The Pakistan Navy Strategic Forces Command (

reporting name Reporting may refer to * any activity that leads to reports * in particular business reporting * Data reporting * Sustainability reporting * Financial reporting * international reporting of financial information for tax purposes under the OECD's ...

: NSFC), is a strategic and missile formation of the

Pakistan Navy The Pakistan Navy (PN) (; ''romanized'': Pākistān Bahrí'a; ) is the naval warfare branch of the Pakistan Armed Forces. The Chief of the Naval Staff, a four-star admiral, commands the navy and is a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Com ...

. Headquartered in Navy HQ in

Islamabad Islamabad (; , ; ) is the capital city of Pakistan. It is the country's tenth-most populous city with a population of over 1.1 million and is federally administered by the Pakistani government as part of the Islamabad Capital Territory. Bu ...

, the strategic command controls sea-based guided and

cruise missile A cruise missile is an unmanned self-propelled guided missile that sustains flight through aerodynamic lift for most of its flight path. Cruise missiles are designed to deliver a large payload over long distances with high precision. Modern cru ...

system— both conventional and nuclear. Formation was organized in 2004 based on and influenced from the army's formation in 2002, and is responsible only for sea-based strategic nuclear deterrence, which the Pakistan's government identifies it as "custodian of second-strike capability.

Military overview

History

Before 2000, the

Pakistan Air Force The Pakistan Air Force (PAF) (; ) is the aerial warfare branch of the Pakistan Armed Forces, tasked primarily with the aerial defence of Pakistan, with a secondary role of providing air support to the Pakistan Army and Pakistan Navy when re ...

had an effective and operational controls over the deployment, target selections, intelligence, computers and

interoperability Interoperability is a characteristic of a product or system to work with other products or systems. While the term was initially defined for information technology or systems engineering services to allow for information exchange, a broader de ...

of the nation's strategic deterrence through its own strategic formation. Protecting Pakistan's maritime border became a realization after the short-lived border conflict with India in 1999 when Pakistani war strategists working at the Joint Staff HQ in Rawalpindi pointed that if the conflict would have entered in conventional scale, it would put Pakistan under serious disadvantage. As early as 2001, the Pakistani military strategists began to explore the idea of sea-based "

Second strike In nuclear strategy, a retaliatory strike or second-strike capability is a country's assured ability to respond to a nuclear attack with powerful nuclear retaliation against the attacker. To have such an ability (and to convince an opponent of its ...

" under navy rather than air force's control. The Navy HQ worked with the Army GHQ in Rawalpindi on establishing the sea-based deterrence and decided to commit greater resources for its development; consequently, tactics and strategic planning of Navy also underwent a shift. In 2000, the work on establishing the formation was started under the watchful guidance of Adm. Shahid Karimulla, who was then- Chief of Naval Staff, and strongly advocated for the pursuit of idea of "

". Admiral Karim rationalized that "since the Navy had been considering the deployment of nuclear weapons aboard its submarines-- it had to keep pace with developments in India." Although, Admiral

Karim Kareem (alternatively spelled Karim, Kerim or Karem) () is a given name and surname of Arabic origin that means "generous", "noble", "honourable". It is also one of the Names of God. Given name Karim * Karim Abdel Aziz (born 1975), Egyptian ac ...

later left the option open, saying that the country had no plans to deploy nuclear weapons on its submarines, and that it would do so only if "forced to". In 2004, the formation was established within the Navy which was based on the army's strategic forces command, and inaugurated its first headquarters in 2012 with Vice-Admiral

Tanveer Faiz Tanveer Faiz (Urdu: ) is a retired three-star vice admiral of the Pakistan Navy. He also served in university administration as the rector of Bahria University from 2015 until 2018. From 2006–07, Faiz served in the Ministry of Defence (MoD) ...

becoming its first commander. The military media command, the ISPR described the NSFC as the "custodian of the nation's 2nd strike capability, will strengthen Pakistan's policy of Credible Minimum Deterrence and ensure regional stability."

Employment

Besides the Pakistan Army's strategic formation, the Naval Strategic Forces Command is the only military formation that maintains and controls the employment of the transporter erector launchers, which is a primary ground-based delivery system for coastal defenses only. The Naval Strategic Command is distributed among the Pakistan Navy's missile regiment and the air defense battalions of the

Pakistan Marines The Pakistan Marines (Urdu: ) or simply as Pak Marines, is an expeditionary and amphibious warfare uniform service branch within the Pakistan Navy, consisting of the naval officers and other personnel to perform their duties within the Marine ...

, focusing on the southern border. The Navy's strategic formation is largely viewed as second-line capabilities that complement the principal land-based systems operated by the Army Strategic Force Command.

List of Commanders

References

{{Strategic forces Military units and formations established in 2004 2004 establishments in Pakistan Commands of Pakistan Navy Strategic forces of Pakistan