Ideas 21st Century
Pakistan’s Armed Forces are among the ten largest in the world, not out of choice but necessity. With an implacable foe not well disposed towards us having a fighting machine many times our conventional size and waiting for any opportunity to pounce, it would be height of irresponsibility on the part of our leadership, a dereliction of duty, not to have an adequate defence. Given that sheer numbers do not create effectiveness and the potential to wage war without external assistance is only a part of effective deterrence, indigenous manufacture of arms and equipment is a must. Inheriting all the Ordnance Factories at the time of independence in 1947 India had a headstart, Pakistan starting from virtual scratch. Despite sanctions imposed by the west post-1965, both Pakistan and India had access to Chinese and Soviet weapons and equipment respectively. Till very lately the Russians (successors to the Soviets) had a very clear lead in technology over the Chinese, particularly in aircraft and missiles. Because we did not know how to cope with the realities of realpolitik till faced with a 9/11-type crisis, we left open the field to India to additionally acquire state-of-the-art weapons and defence equipment technology from Israel.
IDEAS 2002 has been a great success. Because of the adverse international media perception about Pakistan’s internal security environment, especially in Karachi after the Sheraton and US Consulate General bomb blasts only a few months ago, the holding of the Defence exhibition was considered unlikely as Embassy after Embassy gave “travel warnings” to their citizens about the dangers of journeying to Pakistan. Even though the threat of war has somewhat receded, India’s entire Armed Forces still remain in offensive posture on our borders. For 42 delegations from 32 countries to take part in the Exhibition is therefore a tremendous vote of confidence in Pakistan, and in the Musharraf regime, which put its prestige and credibility on the line to stage the event come what may. As the major force behind the inception of this initiative (when he was COAS only), the President deserves credit for creating the Defence Export Promotion Organisation (DEPO) in early 2001 as a follow-up of IDEAS 2000. As the first head of DEPO, the man who husbanded this idea along while serving in the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (JCSC), Maj Gen Ali Hamid, should be given credit for an enormous amount of staff work, co-ordination and logistics going into this effort. The private sector has played a tremendous part through Pegasus Consultancy, whose Managing Director Asim Siddiqui, Mr IDEAS himself, is a young man with a future. Knowing something about profit and loss, one can safely surmise that IDEAS 2000 must have been a net loss and IDEAS 2002 a borderline business proposition only. Pegasus has thus invested in the future in the national interest at cost to itself, this calculated risk has to be commended. One must mention Col (Retd) Akbar Sharif, the real unsung hero behind IDEAS. Do not be misled by the “Rakaposhi Tours” visage, this man opened many closed doors, organising the major logistics and converting the non-believers of IDEAS, far above and beyond his mandate. Having put his heart and soul into the event, “Sheriff” deserves far more than “mention in dispatches”, force-multiplied many times over for suffering in silence serving officers with scarce commercial knowledge and a penchant for tying up everything in bureaucratic knots. Alongwith Gen Pervez Musharraf himself, Maj Gen Ali Hamid and Asim Siddiqui, Col (Retd) Akbar Sharif has a pride of place in making the enterprising idea of IDEAS successful.
