Pakistan won't allow strategic balance to be disturbed: Kidwai.

ISLAMABAD -- Pakistan would not allow the strategic balance with India to be disturbed, as the equilibrium guarantees peace in the region.

This was stated by Adviser to the National Command Authority Lt Gen (Retd) Khalid Kidwai while inaugurating a two-day international conference on 'Nuclear Deterrence and Strategic Stability in South Asia'. The conference has been organized by Strategic Vision Institute (SVI): an Islamabad based think tank.

The conference, which is being addressed by a number of international as well as local experts, is seeking to examine the impact of doctrinal shifts, the capabilities possessed by the nuclear weapon states in the region, the induction of new technologies by the concerned countries, and role of extra-regional powers on the strategic stability in South Asia.

The think tank believes that equilibrium of nuclear deterrence between India and Pakistan is the underpinning of the South Asian strategic stability.

'The history of our strategic force development clearly indicates that Pakistan has never allowed this (strategic) balance to be disturbed to our disadvantage; we have always found effective solutions to redress induced imbalances from time to time,' Gen Kidwai said.

'Pakistan remains unfazed and as before, we have adequate response options which will disallow any disturbance of the strategic balance or strategic stability. That fundamental policy will prevail,' the NCA adviser underscored.

The strategic environment in South Asia is becoming increasingly complex and unpredictable in the long term as India adopts provocative military doctrines like cold start doctrine and undertakes destabilizing actions like nuclearization of Indian Ocean and the acquisition and development of ballistic missile defense.

India has been doing this out of its ambitions of regional hegemony and achieving the great power status.

'In the future too you can be certain that Pakistan will never allow the effectiveness of its nuclear deterrence to be eroded notwithstanding efforts to undermine it, the latest example being the Indo-Russian deal to induct five systems of the S400 in the Indian Air Force by 2020 with...