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25 J. Pol. Stud. 1 (2018)

handle is hein.journals/jlo25 and id is 1 raw text is: Journal of Political Studies, Vol. 25, Issue - 1, 2018, 01:16 Pakistan's Search for Security through Reliable Balance of Power and Nuclear Weapons Hassan Masood Abstract At the time of independence Pakistan faced severe insecurity emanating from a fractured geography, non-existent constitutional framework, weak economy, and military capability in the face of an overwhelmingly powerful and hostile India. The paper explores Pakistan's efforts for establishing a reliable balance of power with India first by joining the collective security later supplementing it by joining alliances. It argues that the secession of East Pakistan was the turning point establishing the unreliability of the erstwhile basis of balance of power, leading Pakistan to the development of nuclear weapons as a reliable basis for a Pakistan-India balance of power while retaining the earlier two bases. Keywords: Pakistan, security, balance of power, collective security, alliances, nuclear weapons The Perspective At the time of independence in 1947 the founder of Pakistan Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah had political differences with the British Viceroy to India Lord Mountbatten. Their primary source was the latter's insistence on becoming the joint Governor General of India and Pakistan (Hamid, 1986, p.199 and p.201) which the former denied. Lord Mountbatten threatened the founder of Pakistan with establishing a Pakistan which would not be able to survive for long (Hamid, 1986, p. 235). The implementation of that threat brought forth its multiple dimensions. For example, one of the aspects was the boundary commission's award at the time of partition. It divided Punjab on the basis of Muslim and Sikh majority into West and East Punjab. Later was given to India along with the three tehsils of Muslim majority District Gurdaspur i.e. Pathankot, Gurdaspur and Batala. Out of these only Pathankot had a non-Muslim majority. The fourth tehsil Shakargarh which also had a Muslim majority was given to Pakistan. District Gurdaspur was also contiguous to Pakistan. Indian control over Gurdaspur and Batala provided critical land access to Indian Army (Hamid, 1986, p.203) during its campaign for the occupation of Jammu Kashmir and Laddakh in April 1948. The short-term objective of Indian occupation was to control immediate watershed or headwork of all Pakistani rivers emanating from Kashmir which was partially achieved. While the long-term objective has been progressive occupation of undemarcated stretches of the Line of Control (LoC) and ultimately link-up with Afghanistan and Indian occupation of Siachen in 1984 was move in that direction. If successfully created, that land corridor will in the first place, enable India to bypass Pakistan in its *Author is Ph.D. scholar, Department of Defence and Strategic Studies, Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad.

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