It should be a national priority to reach out to the people
of Kashmir and stabilise the situation. If instability in Kashmir continues
till the next summer, Pakistan will exploit it to the hilt. The Army should be
prepared to confront an Operation Gibraltar-like influx of mujahideen a la
1965, but on a reduced scale. post-surgical strikes RULES OF the GAME HAVE
CHANGED Unpredictability The Flavour Of The Times The Pakistan Army and the
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), known as the ‘deep State’, have been waging
an asymmetric war against India as part of their strategy of ‘bleeding India
through a thousand cuts’. Pakistan’s war began in the early 1980s when the
‘deep State’ backed militancy in Punjab. The war intensified in 1989-90 when
the Pakistan Army and the ISI began to support an uprising in Jammu and
Kashmir. Correct Description of Intent and Method With hindsight, it was wrong
to have labelled Pakistan’s strategy to bleed India a ‘proxy war’. It is
clearly a war being waged by one State against another through asymmetric
means. The terrorists being sent into India by the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and
the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) are sponsored, financed, armed, trained and
indoctrinated by the ISI. They are provided covering fire to help them
infiltrate across the LoC by the Pakistan Army and are helped across the
international boundary (IB) by the Pakistan Rangers, a border guarding force.
During a strike operation, the terrorists are routinely guided by their ISI
handlers. Hence, it should be seen as a war that Pakistan is waging against
India and not a ‘proxy war’. Till recently, India had conducted its
counter-insurgency campaign within its borders and on its own side of the LoC
through sustained operations that helped to stabilise the situation and create
a reasonably secure environment to enable the development to take place.
Neither after the attack on Parliament in December 2001 nor after the multiple
terrorist strikes at Mumbai in November 2008 did India choose to inflict
punishment on the perpetrators of terrorism in Pakistan and the PoK. While the
strategic restraint shown by India despite grave provocation enabled the
country to keep the level of conflict low and sustain a high rate of economic
growth, it failed to create any disincentives for Pakistan’s ‘deep State’. The
terrorist attack on the Air Force base at Pathankot on New Year’s Day could be
deemed to have once again crossed India’s red lines. Despite that, the Indian
government gave Pakistan yet another opportunity to make amends by inviting an
investigation team to come to Pathankot to evaluate the evidence of Pakistani
involvement that India had provided. The attack at Uri on September 18 was the
proverbial last straw. The Indian response was pro-active and the rules of the
game have now changed. Surgical Strikes across the LoC On the night of 28
September 2016, several teams of the Special Forces of the Indian Army crossed
the Line of Control (LoC) through gaps in the forward defences India’s
objective should be to gradually raise Pakistan’s cost for waging a war against
India Anu Sharma of the Pakistan Army. The highly-trained commandos walked
quietly over several kilometres across some of the most difficult terrains in
the Himalayan mountains under the very nose of the Pakistan Army. Their targets
were terrorist training camps in the PoK. They struck with a deadly effect and
as quietly as they had come in, they exfiltrated back across the LoC. In his
briefing after the attack at Uri, the DGMO Lt Gen Ranbir Singh had said that
the army ‘reserves the right to respond’ to the terrorist strike at Uri at a
time and place of its choosing. It took ten days to plan the operation, which
was based on accurate intelligence. In carefully measured words, the DGMO said
during a Press briefing on 29 September that India’s Special Forces had
‘inflicted significant casualties’ on the terrorists and their infrastructure
in surgical strikes the previous night. The operations were meticulously
planned and brilliantly executed. According to media reports, surgical strikes
were launched at six to eight terrorist camps across the LoC and about forty
Pakistan army personnel and terrorists were killed. In an operation that was
conducted with the utmost professionalism, the personnel of the Special Forces
did not suffer any casualties. While the credit for the success of these
complex operations goes to the officers and jawans of the Special Forces of the
Indian Army, the Prime Minister, members of the Cabinet Committee on Security
and the NSA deserve to be complimented for giving the go ahead to the Army to
launch trans-LoC raids on terrorist training camps. For the first time since
the 1971 war with Pakistan, the political leadership of the country has
exhibited firm national resolve. Pakistan’s Nuclear Sabre-Rattling The surgical
strikes came as a huge surprise to the Pakistan Army and the ISI. In keeping
with the national psyche, the Pakistan Army has opted to deny that the surgical
strikes took place. However, the blame game has begun in Pakistan. In a
television interview, Imran Khan was severely critical of Prime Minister Nawaz
Sharif's leadership. He said he ‘will show Sharif how to respond to Modi’.
Pakistan’s leaders find their country diplomatically isolated both in the
region and beyond. True to form, they have once again begun to indulge in their
favourite pastime of nuclear sabre-rattling. Pakistan Defence Minister Khawaja
Asif has once again held out a nuclear threat to India. ‘‘Islamabad,’’ he said,
‘‘is open to using tactical (nuclear) devices against India if it feels its
safety is threatened.’’ It is a patently flawed approach as, in response to a
nuclear attack on its forces, India will execute its doctrine of massive
retaliation and Pakistan will cease to exist as a functional nation-State.
Surely, that is not the end state that the Pakistan army is prepared to accept.
As had probably been anticipated, since these trans-LoC raids, the Pakistan
Army has not reacted except to launch isolated terrorist attacks on civilian
and military targets, which have been successfully foiled except the one at
Nagrota on 28 November, 2016. However, the Pakistan Army will wait for a
suitable opportunity to avenge the losses that it has suffered. In all
probability, it will launch its SSG to destroy what it considers a soft and
vulnerable target. It could possibly be a Border Outpost (BOP) on the
Jammu-Pathankot sector of the international boundary (IB), which Pakistan calls
a ‘working boundary’ and where the Army is not deployed. Pakistan’s Agenda set
in Stone Despite internal instability, creeping Talibanisation, failing
economy, international isolation and vitiated civil-military relations,
Pakistan will continue to profess that Kashmir is the ‘unfinished agenda of the
Partition’. Its advocacy of the need to wrest Kashmir from India at all costs
will become shriller though the strategy to achieve that aim may be fine-tuned
to avoid culpability. Nor will Pakistan give up its quest to control the
destiny of Afghanistan and dictate its strategic choices. Pakistan’s ‘deep
State’ is unlikely to back down from its strategy of bleeding India through a
‘thousand cuts’ and waging an asymmetric war through terrorist organisations
like the LeT, JeM and the HuM. The Army under General Qamar Javed Bajwa, the
new COAS, will continue to raise the bogey of an existentialist threat from
India as hostility with India is necessary to justify the Army’s
disproportionately large strength and the funds necessary to equip and maintain
the war machine. Introducing Unpredictability in Calculus India’s response to
individual incidents of terrorism had so far been predictable – calling
Pakistan lame and avoiding any reaction overtly. Now, by launching surgical
strikes and taking other pro-active actions, India has introduced an element of
unpredictability. Pakistan can no longer be sure about India’s likely response.
The Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (Retd) The writer is Distinguished Fellow,
Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi and former Director,
Centre for Land Warfare Studies, New Delhi January 2017 Defence AND security
alert 5 rules of the game have changed. As one of the writers had noted over a
year ago (“India will talk to Pakistan, but only about terrorism,” The Quint,
August 27, 2015), “Early contours of the emerging Modi doctrine can be
discerned… aggressiveness on the LoC will meet with a firm response”. Clearly,
here onwards, India will be pro-active in framing its responses to terrorist
incidents with their origin on Pakistani soil. India’s strategy should be based
on a realistic assessment of the threat and carefully formulated to achieve
related national security objectives. It should be a national priority to reach
out to the people of Kashmir and stabilise the situation. If instability in
Kashmir continues till the next summer, Pakistan will exploit it to the hilt.
The Army should be prepared to confront an Operation Gibraltar-like influx of
mujahideen a la 1965, but on a reduced scale. By launching trans-LoC strikes on
terrorist training camps with its Special Forces India has sent several
messages to Pakistan. First, the present Indian government will not tolerate
the wanton killing of innocent Indian civilians or soldiers by State-sponsored
terrorists from Pakistan. Second, the surgical strikes are a warning to the
Pakistan Army that if it does not put an end to cross-border terrorism, it may
expect an even more vigorous Indian response. India’s Counter Strategy The
remaining roots of the militancy in J&K are now in Pakistan and PoK. The
only way India can ensure that Pakistan’s war is brought to a quick end is by
dismembering Pakistan. This is neither desirable, as India will have to suffer
the consequences and deal with the fallout nor is it militarily achievable as a
large-scale war simultaneously on two fronts is not winnable. Hence, India’s
objective should be to gradually raise Pakistan’s cost for waging a war against
India with a view to eventually making it prohibitive. It should also be a
national security and foreign policy objective to work towards reducing the
salience of the Pakistan Army in the country’s polity. With these limited aims
in view, it should be possible to synergise the political, diplomatic and
military aims and formulate appropriate strategies. Political-Diplomatic
Isolation India has exercised a range of political, diplomatic, economic and
military options in response to the terrorist attack on Uri. The aim of Indian
diplomacy should be to isolate Pakistan in the international community and work
towards having the country branded as a terrorist State by the United Nations
Security Council (UNSC). Before approaching the UNSC to declare Pakistan a
State sponsor of terrorism, India should do so unilaterally. India should also
call upon its neighbours in South Asia to do so. By boycotting the SAARC Summit
that was to be held in Islamabad and through deft diplomatic manoeuvres, India
has succeeded in isolating Pakistan within South Asia as well as
internationally. The shift in emphasis from SAARC to BIMSTECH will also provide
handsome dividends in the long term. In this age of realpolitik, on the
politico-diplomatic front, India has many other cards that it can play. The
expression of overt support for the long-oppressed people of Balochistan and
Gilgit-Baltistan has galvanised their movements and caused acute embarrassment
to Pakistan. One more arrow in the quiver is for India to express its support
for the Afghan position that the Durand Line is no longer relevant and the
boundary between Afghanistan and Pakistan needs to be demarcated afresh. This
move will give a major fillip to the nascent movement for Pakhtoonkhwa and
completely unsettle a sensitive province of Pakistan. It will also further
boost India’s image with the Afghan people. Before holding out a threat to opt
out of the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty, India must first make arrangements to
fully utilise India’s quota of water, part of which is flowing unharnessed into
Pakistan. This action will have a major impact on the availability of water in
Pakistan. Afghanistan is also not able to fully utilise its share of the water
of Kabul River and its tributary Kunar River. Now that India has successfully
completed and handed over the Salma Dam hydroelectric project, we should offer
to build dams on both these rivers the water of which flows into Indus River.
India should unilaterally declare Pakistan a State sponsor of terrorism
post-surgical strikes
RULES OF the GAME HAVE CHANGED
Making Military Costs Prohibitive The aim of imposing
economic costs should be to choke Pakistan’s economy. India should withdraw the
most favoured nation (MFN) status accorded to Pakistan in 1996, which Pakistan
has failed to reciprocate. Later, if necessary, India could consider banning
over flights for Pakistani aircraft, but this is an option that hurts both.
Military measures should be designed to inflict punishment on the Pakistan Army
and its organs to systematically degrade their war waging potential. The aim
should be to inflict punishment on the Pakistan Army deployed on the LoC for
every act of terrorism on Indian soil for which there is credible evidence of
its involvement or the involvement of its organs such as the ISI. For each
subsequent act of terrorism the scale and the intensity of the dose should be
increased by an order of magnitude. However, military operations should be
carefully calibrated to reduce the risk of escalation. The surgical strikes
conducted across the LoC were the lowest rung on the escalatory ladder. It will
take much harsher military measures to make it prohibitive for the ‘deep State’
to wage a war. Military operations designed to inflict punishment should
include artillery strikes with guns firing in the ‘pistol gun’ mode to destroy
bunkers on forward posts with minimum collateral damage; stand-off PGM strikes
on brigade and battalion HQ, communications centres, logistics infrastructure,
ammunition dumps and key bridges; and raids by Special Forces and border action
teams (BATs). Every Pakistan post through which infiltration takes place should
be reduced to rubble by artillery fire assaults. Target Azhar, Saeed and Zakiur
Rahman Operations against the Pakistan Army deployed on the LoC should be
supplemented by covert operations. Since Pakistan is not inclined to bring to
justice the leaders of terrorist organisations like the LeT and the JeM,
terrorists whom they call ‘strategic assets’, they must be neutralised through
covert operations. When the Pakistan Army begins to hurt and bleed, gradually
the ‘deep State’ will realise the futility of its nefarious designs on India.
While Pakistan may not give up its claims on Jammu and Kashmir, it will be
forced to come to the negotiating table to discuss a long-term solution to the
dispute through peaceful means.