Pakistan using nuclear deterrence as cover for proxy warfare, reckless escalation
Washington, April 20 (IANS) The wider international community should move beyond treating Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal as a “static fact” managed discreetly by experts behind closed doors. As an instrument used for strategic leverage, Pakistan’s nuclear arms possession demands political consequences, the analysts reckon.
According to a report in American magazine ‘The National Interest’, if Pakistan acts as a “rogue state”, the international community should treat it accordingly — with a clear message that nuclear blackmail is unacceptable, will not succeed, and will come at great conventional cost.
“Pakistan’s bombing of Afghanistan over the past few weeks has again exposed something the world would prefer not to confront: it is fundamentally a rogue state that acts without regard for international law. From February 26 until March 18, according to the United Nations, Pakistan’s bombing of Afghanistan has killed at least 289 people, including women and children, and displaced around 115,000. This notoriously included the bombing of a drug rehabilitation centre in Kabul on March 16, killing 143 civilians and wounding hundreds more,” the report detailed.
The report stressed that the strikes are deeply concerning given Pakistan’s failure to articulate any doctrine on threat escalation.
“Islamabad’s actions in Afghanistan so far have been reckless. In a conflict with a more powerful adversary, there is no reason that this recklessness might not extend to using nuclear weapons. If the Pakistan Army cannot presently show restraint with artillery, airstrikes, and cross-border escalation, what more might it be willing to do in the future?” it questioned.
Emphasising the threat posed by Pakistan, the report noted that while one might argue that no state should possess nuclear weapons, in a world that permits them, such weapons must remain in the hands of states that exhibit discipline and a serious respect for escalation risks.
“Pakistan is showing the opposite: it is normalising the use of force across borders, blurring the line between militants and civilians, and sweeping civilian deaths under the rug using broad counterterrorism language. It has also long faced accusations of using the protection of its nuclear umbrella as cover for cross-border terrorism carried out through Islamist militant proxies in its neighbours. A state that behaves in such a way has no business owning a nuclear arsenal in the first place,” it stated.
The report further said, “International pressure should begin with a simple principle that no state should be allowed to use nuclear deterrence as cover for proxy warfare and reckless escalation, as Pakistan has been doing for decades.”
–IANS
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