National security imperatives after COVID-19.

Byline: Khan Hasham Bin Saddique

This is a follow up to my Op-Ed; 'Rethinking national security' where I had argued that a radically-altered world order post-COVID-19 would necessitate inter alia, a re-examination of national policy frameworks especially vis-a-vis crucial national security. It is interesting to note that pandemics have always been recognised as one of the non-traditional security threats, but palpably never regarded as a likely or serious one. Alas, COVID-19's rampant spread has not only exposed woeful inadequacies in the collective global response, despite being duly acknowledged as a transnational challenge but has also caught many nations wholly unprepared.

There is no doubt the pandemic is set to leave in its wake human misery of epic proportions, ravage the world's economies, challenge the efficacy of national and international institutions and all but engulf the world in an unprecedented geopolitical morass. Many observers thus contend that the impending unstable world infested with rising nationalism and struggling for survival connate a 'disorder' rather than a new world order. In such an era of economic doom and political uncertainty, prudence demands conducting an analytic appraisal of the conundrum and chalk out a roadmap if we aspire to prosper as a comprehensively secured and progressive state. We need to plan afresh and prepare, so that rather diverse and incipient security challenges can be met effectively.

As a first step, our national security architecture needs to be re-evaluated through conducting a formal security review. Such an undertaking in its basic form (as enunciated by UK) is meant to 'conduct comprehensive cross departmental analysis of national security and defence needs in line with national security strategy before setting/allocating resources via capability choices'. Apart from the United Kingdom, which issued its first strategic defence review (SDR) in 1998, France, USA, Turkey etc. to name a few, are also engaged in a similar activity. On the contrary, Pakistan has found it expedient not to delve either in critically scrutinising its overarching national defence framework or formulate a national security strategy in the public domain. Even though there exists a Security Division headed by the National Security Advisor (a position that has been inexplicably vacant for the last two years) whose responsibility it is to promulgate one. Evidently, the lack of a robust strategic thinking and...