Mirza Aslam Beg, General Zia-ul-Haqs high profile army chief, is credited with the authorship of Strategic Depth in the early eighties. Theoretically stated, it was a proactive defensive strategy of securing Islamic Depth in the west to counterbalance the conventionally superior Hindu India by strengthening diplomatic and military relations with Afghanistan and the Arab world to the extent that in the worst-case scenario of India invading and overrunning Pakistan, the Army High Command could relocate westwards and use Afghanistan as a frontline ally from which to roll back Indian expansionism. Practically though, Zias regime was well aware that India respected the sanctity of the Line of Control and that in every war since 1948 India has resisted the temptation of crossing the de facto border. No responsible Indian decision-maker has ever stated overrunning Pakistan as an objective either in war or peacetime (in sharp contrast to quixotic assertions by Nawaz Sharifs foreign minister, Gohar Ayub Khan, that Pakistan could overrun India in three days!). That India is the status quoist power in the dispute was well known to the creators of Strategic Depth. In this context, Thomas Thorntons phrase to describe Pakistans life as fifty years of insecurity is misleading because India has never militarily contemplated or attempted to forcibly occupy its smaller neighbor.
