ISLAMABAD: Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa on Wednesday said that Pakistan’s short-range missile programme ‘Nasr’ has put ‘cold water on cold start’, in veiled reference to an Indian doctrine meant to launch swift attacks inside the country.
“Nasr puts cold water on cold start,” Gen Qamar was quoted as saying by the military’s media wing after he witnessed the training launch of the short-range surface-to-surface ballistic missile.
Pakistan has developed the short-range missile programme as low-yield battlefield deterrent targeted at ‘mechanised forces like armed brigades and divisions’.
The programme is meant to counter India’s ‘Cold Start’ doctrine that is intended to allow conventional forces to perform holding attacks in order to prevent nuclear retaliation from Pakistan in case of a conflict.
Nasr is a high-precision weapon system with the ability to be deployed quickly, the military said. “Pakistan has successfully undertaken a series of training launches and tests and trials during the current week for validation of new technical parameters of ‘Nasr’ with enhanced range from 60 km to 70 km and flight maneuverability,” the ISPR, said in a tweet announcing the successful launch of the missile. The weapon system will ‘augment credible deterrence against the prevailing threat spectrum’ more effectively, including anti-missile defenses deployed by hostile forces, it added.
Bajwa said that war must be avoided at all costs and that the army’s strategic capabilities were a ‘guarantee of peace’ against a ‘highly militarised and increasingly belligerent neighbour’. “Pakistan will go to any length to ensure regional peace and stability,” Gen Bajwa said. He congratulated the scientists and engineers and showed his complete confidence in ‘effective command, control, safety and security of all strategic assets and measures being taken to augment these’.
“You are our real heroes — the unseen. We owe you our gratitude,” the army chief was quoted as saying.
The ‘Cold Start’ doctrine is reportedly the name given to a limited-war strategy designed by India to seize Pakistani territory swiftly without, in theory, risking a nuclear conflict. It presupposes that India can cross the international border, temporarily hold Pakistani territory and launch punitive military strikes against military and militancy targets without triggering a general conflict.
Published in Daily Times, July 6th , 2017.
