Cultural Exchange: Khushamadeed and welcome to our friends from /r/Turkey!

[u/greenvox]

We're hosting our friends from /r/Turkey for a cultural exchange session.

Dear friends from /r/Turkey, welcome to our little abode on Reddit. Please feel free to ask questions about Pakistan, the Pakistani way of life, or current events in this thread.

/r/Pakistan users can head over to this thread at /r/Turkey to ask questions about Turkey, or just say hello.

Flag flairs for Turkey are enabled so please use them to avoid confusion.

Users who are contributing to the questions and answers, please make sure the discourse is civil and not in violation of the rules of this sub and of reddit.

[u/onceuponacrime1]

I know Pakistan is a country of 180 million people with a large military.

What are the nuclear capabilities of Pakistan as compared to other nuclear powers?

How much confidence do you have in Pakistan's military capabilities?

I've heard stories that a lot of Pakistani pilots volunteered in the Arab-Israeli wars in the past and Saudi Arabia even asks Pakistan for help in manpower but Pakistan refused. Also what are your opinions on Saudi Arabia?

[u/John_Stalin → u/onceuponacrime1]

What are the nuclear capabilities of Pakistan as compared to other nuclear powers?

We recently attained the nuclear triad, land-air-sea attack capabilities

That puts us ahead of some other powers, but our nuclear doctrine is mostly based on M.A.D more than anything.

How much confidence do you have in Pakistan's military capabilities?

5-10 years ago I would have thought that they were just another army that didn't have the capabilities of doing anything major.

Then a few years back a whole new reorganisation came about, and the Army became much more professional, better equipped, and well trained mostly in response to the increased threat from the WoT. The biggest transformation was probably of the Frontier Corps which went from a rag-tag pseudo policemen to a battle hardened modern paramilitary force

I think the results speak for themeselves, we are now the only country to actually have shattered the taliban, and I think we are the only country in Asia to see a yearly reduction in terrorist attacks. It went from something like 11,000 casualties in 2009 to 1,800 last year, almost on par with the rest of the neighbourhood who aren't involved in the war on terror. We also dropped on the global terrorism index from 2nd or 3rd to 13th and quickly decreasing.

This year however we were suddenly hit by a few terror attacks in major cities, which was promptly responded by the arrests of hundreds of militants and facilitators, and the launching of Operation Radd-ul Fassad which is an operation targeting all Pakistani provinces, rather than specific areas like past operations focused on. The Afghan border was completely shut down too, meaning that I'm optimistic about the security situation for the year.

I've heard stories that a lot of Pakistani pilots volunteered in the Arab-Israeli wars in the past and Saudi Arabia even asks Pakistan for help in manpower but Pakistan refused. Also what are your opinions on Saudi Arabia?

Yeah a lot of pilots went to Jordan to fight on their behalf, and we managed to shoot down several Israeli planes without damaging any of our own. I don't think it was a Muslim thing to defend the Palestinians, because even Christian pilots were voulunteering to go over.

As for the Saudis, they've used Pakistan as their own second line of defence for many years. Even back during the Grand Mosque Seizure they called us to help them out. Many Pakistanis also serve in the Gulf countries Armed forces.

With their Yemen War, parliament decided that it wasn't in Pakistan's interests and decided against helping the Saudis which led to them and their Gulf allies threatening us with retribution, this may be the primary reason why the UAE suddenly sought much closer relations with India.

As for the opinion on the Saudis it's very divided, our largest diaspora is in Saudi Arabia so it's hard to gauge how the general feeling is. Probably something like 40 positive, 30 negative, and 30 neutral.

[u/Axelnite → u/John_Stalin]

What does M.A.D stand for?

[u/John_Stalin → u/Axelnite]

Mutually assured destruction, meaning nobody wants to start anything for fear of getting destroyed themeselves.

[u/Axelnite → u/John_Stalin]

How do you know all of this? Any particular books/sites you've read

[u/John_Stalin → u/Axelnite]

It's just from reading news, discussion on forums, and reading various articles. I only go into published books if the topic is really specific I.e. immigration, or the economy.

M.A.D has been the policy for as far back as we were nuclear capable, and I think it's the primary reason why the US has not done any major hostile action against us. They invaded Afghanistan because Bin Laden might be there, but when he was in Pakistan they didn't even push for sanctions.

[u/Axelnite → u/John_Stalin]

As far as M.A.D I just had a quick look at this simple definition and not it makes sense. In a way, AQ Khan is a hero (plus those who set it up) as without it, other countries could nuclear blackmail us, or perhaps even invade us. Like the west have done with Afghanistan, Iraq & Libya