Muhammad Azam Khan
In a major move to promote maritime research studies capital in the country, Pakistan Navy has established a Maritime Centre of Excellence (MCE) on the premises of Pakistan Navy War College, the services’ leading institute at Lahore. The centre is envisioned to become a hub of maritime thinking in Pakistan.
In line with the vision of Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral Zafar Mahmood Abbasi NI(M), MCE will integrate ongoing diverse yet scattered academic and applied research studies in variety of maritime disciplines. These include but not limited to geo-strategic and geo-economic issues in the Indian Ocean, blue economy, problems related to national maritime industries and public sector enterprises as well as attendant issues of importance to Pakistan. MCE will closely observe and examine existing and possible futuristic matters to proffer doable policy solutions for PN and Pakistan.
Headed by a serving two star officer who will act as the centre’s President, MCE will function as a binary organisation. The two wings comprising, Pakistan Navy War College (PNWC) and National Institute of Maritime Policy (NIMA) will have clearly demarcated mandate and wide range of linkages. Together they will blend their studies involving maritime security (military aspects) and geo-economic dimensions of maritime power respectively. The end product will appear in the shape of policy papers, supplements, and development solutions for organisations both, within Pakistan Navy as well as in public sector. The centre will also conduct and issue appraisal papers on maritime security developments in the region alongwith implications for Pakistan. Amongst its core functions would be to devise national maritime narrative, reinforce international maritime partnerships and provide impetus (jump- start) to national maritime sector.
The research wing at PNWC will have four institutes, geopolitical studies, maritime and naval warfare, hybrid warfare and a maritime history, each headed by a Director (PhD or Subject Matter Expert) with a number of researchers working under him/her. These institutes with associated centres will take on academic and scholarly work while the applied and (or) empirical research tasks will be jurisdiction of NIMA. Following intense scrutiny of issues and collating academic and field study or surveys, relevant papers for policy making and (or) recommended solutions will be published.
The existing country wide network of think-tanks mostly caters for and disseminates assorted research studies. Issues related to internal-external security, foreign policy, climate change, military affairs, and regional as well as international geo-political developments are usually taken up by these think-tanks. There was huge void in Pakistan in so far centralized maritime research studies and developing of a national perspective on various maritime security issues is concerned. MCE aims to do just that.
In classical sense, maritime or sea power differs widely from land and air power. The land and air power signify pure hard combat power residing in weapons, armament etc. and used for deterrence, coercion or diplomacy. Seapower (one word), is the sum total of a country’s physical, demographic, geographic, industrial, economic and military resource potential derived from or related to sea. A navy acts as guardian and sentinel to protect, preserve and advance a country’s interest beyond its geographical frontiers, something land and air power cannot do.
Put simply, sea power has both, a military as well as an economic dimension. As someone put it, ‘unlike the army and airforce, whose size and fire power have to be related to that of potential adversaries, the size of the navy is determined by the quantum of maritime assets and interests that it has to safeguard’.
MCE will muster best maritime brains to dissect myriad national maritime matters. In examining and banding together research studies, MCE could ultimately settle as an effective national pillar; a platform radiating propositions and providing solutions on ways to reinforce country’s blue economic potential. Alongside, the centre will advance the cause of national maritime security and other matters within and beyond the shores of Pakistan.
The author is a research fellow at Pakistan Navy war college Lahore.
