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India-Pakistan
Pakistan voices concern over S Asia's strategic imbalance
2009-10-14
[Dawn] Reaffirming its desire for a peaceful and stable South Asia, Pakistan has expressed concern over the growing strategic imbalance in the region that included the recent introduction of nuclear submarines and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs).

We expect extra-regional powers to adopt even-handed policies in South Asia and avoid steps that undermine the regional strategic balance,' Ambassador Zamir Akram, the Pakistani delegate, told the General Assembly's First Committee, which deals with disarmament and security issues.
'We expect extra-regional powers to adopt even-handed policies in South Asia and avoid steps that undermine the regional strategic balance,' Ambassador Zamir Akram, the Pakistani delegate, told the General Assembly's First Committee, which deals with disarmament and security issues.

'Our vision for South Asia is anchored in a security architecture based on preventive diplomacy, confidence building and conflict resolution,' said Akram, who is Pakistan's permanent representative to the UN's European offices in Geneva.

As a responsible nuclear-weapon state, he added,
Oh, so very, very responsible!
Pakistan was pursuing a policy of credible minimum deterrence. Its proposals for a strategic restraint regime had three interlocking elements of conflict resolution, nuclear and missile restraint and conventional balance. That warranted serious consideration and the support of the international community.

Zamir Akram said the objective of disarmament and global peace and stability could not be effectively pursued in isolation from certain realities that marked the contemporary global and regional security situation. Those realities included regional and global imbalances and asymmetries in defence spending, which were counterproductive to arms control objectives and undermined attempts to establish peace and security.

Despite the end of the cold war, he said, the national defence budgets of the major powers had continued to increase. Another reality was the regional disputes, which continued to fester around the globe, particularly in South Asia and the Middle East.

In parallel with negotiations on nuclear disarmament, the Pakistani delegate said, there was an urgent need for negotiations on the balanced reduction of armed forces and conventional armaments.

As agreed, those negotiations should be conducted with particular emphasis on militarily significant states. The disturbing trend of escalation in the number and sophistication of conventional weapons had to be arrested, as that had a causal relationship with the continuing reliance on nuclear weapons, he said.

Akram called for focusing on conventional arms control, which was not limited to controls over only trade in conventional arms, but also included measures for arms reduction, limitation and restraint.

Any future arrangement on conventional arms that addressed their transfer, but not their development, production and deployment would be inequitable against countries that did not themselves produce such weapons.
Drivel, blather and sonorous profundities couched in complex and interwoven clauses continued until all, including the speaker, were fast asleep.
Posted by:Fred

#1  The annual increase in Indian GDP now exceeds the total GDP of Pakistan.

"Strategic Balance" ended long ago.
Posted by: john frum   2009-10-14 16:28  

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