Cautioning India against any “fresh wave of hostilities” while underlining that there was “no space for war in a nuclearised environment”, Pakistan Army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir said Saturday that his country would “respond much beyond the expectations of the initiators”.
Addressing cadets at the Pakistan Military Academy (PMA) in Kakul in Abbottabad, Munir asked India to settle core issues and said, “We will never be intimidated nor coerced by your rhetoric and shall respond decisively, beyond proportions, to even a minor provocation without any qualms. The onus of ensuing escalations, one that may ultimately bear catastrophic consequences for the entire region and beyond, will squarely lie with India.”
This is the second time in two months that Munir has issued a nuclear threat to India. In August, in an address to the Pakistani diaspora in Florida’s Tampa, Munir was quoted saying, “We are a nuclear nation. If we think we are going down, we will take half the world down with us.”
He has made three official trips to the US in recent times – the first was in June when he met President Donald Trump, weeks after Operation Sindoor; the second was in August for the retirement ceremony of the US Central Command commander; and the third was in September when he met Trump again at the White House, this time with Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif whose was there to attend the UN General Assembly session.
In fact, the Pahalgam terror attack in April, which led to Operation Sindoor, came a week after Munir described Kashmir as Islamabad’s “jugular vein” and drew a distinction between the people of India and Pakistan on religious lines. “Our religions are different, our customs are different, our traditions are different, our thoughts are different, our ambitions are different… We are two nations, we are not one nation,” Munir said.
His remarks had drawn a sharp riposte from India. “How can anything foreign be in a jugular vein? This is a Union Territory of India. Its only relationship with Pakistan is the vacation of illegally occupied territories by that country,” the Ministry of External Affairs said.
Delhi views Munir’s remarks as nuclear blackmail, part of Islamabad’s policy of using the nuclear bogey. Pakistan, sources said, is widely considered to be an irresponsible nuclear-armed state, with a risk of nuclear materials or expertise reaching non-state actors.
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“The international community does not trust nuclear weapons in the hands of an institution like the Pakistani military which is accountable to no one,” sources said.
Sources said Islamabad has a history of rhetorical nuclear brinkmanship while simultaneously claiming the mantle of a “responsible” nuclear actor. Calling it a source of regional instability, the sources said the central driver of nuclear instability in South Asia is a military establishment effectively “holding the nuclear button”.
Sources said that “such statements indicate the possibility of further terrorist attacks, with Pakistan’s missile and nuclear capabilities used as political cover”.
On Saturday, Munir said, “Should a fresh wave of hostilities be triggered, Pakistan would respond much beyond the expectations of the initiators.”
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“With diminishing distinctions between conflict and communication zones, the reach and lethality of our weapon systems will shatter the misconceived immunity of India’s geographic warspace. The deeply hurting retributive military and economic losses inflicted will be much beyond the imagination and calculation of the perpetrators of chaos and instability,” he said.
