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Senior Pakistani officials have expressed grave concerns regarding India’s rapid militarization of space and the addition of A.I based advanced warfare capabilities, such as lethal autonomous weapons and cyber warfare, on its arsenal. They have stressed that Pakistan could not remain oblivious to these developments since they pose a substantial threat to its national security. Pakistan has largely failed to match India’s technological advancement and space domination.
The views were expressed at a webinar titled, ‘Pakistan’s Quest for Peace & Strategic Stability in South Asia’ hosted by the Islamabad Policy Institute (IPI) to commemorate the 23rd anniversary of the 1998 nuclear tests.
In his remarks, the adviser to Strategic Plans Division, Amb Zamir Akram, emphasized that an up-gradation of Pakistani capabilities for maintaining credible deterrence was the need of the hour and critical for upholding the country’s security.
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India, the adviser, highlighted, “tested anti-satellite weapons and they are also working on integrating new warfare technologies such as cyber warfare, artificial intelligence, robotics, and lethal autonomous weapons in their arsenal with US support.”
“From military perspective, satellites provide data information that relates to command and control, targeting, surveillance,” he added and stressed and warned that all these could be significantly downgraded if targeted by the opponent.
Pakistan, Amb Akram said, will have to respond to these developments and cannot remain complacent.
Director-General Arms Control and Disarmament Division at the Foreign Office Mr. Kamran Akhtar, while emphasizing this new challenge, said, “militarization of frontier technologies like A.I, cyber warfare, space technologies and quantum computing were casting their dark shades in the region.”
Executive Director Islamabad Policy Institute Prof Sajjad Bokhari suggested that Pakistan continuously prepare to mitigate any threat to its territorial integrity and national sovereignty. However, he also acknowledged that Pakistan’s space program has for long remained under-resourced and neglected. “Time has come to invest in the space technologies to harness their civilian and military potential,” he said.
Source: Daily Times
