| National Command Authority (NCA) | |
|---|---|
| Objectives:Command and control of Pakistan's strategic nuclear forces and strategic organizations | |
| Agency overview | |
| Formed | February 2, 2000 |
| Preceding agency | None |
| Jurisdiction | Pakistan Government |
| Headquarters | Islamabad |
| Agency executive | Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani, Chairman |
The National Command Authority, Urdu: نيشنل كمانڈ اتھارٹى; abbreviated as NCA, is one of the four combatant command, and a premier and apex authority of Pakistan Government. The NCA, including components, employes high profile civilian members of MoD and active duty senior military leaders and officers, represeting all four combatant services of Pakistan Armed Forces including Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines, who oversees the employment, policy formulation, exercises, deployment, research and development, and operational command and control of Pakistan's nuclear arsenals. The National Command was established in 2000 as a successor of Air Force Strategic Command which was established by then-Chief of Air Staff General Anwar Shamim in 1983.
The National Command Authority is charged with joint-space operations (such as military satellites), information operations (such as information warfare), missile defense, internal and external command and control, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR), and strategic deterrence (Pakistan's nuclear detterent program), and combating weapons of mass destruction. The National Command Authority oversees and look after the operations of Army, Air Force, and Navy's strategic commands, along with their functional basis. The unified military strategic command structure is intended to give the Prime minister and the Cabinet secretariat a unified resource for greater understanding of specific threats (military, nuclear, chemical, biological, radiological, conventional, and non-conventional, and intelligence) and the means to respond to those threats as quickly as possible to prevent the collateral damage. The civilian Prime minister is a Chairman of this Command, with all military assets, components of NCA, and strategic commands directly reporting to Chairman of their course of development and deployment.
Contents |
The NCA consists of the following nine ex officio members:[1]
The Director-General of the NCA's Strategic Plans Division (SPD) is the ex officio Secretary of the NCA and the SPD functions as the NCA's secretariat.[2]
Decision making in the NCA takes place through consensus and, in the event that consensus is not achieved, then through voting, with each member having a single vote.
The Government of Pakistan felt the need to establish an administrative authority after Pakistan's first nuclear tests, codename Chagai-I and Chagai-II, on May 28th and May 30 of 1998 in Ras Koh Hills, District Chagai and Kharan Desert of the Balochistan Province. In April 1999, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee and the Chief of Army Staff of Pakistan Army General Pervez Musharraff developed a unified central command system to use nuclear and missile technology.[3]
The NCA was formally established on February 2, 2000 after approval by Pakistan's National Security Council.
Since then, the National Command Authority is responsible for policy formulation and will exercise employment and development control over all strategic nuclear forces and strategic organizations. It consists of an Employment Control Committee and a Development Control Committee, as well as the Strategic Plans Division (SPD) which acts as its Secretariat. The Strategic Plans Division is responsible for the management and administration of the country's tactical and strategic nuclear weapons stockpile. It was created the same year as the NCA was formed.
Their directives are to be operationalized by a new Strategic Plans Division (SPD) under the control of a director-general of the rank of Lieutenant-General (Air Marshal or Vice-Admiral) in charge of the management and administration of the tactical and strategic nuclear forces. The current director-general of the SPD is Lieutenant-General (retired) Khalid Kidwai
Since its establishment, General Pervez Musharraf, as President, had served its first chairman. However, after the 2008 General Elections, the Pakistani lawmakers introduced a new law which was passed unanimously by the Parliament.[4] The bill placed the NCA's Authority under PM’s command.[5][6]
-