CURRENT STRATEGIC THINKING AND PAKISTAN

While we in Pakistan have neither the means nor the resources of the advanced countries of the world, we do need military strength and cannot ignore the military potential and the strategic thinking of the powerful nations of the West or the East. As is well known, military thinking in all countries is determined by ideological considerations and changing economic and political conditions. In a world of sudden shifts and upheavals and rapid technological developments, strategic doctrines and concepts are continuously examined, discussed and revised. Military establishments in the West employ a large number of scientists and experts to examine and improve weapons systems, tactics and strategy. In the U.S.A. particularly, defence experts, operation analysts and political thinkers form study groups and produce elaborate studies of current defence problems. The RAND Corporation maintained by the USAF employs a large number of influential scholars and professional experts, who not only produce reports and studies on important problems of national defence, disarmament and deterrence, but also evaluate communist military doctrines and the problems of foreign aid. The universities of Harvard, Princeton and Pennsylvania have frequent seminars and discussions on matters of foreign policy and national security. In England, also, there are suggestions that strategic studies should be taken up at the universities, and the recently set up Institute of Strategic Studies is doing valuable work in the field of international security.