ISLAMABAD: Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (CJCSC) General Tariq Majid has observed that the country's armed forces have to be prepared for the whole spectrum of threats in the wake of emerging geo strategic environment where non traditional security threats were taking the centre stage.
Delivering key note address at the inaugural session of the 12th ASEAN Regional Forum, Heads of Defence institutions Meeting on "Military Operations Other Than War' (MOOTW) at National Defence University (NDU) here on Wednesday, he said the space for traditional application of military instrument was shrinking and even in the war prone South Asian Sub-continent with a nuclear overhang, non traditional force application had gained primacy.
General Tariq Majid spoke on the conceptual dimensions of MOOTW and established their relevance to the requirements and experiences of the region.
He also gave an overview of the Pakistani perspective and experiences of some key operations, focussing on the ongoing campaign against terrorism and violent extremism, and management of one of the most devastating earthquakes of October 2005 in Pakistan.
CJCSC highlighted that in a world driven with increasingly complex non traditional security challenges, general persistence of military conventionality is unlikely to serve the national, regional or trans regional interests. To be able to operate across a full spectrum of conflicts therefore, the challenge is how to adjust the doctrines, concepts, force structures and create the needed resources to build the capacity to meet the existing and future challenges.
General Tariq emphasised that "our greatest vulnerability today is trans-national sub-conventional threats and recurring natural disasters which usually require multinational cooperation to manage". He said the current global security agenda, which affects several countries of the region simultaneously, also demands a collaborative approach.
There is therefore, a need to explore and develop ways and means to cooperate bilaterally and multilaterally in various areas including intelligence and information sharing, capacity building, training programmes, consequence management, sharing experience on legal aspects and even developing an institutionalised mechanism on regional basis for dealing with non traditional security threats.
The 12th ASEAN Regional Forum, Heads of Defence Universities, Colleges and Institutions Meeting spread over two days has been arranged at National Defence University, Islamabad in which delegates from fifteen countries are participating. Apart from delegates from member countries, a large number of Defence Attaches, representatives of international and regional organizations, various ministries and local think tanks are attending the meeting.
