Former Pakistani ambassador to the UN, Islamabad should take North Korea as a model 

According to Nova, Pakistan does not agree with the strategy of Donald Trump's US presidential administration for Afghanistan, does not intend to fight the Afghan war on its own territory and will continue to oppose an expansion of India's role in that country " , and for this reason he would do better to prepare for a further deterioration in relations with the United States. To write it, in an editorial published by the Pakistani newspaper "Dawn", is Munir Akram, former Pakistani ambassador to the United Nations, who expressly citing North Korea as a model urges Islamabad to pursue without hesitation a further strengthening of its ballistic and nuclear deterrent . "Even if Pakistan and the United States were able to reconcile their divergent positions on Afghanistan - writes Akram - it is unlikely that the emerging strategic alignments that will shape policies in Asia will be able to change". The United States, the former ambassador emphasizes, "has chosen India as the main regional strategic partner to counter the rising power of China", and "the consequent escalation of the Indian threat to Pakistan's security appears irrelevant to the US", or even "part of their strategic plan to weaken the Pakistani opposition to Indo-US regional domination". These dynamics, according to Akram, are confirmed in the recent visit to New Delhi by US Secretary of Defense James Mattis. Hence the conclusion of the author of the editorial: "Pakistan's ability to resist Indian diktats and express its disagreement with the strategic planning of the United States derives mainly from one source: its nuclear and missile capabilities". Without its ballistics and nuclear programs, Akram continues, Pakistan "would have already been attacked like Iraq or sanctioned like Iran". This theory would find confirmation, according to the author of the editorial, precisely in the situation of North Korea, which "despite its isolation, was able to stand up to the United States through its demonstrations of nuclear and ballistic power". It is no coincidence, according to the former ambassador, that the United States "always tried to delay or reverse Islamabad's nuclear and missile programs, even when Pakistan was a close ally". Akram makes a further accusation against Washington: the US is assisting India in the expansion and modernization of its nuclear arsenal, its missile and anti-ballistic capabilities, its air and naval forces, as well as its satellite and space capabilities. , and there are credible and not too secret reports according to which the US has prepared a plan to seize or destroy Pakistani atomic weapons in the event of a crisis ”. Any conflict scenario between India and Pakistan, recalls the author of the editorial, "confirms the probability of a rapid escalation of the conflict at the nuclear level, given the asymmetry of conventional forces" on the ground. A war, therefore, should be an unimaginable outcome, "yet the Indian political and military leadership continue to speak of 'surgical attacks' and 'limited conflicts' against Pakistan". If India decides to wage a conflict against Pakistan, it would first have to conduct pre-emptive strikes against Islamabad's nuclear deterrence, relying on substantial US-gathered intelligence or their direct military assistance.