Pakistan announced the raising of an Army Rocket Forces Command (ARFC) on August 14, 2025. The new organisation will include a command headquarters with command-and-control staff, providing leadership to its constituent artillery divisions and logistic echelons.
Pakistan already maintains strategic force commands for its three services under the Nuclear Command Authority, tasked with operating nuclear-capable missile forces. However, it lacked a dedicated conventional rocket force command to hold and operationalise conventional rockets and missile assets.
While Pakistan has long possessed short- and medium-range missiles with dual-use potential, it refrained from employing them in a conventional role to ensure responsible use of nuclear-capable systems. India, by contrast, has integrated its dual-use missiles, such as the BrahMos cruise missile, into conventional field formations – an act that undermines nuclear restraint in South Asia.
On May 6, India fired BrahMos missiles in conventional mode against civilian targets, escalating further by targeting military installations on May 9. Such actions, employing dual-use nuclear-capable missiles against another nuclear power, risked catastrophic escalation. A strike on Pakistan’s nuclear facilities – warned of by US President Trump – could have triggered uncontrollable consequences, leaving Pakistan in a dangerous quandary over how to respond to India’s reckless gambit.
Pakistan responded audaciously yet carefully, employing its Fatah-series guided rocket artillery, held with army artillery divisions, to strike Indian military installations with precision. Importantly, no dual-use ballistic or cruise missiles under the three strategic force commands were used in a conventional role. Instead, the country relied on its air force and conventional guided rockets to counter Indian escalation, effectively narrowing the space for war sought by Indian planners.
India’s use of cruise missiles and armed drones in Pakistan’s strategic depth compelled a rethink in Pakistan’s conventional rocket and missile employment concept. Within Pakistan’s framework, the three strategic force commands operate under the Nuclear Command Authority, with distinct development, safety, and employment protocols. Their assets – including short-range Nasr missiles, classified as tactical nuclear weapons due to their limited range – are not used for conventional purposes, despite their battlefield utility.
Unlike India, which can leverage aircraft-mounted strategic weapons across Pakistan’s narrow territorial depth, Pakistan primarily relies on ground-based ballistic missiles for broader coverage, while also retaining air and naval strategic platforms as key assets. India’s use of BrahMos missiles in a conventional role during the four-day May conflict necessitated a credible conventional counter – an antidote designed to deter any repeat of such reckless adventurism.
Currently, Pakistan’s conventional short-range guided artillery weapons are operated under dedicated artillery divisions affiliated with the operational field commands of the Pakistan Army, providing artillery support during various offensive and defensive operational contingencies. During the conduct of operational contingencies in support of field formations, the coordinated ‘fire manoeuvre’ of artillery complements the ‘physical manoeuvre’ of infantry and armour formations. The respective division commanders are too focused on their operational contingencies to liaise and coordinate effectively with the Army Headquarters (MO Directorate) in support of deep strike contingencies.
In the four-day war, since the ground forces were not involved in manoeuvre warfare, the conventional artillery could focus effectively on their assigned role of targeting Indian military installations in depth. To add more punch and flexibility to these assets and to invest in the conventional rocket and missile force with greater organisational strength, Pakistan has raised the ARFC, which will be a command headquarters with dedicated command, staff, communication and target acquisition means to be able to operate both independently in support of Army Headquarters’ requirements as well as the field commands as per the operational contingencies.
The most important message from this newly established organisation is the resolve to respond effectively in conventional mode through missiles that can reach counter-value targets, in addition to counter-force targets, as hitherto. The intent is also to signal a resolve to squeeze the elusive space for conventional conflict, sought by the Indian war planners, along with adding perhaps another rung or two to the famous 44-run g nuclear escalation ladder of Herman Kahn. By raising the ARFC, the army has enhanced its conventional defence options besides strengthening its nuclear deterrence through an added escalation rung.
The ARFC signifies Pakistan’s doctrinal shift towards non-contact standoff warfare, aligning with modern warfare trends, thereby freeing the strategic force commands to concentrate on their own tasks and reducing the risk of nuclear misunderstandings in the fog of war. The fructification of this new concept owes to an unwelcome visit by Harpy drones and Brahmos cruise missiles carrying a conventional payload. India would be paid back in the same coin. One would not be surprised to see a whole suite of anti-drone capabilities, besides a panoply of ballistic, cruise, hypersonic and guided rocket artillery weapons, under a single operational command headquarters capable of effectively articulating the command challenges by linking the operational and strategic levels in a seamless whole.
The challenges of enhanced costs, weapon segregation from strategic assets, target acquisition, electronic warfare threats and asset resilience, however, are the key areas that need to be focused on from hereon.
The writer is a security and defence analyst. He can be reached at:
rwjanj@hotmail.com
