The seventh CISS-IISS Workshop on South Asian Strategic Stability: Deterrence, Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control was held in London on February 6, 2020. A 11 member delegation led by Ambassador Ali Sarwar Naqvi and including prominent scholars and experts retired military officers and senior CISS researchers participated in the event.
Lt. Gen. (R) Khalid Kidwai, former Director General Strategic Plans Division (SPD) and adviser National Command Authority (NCA), was the keynote speaker. There were three sessions of the daylong Conference to focus on different aspects of the subject. Detailed agenda is given below.
It was the first time that the regular CISS-IISS Workshop was held in London as all earlier sessions of this series of workshops since 2013 have been held in Islamabad.
It was a highly successful event and attracted great interest in the IISS membership and experts and scholars in the UK, as well as Pakistanis in the field.
Keynote Address and Discussion Session with Lieutenant General (Retd) Khalid Kidwai, Advisor, National Command Authority; and former Director-General, Strategic Plans Division, Pakistan Chair: Desmond Bowen, Associate Fellow, IISS
LONDON: A retired senior Pakistani general has told India that it shouldn’t take Pakistan’s nuclear capability as a bluff since Pakistan reserved all options to protect its territorial and ideological interests if a war was imposed on it.
Keynote Address as delivered:
Ladies and gentlemen. Good morning to all of you. I am indeed very grateful to the IISS, London and CISS, Islamabad for honouring me once again to deliver the keynote address at the annual joint workshop of the two prestigious think tanks. The focus in these workshops remains on the by now elusive ‘Strategic Stability in South Asia’. Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of some of the best brains in the business, South Asia has remained on a slippery slope over the years lurching dangerously towards strategic instability rather than strategic stability. When I use word ‘strategic’ in my address, I do not imply nuclear stability alone, but refer to the much larger and wholesome concept of strategic stability encompassing in its fold, the many elements of national power and strategy.
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Ali Sarwar Naqvi is Executive Director at the Center for International Strategic Studies (CISS), Islamabad.
