Saturday, 9 March 2019
http://epaper.kashmirtimes.in/index.aspx?page=6
http://kashmirtimes.com/newsdet.aspx?q=88508
Balakot: Divining India’s strategy from its messaging
Kashmir Times op ed 9 March
In April last year, National Security Adviser Ajit Doval stepped down from his minister of state level perch to take over chairpersonship of the defence planning committee, the headship of which ought to have been with the permanent chairman of the chiefs of staff committee or chief of defence staff-equivalent member of the brass. Since this government has no better record in national security than its predecessors – howsoever much it has tried to distance itself from its predecessor in public perception – it has not created that appointment.
One of the tasks of the defence planning committee was to conduct a strategic review, the outcome of which was to be a document on the government’s strategic doctrine. It was obvious even then that since grand strategy-making is at a higher level than defence, the defence planning committee was a misnomer. Sensing this a few months on into the year, in October, Ajit Doval reportedly displaced the cabinet secretary as head of the strategic policy group: a pillar in the national security system India gave itself late last century. The move was justified as necessary for the strategic review. The cabinet secretary, being a generalist bureaucrat, was perhaps unqualified for the task.
Earlier strategic reviews were periodically done by the national security advisory board and shared confidentially with the government. Since that body has non-official membership and is in an advisory capacity, its output did not amount to the official strategic review. In this government’s tenure, it has just a handful of members, as against its score plus membership at its inception and prime. Even then, its output was inconsequential, such as the draft nuclear strategy derided by the Vajpayee government’s busy-body in defence matters, Jaswant Singh. Perhaps this government does not need the input from official sources, since it has sufficient resources in private think tanks affiliated to Doval - conflict of interest notwithstanding - and in its ideological fountainhead based out of Nagpur.
Even so, the promised strategic review has not seen light of day. Its absence brings to fore yet another failure necessary to highlight lest the ongoing chest thumping on national security passes without contest. It is a failure with ramification since success or otherwise cannot be squared off against aims owned up to in a strategic review.
Five years into this self-confessedly national security-minded government, its strategy can only be read from its moves in national security. The latest has been the Pulwama-Balakot-Naushera episode, of which its showing in the Balakot segment is claimed as trumping the score notched up by Pakistan at Pulwama and Naushera.
Apologists, bhakts, institution-ensconced strategists and assorted experts are acclaiming Modi’s take on the Balakot decision, that it was a landmark one worth repeating, put inimitably in his words to the electorate: ‘andar ghus ke maarenge’! The decision is worth careful strategic analysis. That sobriety is not possible to undertake under studio conditions explains the acclaim.
The aerial strike on Balakot has been credited with the aim of exacting a cost on the perpetrator outfit of the car-borne terror attack at Pulwama, the Jaish e Mohammad. The messaging through choice of target in mainland Pakistan – Balakot being in Khyber Pukhtunkhwa province – is that India will not allow terrorists targeting India with mega-terror attacks sanctuary anywhere in Pakistan.
Experts have it that this would require reinforcing periodically with punitive operations. No one is under any illusion that it would end the insurgency or Pakistani support. It may deter high-end terrorist strikes, but cannot rule these out. In any case, the aim is to impose costs and end impunity, with the added benefit of releasing public pressures and political point-scoring.
This is not a new idea. A former northern army commander in his book on counter insurgency had advocated punitive operations. He is credited with plugging for and planning Operation Kabaddi, an operation aborted due to the impact of 9/11 that coincidentally unfolded in the region around then. The intention is to keep counter insurgency and anti-terrorism manageable within Kashmir by deterring Pakistan from upping-the-ante, such as by resort to car bombs, mines and anti-air missiles. India does not want a crossing of its threshold of tolerance, impacting its ability to sustain indefinitely in Kashmir. An ability to be atop things enables home-front support continuing alongside and prevents calls there-from for more risky strategies. Punitive operations provided offensive - preventive and pre-emptive - options other than the usual defensive – protective, reactive and responsive – options. These options were not conflict resolution relevant – the use of force route to end conflict in Kashmir - as much as a conflict management adjunct.
The particular offensive option chosen by Modi must be taken down a notch or two lest the accompanying hype mislead that it is rather a grand decision. It is an advance on ‘surgical strikes’, which India had been conducting in any case even prior to Modi’s advent in national politics. As such, Modi’s expanded version of surgical strikes proved a failure at Pulwama; forcing him a step up the ladder. The failure was an outcome of the restrictions on the operation, testifying to Modi’s incomprehension of the military instrument and his unwillingness to take a political risk.
Even so, the Balakot strike can potentially impact high-end terrorism, such as the Pulwama terror incident, but it will not deter the Jaish. The group is already using it in its advertisement for infusing of fresh young blood into Kashmir soon. The Pakistan army is unlikely to feel overly obligated to control the group on three counts. Firstly, Pakistan is not incentivized through talks to hold back, and, secondly, the ongoing Operation All Out stands to wipe out local militants over the campaigning season unless they receive a dose of material support once infiltration routes open up. Lastly, it would not like to bear the brunt of its ‘good’ terrorists turning guns on it for seeming pusillanimity over Pakistan’s jugular vein, Kashmir.
Incidents such as the one at Uri can recur in case an incident is compounded with bad luck. At Uri, most Indian fatalities were in a fire engulfing a tent. The response was credible in wresting the initiative from three terrorists at the price of six soldiers. In short, the incident did not merit the surgical strikes. Therefore, the surgical strikes were a result of a commitment trap the government had set itself in going to town over the cross border strikes in Myanmar earlier.
What emerges is that a government with Modi at helm would be only too willing to extract political mileage, but would be wary of a political price. This explains the great lengths it has gone to distance itself from the aerial strikes. Prior to the strikes it had publicly delegated the response to the military, whereas the escalatory potential clearly merited political ownership of any decision between options. The distancing was to create a moat around itself if things went wrong in face of fog of war, friction and plain bad luck. The second is its subsequent conduct of hiding behind the military when confronted with legitimate questions; questions prompted incidentally by its haste to politically capitalize on the strike. That it is unmindful of the using the military as a pawn, needs calling out here.
The surgical strike option having been exhausted prematurely in response to the Uri terror attack and the aerial strikes having only served to set up a hot summer in Kashmir, the next step that looms involves taking on the sponsors of the Jaish, the Pakistan army. The Pakistani military in its Naushera counter-strike has broadcast that it will prefer to precipitate matters.
This suggests the vacuity in the strategic thinking that calls for India to emulate Israel – most recently voiced by a former army chief who sullied the stature of a service chief by settling to being a junior minister in charge of firefighting duties such as organizing evacuation of Indians from troubled shores abroad. He forgets Pakistan is not Gaza and Lebanon just yet. India’s strikes could push it onwards in that direction. That would place India as a frontline state as it would bring the instability that plagues West Asia and AfPak to the Indus.
What the business of a frontline state has meant for Pakistan is well known. The result for India could not be any different. In the interim, the region will find out what successive punitive operations against a nuclear armed state – presumably tottering from the strikes – could eventuate in. This is the underside of India’s strategic engagement with its partners, the latest round of which were the well-advertised ‘Dolton-Boval’ conversations after Pulwama.
It cannot be that Balakot was to compel Pakistan to go after the Jaish and its proxy instruments. The Balakot-Naushera exchange indicates Pakistan will disallow India the luxury of impunity as enjoyed by the United States (US). It is also amply clear that even the US has not quite succeeded in compellence against either state actors, Syria, Iran and Pakistan, or non-state actors as the Taliban. The next India-Pakistan episode will be the real thing. Balakot spells as much.
Strategy is to attain an aim. A continuing of insurgency – or proxy war if you will – makes for fertile ground for high-end terror. Punitive operations can keep high-end terrorism off the terror repertoire but are a risky, high-cost strategy. A strategy to roll-back the fertile ground and insure against high-end terror can only be talks-centric. A democratic change of government is the necessary - though insufficient - initial step. A written strategic doctrine must follow to inform India’s Pakistan and Kashmir strategies, currently adrift from political opportunism and institutional haemorrhaging.
Thursday, 7 March 2019
http://www.milligazette.com/news/16591-balakot-nailing-lies-in-the-name-of-national-security
The toll at Balakot has varied from 300 initially to 25, the latter reportedly settled on by Ajit Doval, the national security adviser, in his briefing to the cabinet. A ruling party honcho placed it at 250 at an election rally, steaming up the political counter on where the figure came from. A ten-fold increase from Doval’s figure cannot but be politically inflated, calling out for being dubbed as a lie.
That lies have figured in the past in the ruling party’s election run up was in the campaigning in Gujarat assembly elections when no less than the prime minister appeared to suggest that his predecessor, along with some diplomats and former generals, was conspiring with the Pakistanis using a party in Mani Shankar Aiyar’s house as cover. This time lies cannot be allowed to fly.
The official figure in the foreign secretary’s verbiage – ‘a very large number of JeM terrorists, trainers, senior commanders and groups of jihadis who were being trained for fidayeen action were eliminated’ – is hardly any closer to the truth as it has emerged since. A government lying to the people for the sake of votes needs a democratic backlash.
The consequential point, however, is not on the casualty figures. The point is on the ruling party’s claim of a gutsy decision to take out the Jaish facility that was within Pakistan through an air strike. This claim needs deflating, since the ruling party – and its lapdog media and support base in right-wing formations – has gone to town with it. Their case is that Narendra Modi is a potential warlord to whom national security is best entrusted.
Firstly, the reports on the orders to the air force have it that these were considerably restricted, allowing for the targeting but not through crossing into Pakistani airspace. It was the derring-do of the air warriors who wanted to ensure success that led to their air intrusion of some miles into Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir for bomb release.
In case the bombs did not find their mark, it is not on account of military incompetence, but to three reasons, none particularly useful for the ruling party’s showing on national security. First, it could be faulty coordinates provided by the intelligence agencies on the target. Second could be faulty equipment from India’s defence partner Israel, which provided the technology for the bombs to find their mark. Last, the restriction on the air force to stay on own side of the Line of Control for political reasons – so that none got shot down and impacted Modi’s reelection chances – interfered with a successful strike.
Secondly, the decision itself was rather timid. While the Pulwama terror attack attributed to the Jaish put it in the cross-hairs: Modi did not have the gumption to target the overall coordinators of the Pakistani proxy war in Kashmir, its army. Instead, India went after the instrument of the Pakistan army, the Jaish. Even as it did so, it did not have the guts to call the strike by its real name, resorting to subterfuge in absurdly calling it a ‘non-military action’.
India’s expectation was to take out a gathering of budding terrorists at the Jaish facility, one that is known as a madrasa, implying that India was not averse to killing seminary students alongside. The acceptability of such targeting cannot, therefore, be conceded without question in a civilized society that is not quite under war conditions that may have made such an strike legally, strategically and morally acceptable. The new-found vocabulary – borrowed from India’s strategic partner, the Americans – makes the situation in Kashmir appear as a quasi-war, called a hybrid-war and a gray zone in a recent army publication, Land Warfare Doctrine 2018. It perhaps allows the government to target civilians and children on the pretext of taking out potential fidayeen in their midst.
Thirdly, the strategic rationale of a preemptive action against the Jaish is of interest to readers of this publication. The foreign secretary statement had it that, ‘Credible intelligence was received that JeM was attempting another suicide terror attack in various parts of the country, and the fidayeen jihadis were being trained for this purpose.’ Poor drafting is self-evident (pointed out in an article by a law expert): how can ‘another suicide attack’ (singular) be conducted in ‘various parts of the country’ (plural)? Nitpicking apart; the idea that the Jaish can conduct terror attacks in various parts of the country needs burying without ceremony.
Clearly, India’s diplomats are not so unlettered. It is, therefore, an insertion by someone the foreign secretary reports to. It is no secret that the foreign minister has been more or less missing in action for reasons other than poor health all through her tenure, making her presence felt only on twitter addressing a constituency largely in the diaspora. Interference from their operational master in the current national security set up, the intelligence czar, Ajit Doval, can be inferred.
Last October, Doval displaced the cabinet secretary as the head of the Strategic Policy Group in the national security system in order to oversee the national security review. He had earlier been appointed as the head of the defence planning committee in April that was to come up with the review. It is in a multi-hatted capacity that Doval needs to bell the cat on national security. Any shortcomings must therefore be laid at his door. It needs no reminding that he is a political appointee in an appointment - national security adviser - that is in contravention to the spirit of parliamentary democracy. It is a step in the direction of a presidential system preferred by Modi, gauging from his manner of campaigning and conduct of business in his cabinet and government.
This is not for the first time that the foreign service has had its drafting under cloud owing to political interference. The last time such gaffe happened, a diplomat mourned: ‘The professionals in South Block couldn’t have drafted such a crude statement.’ He was referring to the phrasing of the statement overturning an earlier decision to take up newly elected Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan’s offer of talks at the foreign minister level on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly last year. The crude wording in question, doubtless an imposition on the diplomats, was: ‘The true face of the new Prime Minister has been exposed within the first few months of him taking office. Any meeting with Pakistan is not conducive in this environment.’
It is obvious that such preemptory behavior with Pakistan contributed to the conditions leading up to the Pulwama terror attack. It is clear that Adil Ahmad Dar, the Pulwama car bomber, was no lone wolf. He had contextual support from the Indian side in its policies towards Pakistan and in Kashmir.
This time round, the insertion has been in the intelligence input on the imminent attacks across India by fidayeen under training at the targeted Jaish facility. Firstly, if they are under training, it cannot be an imminent attack. If the attack(s) was (were) not imminent, then it puts Indian preemptive action afoul of international law that is permissive of anticipatory self-defence only under severely restrictive conditions. Therefore, India’s military action, absurdly phrased as “non-military,” was not preemptive, but preventive, in line with the American interpretation of international law that has no takers as customary law in the international legal fraternity.
Secondly, only a few could qualify as fidayeen, with most madrasa students there targetable merely for being outside the formal schooling system in Pakistan due to poverty and other reasons.
Thirdly, the targeting risked a ‘CNN ambush’, in the form of bodies of youth being carted away from the rubble. It would have led to a reputational loss for India, something it appears Modi was willing to chance to profit electorally.
Most significantly, the cover of a wider attack on ‘various parts’ of India enabled Modi and his ilk to get on to their favourite hobby horse, targeting India’s Muslims as the potential providers of support for such a diabolical plan attributed to the Jaish. Whereas it is possible to envisage such a plan for Kashmir, it is but a tarring of India’s largest minority for internal political purposes of the right-wing to claim that the Jaish can target various parts of India. No such thing is possible since the Indian Muslim community, implicated in the subtext as a potential support base for such action, would not have it. This is testimony to the success of the political project of Hindutva and its othering of the minority, in which linking it with terror was the leitmotif.
Therefore, it is yet another lie in an official statement of this government that needs an unceremonious outing. The foreign secretary read out this nonsense, rather than resign. It is but an indicator to the extent institutions have fallen under this government. The only way to salvage India is to rescue it from another five years under the Modi-Doval tutelage of its national security.
Balakot: Nailing lies in the name of national security
The Balakot segment of the recently concluded Pulwama-Balakot-Naushera episode in India-Pakistan relations is having an afterlife in the opposition political parties questioning the ruling party’s usurpation of a military feat for political ends. All they are asking is to be taken into confidence as to the damage done to the Jaish training facility at Balakot that was supposedly hit by the Indian air force on 26 February, ostensibly to preempt a terror attack in various places across India.The toll at Balakot has varied from 300 initially to 25, the latter reportedly settled on by Ajit Doval, the national security adviser, in his briefing to the cabinet. A ruling party honcho placed it at 250 at an election rally, steaming up the political counter on where the figure came from. A ten-fold increase from Doval’s figure cannot but be politically inflated, calling out for being dubbed as a lie.
That lies have figured in the past in the ruling party’s election run up was in the campaigning in Gujarat assembly elections when no less than the prime minister appeared to suggest that his predecessor, along with some diplomats and former generals, was conspiring with the Pakistanis using a party in Mani Shankar Aiyar’s house as cover. This time lies cannot be allowed to fly.
The official figure in the foreign secretary’s verbiage – ‘a very large number of JeM terrorists, trainers, senior commanders and groups of jihadis who were being trained for fidayeen action were eliminated’ – is hardly any closer to the truth as it has emerged since. A government lying to the people for the sake of votes needs a democratic backlash.
The consequential point, however, is not on the casualty figures. The point is on the ruling party’s claim of a gutsy decision to take out the Jaish facility that was within Pakistan through an air strike. This claim needs deflating, since the ruling party – and its lapdog media and support base in right-wing formations – has gone to town with it. Their case is that Narendra Modi is a potential warlord to whom national security is best entrusted.
Firstly, the reports on the orders to the air force have it that these were considerably restricted, allowing for the targeting but not through crossing into Pakistani airspace. It was the derring-do of the air warriors who wanted to ensure success that led to their air intrusion of some miles into Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir for bomb release.
In case the bombs did not find their mark, it is not on account of military incompetence, but to three reasons, none particularly useful for the ruling party’s showing on national security. First, it could be faulty coordinates provided by the intelligence agencies on the target. Second could be faulty equipment from India’s defence partner Israel, which provided the technology for the bombs to find their mark. Last, the restriction on the air force to stay on own side of the Line of Control for political reasons – so that none got shot down and impacted Modi’s reelection chances – interfered with a successful strike.
Secondly, the decision itself was rather timid. While the Pulwama terror attack attributed to the Jaish put it in the cross-hairs: Modi did not have the gumption to target the overall coordinators of the Pakistani proxy war in Kashmir, its army. Instead, India went after the instrument of the Pakistan army, the Jaish. Even as it did so, it did not have the guts to call the strike by its real name, resorting to subterfuge in absurdly calling it a ‘non-military action’.
India’s expectation was to take out a gathering of budding terrorists at the Jaish facility, one that is known as a madrasa, implying that India was not averse to killing seminary students alongside. The acceptability of such targeting cannot, therefore, be conceded without question in a civilized society that is not quite under war conditions that may have made such an strike legally, strategically and morally acceptable. The new-found vocabulary – borrowed from India’s strategic partner, the Americans – makes the situation in Kashmir appear as a quasi-war, called a hybrid-war and a gray zone in a recent army publication, Land Warfare Doctrine 2018. It perhaps allows the government to target civilians and children on the pretext of taking out potential fidayeen in their midst.
Thirdly, the strategic rationale of a preemptive action against the Jaish is of interest to readers of this publication. The foreign secretary statement had it that, ‘Credible intelligence was received that JeM was attempting another suicide terror attack in various parts of the country, and the fidayeen jihadis were being trained for this purpose.’ Poor drafting is self-evident (pointed out in an article by a law expert): how can ‘another suicide attack’ (singular) be conducted in ‘various parts of the country’ (plural)? Nitpicking apart; the idea that the Jaish can conduct terror attacks in various parts of the country needs burying without ceremony.
Clearly, India’s diplomats are not so unlettered. It is, therefore, an insertion by someone the foreign secretary reports to. It is no secret that the foreign minister has been more or less missing in action for reasons other than poor health all through her tenure, making her presence felt only on twitter addressing a constituency largely in the diaspora. Interference from their operational master in the current national security set up, the intelligence czar, Ajit Doval, can be inferred.
Last October, Doval displaced the cabinet secretary as the head of the Strategic Policy Group in the national security system in order to oversee the national security review. He had earlier been appointed as the head of the defence planning committee in April that was to come up with the review. It is in a multi-hatted capacity that Doval needs to bell the cat on national security. Any shortcomings must therefore be laid at his door. It needs no reminding that he is a political appointee in an appointment - national security adviser - that is in contravention to the spirit of parliamentary democracy. It is a step in the direction of a presidential system preferred by Modi, gauging from his manner of campaigning and conduct of business in his cabinet and government.
This is not for the first time that the foreign service has had its drafting under cloud owing to political interference. The last time such gaffe happened, a diplomat mourned: ‘The professionals in South Block couldn’t have drafted such a crude statement.’ He was referring to the phrasing of the statement overturning an earlier decision to take up newly elected Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan’s offer of talks at the foreign minister level on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly last year. The crude wording in question, doubtless an imposition on the diplomats, was: ‘The true face of the new Prime Minister has been exposed within the first few months of him taking office. Any meeting with Pakistan is not conducive in this environment.’
It is obvious that such preemptory behavior with Pakistan contributed to the conditions leading up to the Pulwama terror attack. It is clear that Adil Ahmad Dar, the Pulwama car bomber, was no lone wolf. He had contextual support from the Indian side in its policies towards Pakistan and in Kashmir.
This time round, the insertion has been in the intelligence input on the imminent attacks across India by fidayeen under training at the targeted Jaish facility. Firstly, if they are under training, it cannot be an imminent attack. If the attack(s) was (were) not imminent, then it puts Indian preemptive action afoul of international law that is permissive of anticipatory self-defence only under severely restrictive conditions. Therefore, India’s military action, absurdly phrased as “non-military,” was not preemptive, but preventive, in line with the American interpretation of international law that has no takers as customary law in the international legal fraternity.
Secondly, only a few could qualify as fidayeen, with most madrasa students there targetable merely for being outside the formal schooling system in Pakistan due to poverty and other reasons.
Thirdly, the targeting risked a ‘CNN ambush’, in the form of bodies of youth being carted away from the rubble. It would have led to a reputational loss for India, something it appears Modi was willing to chance to profit electorally.
Most significantly, the cover of a wider attack on ‘various parts’ of India enabled Modi and his ilk to get on to their favourite hobby horse, targeting India’s Muslims as the potential providers of support for such a diabolical plan attributed to the Jaish. Whereas it is possible to envisage such a plan for Kashmir, it is but a tarring of India’s largest minority for internal political purposes of the right-wing to claim that the Jaish can target various parts of India. No such thing is possible since the Indian Muslim community, implicated in the subtext as a potential support base for such action, would not have it. This is testimony to the success of the political project of Hindutva and its othering of the minority, in which linking it with terror was the leitmotif.
Therefore, it is yet another lie in an official statement of this government that needs an unceremonious outing. The foreign secretary read out this nonsense, rather than resign. It is but an indicator to the extent institutions have fallen under this government. The only way to salvage India is to rescue it from another five years under the Modi-Doval tutelage of its national security.
Wednesday, 6 March 2019
https://www.thecitizen.in/index.php/en/NewsDetail/index/4/16406/Where-Does-the-Needle-Point
Pulwama: Where does the needle point?
Pulwama: Where does the needle point?
NOTE: THE KASHMIR TIMES REPORT WAS TAKEN AS ACCURATE, THOUGH LATER IT EMERGED THAT OTHER NEWS OUTLETS IDENTIFIED THE SURRENDERED MILITANT AS ADIL HUSSAIN DAR, NOT ADIL AHMAD DAR.
From the din surrounding India’s stamping down on terrorism and Pakistan in the Pulwama-Balakot-Naushera episode, one could be excused in believing that India scored a grand victory. The ruling party’s usurpation of the credit seemingly only confirms this. Instead, the ongoing information war only serves to obfuscate the abject provision of national security that brought on the episode in first place.
The din is itself proof that the episode needs not only papering over but the supposed success over-hyped.
This would offset call for heads to roll, beginning with the National Security Adviser, Ajit Doval, and ending with a democratic showing-of-the-door to his boss, Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
To begin with the Pulwama car bomb attack.
There are three possibilities, none of which are edifying for India.
One is - as the Indian side has it - that it was Pakistan-sponsored. This begs the question why the situation got to such a pass as to have Pakistan up the ante in such manner.
The second is - as the Pakistan side has it - that it was an indigenous expression of alienation and part of the ongoing struggle in Kashmir. This begs the question how the situation has worsened at the fag-end of the government’s five year tenure to this extent.
The third – that it was an Indian black-flag operation – unsurprisingly surfaced in Pakistan in immediate wake of Pulwama. It was ditched in favour of the second possibility since the second served Pakistani strategic purposes better, suggesting as it does that a full blown indigenous insurgency is on in Kashmir, enabling Pakistan to counter the Indian accusation inherent in the first possibility.
The evidence touted – which has not been sufficiently dispelled as yet – has it that the Pulwama terrorist, Adil Ahmad Dar, was whisked away from the site of a firefight in which two of his terror accomplices had been killed on September 10, 2017.
If the person picked up was the self-same Pulwama terrorist, how was he back in circulation? If different, in any case how did the Pulwama terrorist reportedly in and out of detention centers some six times, give his surveillance the slip? This has shades of the Afzal Guru case in which Guru, a former militant, was also frequently tapped by the police and intelligence in Kashmir.
Since this has intelligence fingerprints all over it, there is more than merely an intelligence lapse in these queries to be resolved.
Moving on to the Balakot segment, the information war obscures the effectiveness or otherwise of the aerial strike. The posturing by the ruling party on the numbers of budding terrorists killed has been queried by political rivals. The prime minister pronounced that they are guilty of calling in question the word of the armed forces. The air chief for his part rightly put the ball back in the government’s court that it is its remit to answer.
There being no evidence of the strike’s success being put out by the government and if the air chief is to be believed that air warriors got the target, then the coordinates – presumably supplied by intelligence agencies and fed into the bombs - were imprecise.
This amounts to yet another intelligence failure either way, imprecise information and inability to assist with damage assessment. Given the questions, there is little reason to hide damage assessment information, which was reportedly pegged by Doval at a meeting of the cabinet’s security committee at 25 hardcore terrorists dead.
In so far as the credit for ordering the strikes, any credit for boldness is diluted by the parameters that accompanied the order: that the planes were not to intrude into Pakistani air space. This is plausible since in the preceding surgical strikes, PM Modi had similarly constrained the operations, requiring these to finish by day break irrespective of success.
Apparently, to get a better fix on the target, the planes crossed over the Line of Control (LC) a few kilometers over Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) before releasing the ordnance. So, the credit is not with their political masters as was unsurprisingly wrested by Modi at his rally in Churu the very next day, but with air warriors.
Modi’s luxuriating the very next day at three public events (at the time lapdog television anchors had it that 300 terrorists were killed) is only explicable if the analysis of Pakistan’s retaliatory options predicted Pakistan would be too cowed down to retaliate. If this was not so, Modi would likely have been more circumspect, apprehending he might have to eat his words.
In the event, Modi spent the following day out of sight after the Pakistan evened scores in the Naushera sector of the LC through pugnaciously conducting a daylight aerial strike. As to whether their strike was at the price of an F-16, is yet an open question.
What is consequential is that the national security analysis incentivized the decision on Indian strikes under a mistaken conclusion of Pakistan being deterred by a ‘new India’ drawing a new line in the sand. This shows the ideological blinkers strategists have on in Modi’s national security system run by Ajit Doval.
Finally, to the Pakistani air strikes in Naushera sector. The Pakistanis, lacking an equivalent target on the Indian side, settled for vertical escalation restricted to military targets on the LC. The new level of mutual deterrence is thus at a higher less-stable level, begging the question how has Indian national security been the gainer.
Operations in Kashmir continue and at a heightened pace. PM Modi has said that the army ‘resolved’ to wipe out terrorism, yet again putting the onus on the military when its operations are on the direction of his government. It requires no clairvoyance to see the outcome.
The Jaish has already called for recruits, claiming for good measure to have been hit by the aerial strike so as to ensure that more turn up and more impassioned at that. While by most accounts Pakistan has been relatively restrained in its support for terrorism in Kashmir over the recent past, it would be less so this summer, if only because Indian ‘success’ in Kashmir requires a fresh infusion of terrorists into Kashmir soon.
The jihadists it controls would be at its neck if it does not facilitate their infiltration. It would prefer they turn their guns on Indians instead.
Therefore, the analytical conclusion in the analysis preceding the strikes that Pakistan would be deterred is liable to be proven false. The analysis probably had it that with Pakistan pushed on the back-foot by the punitive operation, Operation All Out ongoing in Kashmir would prove just that for Kashmiri terrorists is liable to be called out soon enough.
Instead, the situation over the summer – when India is poised to hold elections twice over (for the assembly and parliament) – may deteriorate. This would not be unwelcome to India since it could use the violence as excuse to postpone elections to the assembly, thereby precluding showing up India’s democratic exercise as vacuous since only few will likely turn up to vote.
It would give the army more time under president’s rule and, absent a state government, with less democratic oversight, to contend with the insurgency.
This would increase the opportunity for more mega-terror incidents. With supposedly a new redline in place, the punitive response options could move up to the cold start spectrum: cold start-lite (a few integrated battle groups (IBGs) taking to limited offensives in the plains) and cold start itself (a largish offensive on a broad front with multiple thrusts by IBGs).
In light of Pakistan’s demonstration of resolve to hit back, it would not take much to move from cold start to cold start-plus (strike corps marauding in the rear), pushing both sides into uncertain nuclear terrain (the introduction of tactical nukes on the battlefield, followed up speedily by counterforce and/or ‘massive’ exchange(s)).
This begs the question how national security is better served by the new red line and continuing of the disturbed conditions in Kashmir that are liable to trigger it. Since it would not do to let a bunch of terrorists determine the time of moving to the new red line, the disturbed conditions provide space for black-flag operations enabling invoking of the new red line at a time and place of own choosing.
Given the showing of the national security apparatus in this episode, it is unclear how they could be bailed out once again in the next episode by a professional showing of the military.
The military has been starved of resources over the past two years. This dilution of the conventional deterrent, and the army’s reversion to a twenty-first century version of operations in Kashmir that obtained in the nineties, perhaps prompted Pakistani provocation.
What all this spells is that heads must roll. None has either resigned or been sacked so far – not even those responsible for the move of the central reserve police convoy targeted at Pulwama. As for the conditions that led to Pulwama, it is reportedly part of the Doval doctrine.
The failure in the Balakot segment can easily be laid at the door of the intelligence community, the czar of which is Doval.
The Naushera segment bespeaks of an analytical failure in the secretariat that reports to Doval.
While a democratic change of government would be useful in cleaning up the stables, particularly at its top, continuing by the government on reelection with its national security charioteer can only be at the price of national security. With elections behind it, it could consider a change of horses and select one without blinkers on.
From the din surrounding India’s stamping down on terrorism and Pakistan in the Pulwama-Balakot-Naushera episode, one could be excused in believing that India scored a grand victory. The ruling party’s usurpation of the credit seemingly only confirms this. Instead, the ongoing information war only serves to obfuscate the abject provision of national security that brought on the episode in first place.
The din is itself proof that the episode needs not only papering over but the supposed success over-hyped.
This would offset call for heads to roll, beginning with the National Security Adviser, Ajit Doval, and ending with a democratic showing-of-the-door to his boss, Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
To begin with the Pulwama car bomb attack.
There are three possibilities, none of which are edifying for India.
One is - as the Indian side has it - that it was Pakistan-sponsored. This begs the question why the situation got to such a pass as to have Pakistan up the ante in such manner.
The second is - as the Pakistan side has it - that it was an indigenous expression of alienation and part of the ongoing struggle in Kashmir. This begs the question how the situation has worsened at the fag-end of the government’s five year tenure to this extent.
The third – that it was an Indian black-flag operation – unsurprisingly surfaced in Pakistan in immediate wake of Pulwama. It was ditched in favour of the second possibility since the second served Pakistani strategic purposes better, suggesting as it does that a full blown indigenous insurgency is on in Kashmir, enabling Pakistan to counter the Indian accusation inherent in the first possibility.
The evidence touted – which has not been sufficiently dispelled as yet – has it that the Pulwama terrorist, Adil Ahmad Dar, was whisked away from the site of a firefight in which two of his terror accomplices had been killed on September 10, 2017.
If the person picked up was the self-same Pulwama terrorist, how was he back in circulation? If different, in any case how did the Pulwama terrorist reportedly in and out of detention centers some six times, give his surveillance the slip? This has shades of the Afzal Guru case in which Guru, a former militant, was also frequently tapped by the police and intelligence in Kashmir.
Since this has intelligence fingerprints all over it, there is more than merely an intelligence lapse in these queries to be resolved.
Moving on to the Balakot segment, the information war obscures the effectiveness or otherwise of the aerial strike. The posturing by the ruling party on the numbers of budding terrorists killed has been queried by political rivals. The prime minister pronounced that they are guilty of calling in question the word of the armed forces. The air chief for his part rightly put the ball back in the government’s court that it is its remit to answer.
There being no evidence of the strike’s success being put out by the government and if the air chief is to be believed that air warriors got the target, then the coordinates – presumably supplied by intelligence agencies and fed into the bombs - were imprecise.
This amounts to yet another intelligence failure either way, imprecise information and inability to assist with damage assessment. Given the questions, there is little reason to hide damage assessment information, which was reportedly pegged by Doval at a meeting of the cabinet’s security committee at 25 hardcore terrorists dead.
In so far as the credit for ordering the strikes, any credit for boldness is diluted by the parameters that accompanied the order: that the planes were not to intrude into Pakistani air space. This is plausible since in the preceding surgical strikes, PM Modi had similarly constrained the operations, requiring these to finish by day break irrespective of success.
Apparently, to get a better fix on the target, the planes crossed over the Line of Control (LC) a few kilometers over Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) before releasing the ordnance. So, the credit is not with their political masters as was unsurprisingly wrested by Modi at his rally in Churu the very next day, but with air warriors.
Modi’s luxuriating the very next day at three public events (at the time lapdog television anchors had it that 300 terrorists were killed) is only explicable if the analysis of Pakistan’s retaliatory options predicted Pakistan would be too cowed down to retaliate. If this was not so, Modi would likely have been more circumspect, apprehending he might have to eat his words.
In the event, Modi spent the following day out of sight after the Pakistan evened scores in the Naushera sector of the LC through pugnaciously conducting a daylight aerial strike. As to whether their strike was at the price of an F-16, is yet an open question.
What is consequential is that the national security analysis incentivized the decision on Indian strikes under a mistaken conclusion of Pakistan being deterred by a ‘new India’ drawing a new line in the sand. This shows the ideological blinkers strategists have on in Modi’s national security system run by Ajit Doval.
Finally, to the Pakistani air strikes in Naushera sector. The Pakistanis, lacking an equivalent target on the Indian side, settled for vertical escalation restricted to military targets on the LC. The new level of mutual deterrence is thus at a higher less-stable level, begging the question how has Indian national security been the gainer.
Operations in Kashmir continue and at a heightened pace. PM Modi has said that the army ‘resolved’ to wipe out terrorism, yet again putting the onus on the military when its operations are on the direction of his government. It requires no clairvoyance to see the outcome.
The Jaish has already called for recruits, claiming for good measure to have been hit by the aerial strike so as to ensure that more turn up and more impassioned at that. While by most accounts Pakistan has been relatively restrained in its support for terrorism in Kashmir over the recent past, it would be less so this summer, if only because Indian ‘success’ in Kashmir requires a fresh infusion of terrorists into Kashmir soon.
The jihadists it controls would be at its neck if it does not facilitate their infiltration. It would prefer they turn their guns on Indians instead.
Therefore, the analytical conclusion in the analysis preceding the strikes that Pakistan would be deterred is liable to be proven false. The analysis probably had it that with Pakistan pushed on the back-foot by the punitive operation, Operation All Out ongoing in Kashmir would prove just that for Kashmiri terrorists is liable to be called out soon enough.
Instead, the situation over the summer – when India is poised to hold elections twice over (for the assembly and parliament) – may deteriorate. This would not be unwelcome to India since it could use the violence as excuse to postpone elections to the assembly, thereby precluding showing up India’s democratic exercise as vacuous since only few will likely turn up to vote.
It would give the army more time under president’s rule and, absent a state government, with less democratic oversight, to contend with the insurgency.
This would increase the opportunity for more mega-terror incidents. With supposedly a new redline in place, the punitive response options could move up to the cold start spectrum: cold start-lite (a few integrated battle groups (IBGs) taking to limited offensives in the plains) and cold start itself (a largish offensive on a broad front with multiple thrusts by IBGs).
In light of Pakistan’s demonstration of resolve to hit back, it would not take much to move from cold start to cold start-plus (strike corps marauding in the rear), pushing both sides into uncertain nuclear terrain (the introduction of tactical nukes on the battlefield, followed up speedily by counterforce and/or ‘massive’ exchange(s)).
This begs the question how national security is better served by the new red line and continuing of the disturbed conditions in Kashmir that are liable to trigger it. Since it would not do to let a bunch of terrorists determine the time of moving to the new red line, the disturbed conditions provide space for black-flag operations enabling invoking of the new red line at a time and place of own choosing.
Given the showing of the national security apparatus in this episode, it is unclear how they could be bailed out once again in the next episode by a professional showing of the military.
The military has been starved of resources over the past two years. This dilution of the conventional deterrent, and the army’s reversion to a twenty-first century version of operations in Kashmir that obtained in the nineties, perhaps prompted Pakistani provocation.
What all this spells is that heads must roll. None has either resigned or been sacked so far – not even those responsible for the move of the central reserve police convoy targeted at Pulwama. As for the conditions that led to Pulwama, it is reportedly part of the Doval doctrine.
The failure in the Balakot segment can easily be laid at the door of the intelligence community, the czar of which is Doval.
The Naushera segment bespeaks of an analytical failure in the secretariat that reports to Doval.
While a democratic change of government would be useful in cleaning up the stables, particularly at its top, continuing by the government on reelection with its national security charioteer can only be at the price of national security. With elections behind it, it could consider a change of horses and select one without blinkers on.
Monday, 4 March 2019
https://www.indianewsstream.com/pulwama-the-counter-attack/
26 Feb
Pulwama: The counter attack
India’s response to the mid-month Pulwama terror attack in which more than two score
central reserve police troopers lost their lives was delivered twelve days later by the air force.
This was the outcome of the prime minister’s order to the military that the response be at ‘a time
and place of its choosing’.
The Air Force’s preparedness was most visible. At a previously scheduled airpower
demonstration in Pokhran, Exercise Vayu Shakti-2019, co-incidentally held immediately
following the Pulwama incident, it displayed its prowess at destruction tasks, pulling ahead of
the army as possible choice of service for executing India’s retribution.
It’s Chief, hinting at the possibilities following the recent development, said, ‘While wars are
few and far between, we have an ever present sub-conventional threat as the enemy knows he
cannot defeat us in a conventional conflict. So today we showcase our ability to punish.’ Anyone
listening could have seen what was coming in his words, ‘We are showcasing our ability to hit
hard, hit fast and hit with precision, hit during day, hit during night and hit under adverse
weather conditions through our autonomous bombing capability.’
While it was speculated that the air force would be a useful instrument to deliver the retribution,
there were apprehensions of its escalatory implications. It was apparent that the Indian response
would be harsher than hitherto and the reaction by Pakistan could well be forceful. This
spelt escalation, an avoidable proposition for a government looking at elections a couple of
months ahead and wanting to avoid any military reverses in the interim. Consequently, a less-
escalatory option from India’s menu of options for punitive operations would have been best for
the ruling party.
Each option has an escalation quotient. The military can at best furnish the political head the
menu of options. The risk to be run is a political decision to be taken by its civilian masters. The
prime minister in an interview rightly acknowledged that mere reruns of surgical strikes were
unlikely to get Pakistan to change tack. Such a perspective lends itself to a limited aims option.
Even so, for a reasonable trade-off between gains and risks, Modi needed asking after escalation
possibilities.
The Pakistani army spokesperson had warned that they ‘shall also dominate the escalation
ladder.’ Hoping to deter, he cautioned of an ‘escalated response’ which would ‘surprise’ India.
While India can project nonchalance in its own bit of counter messaging, it being fore-warned,
needed to be fore-armed accordingly.
1 Ali Ahmed, a former UN official, academic and infantryman, blogs on security issues at www.ali-
writings.blogspot.in.
Escalation is inherent in conventional operations. Military strategy is a two sided contention. The
other side has agency and autonomy of choice. War gaming can help, but there is no guarantee of
knowing in advance the adversary’s playbook.
Two concepts attributed to the Prussian general of the Napoleonic era, Carl von Clausewitz, are
relevant for both sides: the fog of war and friction. The fog of war implies functioning in a
domain of suboptimal information availability for decision making under pressure-cooker
conditions and friction is that everything becomes difficult in war, like walking in water is.
Besides, Murphy’s law that anything that can go wrong will, and boxing champ Mike Tyson’s
quip that the best plan cannot outlast the first punch on the nose, bear recall.
Theorists have it that there are organizational pathologies endemic in military considerations.
The relevant one here is a penchant for offensive options, to enable the military gain, seize and
maintain the initiative. While such organizational considerations can be expected to contaminate
the Pakistani response, these are not absent in the Indian case.
The Indian military cannot settle for a draw. It needs to ensure greater damage to the Pakistani
military – both physically and optically. In the information war that will kick in to project
victory, it required to have something substantial to show – unlike during the surgical strikes.
The strategic consideration of the need on both sides for future deterrence stability also drives
escalation. Indians required a successful punitive strike. The Pakistanis cannot have the Indians
drawing a fresh line in the sand with impunity. The need though felt by both respectively, is
mutually exclusive.
Finally, the pressing escalation impulse for escalation is interestingly not from military factors
and does not lie in Pakistan. It stems from the ruling party’s electoral calculus. The ruling party
has taken political advantage of the Pulwama incident but in doing so ended up in a commitment
trap. It had to deliver on the punitive operations and to ensure their success if necessary by
climbing up the escalation ladder at the crunch.
By this yardstick, as Modi surveyed the prospective punitive operation, he needed no reminding
that his self-interest in political longevity lay, firstly, in choosing the least escalatory option and,
secondly, during its implementation to de-escalate timely.
Modi’s choice of punitive operation appears to have been vindicated by the air force. The foreign
secretary has indicated the extensive considerations that went into the choice of target, with the
planners taking care to hit a terrorist training camp way out on a jungle hilltop. The air force for
its part made a brilliant foray taking a window of opportunity when the Pakistani air force had its
guard down. The foreign secretary has finessed the limited nature of India’s operation by
choosing an interesting term – ‘non-military preemptive action’ – to describe it.
These contribute to escalation control. It now devolves on the political class to keep the lid on
the situation. The situation at the time of writing continues to be delicate. The more triumphalist
India’s right wing appears – contrary to the measured tenor of its foreign secretary – the more
likely Pakistan would settle for a harsher counter than necessary.
Pakistan for its part has observed that the action constitutes aggression and has reserved the
choice of response. It is planning to take the media to the site of the bombing and present its side
of the story that little damage occurred. In case it carries the day, this is liable to heighten the
political heat in India, with the ruling party claiming – as is by now quite usual – that those who
question its narrative are ‘anti-national’.
Though, the ball is in Pakistan’s court, it has as guide the precedence of playing coy – as it did in wake of the surgical strikes of two years back. Escalation possibilities should guide its response as well, including making the choice of ignoring the airattack as a welcome option.
The story is yet unspooling. The target, Balakote, being in mainland Pakistan and the use of air
power against it may tend to shaping Pakistan’s response. While it rode out the American’s
launching Operation Neptune Sphere it would not like to allow India a feeling of impunity for
what it terms ‘aggression’.
Strategic maturity demands that India’s counter to any such response needs to yet again be
mindful of escalation.
26 Feb
Pulwama: The counter attack
India’s response to the mid-month Pulwama terror attack in which more than two score
central reserve police troopers lost their lives was delivered twelve days later by the air force.
This was the outcome of the prime minister’s order to the military that the response be at ‘a time
and place of its choosing’.
The Air Force’s preparedness was most visible. At a previously scheduled airpower
demonstration in Pokhran, Exercise Vayu Shakti-2019, co-incidentally held immediately
following the Pulwama incident, it displayed its prowess at destruction tasks, pulling ahead of
the army as possible choice of service for executing India’s retribution.
It’s Chief, hinting at the possibilities following the recent development, said, ‘While wars are
few and far between, we have an ever present sub-conventional threat as the enemy knows he
cannot defeat us in a conventional conflict. So today we showcase our ability to punish.’ Anyone
listening could have seen what was coming in his words, ‘We are showcasing our ability to hit
hard, hit fast and hit with precision, hit during day, hit during night and hit under adverse
weather conditions through our autonomous bombing capability.’
While it was speculated that the air force would be a useful instrument to deliver the retribution,
there were apprehensions of its escalatory implications. It was apparent that the Indian response
would be harsher than hitherto and the reaction by Pakistan could well be forceful. This
spelt escalation, an avoidable proposition for a government looking at elections a couple of
months ahead and wanting to avoid any military reverses in the interim. Consequently, a less-
escalatory option from India’s menu of options for punitive operations would have been best for
the ruling party.
Each option has an escalation quotient. The military can at best furnish the political head the
menu of options. The risk to be run is a political decision to be taken by its civilian masters. The
prime minister in an interview rightly acknowledged that mere reruns of surgical strikes were
unlikely to get Pakistan to change tack. Such a perspective lends itself to a limited aims option.
Even so, for a reasonable trade-off between gains and risks, Modi needed asking after escalation
possibilities.
The Pakistani army spokesperson had warned that they ‘shall also dominate the escalation
ladder.’ Hoping to deter, he cautioned of an ‘escalated response’ which would ‘surprise’ India.
While India can project nonchalance in its own bit of counter messaging, it being fore-warned,
needed to be fore-armed accordingly.
1 Ali Ahmed, a former UN official, academic and infantryman, blogs on security issues at www.ali-
writings.blogspot.in.
Escalation is inherent in conventional operations. Military strategy is a two sided contention. The
other side has agency and autonomy of choice. War gaming can help, but there is no guarantee of
knowing in advance the adversary’s playbook.
Two concepts attributed to the Prussian general of the Napoleonic era, Carl von Clausewitz, are
relevant for both sides: the fog of war and friction. The fog of war implies functioning in a
domain of suboptimal information availability for decision making under pressure-cooker
conditions and friction is that everything becomes difficult in war, like walking in water is.
Besides, Murphy’s law that anything that can go wrong will, and boxing champ Mike Tyson’s
quip that the best plan cannot outlast the first punch on the nose, bear recall.
Theorists have it that there are organizational pathologies endemic in military considerations.
The relevant one here is a penchant for offensive options, to enable the military gain, seize and
maintain the initiative. While such organizational considerations can be expected to contaminate
the Pakistani response, these are not absent in the Indian case.
The Indian military cannot settle for a draw. It needs to ensure greater damage to the Pakistani
military – both physically and optically. In the information war that will kick in to project
victory, it required to have something substantial to show – unlike during the surgical strikes.
The strategic consideration of the need on both sides for future deterrence stability also drives
escalation. Indians required a successful punitive strike. The Pakistanis cannot have the Indians
drawing a fresh line in the sand with impunity. The need though felt by both respectively, is
mutually exclusive.
Finally, the pressing escalation impulse for escalation is interestingly not from military factors
and does not lie in Pakistan. It stems from the ruling party’s electoral calculus. The ruling party
has taken political advantage of the Pulwama incident but in doing so ended up in a commitment
trap. It had to deliver on the punitive operations and to ensure their success if necessary by
climbing up the escalation ladder at the crunch.
By this yardstick, as Modi surveyed the prospective punitive operation, he needed no reminding
that his self-interest in political longevity lay, firstly, in choosing the least escalatory option and,
secondly, during its implementation to de-escalate timely.
Modi’s choice of punitive operation appears to have been vindicated by the air force. The foreign
secretary has indicated the extensive considerations that went into the choice of target, with the
planners taking care to hit a terrorist training camp way out on a jungle hilltop. The air force for
its part made a brilliant foray taking a window of opportunity when the Pakistani air force had its
guard down. The foreign secretary has finessed the limited nature of India’s operation by
choosing an interesting term – ‘non-military preemptive action’ – to describe it.
These contribute to escalation control. It now devolves on the political class to keep the lid on
the situation. The situation at the time of writing continues to be delicate. The more triumphalist
India’s right wing appears – contrary to the measured tenor of its foreign secretary – the more
likely Pakistan would settle for a harsher counter than necessary.
Pakistan for its part has observed that the action constitutes aggression and has reserved the
choice of response. It is planning to take the media to the site of the bombing and present its side
of the story that little damage occurred. In case it carries the day, this is liable to heighten the
political heat in India, with the ruling party claiming – as is by now quite usual – that those who
question its narrative are ‘anti-national’.
Though, the ball is in Pakistan’s court, it has as guide the precedence of playing coy – as it did in wake of the surgical strikes of two years back. Escalation possibilities should guide its response as well, including making the choice of ignoring the airattack as a welcome option.
The story is yet unspooling. The target, Balakote, being in mainland Pakistan and the use of air
power against it may tend to shaping Pakistan’s response. While it rode out the American’s
launching Operation Neptune Sphere it would not like to allow India a feeling of impunity for
what it terms ‘aggression’.
Strategic maturity demands that India’s counter to any such response needs to yet again be
mindful of escalation.
Thursday, 28 February 2019
https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/india/opinion-india-and-pakistan-must-de-escalate-the-current-crisis-3592331.html
India and Pakistan must de-escalate the current crisis
At the end of three rounds in the current crisis, it would appear that the two sides, India and Pakistan, are about even. While in round one, on February 14, a Pakistan-sponsored Kashmiri terrorist of the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) detonated a car bomb killing over 40 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel at Pulwama, in Kashmir, in round two the Government of India said that 12 Indian Air Force (IAF) Mirage 2000 jets killing “a very large number” of JeM terrorists at a camp in Balakot, in Pakistan, on February 26.
On February 27, the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) targeted military installations in the Rajouri sector, dropping bombs randomly when challenged and chased away by the IAF. In the dogfight, both sides lost a plane each, with the Pakistanis capturing an IAF pilot.
The Indian military actions on February 26 and the Pakistani counter on February 27 received widespread appreciation in respective countries. Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan in a televised address expressed a desire for peace through talks, reiterating his message of the previous day to ‘give peace a chance’.
This is potentially a juncture at which the two sides, both having drawn blood, can step back from the brink. Both militaries have displayed their professionalism and the public pressures stand assuaged to a degree. There are constituencies on both sides that are not averse to peace at this stage. There is little political impulse on either side to escalate.
Both sides have in their official statements kept the possibility of peace open. In the Indian statement by its foreign secretary, India reminded Pakistan of its obligation under the Islamabad joint declaration, implicitly signalling that the joint statement of January 2004 between Vajpayee and Musharraf could serve as a possible start point.
Pakistan for its part offered to investigate the Pulwama terror attack but not without receipt of proof from India. At the time of writing, its deputy high commissioner had been summoned by the Indian foreign ministry and handed over the dossier on JeM. India could hold Pakistan to its word, buying time for de-escalation to kick-in. The process of return of the captured pilot through Red Cross channels can reduce the current tension.
As for the option of maintaining the level of hostilities at its current level, neither state may prefer this. Both sides have employed air power, universally regarded as escalatory, and have incurred losses. Escalation would remain inherent if continued at this level. Besides, the consequences of ‘friction’ — the concept that has it that even the simplest activity is rendered difficult in war — would increase tensions; witness the crash of a helicopter at a Budgam airfield in Kashmir unrelated to the aerial skirmish south of the Pir Panjal.
There is a lower level of action available along the Line of Control. Both have upped the temperatures there, which they can persist with to keep their martial ardour ventilated, even as they step off the higher threshold of hostilities.
De-escalation can be found appealing only if the escalation ladder is seen as sufficiently daunting and the probability of ascent high. Khan in his address alluded to imponderables of war making escalation control problematic. This is true in his case since decision-making in Pakistan is with the military. In India’s case, it bears considering if escalation, though feasible in light of Indian conventional advantages, is desirable.
Strategically, the prompt Pakistani counter — stemming from the Pakistan Army holding the national security cards — is a message on its readiness to match step with India. India, the stronger power, would require to up-the-ante to subdue Pakistan, which can only be by resort to conventional power. Even if the nuclear level is discounted, the contest would be tough, could prove a long haul and will have an unpredictable escalation dynamic, which could later bring the nuclear dimension to the table.
Politically, India is at the cusp of national elections. It can do without being buffeted and distracted by terrorist action. Since there is no immediacy for sterner action, India can await the formation of a new government and revert, with a fresh democratic mandate behind it, to any long-term harsh measures or take up the talks offer of Pakistan.
Besides, the opposition parties in a meeting on February 27 disapproved of the ruling party seemingly cornering credit for the military’s professional showing.
Finally, the side that takes any further step militarily is likely to lose international support since there is consensus globally on both sides stepping back. Internal political fissures imply lowering of hostilities threshold is necessary.
Of the two options — hardline or talks — the hardline option of compelling Pakistan to wrap up the JeM is the more difficult one. India can settle for deterrence, based on default retaliation for higher order terrorist strikes, which is now the new line in the sand drawn by surgical strikes and the aerial strike.
As for talks, India is not averse to talks to end terrorism. A gear shift to hold Pakistan to its word in Islamabad of January 2004 to discontinue terror requires de-escalation as next step.
Wednesday, 27 February 2019
https://southasianvoices.org/understanding-indias-land-warfare-doctrine/
https://www.globalvillagespace.com/understanding-indias-land-warfare-doctrine/
Understanding India's land warfare doctrine
The Indian Army’s latest iteration of its doctrine, Land Warfare Doctrine (2018), had a soft launch on December 14th of last year, being placed on the army’s website with merely a link provided on the news page—and without a release event presided over by its normally loquacious chief. As a result, even vigilant defense watchers missed it, only to catch up about a week later.
The surreptitious nature of the document’s placement was enhanced by the lack of mention of the document during the discourse on the four studies ordered by the army chief the previous month. There had also been no reference to the document by the army leadership, including in the run up to the Army Day when the chief customarily dilates on the significant milestones crossed and up ahead. Further, the mention of the doctrine was removed from the media release webpages and the document moved to a nondescript corner of the knowledge pages of the army website in early February. This begs the question why.
This article argues that the army had reasons for its reticence. While its views on the contents of the LWD have been known for about a decade now, this is the first time these ideas have been officially documented. Since the views have been controversial and lacking consensus both vertically (with its civilian overseers) and horizontally (with sister services), it appears that the Indian Army has indulged in a unilateral exercise of agenda setting. Through the LWD, the army attempted to preempt the strategic review being undertaken at the governmental level and privilege its own operational preferences over the priorities of all the services.
Being upfront on the LWD
From a surface-level analysis, there appears little reason for the army to have played coy over the document. The Indian Army could have argued that the doctrine aligns with broader jointness efforts in the Armed Forces, as a service doctrine is a reasonable and logical corollary to the joint doctrine. The second edition of the Joint Doctrine of the Indian Armed Forces (JDIAF), released in April 2017, was intended to underpin service-specific strategies. Taking cue, the Land Warfare Doctrine has on its cover the requirement that it needs to be read in conjunction with the JDIAF.
Additionally, the army could argue that it has in fact been transparent. The army chief had at the outset of his tenure acknowledged the existence of the Cold Start Doctrine and had indicated he would operationalize so-called Integrated Battle Groups (IBGs). The Cold Start Doctrine, introduced in the Indian Army Doctrine (2004), envisages a quick launch of multiple limited offensives by Integrated Battle Groups into Pakistani territory. He had let on last year that the army’s Perspective Planning Directorate had been put to producing its doctrine.
Placing the doctrine in context
Despite these possible rationalizations, the doctrine runs afoul of democratic civil-military relations. In India, grand strategy is a civilian function, and not one appropriated by the army as attempted in this document. The contents of the doctrine suggest that the army has gone beyond its remit.
One of these problematic tenets is the two-front war thesis, a concept the army has championed for a decade now. The concept of a two-front war against India’s two primary adversaries, Pakistan and China, first found mention at a closed door conference at theendof 2009 inthe review of the army’sfirst attempt at doctrine-making, the2004 Indian Army Doctrine (IAD). The LWD refers to this as a “multi-front environment” involving an external collusive threat from Pakistan and China coupled with a hybrid (defined in the LWD as, ‘a blend of conventional and unconventional, with the focus increasingly shifting to multi domain Warfare varying from non-contact to contact warfare’) and state-sponsored proxy war.
The doctrine has gone further than envisaging a two-front war. Whereas the LWD calls for deterrence by denial against China based on multi-tiered defenses and strike forces suitably poised, it wishes to enhance deterrence by punishment against Pakistan by launching swift offensives to take out Pakistan’s center of gravity—its military—and secure “spatial gains” in the event of war. It is uncertain how this expansive aim can be achieved by limited war aims. Against a collusive threat, it argues for a “strategic defensive balance” on the secondary front, while the primary front is being dealt with. Without explicitly mentioning it, it appears to designate the western front at the primary front. Arguably, this is the domain of wartime strategy if and when a two-front war scenario comes to a pass, and not one of doctrine.
In bringing out the document, the army has preempted the expected output of the Defense Planning Committee (DPC). The DPC is a high-powered committee set up last April under the National Security Adviser with a mandate to produce an overarching strategic review document. Rumor has it that the strategic review is to be released soon. Since the JDIAF has no mention of a requirement to prepare for a two-front war, the army ought to wait for the government’s cue through its strategic review, rather than attempting to preempt its content or publicly influence its perspectives bottom-up.
Further, the attempt to influence the DPC’s strategic review publicly is contrary to the best practices in democratic civil-military relations. The JDIAF accords precedence to a national security strategy over the doctrine of the armed forces, which is itself then followed by service-specific doctrines. By pitching its contents at a higher-than service level, the LWD risks trespassing on the turf of its two superior doctrines.
Escalatory possibilities of LWD
The LWD does little to contribute to jointness efforts across the armed services. The JDIAF had focused on jointness, which it defined as the creation of synergy across services in order to enhance operational success, optimize costs, and maximize readiness. In the past, the Indian military has not taken measures to improve or achieve jointness due to inter-service debates over the relative importance of the army, navy, and air force in confronting India’s threat landscape. The army chief had sounded the bugle early on in his tenure, asserting the primacy of land operations in the conduct of war and its outcome.
The articulation of the Cold Start Doctrine in the IAD along with the army’s intent to operationalize IBGs after test-bed exercises this summer have once again propelled land operations to the forefront of India’s preparations for warfighting. This will, however, have implications for India’s ability to prevail in its expansionist war aims, particularly in a situation of constrained defense budgets.
The only way to deliver a body blow to Pakistan’s military would be with the support of the Indian Air Force (IAF), which means that the IAF needs to be on-board—of which there is no evidence. Recall here that one of the criticisms of the 2004 IAD was that it did not have the backing of the IAF. Since the army brass has itself not expanded on the LWD in any detail at all since its release, there has been no comment from the air force also on its implications for airpower. The IAF, similarly handicapped by a reduced defense budget, would be loath to be diverted from its preference for a strategic role for air power in war. Therefore, it is uncertain as to the extent the air force reservations faced by CSD have been sorted out in the LWD. It is unclear to what extent the JDIAF has managed to put the three sister services on the same page to be confident that the LWD has the IAF’s concurrence.
The doctrine does not dwell on conflict termination besides tritely observing that politico-military objectives will be met when the war ends, whereas the overarching JDIAF had focused more on conflict termination. The crucial question that remains unanswered in the LWD is how in a nuclear environment escalation can be avoided if the intent is the destruction of the adversary’s military strength.
Conclusion
Absent a national security strategy paper and a Chief of Defense Staff equivalent appointment, such as the Permanent Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, who can serve as the conductor of a joint inter-service preparation and prosecution of war, the Indian Army has in bringing out a service-specific doctrine chosen to bell the cat. In doing so, it has tread on prospective contents of a national security strategy without elaborating on war limitation in the nuclear context of the next war.
The next government would do well to put out a strategic review early in its tenure so as to provide the three services a starting point when it comes to doctrine-making. The strategic review should also dilate on the nuclear level, so as to give the downstream doctrines—joint and service-specific—the guidelines on including a section on limitations in objectives and methods in future iterations of doctrine. Having a doctrine deal only with sub-conventional and conventional levels, as the LWD limits itself to, amounts to denial that South Asia is in the nuclear age.
https://www.globalvillagespace.com/understanding-indias-land-warfare-doctrine/
Understanding India's land warfare doctrine
The Indian Army’s latest iteration of its doctrine, Land Warfare Doctrine (2018), had a soft launch on December 14th of last year, being placed on the army’s website with merely a link provided on the news page—and without a release event presided over by its normally loquacious chief. As a result, even vigilant defense watchers missed it, only to catch up about a week later.
The surreptitious nature of the document’s placement was enhanced by the lack of mention of the document during the discourse on the four studies ordered by the army chief the previous month. There had also been no reference to the document by the army leadership, including in the run up to the Army Day when the chief customarily dilates on the significant milestones crossed and up ahead. Further, the mention of the doctrine was removed from the media release webpages and the document moved to a nondescript corner of the knowledge pages of the army website in early February. This begs the question why.
This article argues that the army had reasons for its reticence. While its views on the contents of the LWD have been known for about a decade now, this is the first time these ideas have been officially documented. Since the views have been controversial and lacking consensus both vertically (with its civilian overseers) and horizontally (with sister services), it appears that the Indian Army has indulged in a unilateral exercise of agenda setting. Through the LWD, the army attempted to preempt the strategic review being undertaken at the governmental level and privilege its own operational preferences over the priorities of all the services.
Being upfront on the LWD
From a surface-level analysis, there appears little reason for the army to have played coy over the document. The Indian Army could have argued that the doctrine aligns with broader jointness efforts in the Armed Forces, as a service doctrine is a reasonable and logical corollary to the joint doctrine. The second edition of the Joint Doctrine of the Indian Armed Forces (JDIAF), released in April 2017, was intended to underpin service-specific strategies. Taking cue, the Land Warfare Doctrine has on its cover the requirement that it needs to be read in conjunction with the JDIAF.
Additionally, the army could argue that it has in fact been transparent. The army chief had at the outset of his tenure acknowledged the existence of the Cold Start Doctrine and had indicated he would operationalize so-called Integrated Battle Groups (IBGs). The Cold Start Doctrine, introduced in the Indian Army Doctrine (2004), envisages a quick launch of multiple limited offensives by Integrated Battle Groups into Pakistani territory. He had let on last year that the army’s Perspective Planning Directorate had been put to producing its doctrine.
Placing the doctrine in context
Despite these possible rationalizations, the doctrine runs afoul of democratic civil-military relations. In India, grand strategy is a civilian function, and not one appropriated by the army as attempted in this document. The contents of the doctrine suggest that the army has gone beyond its remit.
One of these problematic tenets is the two-front war thesis, a concept the army has championed for a decade now. The concept of a two-front war against India’s two primary adversaries, Pakistan and China, first found mention at a closed door conference at theendof 2009 inthe review of the army’sfirst attempt at doctrine-making, the2004 Indian Army Doctrine (IAD). The LWD refers to this as a “multi-front environment” involving an external collusive threat from Pakistan and China coupled with a hybrid (defined in the LWD as, ‘a blend of conventional and unconventional, with the focus increasingly shifting to multi domain Warfare varying from non-contact to contact warfare’) and state-sponsored proxy war.
The doctrine has gone further than envisaging a two-front war. Whereas the LWD calls for deterrence by denial against China based on multi-tiered defenses and strike forces suitably poised, it wishes to enhance deterrence by punishment against Pakistan by launching swift offensives to take out Pakistan’s center of gravity—its military—and secure “spatial gains” in the event of war. It is uncertain how this expansive aim can be achieved by limited war aims. Against a collusive threat, it argues for a “strategic defensive balance” on the secondary front, while the primary front is being dealt with. Without explicitly mentioning it, it appears to designate the western front at the primary front. Arguably, this is the domain of wartime strategy if and when a two-front war scenario comes to a pass, and not one of doctrine.
In bringing out the document, the army has preempted the expected output of the Defense Planning Committee (DPC). The DPC is a high-powered committee set up last April under the National Security Adviser with a mandate to produce an overarching strategic review document. Rumor has it that the strategic review is to be released soon. Since the JDIAF has no mention of a requirement to prepare for a two-front war, the army ought to wait for the government’s cue through its strategic review, rather than attempting to preempt its content or publicly influence its perspectives bottom-up.
Further, the attempt to influence the DPC’s strategic review publicly is contrary to the best practices in democratic civil-military relations. The JDIAF accords precedence to a national security strategy over the doctrine of the armed forces, which is itself then followed by service-specific doctrines. By pitching its contents at a higher-than service level, the LWD risks trespassing on the turf of its two superior doctrines.
Escalatory possibilities of LWD
The LWD does little to contribute to jointness efforts across the armed services. The JDIAF had focused on jointness, which it defined as the creation of synergy across services in order to enhance operational success, optimize costs, and maximize readiness. In the past, the Indian military has not taken measures to improve or achieve jointness due to inter-service debates over the relative importance of the army, navy, and air force in confronting India’s threat landscape. The army chief had sounded the bugle early on in his tenure, asserting the primacy of land operations in the conduct of war and its outcome.
The articulation of the Cold Start Doctrine in the IAD along with the army’s intent to operationalize IBGs after test-bed exercises this summer have once again propelled land operations to the forefront of India’s preparations for warfighting. This will, however, have implications for India’s ability to prevail in its expansionist war aims, particularly in a situation of constrained defense budgets.
The only way to deliver a body blow to Pakistan’s military would be with the support of the Indian Air Force (IAF), which means that the IAF needs to be on-board—of which there is no evidence. Recall here that one of the criticisms of the 2004 IAD was that it did not have the backing of the IAF. Since the army brass has itself not expanded on the LWD in any detail at all since its release, there has been no comment from the air force also on its implications for airpower. The IAF, similarly handicapped by a reduced defense budget, would be loath to be diverted from its preference for a strategic role for air power in war. Therefore, it is uncertain as to the extent the air force reservations faced by CSD have been sorted out in the LWD. It is unclear to what extent the JDIAF has managed to put the three sister services on the same page to be confident that the LWD has the IAF’s concurrence.
The doctrine does not dwell on conflict termination besides tritely observing that politico-military objectives will be met when the war ends, whereas the overarching JDIAF had focused more on conflict termination. The crucial question that remains unanswered in the LWD is how in a nuclear environment escalation can be avoided if the intent is the destruction of the adversary’s military strength.
Conclusion
Absent a national security strategy paper and a Chief of Defense Staff equivalent appointment, such as the Permanent Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, who can serve as the conductor of a joint inter-service preparation and prosecution of war, the Indian Army has in bringing out a service-specific doctrine chosen to bell the cat. In doing so, it has tread on prospective contents of a national security strategy without elaborating on war limitation in the nuclear context of the next war.
The next government would do well to put out a strategic review early in its tenure so as to provide the three services a starting point when it comes to doctrine-making. The strategic review should also dilate on the nuclear level, so as to give the downstream doctrines—joint and service-specific—the guidelines on including a section on limitations in objectives and methods in future iterations of doctrine. Having a doctrine deal only with sub-conventional and conventional levels, as the LWD limits itself to, amounts to denial that South Asia is in the nuclear age.
Monday, 25 February 2019
https://www.indianewsstream.com/options-before-india-to-respond-to-the-pulwama-terror-attack/
Options before India to respond to the Pulwama terror attack
By now war-rooms hurriedly set up in television studios have familiarized all and sundry with India’s response options to the Pulwama terror attack in which more than two score central reserve police force troopers lost their lives.
Talking heads, while whipping up nationalist hysteria, have intoned that the nation is baying for blood. More sober strategic dons have delicately reminded the government that it must survey the risks before taking the plunge. Ruling party honchos from the Prime Minister downwards have taken to the election trail appropriating political mileage out of the nation’s sorrow over Pulwama.
The military for its part has displayed its capability in an air power demonstration in Pokhran. The army has within 100 hours of the terror attack taken out the Jaish minders of the suicide bomber. The corps commander in Srinagar, emulating the army chief, has warned Kashmiri youth that any one picking up the gun would be killed.
In Kashmir, there have been mass arrests of those liable to create pro-Pakistan trouble and additional central armed police forces have been deployed, some by air, for population control when India’s punitive operation against Pakistan, promised by the Prime Minister, unfolds.
The Prime Minister has delegated power to the military to deliver India’s answer to Pulwama. That the otherwise loquacious Army chief has been rather quiet, provides a clue that there is some military action in the offing.
The Pakistani military is also on the alert, as announced by its spokesperson. Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has warned that his country would not hold back.
This has implications for Indian planning and preparation. India would require preparing for a Pakistani counter alongside its punitive operation. Commonsense suggests the less escalatory a punitive operation option the better.
Mature commentators have rightly pointed out that the decision on the choice between options is not the military’s to take. Given that each option would have an escalation quotient, it is a political decision as to the risk the nation would run to deliver a punitive blow to Pakistan.
The political decision makers would require taking into account the expected gains against the risk taken. The Prime Minister in a recent interview rightly acknowledged that mere reruns of surgical strikes are unlikely to get Pakistan to tack. He said that it would be sometime before Pakistan is brought around. This sets the frame for the decision on the gains-risk balance.
While accepting that the military has the professionalism to execute the operation, it needs to have the political decision maker’s imprimatur for the same. It would not do to have the operation signed off at the level of the national security adviser. The operation was authorized by the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) at its meeting in the forenoon of the following day of the terror attack. Therefore it is the CCS that needs to give the go-ahead.
The Prime Minister’s empowering the military to respond amounts to passing on the buck. The military are merely to dutifully present the choices, express preferences between these, highlights escalatory possibilities of each and executes the choice made by the political masters.
This choice has been made problematic by the timing of the Pulwama attack. It allows the ruling party to take political advantage of the nationalist fervour provoked. The ruling party has painted itself into a corner by the hype and cannot now climb down. It knows the opposition will take advantage of any slip up in choice or execution. Facing elections, Modi would be hard put to accept responsibility for the military action going awry.
Thus, the impending punitive operation is driven by internal political considerations rather than objective strategic factors. The only silver lining is that the possibility of the military operation going wrong and impacting his reelection chances may stay Modi’s hand.
The question then is how is India to get off the high horse without losing face and the ruling party losing ground to the opposition that will no doubt call out its loud posturing thus far. This time round, there appear to be fewer logs floating past for the two sides to clamber onto and out of a crisis. There has been no substantial peace messaging from Pakistan using the conduit of the visiting Saudi crown prince. The United States not having been forthcoming in calling for restraint and intervening with its good offices as in past crises. There is a call for restraint from the UN Secretary General.
The diplomatic prong of strategy is in gear and can provide a face saving exit. The UN Security Council has called out the Jaish by name in its resolution and asked all states – in a tacit reference to Pakistan and China – to cooperate with India.
The financial action task force meeting in Paris has maintained Pakistan in the gray zone and is to revisit its case in October. France is taking up the case of blacklisting of the Jaish supremo Masood Azhar at the UN sanctions committee. India’s rescinding of the Most Favoured Nation status has kicked in. India can use these measures and internal measures taken such as pressuring the Hurriyet by removal of security cover from its members as proactive actions taken.
To satisfy his supporters wanting military action and take the wind out of the opposition’s sail, Modi can claim that military operations at the time and place of own choosing do not necessarily entail conducting them before elections. He can argue that he would be the right person to give the go ahead for these when he is reelected. In the interim, the activation of the Line of Control can serve as substitute.
This will be a useful change of tack for the government. It would preserve Modi’s reelection chances by not having these predicated on military success – an iffy proposition at the best of times. It would give the military time to prepare. It would enable surprise when Pakistanis switch off their alert status. It would preserve the region from inadvertent catastrophe. It would allow time for crisis dissolution for now.
Options before India to respond to the Pulwama terror attack
By now war-rooms hurriedly set up in television studios have familiarized all and sundry with India’s response options to the Pulwama terror attack in which more than two score central reserve police force troopers lost their lives.
Talking heads, while whipping up nationalist hysteria, have intoned that the nation is baying for blood. More sober strategic dons have delicately reminded the government that it must survey the risks before taking the plunge. Ruling party honchos from the Prime Minister downwards have taken to the election trail appropriating political mileage out of the nation’s sorrow over Pulwama.
The military for its part has displayed its capability in an air power demonstration in Pokhran. The army has within 100 hours of the terror attack taken out the Jaish minders of the suicide bomber. The corps commander in Srinagar, emulating the army chief, has warned Kashmiri youth that any one picking up the gun would be killed.
In Kashmir, there have been mass arrests of those liable to create pro-Pakistan trouble and additional central armed police forces have been deployed, some by air, for population control when India’s punitive operation against Pakistan, promised by the Prime Minister, unfolds.
The Prime Minister has delegated power to the military to deliver India’s answer to Pulwama. That the otherwise loquacious Army chief has been rather quiet, provides a clue that there is some military action in the offing.
The Pakistani military is also on the alert, as announced by its spokesperson. Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has warned that his country would not hold back.
This has implications for Indian planning and preparation. India would require preparing for a Pakistani counter alongside its punitive operation. Commonsense suggests the less escalatory a punitive operation option the better.
Mature commentators have rightly pointed out that the decision on the choice between options is not the military’s to take. Given that each option would have an escalation quotient, it is a political decision as to the risk the nation would run to deliver a punitive blow to Pakistan.
The political decision makers would require taking into account the expected gains against the risk taken. The Prime Minister in a recent interview rightly acknowledged that mere reruns of surgical strikes are unlikely to get Pakistan to tack. He said that it would be sometime before Pakistan is brought around. This sets the frame for the decision on the gains-risk balance.
While accepting that the military has the professionalism to execute the operation, it needs to have the political decision maker’s imprimatur for the same. It would not do to have the operation signed off at the level of the national security adviser. The operation was authorized by the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) at its meeting in the forenoon of the following day of the terror attack. Therefore it is the CCS that needs to give the go-ahead.
The Prime Minister’s empowering the military to respond amounts to passing on the buck. The military are merely to dutifully present the choices, express preferences between these, highlights escalatory possibilities of each and executes the choice made by the political masters.
This choice has been made problematic by the timing of the Pulwama attack. It allows the ruling party to take political advantage of the nationalist fervour provoked. The ruling party has painted itself into a corner by the hype and cannot now climb down. It knows the opposition will take advantage of any slip up in choice or execution. Facing elections, Modi would be hard put to accept responsibility for the military action going awry.
Thus, the impending punitive operation is driven by internal political considerations rather than objective strategic factors. The only silver lining is that the possibility of the military operation going wrong and impacting his reelection chances may stay Modi’s hand.
The question then is how is India to get off the high horse without losing face and the ruling party losing ground to the opposition that will no doubt call out its loud posturing thus far. This time round, there appear to be fewer logs floating past for the two sides to clamber onto and out of a crisis. There has been no substantial peace messaging from Pakistan using the conduit of the visiting Saudi crown prince. The United States not having been forthcoming in calling for restraint and intervening with its good offices as in past crises. There is a call for restraint from the UN Secretary General.
The diplomatic prong of strategy is in gear and can provide a face saving exit. The UN Security Council has called out the Jaish by name in its resolution and asked all states – in a tacit reference to Pakistan and China – to cooperate with India.
The financial action task force meeting in Paris has maintained Pakistan in the gray zone and is to revisit its case in October. France is taking up the case of blacklisting of the Jaish supremo Masood Azhar at the UN sanctions committee. India’s rescinding of the Most Favoured Nation status has kicked in. India can use these measures and internal measures taken such as pressuring the Hurriyet by removal of security cover from its members as proactive actions taken.
To satisfy his supporters wanting military action and take the wind out of the opposition’s sail, Modi can claim that military operations at the time and place of own choosing do not necessarily entail conducting them before elections. He can argue that he would be the right person to give the go ahead for these when he is reelected. In the interim, the activation of the Line of Control can serve as substitute.
This will be a useful change of tack for the government. It would preserve Modi’s reelection chances by not having these predicated on military success – an iffy proposition at the best of times. It would give the military time to prepare. It would enable surprise when Pakistanis switch off their alert status. It would preserve the region from inadvertent catastrophe. It would allow time for crisis dissolution for now.
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