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New
Delhi, 30 May 2002
In
the last few days there had been considerable discussions on what
India could do short of war to put pressure on Pakistan. Several of
the discussions had suggested that India adopt a more offensive
stance. In fact the Indian security establishment and media reported
that Home Minister Advani hinted at some ‘other form’ of action.
We
present below the views of a particular group who feel that India
can exact a high price from Pakistan without resorting to all out
war. It suggests a synergised diplomatic, economic and military
campaign suitably packaged, that would fall short of a limited war
but would significantly escalate the price Pakistan would have to
pay to further continue its cross-border terrorism.
“The
package would consist of the following measures:
-
India
should explore joint forces action against Pakistan ranging from
the deployment of its substantial airpower - both manned and
unmanned - with focused air strikes along the Line of Control in
Pakistan Occupied Kashmir as suitable retaliation. Such intense,
focused air strikes should be backed by sustained artillery
barrages.
-
Should
the US question Indian resolve, India should invoke its emergent
strategic understanding with the US, urging it to send in its
forces in joint operations along with Indian forces against the
same mujahideen it is forced to contend with in the NWFP.
The participation of US forces along with India may be a most
controversial proposition, yet it would send a clear message to
Pakistan that terror is terror wherever it may occur as observed
by US Ambassador to India Robert Blackwill.
-
The
second element would be Indian naval action on the high seas,
especially mining the sea approaches to Karachi. It is well
known that Karachi port is the hub of Pakistan's export of its
staple crop –– narcotics –– to the rest of the world.
Narcotics commerce is the prime sustainer of Pakistan's failing
economy and the critical resource support to Pakistan's
infrastructure of terror. An effective naval quarantine could be
implemented by India that would inflict optimal pain on
Pakistan. This constitutes an indirect approach in India's
strategy, deflected from the actual terrain of operations i.e.
the Line of Control. A naval quarantine of Pakistan is the
equivalent of the armed forces buildup along the border; it's
also a non-offensive response that could exact from Pakistan a
high price for its adventurism.
-
The
third would be to deploy a higher space-to-force ratio in areas
where terrorists operate; improved surveillance and intelligence
capabilities; improved armed forces readiness in terms of
substantial upgrades of its weapons stocks and inventory.
-
The
fourth would be to improve Indian nuclear readiness to signal to
Pakistan that it won't cow down to Pakistani nuclear blackmail.
-
The
fifth should be the activation of political consensus in India,
and the mobilisation of public opinion; an early end to the
communal frenzy of the Indian variety that has effectively
ruined its domestic tranquillity in recent times.”
Other
Navies also operating in the region of the North Arabian Sea may not
accept a naval blockade of Pakistan. It also has to be remembered
that blockade is an act of war. In fact to IDC it appears that the
West wants India to talk to Pakistan and now Putin has also said so
in no uncertain terms. Hence the IDC asessment is that the world
worries about a Nuclear excghange and wants to avoid that but they
do not really have any answer to the problem. They certainly do want
to see that India gets POK, which its BJP leaders articulate and
that Pakistan should not be harmed in any large measure.
The
Western World would be happy to see India and Pakistan agree to the
LOC as the line of tranquillity, but that would mean India giving up
its claim on POK –– as it has defacto done with China till the
discussions and actions by China prove otherwise. This is the age of
compromises!
NEWINDPRESS,
SUNDAY, MAY 27, 2002
TAKING
THE OFFENSIVE
By
Gopalji Malaviya and Lawrence Prabhakar
Over
the last few years, Pakistan has been prosecuting a “low cost, low
intensity war” with India, backed up by threats to use nuclear
weapons should India attempt retribution across the Line of Control.
The
routine killings in Kashmir — and the most recent one on May 14
— have ushered in the latest crisis prompting India to shift to
high gears in response to Pakistani actions. The question that
arises now is whether India’s strategy vis-a-vis Pakistan is
inherently ambivalent; is it that India wants to avoid a
confrontation?
India’s
war against terror has been one of the most sustained and bitter
ever. But India's political response has been vacillating, ad hoc
and often rhetorical with no tangible action on the ground. India's
response has never raised the stakes or inflicted unacceptable costs
on Pakistan for its sponsorship of terrorism.
India's
latest diplomatic Brahmastra has been the decision to pack off
Pakistan's High Commissioner to India; combined with full
mobilisation along on the border to exert maximum pressure. However,
this has not yielded the desired results.
It
should be noted that terror attacks often coincide with the visits
of high level US delegations to the region — the Shikhupura
massacre during President Bill Clinton's visit to India in March
2000 and the Kaluchak attack during the visit of US Assistant
Secretary of State Christina Rocca earlier this month.
More
terror attacks may therefore be expected, coinciding with the
planned visits of US officials in the next few weeks. These high
powered missions have achieved little beyond the routine protocols
and press statements. However the situation is such that much
depends on the nature of US pressure on Pakistan to desist from
misadventures.
Pakistan's
President Pervez Musharraf in his quest to legitimise himself as a
reformist and “democratic leader,” had in a major policy speech
on January 12, 2002 promised to rein in the terrorists and dismantle
jihadi infrastructure. It is, therefore, ironic that Pakistan is
simultaneously promoting terrorism in Kashmir while joining the US
in its campaign against Al Qaeda in Pakistan’s northwest.
One
should not forget that Musharraf, one of the architects of
Talibanised Afghanistan, facilitated the escape of the fleeing Al-Qaeda
and Taliban forces into Pakistan. This was done with the grand plan
of redeploying them in Kashmir.
India's
global diplomatic response has been a “war of words” that
amounts to nothing more than empty diplomatic verbiage for Pakistan.
For Pakistan, with its status as a frontline state in the war
against terror, has been substantially bolstered by US economic
largesse and promises of military aid in the aftermath of September
11, 2001.
Of
course, the US has publicly adopted an even handed approach to South
Asia exhorting India to continue its dialogue with Pakistan, while
asking the latter to crack down on terrorism.
US
measures to bolster Pakistan are grounded on the premise that a
Musharraf is the lesser of two evils; the idea of a Talibanised
Pakistan with nuclear weapons is something Washington does not want
to contemplate. The irony is that Pakistan's military-mosque order
has thus been allowed to redirect its offensive energies against
India.
Pakistan
is confident it can sustain its campaign to bleed India by a
thousand cuts — without any effective retaliation by India — by
periodically harping on its willingness to use its nuclear arsenal.
In its endeavour to be even handed vis-a-vis India and Pakistan, the
US has been adopting a strategy of nurturing India as a natural ally
and strategic partner while simultaneously bailing out its client
state Pakistan.
Thus
the US-India strategic enterprise is also matched by a US-Pakistan
strategic enterprise that involves US forces hunting Al Qaeda and
Taliban elements in the NWFP along with Pakistani forces in joint
operations. The US in its desire to avoid an Indo-Pakistan
conflagration has been advising India on the need for restraint and
dialogue even in the face of the worst provocations from Pakistan.
For it fully understands the perilous implications of even a limited
war between the two nuclear-armed powers.
In
pursuit of its policy, the US has been consolidating its partnership
with India through cooperative endeavours ranging from technology
transfer to arms procurement to strategic dialogue.
While
all these have helped to improve the India-US relationship, yet on
the issue of Pakistan's provocations in Kashmir India is being asked
to adopt restraint. This raises the question: What are the limits to
Indian tolerance in the face of Pakistan's provocations?
Should
India continue to exercise patience even if Pakistan keeps
escalating the war in Kashmir? If 9/11 can justify an all out
campaign of retaliation by the US, is there not a similar relative
breaking point for India?
Or
should democratic India continually plead with the West to merely
condemn Pakistan whose fundamental strengths are a dictatorship
presiding over a failing State, a haven for terror groups. But with
the latest crisis and the shift of gears by India, a decisive phase
has been reached in this protracted conflict.
India's
options would be best served by a synergised diplomatic, economic
and military campaign suitably packaged. It needs to have a sense of
mission combined with operational finesse. It should act with a
sense of its own autonomy and not be guided by the pontification of
others who are only striving to secure their own interests.
While
it is difficult to dwell on the specifics of the kind of operations
India should go in for, owing to the fluidity and the sensitivity of
the prevalent situation, certain broad pathways can be charted out.
India
should explore joint forces action against Pakistan ranging from the
deployment of its substantial airpower — both manned and unmanned
— with focused air strikes along the Line of Control in Pakistan
Occupied Kashmir as suitable retaliation. Such intense, focused air
strikes should be backed by sustained artillery barrages.
Should
the US question Indian resolve, India should invoke its emergent
strategic understanding with the US, urging it to send in its forces
in joint operations along with Indian forces against the same
mujahideen it is forced to contend with in the NWFP..
The
participation of US forces along with India may be a most
controversial proposition, yet it would send a clear message to
Pakistan that terror is terror wherever it may occur as observed by
US Ambassador to India Robert Blackwill.
The
second element would be Indian naval action in the high seas,
especially mining the sea approaches to Karachi. It is well known
that Karachi port is the hub of Pakistan's export of its staple crop
— narcotics — to the rest of the world. Narcotics commerce is
the prime sustainer of Pakistan's failing economy and the critical
resource support to Pakistan's infrastructure of terror.
An
effective naval quarantine could be implemented by India that would
inflict optimal pain on Pakistan. This constitutes an indirect
approach in India's strategy, deflected from the actual terrain of
operations i.e. the Line of Control. A naval quarantine of Pakistan
is the equivalent of the armed forces buildup along the border;
it’s also a non-offensive response that could exact from Pakistan
a high price for its adventurism.
The
third would be to deploy a higher space-to-force ratio in areas
where terrorists operate; improved surveillance and intelligence
capabilities; improved armed forces readiness in terms of
substantial upgrades of its weapons stocks and inventory. The fourth
would be to improve Indian nuclear readiness to signal to Pakistan
that it won’t cow down to Pakistani nuclear blackmail.
The
fifth should be the activation of political consensus in India, and
the mobilisation of public opinion; an early end to the communal
frenzy of the Indian variety that has effectively ruined its
domestic tranquillity in recent times.
These
measures in the right combination would provide a synergistic effect
and optimal outcomes that would fall short of a limited war but
would significantly escalate the price Pakistan would have to pay to
further continue its cross-border terrorism. It is time that the
government sheds its inertia, and initiates optimal and tangible
actions that are in the critical interests of the nation. As of now,
there can be a hot war or a cold peace in Kashmir, hence the
imperative for decisive action. As the crisis evolves, it is
inevitable that the US will play a crucial role, bringing to bear
powerful pressure on the two nuclear-armed powers, specially
Pakistan to halt terrorism.
(Dr
Gopalji Malviya is Professor, Department of Defence & Strategic
Studies, University of Madras & Dr W Lawrence Prabhakar is
Associate Professor, Political Science, Madras Christian College,
Chennai.)
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