Arms control agenda

Pakistan has made a formal plea to the world to rework the global arms control order, particularly in the nuclear weapons arena, with Ambassador Khalid Hashmi, our UN envoy in Geneva, noting that nuclear disarmament obligations remain largely unfulfilled, which he blamed on “constant shifting of goalposts towards additional non-proliferation measures”.

Ambassador Hashmi has told the UN General Assembly’s First Committee — which deals with disarmament and international security matters — that the “precarious picture” could be corrected by building a more enduring and equitable international security architecture as he expanded on his critique of shifting goalposts by referencing the history of world powers carving out exceptions and pursuing other discriminatory policies for themselves and their strategic partners, often at the risk of their own credibility and the safety of the world. The envoy has also explained that military capabilities are no longer just about troops or weapons, because of the “growing weaponization and integration across nuclear, outer space, cyber, conventional and [artificial intelligence] domains”.

Also, Pakistan hopes for a new nuclear weapons convention, ideally one that accommodates agreements on language relating to negative security assurances, or more simply, no first use — a vow to shun fire strike rights regarding nuclear weapons and reserve them only as a retaliatory tool in case of a nuclear attack. The concept is not new, but it has been gaining more support in recent years, especially among western powers, as a means to coexist with nuclear weapons, which is more achievable than the idealistic goal of a world without nuclear weapons.

There has also been some speculation about Ambassador Hashmi’s speech and its relation to US President Joe Biden’s criticism of Pakistan’s nuclear security hardly a few hours earlier. However, the close timing of both appears to be coincidental — Biden’s apparently unplanned comments were at a political fundraiser rather than an official presidential engagement, while the UN moot has been planned for months and the speech would invariably have been pre-approved by the Foreign Office, making it the equivalent of an official position for Pakistan.

Meanwhile, reports in several major US news outlets also suggest that State Department and Defense Department officials considered Pakistan or South Asia experts were livid at the president’s remarks and the clunky clarification provided by the White House because the comments went against the official, and even secret, US assessments of Pakistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 18^th, 2022.

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