There seems to be no ‘national security policy road map’.
KARACHI: This time the terrorists hit the heart of our military establishment in Karachi — PNS Mehran. Loss of lives aside, we have also lost two P-3C Orion aircraft each with a price tag of $34 million. This is no mean loss that the Pakistan Navy has suffered and that, too, at the hands of not a very well-organised enemy but some trained thugs. The loss in material and technological terms is also huge considering the Indian plan to induct in their navy two aircraft carriers and three nuclear-powered submarines by 2015.
Militant networks are entrenched throughout the country and it would not be naive to consider that our enemies abroad may utilise the services of some rogue militants to do the job for them. The big question is what are we doing? With every security lapse (and these are now occurring with some consistency) one is forced to think that either we are unable or we are unwilling to hit back at the militants.
One wonders why, when 40 per cent of all fuel and 80 per cent of all container cargo meant for American forces in Afghanistan passes through our country, we couldn’t ask the Americans for assistance in implementing a plan to improve our local security. We could have built a capable intelligence network and an organised security force and re-tooled them to confront the security threat posed by militancy, terrorism and extremism in our cities.
Instead of a pre-emptive strategy to combat terrorism we have an unsound ‘firefighting- reactionary’ strategy. No one seems to have assessed and reviewed our own vital national vulnerabilities and how to safeguard them. There seems to be no ‘national security policy road map’ with short-term and long-term components.
It is time that both the non-performing government and the underperforming establishment sat together and constructed a joint national security policy, the action timelines of which must be announced publicly. Today our biggest enemy is not the militants/extremists but our unwillingness to take action against them.
Lt-col (retd) Muhammad Ali Ehsan
Published in The Express Tribune, May 25th, 2011.
