National Command Authority (Pakistan)
The National Command Authority, Urdu: نيشنل كمانڈ اتھارٹى; abbreviated as NCA, is the apex civilian led command to 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.
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