The Pakistan Navy and the maritime doctrine of Pakistan
The President launched the first ever maritime doctrine on 20 December 2018. This was a huge national success as many dimensions of the doctrine need higher recognition.
Among the three services, the Navy turns out to be one of the most significant. While we see armed warriors always ready to counter both external] and internal threats, Pakistan Navy ensures the protection of the boundary lines through and from the sea, especially the Indian Ocean.
Pakistan’s defense is primarily Indo-centric and thus its primary defensive line is the Army. Therefore, the Pakistan Navy does not play a primary role in the initial hostilities. Thus maritime doctrine is quite different from air and military doctrines. Even if not a priority in initial hostilities, the Navy is likely to be important in a prolonged conflict to maintain Pakistan’s access to crucial sea-lanes.
Pakistan’s naval contest with India is asymmetric. India has the world’s fifth largest navy, including an operational aircraft carrier, whereas Pakistan’s is far smaller and relies on hit and run tactics, utilizing its largely French-Built submarine force and US-supplied Harpoons and other anti-ship missiles. Thus it is of grave concern for Pakistan as India develops one of its own nuclear submarines which upsets the nuclear balance between the two.
However since 2016, with the beginning of CPEC, Pakistan has brought about several changes, as a taskforce is set up to protect the Pak-China business and trade and provide a seal to Gwadar port. Since Gwadar is the main actor for the trade, it is the core responsibility of the Navy to create a protective environment and because of this several advancements have taken place.
In 2017, Pakistan has tested its first nuclear missile submarine, as a deterrent against India. Everyone is aware of the roles of the Pakistan Army and PAF, but there remains a very lower insight into the role of the Navy.
Pakistan’s naval history had been on an arduous road of formation and development but its role in the three major wars cannot be denied. From there was no formulation of maritime doctrine as wars in the beginning were primarily focused on land and air. However, the history of Navy still exists to be admired.
After the 1948 war it was evident that the biggest threat to the then Royal Pakistan Navy was India, that in the early 1949 had purchased destroyers and cruisers. Pakistan on the other hand had such limited resources that it accepted that East Pakistan remained indefensible. Keeping in mind the technological advancement of India, Pakistan initiated its ‘Five Year Plan’ stating that by 1954, Pakistan should acquire four more destroyers, submarines, patrol craft, minesweepers, O class trio, seaward defense and many more things required by the RPN. However, lacking funds, Pakistan allied with the West to build up its naval requirements. From 1950 to 1959, RPN focused mainly on assisting its manpower as it has now reached a sustainable amount of equipment for which people needed to be trained. Different training programmes and high-level exercises were conducted with Royal Navy and Royal Australian and New Zealand Navies.
In the 1965 War, the Navy’s instructions were to play defensive and not initiate any conflict. However, this soon converted after the IAF destroyed the PAF capabilities due to which the Navy had to turn offensive, ‘Operation Dwarka’ was conducted where the radar facilities were destroyed.
Since naval defenses were weak on the eastern coast and the enemy was aware of it, they conducted an ‘Operation Python’ facing and targeting Karachi which turned out to be a huge success as many of the Pakistan navy submarines and minesweepers were destroyed. During the 1971 war, the Navy failed to counter the threat from one side. Why? Because of the communication gap.
After a dreadful defeat during the 1971 war, it was a major concern to strengthen the Navy.
While the Pakistan navy has remained active in protecting the national interests, it has remained far from achieving massive development. Just like army and air force, the navy has also seen India as its biggest adversary in the Indian Ocean. However, the threat has always existed, but there has been no maritime doctrine for Pakistan, leaving it most questionable as to what defensive strategies have the navy adopted. Surprisingly, none. Just like Pakistan’s foreign policy, in practice the Navy’s acts can be related to a strategy or doctrine but there has existed no stated doctrine.
Pakistan cannot be criticized in not having a doctrine for a very long time as the culture of formulating a maritime doctrine begin in 1996 with Great Britain being the first, followed by many others like South Africa, Australia and lately India. India drafted its first doctrine in 2002 and in 2009 produced a second edition. This was a challenge for Pakistan.
The draft formulation came forward in 2016, but the work for drafting a maritime doctrine begin way back in 2000, even before India’s. From the very beginning Pakistan had remained dependent on the modal frameworks created by the great powers, and been copying the international systems rather than coming up with our own. When the quest for creating a doctrine began, many believed the British doctrine is enough for Pakistan to follow with a few changes.
This doctrine and its points of need provide a fundamental basis of how the maritime strategy is supposed to be performed. When we are talking about the strategy, its foundation rest in a doctrine. While strategy steers development and employment of forces, a doctrine serves as a landmark in common understanding and translating beliefs into actions.
The contributing writer and drafter of the doctrine, Cdre (retd) Azam Khan, stated that the biggest unfortunate event for the threats prevalent in the IOR is that although there are 36 littoral states in the IOR, but none of them have a unified cooperation. There exists a massive level grouping between the states that rather than accommodating the challenges, triggers them even further. These groups are divided into four zones that have built up their own disputes among each other. The zone in which Pakistan lies has three other nations, India, Iran, and Oman. He stated that Pakistan has settled all the disputes with Iran and Oman, the only outstanding issue is with India, Sir Creek.
The formation of maritime doctrine currently targets the future coming threats from the activation of Gwadar seaport with China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Khan stressed the biggest threat was the formation of powerful blocks. On one side the US Navy is fully supporting the Indian Navy and on the other Pakistan Navy is collaborating with the Chinese Navy. Once trade begins, it will magnify the task of Pakistan Navy in terms of trade. It will only include protecting our own imports and exports, but the Navy would also have to ensure that national sea lines are protected and safeguarded. With the drafting of the maritime doctrine, the role and the character of the Pakistan Navy gets a clear vision.
With the change in the meaning of national security, now confronting not only war activities but several dynamics of sea, the national security includes new elements and new domains. The naval performance is focused to enhance in the continuum borders on social and human security on one extreme to the territorial security at the other.
The maritime infrastructure along the coast and in Pakistan’s area of interest is projected to increase in the foreseeable future. The commercial activities and port-related infrastructure, a large network of communications and pipelines along the Makran coast, tourism and development and exploration work in Pakistan’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), are all expected to expand. Any hostile attempts to hinder the sea line of communication by an adversary can have a serious impact. For this reason, the activities of CPEC, its development and progressive success has benefits for the Pakistan navy. Better economy, better infrastructure leading to its better performance.
When the main concentration of any country remains on land, large segments of population become averse to matters of the ocean. In the process, despite historical baggage that we did not invest enough in the Pakistan Navy, and though we could not give a tough fight in 1971 to protect East Pakistan, we did not learn any lesson. However, now the focus of the world is shifting to the sea due to the shrinking land resources, populations are growing, and countries are becoming more dependent on sea resources.
The Indo-Pacific region is becoming the major concern. The South China Sea and western Indian Ocean are two important places where the world expects the major friction to take place. Navies are being bolstered for asserting dominance and serving political ends. Major powers have started rebalancing their naval forces and co-opting strategic partners to ensure unimpeded control of seas. In this global competition for the dominance of sea, the world is experiencing a rivalry to maintain its status of an eminent naval power for the future. Thus, Pakistan, with the formulation of this doctrine stands very much in the line.
