Defense News quotes South Asia Center Nonresident Senior Fellow Claude Rakisits on the challenges likely to top the new Pakistan Navy chief’s agenda:
Nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center, Claude Rakisits, says Zakaullah will have to improve security and further develop the sea-based arm of Pakistan’s nuclear triad.
“He will need to seriously tighten the security of the naval facilities in Karachi so as to prevent another terrorist attack on its facilities such as the ones that took place in May 2011 and more recently in September of this year. While the latter one was foiled, the previous one caused much damage, including the destruction of 2 P-3C Orion maritime surveillance planes,” he said.
“Tightening security will also mean implementing tighter security checks on the naval personnel because it is difficult to believe that the May 2011 attack could have been done without inside assistance,” he added.
Regarding the sea-based arm of the nuclear deterrent, Rakisits says, “If Pakistan were able to develop such a missile capability, deployed either on a warship or on one of its diesel-powered submarines, this would effectively give Islamabad a second-strike nuclear capability,” he said.