https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/a-national-security-strategy-that

A national security strategy that cannot be admitted to

A right wing intellectual recently called for a dharmic Constitution to replace the one we have currently in order that it is in sync with the genius and sentiment of the land. This is now not so much a question of ‘if’ but of ‘when’. Change to a dharmic Constitution may symbolize the shift to a Hindu Republic. Alternatively, the Hindu Republic may be declared first, at an opportune moment, such as at the third ‘inauguration’ of Modi on the forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhawan. A Hindu republic would not get the gander up since Islamic Republics and Christian States are aplenty.

Later perhaps the lower chamber of parliament – with an admixture of saffron-clad saints and seers – could act as a constitution assembly for the Second Republic. The hall for a joint sitting of the two houses in the new parliament building, due for inauguration by year end, would serve the purpose rather well. This is not farfetched, considering that the earlier, milder right wing government under Vajpayee had set up a national commission, under a former Chief Justice, Venkatachaliah, to study the working of the Constitution with a view to suggesting changes in it.

Thanks for reading ali’s version! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

The government has only recently demonstrated yet again a propensity to tread hastily into areas best left alone or gingerly ventured into, namely, in its rollout of the Agnipath scheme in the tradition of its earlier masterstrokes as demonetization, voiding of Article 370 and the Covid-19 lock down. Consequently, it can be inferred that the surprise-in-the-works, Hindu Rashtra, needs to be examined for its national security implications prior.

The formation of the First Republic witnessed the tumult of Partition. The politics preceding Independence had portents of a civil war. Wishing to avoid a civil war, Partition had been acceded to by the Congress leadership but at the price of Partition. It was not foreseen that Partition meant one-sided violence resulting in ethnic cleansing on either side of the newly drawn Radcliffe line. Thus, their worst fears – of civil war - came true despite their major concession in trying to avoid it. Likewise, does the impending formation of the Second Republic have portents as grave?

The slo-mo transition to the Second Republic has been in evidence for some 30 years. The rise of Hindutva, dating to the social churn amidst Hindus instigated by the Mandal report implementation, is a handy start point. The communal moves surrounding the Babri Masjid of the preceding mid-decade came to fore with the need for displacement onto Muslims issues arising from anomalies of caste within Hindus. The period coincided with the unmooring of the world in the ending of the Cold War in the very visible dissolution of some multi-ethnic states, including India’s friends, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. The lessons for national security minders were stark. India too was multiethnic and its practice of democratic politics, divisive. India therefore needed a new narrative.

Hindutva proved handy, buoyed by Supreme Court’s characterizing it as ‘a way of life’. Cultural nationalism thus got off to a head start, leaving the learned judge, Chief Justice JS Verma, who coined the phrase nonplussed. Alerted by the experience of Partition, while religion-based politics was not considered kosher, culturally-anchored politics went mainstream. Hindutva dignified Hindu communalism. Over time, any light between religion and culture dimmed, with Indian culture reckoned as Hindu. Even ‘Hindu’ had a definition foisted on it by Hindutva, aping Abrahamic religions as it went monochromatic. The convergence in fundamentalism is evident from an Ayodhya cleric - perhaps inspired by a beheading in Udaipur over the controversial anti-Prophet remarks of the national spokesperson of the ruling party - asking for the head of Leena Manimekalai for her depiction of Goddess Kaali in a poster of her directorial venture.

The national security dividend were essentially on two counts: that Hinduism would provide the necessary glue against horizontal splintering or Balkanisation; and secondly, it would ensure vertical integration, Hindu society being susceptible to caste fissures. The rotation of coalitions in government through the nineties and the multiple national security challenges from Kashmir to the North East surfacing then only served to firm-up this national security perspective.

The Vajpayee government’s continuity in power - after two aborted attempts - brought the cultural nationalist national security perspective center-stage. The deep state - comprising likeminded intelligence and security officials that had been informally and unofficially forged through a shared understanding of national security in the preceding decade – came into its own. A symbiotic relationship was forged, with Hindutva needing national security as a political buoy and the deep state needing a midwife to come out of the closet. Iron Man II, LK Advani, provided the political patronage.

The strategic problem posed by nuclear Pakistan was taken advantage of by both the political master and the official level national security establishment. Since Pakistan could not reasonably be disciplined by military means for its provocations, as the Kargil War and the Kandahar-hijack, and Advani being averse to the diplomatic measures sought by Vajpayee, an intelligence-dominant approach willy-nilly privileging the deep state, came to fore. By then Advani had been pipped at the post by a progressive Manmohan Singh. Pillory of Manmohan Singh’s administration is easily refutable as most bombings to show it up as weak have since turned out to be black operations. The important point is that the intelligence and policing establishments had been comprehensively subverted by when Modi made his bid for Delhi. The Gujarat model had gone center stage in step with its champion.

The economic variant of the Gujarat model - though substantially trashed by the cognoscenti - is better known. Its lesser-known variant is in national security. This involved subversion of the official security establishment in Gujarat. Whether it was by their predilection to Hindutva or endorsement of the predominant Gujarati sentiment on the Hindu Hriday Samrat out to wrest the Republic from minority appeasers and a leftist cabal is inconsequential. Their participation in the Gujarat pogrom amounts to sins of omission and later in its cover up, are sins of commission. The Supreme Court is entitled to its version of a conspiracy theory, just as those persuaded by the three it has caused to be incarcerated – Teesta Setalva, MG Sreekumar and Sanjiv Bhatt – are entitled to theirs. Black operations were intended to give Modi a larger-than-life image, making his boast of a 56”-chest credible. The expected national political dividend is evident when clubbed with the terror perpetrated by shadowy Abhinav Bharat. The culmination of the terror was in 2008, with Pakistan chipping in with its own brand: Mumbai 26/11 viewed as a dialogue with terror as language between the two deep states. The narrative was that the defence of the realm stood jeopardized, with Modi as potion.

The national security fallout of the drift to Hindutva has been a truncation of institutions. The ascent of Modi to power allowed Hindutva greater scope. Other institutions fell like nine-pins by the wayside of history, a litany too recent and intimately known to recount here. The judiciary’s indictment of human rights defenders in the Zakia Jafri judgment is a case to point. In national security, the last bastion is the military. It appears overawed.

On the one hand it was alleviated by the attention it long sought being showered on it, clasped as it was early in Modi’s tenure to Hindutva’s bosom with a war memorial coming up at the heart of the national capital. It went along with overhype of surgical strikes, its brass – both of air force and army - playing along with fiction of these being a strategic innovation. Admitting that these turned out strategically vacuous does not take away any from their tactical gumption. As for innovation, Operation Kabaddi that was aborted by the fallout in the region of 9/11 dims the September 2016 raids in comparison. Nothing in the strategic writings since hints that the army registered a note of caution – leave alone dissent – when Amit Shah went about unilaterally rescinding India’s accession-related promise to Kashmiris. As a political ‘solution’ to Kashmir, the move risked instability out to the middle term. As lead counter insurgency force and vested with expertise, the army should have warned against parochial political aims being sought from national security.

Its professionalism under cloud, operational readiness could not be far behind. This was rudely exposed in the reaction in Ladakh. There is no hint in the strategic discourse if the army put forward any offensive options and these being vetoed by the political elite. It was reduced to showcasing an operationally defensive, though tactically impressive operation, on the Kailash heights to redeem its showing. It has now settled in for the long haul, reconciling with the syncing of its new recruiting policy – Agnipath - with the status quo on the two frontlines, Line of Control and Line of Actual Control. An army that’s just going to sit about does not need to be a war-readiness military, with a cradle-to-grave money guzzling membership. When information operations can cover up operational shortcomings – as in the aerial surgical strike – there is little need for potency in the strikes themselves. Where Galwan Warriors are a liability, quasi-conscripts can substitute. In any case, the aim of Agnipath is to turn out nationalism-inspired youth, a function that both the official National Cadet Corps and non-official shakhas have failed to deliver on.

This shallow expectation of the military is informed by the logic given out by its National Security Adviser, Ajit Doval: that war is passé. Grey zone war – a phrase popularized by Doval protégé,  General Rawat - is the face of the future. Played out in civil society, it given rise to phrases as white collar terrorists. It puts intelligence and police at the frontline, making of the left-liberal side - comprising human rights defenders, NGOs etc – an adversary. The deep state has lent itself to the purpose of Hindutva. It is spearheading the war of right wing consolidation. Given this preoccupation, the external front has to be kept stable. The external status quo can be maintained indefinitely through interminable talks on the China front and a talks-freeze on the Pakistan front and Dr. Jaishankar’s flitting from capital to capital. This is, in brief, India’s national security strategy, but cannot be admitted to.

The absence of a national security parchment owes to illegality of acknowledging that the aims of the regime are a Constitutional churn. Since that aim cannot be said aloud, the route and timeline to get there remain surreptitious. They don’t want to trigger a questioning of how Hindu Rashtra is visualized. Considering Hindutva’s methods have been obnoxious so far, it is unlikely Ramrajya is synonymous with utopia. The place of depressed castes and the minorities is not clear. A Gangetic-centric, saffron-predominant order might not be uniformly welcomed across India’s ethnic mosaic. That fear impels the ruling party’s thrust to conquer the South, the North East already in its kitty. That leaves lower Gangetic riparian, Bengal. Securitizing the Bengali Muslim issue as of ‘illegal immigration’ offers a foot-in-the-door.

It is to preclude instability from a backlash that there is no national strategy document connecting the dots such as the Ayodhya temple, the Uniform Civil Code, detention centers, Hindi-Hindu-Hindusthan, measures for divisive Othering etc. A national security document can neither outline the end state nor the route. It cannot say that repression – of the media and activists - is the method and the troll army its troopers. It cannot articulate that a multiparty political culture is being done away with the infusion of political culture by the right wing to paradigm-dominance levels. The bringing down of the Shiv Sena for being untrue to Hindutva is example. Unthinkable would be to say that the strategy is to debilitate the military, lest it hold up the Constitutional makeover in an uncharacteristic bout of political acuity and courage.

A national security document aggregates the national interest to arrive at a consensus document. It cannot merely elevate the Hindutva wish-list to a collective aspiration. National security minders are aware of the limits of Modi’s populism and the limits of authoritarianism in India’s diverse polity, geography and society. A The Kashmir Files can add to the din, but it cannot keep a Samrat Prithviraj from flopping. They are aware that Hindutva endangers national security, not only in the run up but also when it does get to Hindu Rashtra. Since Ramrajya is patently out of Modi’s reach – Rajdharma having been already compromised once earlier in the Gujarat pogrom – perhaps a turn to a Hindu Republic in name – just as most Islamic Republics are scarcely Islamic – might fit the bill.

 https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/competitive-terrorism-in-getting?utm_source=twitter&sd=pf

Competitive terrorism in getting to Hindu Rashtra?

Late evening Tuesday was rather tense. News broke of the killing in Udaipur of Kanhaiyalal Teli by two perpetrators, one who did the horrific deed and the other who filmed it. The clip was then uploaded by the two onto social media, following an earlier one by the killer in which he promised punishing those indulging in blasphemy. Their ire was prompted by the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson going ballistic on prime time with invective against Prophet Mohammad at the sensitive time of the Gyanvapi mosque controversy late last month. Apparently, Kanhaiyalal had expressed his support of the spokesperson on social media, marking him out as a target for the two. In the event, the two were caught while escaping and the National Investigation Agency (NIA) is seized of the case. Rightly, the Rajasthan government has deemed the incident as one of terror, since not only was the atrocity revolting in itself, but was also broadcast with intent to instill fear in the wider public and overawe the government.

Arguably - and Muslims would likely vouch for this - the feeling of terror that evening was incident not so much amongst Hindus – the wider target of the two terrorists – but amongst Muslims. Muslim fears that evening were on what backlash the deed could provoke against them by majoritarian extremists. This has as backdrop their eight years-long odyssey in Narendra Modi’s New India, in which they have been consistently pushed against the wall with some or other vile scheme pulled out of the hat (recall Sudhir Chaudhary’s litany of ‘jihads’) by majoritarian minders and implemented across India by their foot-soldiers. The latest in this incessant bludgeoning of Muslims have been calls for genocide in so-called dharm sansads, congregations of saffron-clad unholy worthies. These were revealed by a news portal, Alt News. It is no wonder then that Zubair – cofounder of Alt News – is now behind bars under trumped up charges of offending religious sentiments of the majority.

Since Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah have remained silent all along on the micro-terror India’s Muslims have been subject to, there is fear in Muslims that majoritarian extremists enjoy impunity. Their apprehensions were heightened in wake of the crime in Udaipur. After all, only this week, the Supreme Court seemingly let off Modi for his dereliction of duty during the Gujarat pogrom of 2002. It instead ruled that the human rights defenders - who pursued the Zakia Jafri case exposing the crimes of omission and commission of the Gujarat government then run by Modi - were liable for perpetrating the impression that Modi had been permissive of - if not himself instigated - the crimes that resulted in over a 1000 Muslim deaths. Modi’s unforgettable evoking of Newton to paper over the pogrom as reaction to the deaths of Hindus in a train bogey allegedly set afire by Muslims while returning from a purportedly religious ceremony in Ayodhya, has kept Muslims on the edge.

The prevailing tension is over when it might be politically expedient for majoritarians to replay such pogroms. Minority pockets remain woefully vulnerable, as Hindu mobs unmistakably reminded in the last Ramnavmi when processions turned violent in Muslim localities. The one-sided violence in North East Delhi before the Covid outbreak another bid to intimidate Muslims then out on the streets anticipating their eventual disenfranchisement on the passage of the disarmingly innocuous Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). The violence played out in the national capital in full sight of a departing State guest, then president of the world’s only hyper-power, the United States (US), Donald Trump. India, in its turn to a rentier state, by way of which it trades its geographical location at the periphery of China, to its geopolitical advantage, has neutered liberal opinion abroad that could have held it accountable for safeguarding the rights of its citizens. Perfunctory noises are fobbed off by the as-articulate-as- immaculate, Dr. S Jaishankar, a newly discovered ideologue of the BJP. Even as Modi was signing up as an invitee to the G7 meeting on their joint statement on resilience of democracy, his regime back home went about arresting Teesta Setalvad, redoubtable police officer, RB Sreekumar (police officer Sanjiv Bhatt already behind bars), and Mohammed Zubair. At the summit itself, US President Biden singled out Modi for attention, a visual much exchanged on social media. On his way back, Modi stopped over at the United Arab Emirates, underlining a fact well-known to India’s Muslims that opprobrium of the BJP spokesperson’s comments abroad restricted itself to her egregious assault on the Prophet, rather than extend to India’s treatment of its minority, the latter taken as an internal matter and in itself inconsequential to authoritarian governments.

Reinforced in the belief of impunity from international accountability for its assault on the world’s largest minority anywhere, the Modi government can only be expected to get bolder in the loose rope it offers majoritarian minions. The times are bleak economically. The unemployment situation was brought home rudely when skeptical youth took to train burning with the rollout of Modi’s ‘transformational’ recruiting initiative into the Indian military, Agnipath. While Muslim-bashing is no longer a political necessity for consolidating the Hindu vote – Muslims being electorally marginalized – they are needed for scapegoating as the Other. Even in its last breath, the Maharashtra government that went down this week to a rebel revolt brought on by competitive Hindutva, took to renaming two significant Muslim strongholds without consultation with inhabitants.

In any case, there is some distance to tread to get to the professed destination of Hindutva, the guiding ideology of the regime: Hindu Rashtra. Covid - and the complicating Chinese intrusion in Ladakh - displaced the timeline somewhat, but have not upturned the aim. Hindu Rashtra necessarily implies that in the run up, Muslims are sufficiently cowed as to not pose an impediment. This explains the assiduous implementation of the anti-minority agenda of the regime, that its flagship slogan, ‘sabka saath-sabka vikas-sabka vishwas’, cannot obscure. Though faced with relentless provocation all through the Modi tenure so far, Muslims have demonstrated forbearance, taking recourse at best to peacefully upholding the Constitution during their anti-CAA protests. Even their counterparts in Kashmir have held their peace, though their state was summarily dismantled and their privacy invaded by a trooper at every step and corner in anticipatory – and continuing - deployment against an explosion of their wrath. Patience has not yielded up any dividend as such for Muslims, since the State hurtles to a Hindu Rashtra.

Modi has overseen the dismantling of India’s democratic pillars, evidenced most recently by the judiciary with judges taking to withholding their signatures from controversial judgments such on Ayodhya and the Zakia Jafri case. Absent internal accountability, institutions have been disemboweled, beginning with the party, the BJP, itself that won majority in parliament twice-over, not on the basis of good-old conservatism, but riding on the coattails of Modi, himself spin-doctored into power. The ongoing six-month long search for a pliable Chief of Defence Staff to wreck the last institution standing, India’s military, is indicative. The opposition’s showing in its candidate selection for the next president of the Republic shows that it does not quite exist at the national level. The taking down this day of a coalition in India’s most economically vibrant state, Maharashtra, through blatantly underhand means – now virtually patented by the BJP through its use of money power – is example. Since the route towards Hindu Rashtra is now open, it’s no longer a question of ‘if’ but ‘when’. Narendra Modi having hinted at going for another term, the timeline to get past the post is by his next tenure. A prospective date that offers itself is the centenary of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the mother-ship of the extremist right wing in power. Modi could use the 2024 election result as a referendum on his showing and intent to turn India into Hindu Rashtra. The inauguration - in the run up to elections - of the freshly-minted Ayodhya temple - where the journey to Hindu Rashtra symbolically began in the taking down of the Babri mosque - shall help clinch the elections. A minority that is already reduced to cipher, subject to a an ongoing cultural genocide and plausibly threatened with genocide, is apprehensive not only of the path yet to be traversed but what might befall it when Modi gets India – by then renamed Bharat - there.

Does the Udaipur terror incident herald a shift in the Muslim approach to India’s majoritarian trajectory? Cultural nationalism-inspired security analysts – who no longer need to inhabit a closet - will have it that copycat terrorism is on its way. Muslim would-be jihadis may take to terror, if only for its nuisance value, knowing well that the right wing grip over national security will only lead to terror proving counter-productive. The NIA investigation will doubtless prove an external link to the Udaipur terror incident, enabling another stick to beat the minority as a fifth column and keep its external sponsor, Pakistan, on the defensive since it recently wiggled out of the clutches of the anti-terror Financial Action Task Force – clutches that India had expended much foreign policy capital on. The period 2005-14 was averred to by National Security Adviser Ajit Doval in his recent interview to stanch the Agnipath agitation as a period of minority-perpetrated terror. Analysts will point to a return to such a period in case a clamp-down on Muslims is not imposed through further surveillance of and restrictions in their ghettos. Such recommendations will serve the purposes of the regime: invisibilisation of Muslims easing rollout of Hindu Rashtra.

The very usefulness of the terror act for Hindutva purposes raises questions on its provenance. Hindutva’s ascent has been propelled in part by the stigmatizing of the minority as terror perpetrators, as Doval reminds of in the mentioned interview. Though the Sanatan Sanstha perpetrated terror has been investigated somewhat, that undertaken by Abhinav Bharat remains under wraps. It is inexplicable that the so-called Muslim perpetrated terror vanished with Modi’s coming to power in 2014. It cannot be that his appointing of intelligence czar, Doval, amounted to a sweep of the wand, and - ‘hey presto’ – there is no subsequent terror (other than at Pulwama). This calls into question provenance of terror through 2005-14. Were these black operations, designed to bring Hindutva-icon Narendra Modi to power by sabotaging the then government for being soft on terror? The digression here is to show how taking terror at face value is fraught by the obscuring of the possibility of it instead being black operations as was majorly in the case in that period. India’s deep state is no longer a state secret, a book having been written to out it. It has surely not lost its touch. This implies that the Udaipur terror act cannot be taken at face value, but the possibility of it being yet another black operation is well nigh plausible. 

As Doval points out, there has been no case of terror in mainland India lately. Indian Muslims have had learnt to lump, if not live with, Hindutva. A right winger going ballistic is not out of place at prime time or in social media anymore. So much so, there was no instant backlash by Indian Muslims, barring a protest in Kanpur. Only when Muslim states weighed in on the controversy did Muslims take to the street peaceably. Even this was not taken kindly to as evident from its characteristic, Israel-like use of dozers to bring down houses of agitators in Prayagraj and killings in Ranchi. Even in the Udaipur case, the police was able to patch up differences between Kanhaiyalal and his neighbours over his misplaced support of the BJP spokesperson. This shows that a terror act of the Udaipur magnitude was out of place with the trends.

The act itself appears to be rather well planned, including as it did the magnification of the act through social media – fitting classically into the definition of terror. The brandishing of the terror weapons – associated with the prominent Muslim trade butchery – is almost stereotypical, intended to draw parallels with the Islamic State. The reference to Modi as a prospective target is another give away, since the supposedly terror incidents in Gujarat in the period he was chief minister allegedly had him as target. Even the Bhima Koregaon case was built on the falsely-inserted emails in laptops of the incarcerated, then used against them as evidence in the far-fetched allegation that they were out to get Modi. The luxury with which the two terrorists uploaded their boastful clip and the ease of their apprehension cannot be overlooked as pointer of a staged act. The act itself was entirely against Muslim interests and stands universally condemned by them. There is nary a precedence of such action in India, but for a lone case in Kerala. Indian Muslims are firmly against Talibanisation and it is widely appreciated that international jihad has had no sway in Indian Muslims, the second largest Muslim population in any country in the world. Consequently, it would be unwise to go along uncritically with the default view that terror acts resuming, Indian Muslims be put in the dock.

Conspiracy theories are taken as infra dig. The Supreme Court had it that the Gujarat pogrom was an act of omission rather than one of commission. On the contrary the conspiracy theory it rejected has it that Modi had intervened to allow communal Hindus to vent their angst on the Godhra incident. The Court’s going overboard in suggesting that subscribing to the view that Modi orchestrated the pogrom is a conspiracy in itself, shows that conspiracy theories aren't quite passé. Conspiracy theories attend significant terror acts as the one on Parliament in December 2001. Even the inexplicable killing of the policeman trio gunning for Abhinav Bharat - so very conveniently for the right wing - in Mumbai 26/11 terror attacks - show that the deep state must not be allowed to get away too easily with black operations passing as terrorism. The regime is now poised to using the Udaipur terror incident to its purposes. That the NIA is on the job should ring bells, given what Rohini Salian had to say of its workings.

That said - till otherwise proven - going with the mainstream view on the terror act necessitates countering - in anticipation - recommendations likely to emerge from the strategic community on greater strictures. To the extent that the threat of terror exists, it bears adding to the discussion a point that is bound to be missed in the mainstream strategic discourse – such terror is reactive. Ending right wing provocations, such as by ending micro-terror in the form of lynching and its social media propagation, is a necessary pre-requisite. Not to expect Muslim extremists to get on the high horse to protect their community – when democratic institutions have failed them – is to misunderstand human nature. To expect root causes to be addressed when political culture is Hindutva-driven is to be wishful. Since the journey to Hindu Rashtra is inexorable in light of the weakness of counter weights, there is no reason for Muslims to be the fall guys derailing the enterprise. Adapting to the new political circumstance is best with the hope that the Ramrajya promised is predicated on equality of opportunity, justice and rule of law. The problem is that the means to getting there being as they are, it is unlikely that Ramrajya will be as the concept has it. Even so, competitive terror can be ruled out, though one-sided micro-terror will remain incident. Critical national security analysis – attempted here - must continue to attend developments on the road to Hindu Rashtra.

 https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/conflict-prevention-peacemaking-preventive?sd=pf

Conflict Prevention-Peacemaking-Preventive Deployment: A triangle whose time has come?

As the Ukraine War enters into its fifth month, it continues to show that the Charter-based international order requires bolstering. An idea whose time has come is in giving the peace agenda of the United Nations some teeth. One area that could do with strengthening is the triangular relationship between the three agenda concepts: conflict prevention, peacemaking and preventive deployment.

The phrases ‘a stitch in time’ and ‘prevention is better than cure’ are truisms. Rightly, conflict prevention has for long been a priority area for the UN. Conflict prevention through peaceful means - as against the leveraging force such as through deterrence, alliance building and posturing - is sought as the forte of the UN. Conflict prevention is enabled by peacemaking efforts as facilitation of negotiations and mediation and other peaceful means as arbitration and adjudication. Conflict prevention can be taken as peacemaking prior to the onset of violent conflict. In its wider interpretation it also includes preventing horizontal and vertical escalation. The advantage of an early bid for peace is that the cultural violence that attends direct violence has not congealed at that stage, making structural violence more amenable - through peacemaking - to mitigation. Even so, peaceful means – that disavow use of force – can be enhanced by the leveraging of force through preventive deployment. Preventive deployment can potentially stanch the impetus to violence, buying for conflict prevention-peacemaking the time and political space for effectiveness. This conceptual prelude shows the interlinked, triangular relationship between the three concepts: conflict prevention-peacemaking-preventive deployment.

The unfolding of the Ukraine War provides a setting to ideate on this triangle. The War’s outbreak was publicly predicted by the intelligence community of the West almost to the day, with informed speculation having it that the War’s D-Day was delayed by Winter Games held early this year in China. There was almost a self-fulfilling prophecy about the forecast. The international community remained stupefied in the run up to the War. No doubt weighty factors dissuaded conflict prevention, such as one of the potential belligerents being a Permanent Five member with the clout to halt any effort perceived to be against its interests. But, great power politics also played a part since certain other members of the Permanent Five may not have been averse to a War. Be that as it may, the UN was not quite to the fore in the run up to the War, with some critical commentary noting that it stood marginalized.

Using the triangle model, can it be counter-factually inferred that had the UN had a preventive deployment capability at hand, it could have been more forthcoming with peacemaking action for conflict prevention? Such a hypothetical scenario may have witnessed preventive deployment under UN aegis, perhaps partnered by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) that had a Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) already in place in the sensitive zone. Such a preventive deployment, using troops from major power contributors as China and India that were acceptable for both sides – Ukraine and Russia – could have allowed conflict prevention to acquire teeth. It would have provided Russia with a reason to hold-out from attack, giving it scope for advancing its originally stated interest in implementation of the preexisting Minsk agreement framework. Ukraine, for its part, in according consent for the preventive deployment would have asserted its sovereignty and avoided the price it has paid in terms of suffering and possible loss of territory. Conflict prevented, momentum to peacemaking could have seen the two sides work out differences outstanding since 2014.

A second juncture offering an intercession opportunity in the Ukraine War was when Russia, having met a reverse in the initial phase of the War, redeployed out of the Kiev war zone to concentrate on the Donbas region. Yet again preventive deployment capability on hand for the UN may have been useful to insert into the conflict zone along the front lines, with both states onboard, so as to prevent the subsequent phase from playing out. Conflict prevention does not end with conflict outbreak but is also concerned with its persistence and escalation. While peacemaking is to contain conflict after outbreak, the Ukraine War continuing shows that it did not have heft, though there were peacemaking efforts by Turkey and France playing out. The discernible operational pause when Russia shifted gears provided a window of opportunity wherein a preventive deployment of forces from countries acceptable by both sides may have been possible. This presupposes availability of such professional forces at short notice and the capability to move these into the conflict zone timely. India is a candidate country with such a capability, both China and Western countries being ruled out at this stage of the conflict for partisanship respectively with the two sides.

Another counter-factual illustration is in order. Had a preventive deployment force been available for deployment to Benghazi in the stand-off between Gaddafi’s troops and rebels there in early 2012, the hands of the partner multilateral organizations involved in managing that Responsibility to Protect (R2P) crisis may have stood strengthened. With the preventive deployment, with consent of Gaddafi, the apprehended R2P threat would have been defused, making preventive deployment a preferred option couched in conflict prevention. It would have precluded the scuttling of R2P concept at inception and the violence that has plagued the country and the region ever since. Conflict prevention diplomacy that was undertaken by the regional organizations – the Arab League, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and the African Union – would have gained time and efficacy thereby. Since the West would unlikely have received consent for deployment by Libya, other cogent forces – such as from India and China - could have been requisitioned for the limited purpose of a quick insertion, stabilization and retraction on abatement of the crisis.  

Another counter-factual example to drive home the point that conflict prevention merely by the peacemaking route it seldom enough is the case of Afghanistan. It was patently obvious all along as the United States’ and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) prepared to depart the country that turmoil would follow. There was almost a two-year long peace process that could have been suitably taken advantage of to substitute the departing NATO with a potent UN peacekeeping force. The UN also appointed a former Secretary General’s Special Representative with its political mission in Afghanistan, Jean Arnault, for the talks’ process in Doha. However, the UN’s profile was debilitated by not having options to offer. Assuming it had a preventive deployment force from countries acceptable to Taliban – China and Turkey come to mind – the force could have deployed in anticipation of the departure of the Western forces. It could have partnered with the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation on this. Recall at the time the fear was a bloodbath in areas taken over by the Taliban as the NATO pulled out, especially in Kabul. President Ashraf Ghani cited this possibility in explaining his hasty departure, saying that he did not want to precipitate matters by staying on. A preventive deployment force, that also controlled the airport, and some prominent provincial capitals, may have proved useful in strengthening the mediation’s hand in the peace process. Conflict prevention purposes would have been served in that the UN presence in Afghanistan would have been enhanced by a preventive deployment, toning down the Taliban’s excesses - now visible - while enabling peacemaking between it and the former government, retaining the peacebuilding gains from the preceding period.  

Counter-factuals are useful but not in themselves persuasive. Examples are however available from peacekeeping successes to help with visualization of the triangle and the need to upgrade conflict prevention-peacemaking with preventive deployment. Whereas preventive deployment had a salutary rollout in the UN’s Preventive Deployment Force (PREDEP) in the Former Republic of Yugoslavia of Macedonia, a less visible preventive deployment has been the UN Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA) between Sudan and South Sudan. This is arguably a successful case of preventive deployment as part of conflict prevention. UNISFA was intended to provide the stability on ground for peacemaking initiatives to play out. The outstanding issues from the secession of South Sudan were yet to be settled and the UN was supportive of the African Union on this score. UNISFA prevented the spill-over of the Sudan-South Sudan border war of 2012 into Abyei. The border has since been monitored by the UNISFA’s mechanism in support of the Joint Monitoring and Verification Mechanism of both sides. Peacemaking has however been in abeyance since the two sides have separately suffered civil conflict that has distracted them from settling their border issues. But the conflict prevention role of UNISFA has been in ensuring that the border issues do not aggravate their relationship, allowing both to be supportive of each other in resolving respective internal problems that otherwise provide scope for proxy war by the other side.

Realist discourse has it that diplomacy for effectiveness needs being buttressed with force, kept behind the curtains. While the UN’s peace agenda does privilege arriving at peace through peaceful means, preventive deployment already exists as a proven tool in the peace repertoire. Preventive deployment does not imply use of force, but follows peacekeeping principles. Such troops can serve as ‘embarrassing witnesses’, deterring violence. Containing violence can keep peacemaking underway from being more vexed than what it is. The role of conflict prevention - of keeping conflict confined even after outbreak of violence – is enabled. Other benefits from such deployment are self-evident: helping monitor a developing situation and protection of monitors and humanitarian actors. There may be a call on the force for facilitating humanitarian relief and assisting refugee flows. It provides stability on ground, lest instability infiltrate bottom-up into peacemaking conference rooms. It helps restrain spoilers and, where necessary, rein them in. It ensures an investment by the international community in the crisis, focusing minds on its resolution. It helps address the entire lifecycle of the crisis, visualized as a curve: when on the upswing, when it climaxes and - transforming into conventional peacekeeping – helping usher in and sustain the downward curve with peacemaking providing for an initial ceasefire followed by a final settlement.

Materializing the three peace agenda concepts as a triangle as against in respective silos requires corresponding capabilities. Preventive deployment is peacekeeping-on-the-quick, anticipatory peacekeeping with an admixture of robust peacekeeping. Quick reaction insertion into crisis zones, and where unavoidable into conflict zones, is necessary. Peacekeeping on the other hand is predicated on a modicum of peace to keep, brought about by a negotiated agreement minimally on a ceasefire and the role of peacekeepers on its sustainment. Preventive deployment as envisaged here is for creating the conditions on ground for arriving at such a negotiated agreement. Whereas earlier conflict prevention-peacemaking was without teeth, with an admixture of preventive deployment propagated here, a negotiated agreement to contain conflict is made possible. This means that preventive deployment would require insertion in a fluid situation, with outbreak of violence potent possibility irrespective of such insertion. The preventive deployment however increases the efficacy of prevention, in first place, and the limiting of violence subsequently. The force would require configuring as befits a violence-deterring mission in a visibly heavier than peacekeeping mode. This restricts the scope of contribution to such forces to very few countries, with professional militaries held at a higher degree of readiness. They must have self-protection wherewithal intrinsic, including military intelligence assets. The timelines of readiness will be subject to attenuation as the crisis heightens. Command and control arrangements would have to be with the UN and the UN a partner – if not lead – in the conflict prevention peacemaking that the deployment is facilitative of.

The triangle envisaged favourably depicts the relationship between the three peace agenda concepts: conflict prevention, peacemaking and preventive deployment. Conflict prevention and peacemaking are the pre-existing twinned lines of operation.  A triangle emerges when preventive deployment is added as a third side. Preventive deployment in such a case differs from peacekeeping in that it is more visibly configured for conflict zones with impending or ongoing violence. It may eventuate in a peacekeeping operation when and if peacemaking it buttresses succeeds. This might involve substitution of troops involved that have a higher potency than necessary for a conventional peacekeeping operation. Such troops need not necessarily exit the theatre but may continue to be linked with the peacemaking in subsequent-to-conflict-outbreak phases: containing conflict (ceasefire) and terminating it (comprehensive settlement). They can in such an avatar take on an enforcement role, normally shunned by peacekeeping troop contributors.

This is not a new idea, dating as the discussion above does to the mid-nineties when standby readiness troop contribution and enforcement capability under the UN found mention. However, the rudimentary command and control capabilities of the UN back then stymied the discussion. The UN has come a long way since, beginning with the Brahimi report recommendation implementation and several iterations of reform till, recently, implementation of the Cruz report. The levels of professionalization of control and use of force in the UN peace agenda now enables revisiting the ideas and, going further, implementing them. The triangle model advanced here is a conceptual first step.

 

 

---