Islamabad - The deepening Indo-US nexus is posing new challenges to Pakistan’s national security and a threat to the multi-billion dollars China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project which Beijing and Islamabad consider as a game-changer.
India is opening up its market to the US in lieu of high tech weaponry which Pakistan says would adversely affect the strategic balance in the region and the most serious concern to Islamabad is the threat of fourth and fifth generation warfare that is ‘non-kinetic’ warfare from India aiming at destabilizing Pakistan.
It was out of these challenges that Pakistan armed forces had taken the responsibility of securing the CPEC project.
The CPEC has pushed New Delhi and Washington to come closer and that is why the US is also now speaking the language of India about the multi-billion dollars project.
Analysts see the recent statement of US Secretary of Defence James Mattis about the CPEC project, which essentially aims at the uplifting economic plight of the people of various regions, in connecting with the changing scenario in the region.
The analysts viewing the CPEC project of strategic nature concede that India and the US believe that Pakistan has crossed the red line, therefore, it should be destabilized and isolated. What is that red line which they think Pakistan had crossed by contributing to the China-funded CPEC?
Background discussions with defence and security experts revealed that the US wanted to contain growing influence of China, but Pakistan by giving China access to Arabian Sea through its deep-sea Gwadar port has annoyed not only the US but also India and that is why both are trying to forge a strategic partnership.
Leading defence analyst Lt-Genl (retd) Talat Masood agreed that as a consequence of the CPEC, there are new challenges to Pakistan’s national security. He viewed the Indo-US closeness as the main challenge, and hoped that Pakistan was taking appropriate measures to balance the situation.
He was of the view that India’s unabated attempts to destabilize Pakistan through dissident elements in Balochistan and Sindh as part of its fourth generation warfare strategy is a serious threat to Pakistan’s national security.
Gen Masood said that since Pakistan has been successfully countering India’s conventional warfare strategy, India has come up with the fourth generation warfare strategy, going beyond the conventional or kinetic warfare.
Pakistan and China on their parts are also taking appropriate steps to address new challenges to Pakistan’s national security in the wake of the CPEC. Some analysts believed that in view of the new scenario, when India has joined hands with the US against Pakistan and China, Pakistan needs to revisit its diplomacy.
Renowned defence analysts Senator Lt-Gen (retd) Abdul Qayyum also called for reinvigorated diplomacy by Pakistan to address the new challenges. He supported Pakistan’s engagement with the US as a positive development.
He also called for deepening of Pakistan’s diplomatic relations with China, Russia, and D-8 member countries to balance out the situation. He also called for highlighting human rights violations in the Indian occupied Kashmir.
Gen Qayyum was clear about India’s design in Pakistan and its attempts against the CPEC. “The arrest of a senior officer of the Indian intelligence agency RAW from Balochistan is an undeniable proof of India’s unabated attempts in destabilizing Pakistan”, Senator Qayyum said.