Int'l Conference "Compound (Hybrid & Gray Zone) Threats To Pakistan" Held

The Center for Global & Strategic Studies (CGSS) organized an International Conference on "Compound (Hybrid & Gray Zone) Threats to Pakistan" here on Friday.

Islamabad, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 8th Jun, 2018) : The Center for Global & Strategic Studies (CGSS) organized an International Conference on "Compound (Hybrid & Gray Zone) Threats to Pakistan" here on Friday.

The aim and focus of the conference was to provide an opportunity for members of the society and policy makers to understand the nature of gray-zone hybrid threats and to discuss the different types and categories of gray-zone hybrid threats.

The conference was also aimed to discuss mechanisms to combat such threats, and tackle the compound threats for Pakistan and to come up with an extended policy framework to cater to such contemporary rising threats.

Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (CJCSC) General Zubair Mahmood Hayat, NI (M), who was chief guest of the conference, shared his views about the changing nature of warfare that is shifted from conventional warfare to Hybrid warfare.

General Zubair Mahmood Hayat stated that there are many factors behind the evolution of hybrid warfare mainly the moral standards, transformation of framework in international relations and the state to state interaction.

Gray zone challenges are inherently ambiguous in nature, he said and added that they feature unconventional tactics, from cyber-attacks, to propaganda and political warfare, to economic coercion.

The CJCSC stated that these threats are not new and in case of Pakistan these have been externally supported to sabotage the economic and security framework of the country. This is a world of fake news.

We all must join our hands together to strengthen the state institutions along with the global and regional alliance. It is an undeniable fact that economic strength has direct impact on the military strength.

Former Special Secretary Finance and Dean NUST, Dr. Ashfaque Hasan Khan presented speech on Coercive Economic Measure: A Way to Achieve Political Objectives in Gray-zone Warfare. He stated that Pakistan is in the midst of hybrid warfare for the last one decade but is has accelerated in the last four to five years.

People of Pakistan have not yet realized what has happened or is going to happen in future because it is the beauty of hybrid warfare that it is ambiguous. Major General Udaya Annesly Perera (Retd), Former Commandant Defence Services Command and Staff College, Sri Lanka Army presented speech on Role of Insurgencies in Proxy Warfare.

He shared his experiences from the Army, in decorating the image of proxy warfare and his contributions to hybrid warfare.

The speaker from China Mr. Hai Zhao, Institute of World Economics and politics, Chinese academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, China in his speech provided a strategic analysis to forecast the future of Gray zone conflict, and how this will impact the changing world order.

The second session began with Lieutenant General Masood Aslam (Retd) delivering a speech on 'Bifurcating military & non military paradigms' after which Air Marshal Waseem Ud din (Retd) gave an extensive presentation on identifying gray-zone hybrid threats in Pakistan, in which he first identified all elements of hybrid warfare in terms of media propaganda, deformation of society, cyber warfare and then drew a correlation with the current state of below the threshold warfare in Pakistan.

After a few more enlightening presentation, he further stated that hybrid warfare's battlefield is everywhere and omnipresent and all domains. Pakistan is being targeted in all four domains simultaneously.

When all four domains are targeted simultaneously, the end result is a synergized multiplication of effects. He further stated that activities need to be arranged, encouraged and widely publicized to increase awareness among our masses, learned elite, media professionals and our youth because in the gray zone conflict, un-aware individuals become tools of hybrid warfare.

President of PIHRO Habib Orakzai gave an eye-opening on how the rise of social engineered movements propagating anti-governmental/anti-military sentiments is a leading problem for Pakistan as of now.

Director General, Center of Information Technology (CIT) Mr. Ammar Jaffery presented his speech on Cyber Warfare: The latest Development in Irregular Warfare. He presented an overview on the vital facts about internet.

He stated that digital transformation is evolving very fast and international criminals and terrorists operate in cyber space within seconds. There are no foreign office barriers in dark web. Advisor to the President of the National Defence University (NDU), Islamabad, Dr.

Ejaz Akram presented his speech on Weak State Institutions & Role of Media in Gray-zone Conflict. He stated that the role of media is essential as it can be used as a tool for hybrid warfare and a single tweet can change the complete global environment.