Professional Affiliation

Director, Arms Control and Disarmament Affairs (ACDA), Strategic Plans Division, Joint Services Headquarters, Rawalpindi, Pakistan

Expert Bio

Born in Lahore, Pakistan, I was commissioned in the Pakistan Army as a teenager during the 1971 War with India. Three years later, the first nuclear explosion by India changed the strategic landscape of the region, leaving an indelible mark on Pakistan's security perception. These were the incipient stages of my military career. As I grew into my profession, I pursued my academic work simultaneously, dividing my time between professional responsibilities and academic pursuits. The early 1970s witnessed an era with increased emphasis on non-proliferation as the Cold War protagonists searched for new grounds of establishing strategic stability. By the 1980s, as internal dynamics in South Asia underwent dramatic shifts, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan and brought the Cold War to the doorsteps of Pakistan. Faced with an unprecedented situation, as the world braced to meet the new security challenges, I developed interest in the field of international relations that eventually brought me to the United States. In 1989-1991, as a graduate student at SAIS, the Johns Hopkins University, I was intellectually exposed to the transitional period from the end of the Cold War to the beginning of a "New World Order." With lesser emphasis on alliance politics, non-proliferation became a key policy instrument of international diplomacy that gave a special focus to South Asia. I then began to blend my academic work with military experience to produce optimal results providing substantive contributions to my government. In the mid 1990s, I established a "special cell" in the General Headquarters that carried out analysis from a military standpoint on various security and arms control issues. Regular interaction with international and national think tanks helped me formulate Pakistan's security policy by providing institutional inputs-on nuclear and conventional arms control issues-to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Meanwhile, I extensively researched and wrote on various security issues, and participated and read papers at several national and international conferences and seminars. Personal experience and active participation in multilateral arms control negotiations-especially at the Conference on Disarmament, Geneva- helped me gain negotiating experience.

Wilson Center Project

"A Strategic Stability Regime in South Asia"

Project Summary

When the two nuclear protagonists in South Asia went overt in May 1998, a paradigm shift had occurred that triggered a new set of security dynamics within the region and posed non-proliferation challenges at the global level. President Clinton aptly declared the sub-continent as "the most dangerous place in the world." Notwithstanding the complexity of the South Asian political conundrum, unless constraints and restraints between India and Pakistan on nuclear and conventional forces are established, the region is bound to proceed into formal deployment causing further instabilities and eventually leading to nuclear war. Peace is at a premium nowhere greater than in South Asia, where the fate of nearly a billion people is at stake. I plan to work on a monograph that will make an intellectual contribution toward a "Strategic Stability Regime in South Asia." The study would encompass a comprehensive strategic analysis of the regional dynamics, proffer a restraint arrangement, and suggest courses that could enable policy initiatives in the U.S., India, and Pakistan to prevent a nuclear conflagration in the region. The project would entail interaction with functional experts in treaty implementation, as well as several national and international think tanks and academics involved in peace research and conflict resolution.







In May 1998, following nuclear tests, U.S. led nuclear diplomacy focused on strategic dialogue with South Asia. In the course of experts' talks while representing the Pakistan side, I realized the tendency amongst international arms control experts to apply universal principles-essentially Cold War experience and models-in analyzing regional problems that were not necessarily applicable, particularly in the South Asian context. Peculiar strategic culture, respective threat perceptions, and other regional nuances, posed an interesting intellectual challenge. Personal experience in participating at the experts' level in the U.S.-Pakistan strategic dialogue made me focus on peace and security studies and a quest to develop concepts on arms control and regional security. My endeavor continues to proffer pragmatic and militarily robust restraint proposals that could be woven into a strategic stability regime in South Asia and serve as a model for other regions-hence the Wilson Center Project.







As a visiting faculty member, I regularly lectured and taught courses at the Department of Defense and Strategic Studies and International Relations, Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad. Currently I am a visiting fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University, working on identical projects in preventing nuclear standoffs and promoting risk reduction measures in South Asia.

 

Major Publications

• Export Control Mechanism: An Instrument of Non-Proliferation. Pakistan Defense Review, Volume, 13, No 1, Summer 1999, Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
  
   
• Trust and Confidence Building Measures in South Asia. Pakistan Defense Review, Volume 12, No 2, Winter 1998, Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
  
   
• The Power Curves and Wars in South Asia. Strategic Studies, Volume 2/93, Islamabad, Pakistan.