Pakistan's Security Dynamics and Nuclear Weapons

Contents: Foreword. 1. Introduction/Shalini Chawla and Rajiv Nayan. Section 1: Pakistan’S Security Dynamics. 2. Pakistan’s Lethal Combine: Nuclear Weapons, Military Adventurism and Religious Extremism/Syed Ata Husnain. 3. CPEC and Challenges for Pakistan/Jayadeva Ranade. 4. Balochistan’s Socio-Economic Marginalisation: The Security Implications/Tilak Devasher. 5. Pakistan’s Economic Crisis: Lessons Unlearned/Riya Sinha. 6. Indus Waters Treaty: Assessing Dimensions/Uttam Kumar Sinha. 7. Pakistan’s Afghanistan Dilemma/Shakti Sinha. Section 2: The Armed Forces. 8. The Pakistan Army/D.S. Hooda. 9. Pakistan Air Force/Amit Aneja. 10. Pakistan Navy: Nuclear Ambitions and Arabian Sea Security Dynamics/Vijay Sakhuja. Section 3: The Nuclear Dimensions. 11. Pakistan’s Nuclear Grand Strategy/Rajiv Nayan. 12. Pakistan’s Full Spectrum Deterrence: Efforts to Expand Options/Shalini Chawla. 13. Ballistic and Cruise Missiles of Pakistan/Rajaram Nagappa. 14. Pakistan’s TNWs: The Signal and How it Should be Received/Manpreet Sethi. 15. The Curious Case of Pakistan’s Nuclear Proliferation/Arjun Anand and Aarushi Vikram. 16. Conclusion/Shalini Chawla and Rajiv Nayan. Index.

Pakistan’s nuclear thinking, its ambiguous doctrine, and posture-revolving around the much-acclaimed fill spectrum deterrence, remains critical for Indian policymakers and the international security community. The Pakistani security rationale is indeed one of the crucial dimensions of Pakistan’s complex dynamics. In this context, the narrative of Pakistan’s threat perceptions becomes an integral part of its strategic posturing for both the outside world and domestically, to justify its inclination (and excessive diversion of national resources) towards defence and nuclear build-up. With all the existing domestic, economic, and security challenges, which are detrimental to nation’s growth, the stable factor has been Pakistan’s military and nuclear build-up. Past experience suggests its acquisition of nuclear weapons and expansion of the arsenal will continue to be rationalised as an ultimate guarantee of security, deterrent to Indian conventional military superiority, to perceived threat perceptions vis-a-vis India, and to provide an umbrella to pursue a proxy war through terrorism. In this context, it is important to undertake a study on Pakistan’s security dimensions and its nuclear positioning to allow India to evaluate its options against Pakistan.