the things that Pakistan would like to do in order to counter these threats. Then there's a section on internal security. And this is something we are familiar with because Pakistan has a huge set of internal security problems. Some they acknowledge, some they do not acknowledge. And we would of course think that it is fundamentalist terrorist elements in Pakistan. I would consider that to be the major threat. But Pakistan lists it differently. They say the first most important internal security threat for Pakistan is separatist movements, separatist movements in different parts of Pakistan. We know about some of them. Then sectarianism, even though it's an Islamic state, there are various sects in Islam itself. And therefore there are some contradictions which they acknowledge. And then they talk about terrorism. They are the masters of terrorism. They are the mastermind in terrorism against India. And they say they are also victims of terrorism internally. And then they talk about violent extremist ideologies. And therefore there is a need to de-radicalize the various elements in Pakistan's internal situation. Fair enough, we have no parallel. That every country has internal contradictions. We ourselves have many problems, but ours is a much more organized and a much more civilized way of dealing with our internal differences. Then to be expected, there is a whole chapter on foreign policy and cashmere. You know, they always think about cashmere. Whatever is the subject, Pakistan has to talk about cashmere. You know that joke when Pakistan was asked to talk about elephants, the topic chosen by the Pakistan diplomat was elephants and cashmere. So everything is linked to cashmere as well as they are concerned. So they say that Pakistan has to leverage all political relations and economic gains inside Pakistan and outside because it is a melting pot of regional and global economic interests. And therefore they need to develop mutually beneficial relations with all major powers and move towards a normalization within neighbors. So the first priority is good relations with all great big powers and they make it very clear that the idea is to gain economically. That means great powers friendship, whether it is US or Russia or anybody else. The objective is to get more money because China is the most important money giver. Not much about China is said here because that may have been in the confidential part of the paper. Of course about the German cashmere, they say it is a poor issue and unless that is resolved, the whole declaration that we want to be friendly, we think it has really no meaning. So they'll immediately say that cashmere should be resolved and also they say the unacceptable formulation that it should be resolved on the basis of UN resolutions because they don't know what the resolutions they are talking about. The resolutions that they are talking about is only referendum but the same resolution has other elements in it. So when they say UN resolutions, they are trying to bluff the world because they have not fulfilled the first two conditions of the resolution before India can hold a plebiscite but they just talk about plebiscite only and therefore try to fool the people. So this paper blames India on JNK for having what they call hegemonistic designs, that is cashmere when their presumption is cashmere is Pakistan's territory and we are becoming an overlords of that by force, an absolute absurdity. And also blames India for frozen bilateral ties in the sense that we are not falling into the trap of talks and consultations without any meaning because fundamentally if they say that cashmere is part of Pakistan, there is really no way of discussing anything and what we have agreed to discuss is only the terrorism in Pakistan, in JNK by Pakistan. When Mr. Narasimharov first agreed to have cashmere introduced as an agenda item in the bilateral discussions, he made it very clear to Ms. Bhutto that it will only mean terrorism engaged by Pakistan in cashmere, nothing else. We are not going to talk about anything else. Our understanding is very clear. So they re-trade that resolution of JNK dispute remains a vital security interest of Pakistan. Pakistan will provide, and this is again not new, will provide moral, legal and diplomatic support to the people of cashmere until they achieve the right to self-determination. This is a fundamental difference between India and Pakistan because we believe that by joining India, the people of cashmere have already exercised their right to self-determination, like all of the states in India. And therefore, just as all the other states have no right to self-determination, cashmere also does not have right to self-determination. Again, you can exercise it only once. Otherwise, what will happen is the world will keep changing, the borders will keep changing if every little group in every country tries to get self-determination. So it's been generally accepted that self-determination is applicable basically in colonised territories or under foreign occupation. So Pakistan's argument is yes, it is under foreign occupation because India is occupying it. Therefore, people of cashmere have the right to self-determination. This is of course an irreconcilable position. Then they again talk about arms buildup and access to advanced technologies and priorities. And they of course consider the India-US nuclear deal as unfair to Pakistan because both India and Pakistan are equal in this respect. Both are non-signatories to the NPT. But how come you have a deal with India and not with Pakistan? President Bush answered it by saying that India's and Pakistan's nuclear policies have different trajectories and they cannot be compared. So what he meant was the nuclear weapons of Pakistan were supplied by China while India's nuclear weapons are indigenous. So then this proposal, they also object to the proposal for India being considered for the membership of the nuclear supplies group even though it has not signed the NPT. So the fact of the matter is Pakistan is not signing the NPT just because India has not signed it. They have clarified that every moment, any moment India signs the NPT. Pakistan will also be happy to do that. So it is a purely reciprocal thing and we are now in addition to sign the NPT and therefore they have also kept out of it. And the only other country which has not signed it is Israel because of its problems with the Arab countries. They think they must have the option to have nuclear weapons. So the whole message that we get from the new security policy of Pakistan in one word, no change lightly in Pakistan's attitude to India. It's a perception of threat from India and other countries. Their own policy, economic policy is not changing. They keep talking about trade. Here also they talk about trade with India. But the fundamental thing that a country has to do to trade with another country is to provide what is called most favored nation acceptance. Because the word sounds very dramatic, most favored nation. This is what Pakistan keeps saying. How can we call India a most favored nation? We are the most detested nation. But that is not the meaning of it. Most favored nation means we are ready to do business with you. And Pakistan is not ready to do business with Pakistan. India conceded MFN status to Pakistan long ago. But Mr. Narendra Modi recently withdrew it, saying that you cannot unilaterally give MFN status. So if you don't give MFN status and talk about trade with India, it has no meaning. Just as when they talk about normalizations relations with India and immediately says core issue of Pakistan. So these gentlemen and ladies have no intention to normalize relations with India. Their old trump card is hatred towards India because they can cash it in many markets of the world. First of all, they have been given an equal status in the eyes of the world. You know, Pakistan is a piddly little state compared to India. But everybody thinks that India and Pakistan are equal. You talk to foreigners who don't understand the situation there. So they think it's a big balance. Pakistan is balancing India. Nothing like that. Because they are too small and too insignificant to balance against India. So if they say, solve their problems with India, Pakistan will become insignificant advice of the world. So that is the fundamental problem. And when they talk about equality and opportunity and all that, they know they are multiple. So unless that mindset is changed, we cannot expect any change. They may produce any number of documents. But reading these 4K pages, certainly I get the impression that this is just an eyewash. That's the kind of document which they can show to the world and say that we are interested in peace in the world, all that. And of course, Imran Khan is going in the next few days, I think, 3rd and 4th of February is going to be in China. Why is he going there? He has said, I'm going there to declare solidarity with China because many countries are boycotting the winter Olympics. And there is a huge COVID-19 problem there. In spite of that, Pakistan expects all its close friends to China. I expect all their close friends to visit Beijing for the winter Olympics. And many countries have promised to go. India is not one of them. I saw somebody tweeting why it's not India going. And my answer was, is there any country going there whose land is occupied by China? Look at the list of people who are going there. They don't have a border with China. So they can be happy with China. So only Pakistan probably has, the Pakistan occupied Kashmir some border with China. Otherwise, even they don't have. So, and he's going there basically to discover other things. He needs cash. He needs military equipment. He needs loans and various other things because Pakistan is a failing state. It may not be a failed state, but it is propped up by the international community basically because they think that Pakistan provides a kind of balance with India. So several comments have been made. I'll just mention some of them on the document that I have given you a picture of that. So, one point that's been made is they have a one-dimensional mismindset. India, that's all. That is the funny story that when Mrs. Bhutto met the chairman of the foreign relations committee in the United States Senate. So, she went and met him and then the chairman said, I'll introduce you to the Senate and brought Mrs. Bhutto to the Senate chamber. And he introduced, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs. Banasir Bhutto, the Prime Minister of India. He said, the whole Senate burst into laughter. What happened to this old man? So, when everybody laughed and then what did he say? He turned to Mrs. Bhutto and said, this is all you are making. One hour you spent with me, you did not say the word Pakistan even once. You used India's name a hundred times. So, I thought you are the Prime Minister of India, he said. That was an ambiguous insult to Pakistan that it was meant to be. So, that is the kind of mindset then. How can you? So, they talk about the basic problem is, again, the wars within India. They don't talk about war in 1971, the Bangladesh war they don't mention. But they mentioned 1948 and 1965. Then, economic security is not there because they don't have India's cooperation nor trade or kinds of things. Then, of course, one interesting thing is Pakistan is talking about gender security for the first time in a document of respect. You know how much their respect to women. Therefore, when they talk about gender security, it is important to note and they are suggesting that there's a new social contract and citizens are the stakeholders of the country and the law of the ideals of citizen-centric development. All this is the usual pious declaration and economic diplomacy shift from military to citizen-centered framework, economic security at the core. Then, on relations with India, new policy makes no changes unless it is something in the unclassified part of the document. Then, about nuclear development, I just mentioned that unlike India, Pakistan does not have a non-first use principle and therefore, they keep threatening to use nuclear weapons. While we never threaten to use nuclear weapons because our policy is only to use nuclear weapons in a second attack. So, we will never be the first to attack any country with nuclear weapons. Therefore, what Pakistan has done is they have developed what are called the new theater weapons, small nuclear weapons, which can be used to destroy one city or half a city, etc. Because they think that may be more useful than bombs which can destroy countries. So, it makes more credible. They pretend that they can use nuclear weapons without hurting themselves. But every nuclear expert knows that such a thing doesn't exist. The nuclear fallout will be such that any kind of contained nuclear war is not possible. And of course, we do not know how many weapons Pakistan has, how many weapons India has. Both the countries have never revealed. But there is one organization in Stockholm, SIPTRI, which gives their calculation of how many weapons each has. And according to them, Pakistan has more warheads than India has. They say 165 warheads for Pakistan. And we have 156 last year. But we are not in this numbers game because we have said that our military or nuclear capability is only as a deterrent to Pakistan. It is just to remind Pakistan that if they come up with something, either nuclear use or nuclear blackmail, we will counter it. And that's all our work. So, why do we need more and more nuclear warheads? One is enough, I would say. But then, of course, we have to keep this updated. And therefore, we may have to keep on doing research and developing new technologies, etc. And therefore, that has no meaning. We are not worried that Pakistan has more warheads. That's not important. The important thing is that we have a deterrent against not only Pakistan, but also China or anybody else, and also non-state actors. Because that's the threat we have. All these mad terrorist outfits, if they get hold of a nuclear weapon from America, you can imagine a disaster that will bring about that. And of course, if we look back at Pakistan, many observers are pointing out that of history of negotiations with India. We know that they have no intention. We came very close to an open border solution. That is, without exchanging territory, keep an open border, which was discussed in Agra between Pervez, Musharraf and that will be rewatched by. But that was not acceptable. And also, they say that Pakistan's immediate security is impacted by the Hindutva policy of India. Again, that is not new. There have been these press reports that there is something in the document about changing its policy of trade with India, even without resolving the Kashmir dispute. But in the open part of the report, there is no such thing. I look for it, but it is not there. So it may be in the unclassified part. It must have been in the unclassified part, of course. So, the purpose is basically to appear reasonable, intellectually honest, and peaceful intentions. So in order to gather an effort, like a think tank report, there is nothing more than that, because there is no political input here. If you put former ambassadors around their desk, they will produce a security doctrine or a security policy. But that will have no meaning, because it has no political input. Because the Prime Minister delivered it, but it does not mean that it has its political connection. So in other words, as a aspirants, you may be asked to write about Pakistan's security policy. And these are the main points I have to remember, because there is so much of literature on it. And if you can remember these points that I have just mentioned, that would be useful for you. Thank you very much. You don't seem to be aware of the tensions at this time. You're talking about road route. The question is whether we can pass through. So these are all dreams of the future. We have to reach Central Asia by other means. And once Afghanistan has become a terrorist state or a Taliban state, we don't even have conversations with them. So that is the question of the upgrade routes. I think that Pakistan has already fallen to the crux of China. It's a cold corridor. It's supposed to be 40 billion US dollars. And I don't know how much has been spent. But certainly, whatever has been spent is shown as a debt. And it has interest rates. It has other considerations. And therefore, whole BRI is not meant for the development of their partners. It is meant to establish domination, Chinese domination over the world. The more people who join will fall into the trap. Why not? We are seeking peace with Pakistan. But what we are saying is we cannot have peace and war together. This is our dilemma. You cannot be talking friendly terms and that, Mr. Modi tried very hard. You remember the initial months of his prime ministership. He sent Sari to Nawaz Sharif's mother, went to his grandson's wedding without telling the rest of the world. He embraced Pakistani leaders. He invited them to Delhi on the first day of his swearing in. He tried all those things. And then he realized that as long as terrorism continues, as long as Indian lives are lost on the border, as long as their greed for Indian territory has not disappeared, how can there be peace? And so, like the previous governments, he came to the same conclusion that you cannot have peace and war together. Talk terrorism, we will talk. Who is comparing? They are comparing. And they have been successful conveying to the people of the world that there is some kind of equality between India and Pakistan. There is some kind of balance. Which is not true. At the United Nations, I have come across so many occasions when people always appeal to India and Pakistan to be peaceful. Is it fair? Have we invaded Pakistan at any time? Then why should we feel uncomfortable about Pakistan? We are uncomfortable because Pakistan has evil intentions. Who created the 1948 war? Who created the 1965 war? Who created the Cargill war? Because we have won each of these wars and they know. And with the nuclear capability, a war is not likely. So you have what is called the cold peace between us. And that will remain unless they change their strategy of terrorism as a national policy. Obviously, it means that what is the base on which we can establish peace. So that is very clear. They must concede that the line of control is the international border. That is the first step, which they are not willing to do. Even with the guarantee that people on both sides will be able to cross over without passports and visas. It is a dangerous thing for us to do. We will send tourists and they will send terrorists to India. Therefore, not a nice thing for us to have. But still we are willing to consider it. But it will not happen. So I don't know what they can do. Because for them, survival depends on the Kashmir regime. Because then the army will be on the side of the... and the army will secure their country. And the people will think that this is all because of India. And so military and fundamental groups are running Pakistan. The joke about Pakistan is other countries have an army. But in Pakistan, the army has a country. You must have heard this. So that is the truth. Every time Imran Khan says something, he has to turn around and say that Mr. Bajwa is agreeing to what he is saying. And the moment the army chief decides that he has no use for Pakistan, he will go. Because the army needs a face. And Imran Khan was a very cheerful and friendly face. He was a cricket captain and very friendly with India at that time. And I have known him during my United Nations days. Very pleasant to his life of the party and so on. And when he was like that, he got only one seat in the Pakistan Parliament. Then he took the decision to join up with the terrorists and the conductors. And that's how he won. And now it is a rebel. It's a different Imran Khan. And he will also go when he is of no use to the Pakistani military. So we'll have to deal with another prime minister. And how can policy change as long as the army does not change? This is it. All right. It looks like no more questions. Bye-bye.