[Pakistan] Message to Great Britain (Continued)

[Emira]

Shabazz Sharif smiled and said "No doubt Great Britain has played a large role in shaping the political ethics of Pakistan, from our political system, our armed forces, our civil servants and civil society, on down. In Pakistan we embrace the past of the British Raj, as it's unlikely the Islamic Republic of Pakistan would ever have come into being, were it not for the many British administrators, civil servants, and of course the many British viceroys, who clearly understood that the Muslims of the subcontinent were a separate nation from that of the Hindus. So Pakistan takes pride in our history and it pleases me that the United Kingdom recognizes that Pakistan shares similar goals, values, ethics, etc, as the nation's of ISAF.

Tell me does ISAF encourage economic investment, commerce, scientific exchange, and other forms of non-military engagement between member states? As Pakistan would certainly view it as a major positive if ISAF was also a vessel for these types of civil exchanges, as well as the obvious military exchanges and mutual defense.

Ahhh you must excuse me, as I am not a military man or geographer! I had nearly forgotten about Diego Garcia! With your recent investment to fortify Diego Garcia, I'm confident that ISAF could rapidly stage and then deploy forces into South Asia and beyond, should the need arise. While should Pakistan join ISAF, this would be all the more a reality, which would no doubt enhance ISAF's overall strategic outlook and planning within Subsaharan Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. I'm certainly glad to know that should Pakistan join ISAF, a staging point and garrison for ISAF forces is quite near to Pakistan.

As an aside, would it be possible for the Pakistan Navy to tour the fortifications you've built on Diego Garcia? As the Pakistan Navy is planning to fortify and garrison one of the larger islands that controls access to Karachi Port, so that the city and port are well defended from any potential threats from hostile naval and air forces. So observing what you've done in Diego Garcia would no doubt assist the Pakistan Navy in its own design for a major modern coastal fortification off Karachi.

Al-Mutahida? This must be a new terrorist organization, as I don't believe I've heard of them before now. Is there any new information regarding this group? Seeing as Al-Mutahida appears to be based in Iran, I'll see to it that the Frontier Corps increases security along the Iranian-Pakistani Border, while the ISI will deploy several KORAL Mobile Electronic Warfare Systems, in an effort to pick up the group's communications and then pinpoint their location within Iran. Any of their findings will of course be shared with their British colleagues.

I agree whole heartedly regarding the official listing of our trade routes through the IMTO and collaborative maritime security being provided by the Royal Navy and Pakistan Navy. While I to have no doubt this will go a long way to deepening both civil and military ties between our two nations. Though seeing as the Pakistan Navy is by far the junior branch of the Pakistan Armed Forces and is inline for expansion, would Great Britain and Ziron assist the Pakistan Navy in its expansion efforts? As a major need exists for high quality warships, submarines, and auxiliary ships, preferably of western origin. Certainly the Pakistan Navy would love to field British vessels built by Ziron as it heads into the future. Not to mention I believe the Pakistan Army, Pakistan Air Force, ISI, and security forces are ready to place a major order with Ziron at your convenience of course.

I am troubled by what you've revealed regarding Brazil. Nevertheless my brother has instructed our Minister of Foreign Affairs to reach out to the Brazilian Foreign Minister, so that we can perhaps ease some of the tension between nations, as well as the potential economic impact lost tourism revenue may have on the Brazilian economy. Certainly the minister will discuss Pakistan potentially joining ISAF and gauge the Brazilian reaction, as we do not want Brazil or any other nation to see Pakistan joining ISAF as any sort of threat against their nation, or a changing in our longstanding foreign policy. So it's my hope that Pakistan can play a key role in at least easing some of the current tensions and perhaps we can assist in persuading Brazil to lift some of their restrictions on various foreign states at present. Pakistan is for peace and we don't like seeing our friends quarell with one another, so we will do whatever we can to be of assistance to all parties in this matter.".

 

[Jamie]

"ISAF has been and is a prominently military-grouping. It's designed to have the security features in place that will ensure the ultimate protection of our members. This works as an 'attack on one, is an attack on all' mentality. Allowing members to activate an article that will provide them guaranteed military support. However, there has been more recent investment in non-military application. Economically, every member of ISAF is given an entitlement grant of 25 billion dollars. That is 25 billion your country would be entitled to use from the ISAF Funding. We also have a Political Chairman which will front ISAF, and plans for a Research and Development Center in Portugal. So whilst we are focused militarily, we have a growth of non-military involvement.

We also have new Secretary General Elections due to begin very shortly which will possibly see a new direction for the alliance, and possibly a step closer to non-military support and cooperation. Overall, the positioning of ISAF posts gives us a lot of flexibility. Britain has territories globally and given our commitment to ISAF, the usage of these territories is undoubtedly available.

In regards to a possible visit for your own navy on Diego Garcia, we would be happy to accomodate this. We are planning a visit to Diego Garcia ourselves next month. I wonder if it could be possible for your navy to visit at this same time? Diego Garcia is often on limited quantities of personnel unless needed, so it would give you someone to actually provide you with a.. useful tour." he'd smile. "So come May, when we have our own presence there for a visit, we'd love to welcome members of your own Navy.

Admittingly, I hadn't heard of Al-Mutahida myself until this occurence. We figure they're based in Iran and have ceased travel from the country. Possibly a consequence of our involvement in the Iranian crisis under the last regime. Although we're not sure if the new regime is supporting them in anyway.

Britain, and no doubt Ziron would love the opportunity to work closely with your own Navy for expansion purposes. Perhaps the expansion you are seeking may be opportune for our Naval Chiefs to discuss closely on a trip to Diego Garcia if given the go-ahead?"

 

[Emira]

Chairman of the Senate Sharif nodded and said "The military arrangement and assurance that comprises the backbone of ISAF is obviously of great importance and interest to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, especially given the volatile nature of South Asia and the rivalry Pakistan has with India and now Iran. Pakistan is seeking to peacefully increase our influence throughout South Asia, through the use of various means of "Soft Power", so it would certainly be advantageous for Pakistan to have the backing of the members of ISAF, to dissuade a rogue nation such as Iran from attempting to use "hard power" once again, in another attempt to curb Pakistan's increasing influence within South Asia. While I certainly think Pakistan brings a whole host of benefits to ISAF, with access to our strategically critical geographic location being chief among them. As the central location of Pakistan, within the fabled "Crossroads of History", will allow ISAF to control trade, travel etc, moving between the east and the west, which is obviously of great importance. So I certainly believe that should Pakistan join ISAF, our membership will truly be mutually beneficial to ISAF on the whole.

While I don't speak for the Pakistan Armed Forces, I have know that the armed forces favor Pakistan's membership within ISAF and shall submit a formal request to join ISAF and announce our intentions to do so once the Chief of Army Staff has spoken about Pakistan's aspirations to join ISAF with the delegation from the Netherlands that our Army Chief is currently in talks with at Army GHQ in Rawalpindi. So I would expect Pakistan's application to join ISAF and our formal declaration of our intent to do so within days.

I certainly like what I hear regarding the various forms of non-military cooperation and support that ISAF provides to each member state and I must say the streamlined nature of ISAF, having a Political Chairman, having an extremely competent Secretary General, is all very refreshing. I'm also very happy to hear that ISAF is building it's own R&D facilities, as it's critical that our respective armed forces would be as fully integrated and interoperable as possible, so this facility could certainly be useful for developing a state-of-the-art C4ISR system, which will ensure that all of our armed forces can operate with one another in a fully coordinated manner within a digital battlefield.

As far as the physical integration of the Pakistan Armed Forces into ISAF is concerned, the majority of the equipment used by the Pakistan Armed Forces is built to NATO standards, with the only exceptions I'm aware of being our use of 125-mm shells for our MBT's and utilizing Chinese and Russian made air defense systems. With that being said, I'm confident that our use of 125-mm armed MBT's wouldn't be an issue, so long as we improve the ability of the Pakistan Air Force and Pakistan Navy to ship large quantities of armaments to staging areas across the globe. While the Pakistan Army would be interested in integrating thr Aster Long-Range SAM/ABM System into our national air defense system and developing as C4ISR system that would integrate our western air defense systems into our existing Chinese and Russian made systems, in order to create a seamless air defense network. So it is to ensuring the Pakistan Armed Forces are properly integrated within ISAF, improving the Pakistan Navy with new warships, transports, and logistics vessels, providing the Pakistan Air Force with strategic airlifters, and seeing to our national infrastructure and economy, that Pakistan would utilize ISAF grant money. We would also make as many purchases from our ISAF allies whenever it's practical to do so. So I'm hopeful Pakistan's membership will benefit all of ISAF's members economically as well as strategically.

Pakistan certainly supports the current Secretary General, as she was the one to reach out to us, during the "Austrian Crisis", which she certainly didn't have to do. That is actually what led Pakistan to strongly consider membership within ISAF over the failing alliance we unfortunately had found ourselves tied to at that time. So should Pakistan become a member of ISAF, we would push for increased cooperation between members within the civil and economic spheres, perhaps recommending this be done through a separate branch of ISAF and overseen by an elected commissioner. Though in any event we feel that the current Secretary General has ISAF on an excellent path and is a very proactive leader.

Yes certainly the United Kingdoms overseas territories are a major asset to ISAF, not to mention the Dutch holdings in the Caribbean and of course the American presence abroad as well. Pakistan is looking to expand our influence through the Indian Ocean and Central Asia, with plans being formulated to assist Afghanistan, Yemen, and the Maldives economically, socially, and with security, so that we can increase our influence and presence within these strategic areas within our near abroad. Therefore we feel confident that Pakistan will soon be able to be in a position to control the southern trade routes between east and west, which of course would be vital to ISAF.

Certainly! The Pakistan Navy will have at least one of our G-Class Guided Missile Frigates make a port call at Diego Garcia. With a number of dignitaries from the Pakistan Armed Forces, headed by Chief of Naval Staff of the Pakistan Navy, Admiral Zafar Mahmood Abbasi, attending the tour. So the Pakistan Navy will send at least one frigate for a port call and all of the branches of the armed forces will send representatives to Diego Garcia in May. Needless to say the Pakistan Navy is very excited to see the fortifications, as we have two islands off of Karachi chosen for development by the Pakistan Navy, however we aren't certain what route we should take to best fortify these two sites to be most effective. Certainly we will be deploying plenty of coastal defense batteries with anti-ship missiles, a variety of SAM batteries, batteries of anti-aircraft guns, reinforced bunkers and pill boxes, etc, but it will be good to see how the Royal Navy has gone about fortifying Diego Garcia, as their certainly the experts in creating heavily fortified naval installations. So I'm sure we will be able to learn how to fortify these islands even better after touring Diego Garcia.

I suppose the best case scenario would be if this terrorist group is a reaction to the military action against Iran and the downfall of the previous Supreme Leader of Iran, because if the current regime is involved in creating this new terrorist group and is operating them as a proxy, in afraid we will be drawn further into conflict with Iran. Nevertheless the ISI will be able to intercept any signals sent by Al-Mutahida or the Iranian regime that are within 400 km's of our KORAL Electronic Warfare Systems, so I'm hopeful we will be able to locate this group and determine if their receiving government backing from the Iranians.

I think that's a wonderful idea! Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Zafar Mahmood Abbasi, would love to work closely with the Royal Navy and Ziron to better outfit the Pakistan Navy to meet the variety of challenges that we face. While I'm hopeful Pakistan will have gained admittance to ISAF at the time of the meeting, as the Pakistan Navy wishes to have the ability to deploy a small expeditionary force anywhere in the world, should Pakistan get accepted into ISAF. While Lt. General Raheel Sharif will represent the Pakistan Army in discussions to purchase equipment for the army and ISI from Ziron.".

 

[Jamie]

"It is great to hear of your support towards the Independent States Allied Forces, and are relieved to hear of your interest and support in even having Pakistan join the alliance. Support and common understanding is what can drive it forward. With a new secretary general around the corner, we're unsure of whether the joining process will be different or how that will occur if you push forward to enter. But no doubt we would all like to welcome Pakistan." smiled the British Delegate. "The enlargement process will put your country as a MAP status, which is Member Action Plan. So you would be supported in multiple ways to ensure there isn't any conflict of interest, or areas which could cause a struggle.

We will undoubtedly continue to expand our reaches. I am aware discussions are also in place for more anti-terrorist support and broadening our cooperation on information sharing. These are a couple of more recent examples of points that may be getting raised across the alliance. Any changes to the treaty, etc, require a 2/3 vote in favour to be put into effect. Although given the alliance is all on-par with one another, there is a lot of common agreements.

Admittingly, there isn't any requirements on physical integration. Equipment can all be modified to allow easier cooperation but there isn't a requirement for you to host specific ranges of equipment. Of course you would be welcome to purchase equipment anyway, but please do not feel you have to. We would welcome nations from a whole range of backgrounds. Naturally we will look into all aspects of a potential member and work on ensuring there won't be any problems during operations, exercises, etc.

HMS Albion, one of our Landing Platform Docks has set off for Diego Garcia and should be there within a couple of weeks due to another few stops on the way. We will make arrangements for your frigate to do the port call and welcome your Chief of Naval Staff and Admiral. This will serve as an opportunity for a tour, and and opportunity to not only discuss sales of naval equipment, but possibly security arrangements for the trade route between Pakistan and the United Kingdom. Perhaps even setting an area of responsibility. But that can be discussed further at the time."

 

[Jamie]

@Emira

 

[Emira]

Chairman Sharif nodded and said "Well it's certainly good to know that Pakistan's interest in joining and our moves towards ascension into the ranks of ISAF is being returned by the member-states of such an illustrious alliance, which you and your allies have skillfully forged. With the Pakistan Armed Forces having finally come to the decision to seek admission into ISAF, do you think our government should formally announce or intent through the media? Or should our government wait to declare our intent to seek admission into ISAF after ISAF's upcoming election of a new Secretary General? In either event, it seems that the MAP process will begin sooner or later and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan very much looks forward to that process.

Certainly Pakistan feels that ISAF increasing support for operations in the field of counter-terrorism and intelligence sharing will not only be extremely beneficial for the members states of ISAF, but rather also all of ISAF's friends and partners around the world. Certainly with the recent major terrorist attack within your nation, these are all matters that will be of increasing importance to all the members of ISAF. These are both areas where I feel confident that the Islamic Republic of Pakistan will be a major asset to ISAF, given our nation's proximity to and experience in dealing with most of the world's worst terrorist organizations.

Given the nature of modern warfare and the increasing importance that C4ISR plays on the modern battlefield, as much physical integration as possible would give ISAF a noted advantage over any adversaries. As you have said, modifications to existing equipment could certainly be used when and where necessary to increase interoperability, with the purchase of interoperable equipment being made, especially from ISAF member states, being promoted by ISAF. Though I see no reason that with a little pre-planning and forethought, that ISAF can't achieve a completely streamlined C4ISR and logistics system, that would ensure the proper command and control, as well as the supply of all of our forces, despite some equipment and standardization variations. So I'm happy that it seems that our two nations are on the same page when it comes to this matter, as the Pakistan Armed Forces feel that proper C4ISR and excellent logistics are the key to any victory on the modern battlefield.

Perfect! The Pakistan Navy has deployed the PNS Ayub Khan to Diego Garcia and the flagship of the Pakistan Navy should be arriving off of Diego Garcia shortly. Certainly our Naval Chief, along with all of the dignitaries from the Pakistan Armed Forces that will be in attendance are extremely excited to tour the new fortifications and defensive measures put into place at Diego Garcia, so that these can be put into place within Pakistan. While we are all excited that fruitful negotiations regarding the acquisition of British manufactured weapons systems and arms will take place at Diego Garcia ad well. I'm also quite sure that our Naval Chief would love to enter into an indepth discussion with the leadership of the Royal Navy, regarding the necessary security arrangements for the maritime trade route that our two nations plan on establishing, to ensure this strategically vital trade route is secured from any dangers in an efficient and sensible manner by both of our naval forces.".

 

[Jamie]

"My suggestion would be to wait until the new Secretary General is announced. It may mark different processes for joining the alliance in the MAP Process. We will see what the next Secretary General has to offer. Following the new election, our government will also be pressing for further ISAF-wide responses to terrorist attacks and information sharing. So as you can imagine, the new Secretary General will have a lot to take in." he smiled. "Integration is the biggest process, and longest. There are obvious benefits when it comes to using the same equipment style, but integration can always work through practice and regular exercise. Something which the British Armed Forces will be pushing for regularly. We are already seeing further integration with the Air Defence Initiative which is an ISAF-wide air defence program to protect each others airspaces from intrusion."