ISLAMABAD: Pakis\u00adtan has added a new arm to its military \u2013 the Army Rocket Force Command \u2013 tasked with building a long-range conventional strike capability to give the army a sharper edge over arch-rival India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This was announced by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif during a ceremony on the eve of Independence Day<\/a> in Islamabad. \u201cOn this occasion, I announce the establishment of the Army Rocket Force Command,\u201d he remarked during his speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The new command will be responsible for operating conventional missiles \u2014 including ballistic, cruise, and possibly even hypersonic \u2014 designed to hit targets far beyond the front lines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The idea is to strike deep, hard, and without reaching for the nuclear trigger. PM Shehbaz described the force as \u201cequipped with modern technology and having the capability to strike at the enemy from different directions\u2026 another milestone in strengthening our conventional warfare capacity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The timing of the announcement is significant. It came almost three months after a four-day war<\/a> with India \u2014 the most intense in decades. It was the Pakistan Air Force\u2019s early successes<\/a> that tipped the balance in Pakistan\u2019s favour, but the shortcoming of not having much to fire back with at longer range was noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A senior security official, cited by Reuters<\/em>, said that the \u201cforce would have its own command in the military, which would be dedicated to handling and deployment of missiles in the event of a conventional war\u201d. \u201cIt is obvious that it is meant for India,\u201d the official said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The establishment of the new command seems to be the outcome of lessons learned from that conflict: to deter India in the conventional space, something more than fighters and artillery was needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCrucially, it is a lesson of the May war. Pakistan didn\u2019t have much in the way of longer-range conventional rockets, which could be employed for deep targeting,\u201d said Muhammad Faisal, a scholar at the University of Technology Sydney, who specialises in South Asia security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n