https://t.co/fX6ZMA6ira

How Partition Shaped One Family 

The state of Hyderabad, situated in the Deccan, was not impacted by Partition as much as it was by what was termed “Police Action.” Even so, Brigadier Ali Ahmed of the Hyderabad State Forces was determined to keep his family together and in India. During Police Action, he commanded the southwestern sector against the invasion of Indian forces. As member of the Hyderabad delegation in the Standstill talks with India, he had advised against the confrontation, relying on military knowledge from his days as the first State Forces officer to undergo training at the Quetta Staff College. 

Though he chose not to take up the Indian Army’s offer to join, he sent his son who had been escorted back from the Royal Indian Military College during Partition, along with other Muslim cadets, to rejoin the school. Two younger sons soon followed their brother into the military. Their three sisters married officers of the security forces. From the next generation, three joined the Services. By the early nineties, their immediate family had members serving at every rank, from second lieutenant to lieutenant general. Today, while the rest have retired, a Major General commands a formation on the China front. Thus, Brigadier Ali Ahmed ended up patriarch of the Indian Muslims largest Services family. 

 https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/tupolevs-and-the-place-of-nukes-in

Tupolevs and the place of nukes in India’s grand strategy

Note: The news is unconfirmed, with one informant saying that the former Air Chief was misquoted. Even so, the analysis stands.

In its typical style, India’s regime pulled a rabbit from its nuclear hat. It’s reportedly going in for six Tupolev strategic bombers. The unveiling was in a curious manner, a former Air Chief going public with the news at a conference. But as is its habit, there was no preceding discussion on the move. Even India’s leading nuclear hawk, Bharat Karnad, who has long advocated such moves, was also pleasantly surprised at the conference.

It seems India’s Strategic Planning Staff of (SPS) is in full gear. But the SPS can only propose and presumably does so with a strategic rationale. Acceptance of an SPS proposal at the political level can only genuflect to strategy. It is informed by political parameters that, in India’s case, do not all necessarily have external, geopolitical stimuli. The impulse behind the decision therefore cannot be sought in looking at power equations and how the next war might play out, as is the wont of strategists. Instead, in India’s case, it must be seen against the principle political project of the regime: the consolidation of Hindutva.

India’s grand strategy

India’s grand strategy has so far eluded strategists. Their excuse is that it has not been written down. To critics, this is because it does not exist. This helps the strategic community to pussy-foot round the elephant in the room for some 100 years now: Hindutva. Strategic vocabulary, largely a product of rationalist-modern conception of state as a social contract centered on the Constitution, cannot easily accommodate an identity-based idea of the Indian nation. The National Security Adviser (NSA)-led Defence Planning Committee – mandated to write up the national security strategy - cannot admit to this as impulse, since identity is seen as infra-dig in a rational-modern undertaking. Personal politics keeps NSA Ajit Doval from taking cue from Foreign Minister Jaishankar’s helpful rumination on ancient well springs of Indian strategic philosophy. So, India’s grand strategy eight years into the Narendra Modi era, notwithstanding the regime’s boasts of being strong-on-defence, is still under wraps.

For our purposes here, even as the charade continues, the grand strategy can arguably be inferred from the strategic actions of the regime. In its first term, the regime went about consolidating itself in power, in order that it could propagate Hindutva, its ideological fount. It sought to set the external environment in a manner as to not upset its internal aim. Its second tenure sees Hindutva as the dominant political philosophy in political culture. External stability is prerequisite to ensure longevity of and deepening of hold of this political philosophy over Indian minds.   

Having set the internal house in order with the political (and partially social) dominance of Hindutva in the run up to and winning of the 2014 elections, the regime in its first term shifted to strategic proactivism. Its excuse for strategic assertiveness was that its reaching out to Pakistan not having met with due regard, left it with no recourse. Recall Modi’s visit to Sharif’s home was spurned in the terror attack on Pathankot airfield.  

Soon enough it was disabused of its illusions over strategic assertion by both neighbours. Not only did Pakistan strike back within 48 hours of Indian aerial surgical strikes, but drew blood in aerial combat as it did so. Modi was reduced to rhetoric, referring to nuclear weapons as not meant for ‘diwali’. As for the China front, he publicly dissimulated on intrusions in Ladakh, hoping his sway over the discourse would carry the day. In the event, talks have traded Indian operational space for the Modi dispensation claim of staring down the Chinese. Its deterrence bid having drawn a blank at Doklam, there is a turn to strategy: to one of appeasement.

As things stand, there is quietude on the Pakistan front. With Pakistan preoccupied internally, recently revealed secret talks have not been taken to their logical conclusion. Pakistan is holding out to see developments in Kashmir, namely, elections and reversion to the India-promised statehood. India developed cold feet in Kashmir – after the Gupkar signatories upturned its Kashmir strategy in local level elections. Unsure that electoral chicanery – by manipulation of the assembly constituencies by a demarcation commission – will gain the regime a puppet in Srinagar, India is held up on elections.

Against China, an interminable round of military talks continues, supplemented with working level diplomatic talks designed to go nowhere. The Special Representative – who is the NSA – and the defence and foreign ministers have studiously kept from taking the talks forward. The regime, despite its parliamentary majority, is unwilling to invest politically in border talks. Their scope is now to retain the post-intrusion status quo, while dressing it up internally as a partial - for now - return to status quo ante. China is reportedly building infrastructure on talks’ process-conceded Indian land, but official prevarication continues.

Almost as if messaging both neighbours, India has shelved its strategic proactivism of the first term. Not only has the Chief of Defence Staff appointment been kept unfilled for unconscionably long, but a newly launched scheme – Agnipath – has been thought up to scupper the military. The military is kept introspective with reforms (integrated theatre commands) and an offensive turn (integrated battle groups (IBG)) taking their leisurely pace. Only one offensive IBG has been conjured up on the Pakistan front since the concept was envisaged twenty years ago as part of Cold Start doctrinal thinking. Its forces are kept operationally deployed in a supposedly deterrent posture on the China front, though doing so interminably will lead to a tiring out in the middle term. It’s going in for reducing the Army’s numbers, can only attenuate this problem. 

What we see is a dilution in strategic posture on both fronts. This is of a piece with a policy of appeasement. Appeasement having a bad press, it is obfuscated over by initiatives as the currently ongoing exercise with troops of the United States (US) and, in a first, talks with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. Appeasement is projected as temporary, to tide over India catching up with China’s head-start of some 10 years and to end the ‘two front’ problem by having the failing state, Pakistan, fall off the equation. The interim is to be used to build up muscle power – (Rafale, air craft carrier, S-400, nuclear powered and armed submarines etc) and its projection capability through, for instance, road building and jointness. By end decade, a self-confident India could then credibly fend off China. Evidently the Ukraine example of taking down a formidable foe happened rather too late for India to emulate. ‘By not losing, Ukraine wins’ is a concept of victory subscribed to by underdogs. India – a civilisation at par with China – cannot see itself as underdog.  

The external prong of strategy allows for breathing space to consolidate Hindutva internally. Having seen what a mere intrusion could do – be it in Kargil or Ladakh - Hindutva cannot countenance instability resulting from issues with neighbours getting out of hand. Modi would prefer to forego an Indira moment (1971) rather than chance a Nehru moment (1962). Military resort being intrinsically of uncertain result cannot be hazarded. Therefore, war avoidance is best.

Deterrence and appeasement are two strategic options that furnish such an aim. Deterrence having failed, appeasement is the default option. It buys time for Hindutva – through gimmicks as Agnipath – to militarise Indians, enabling internal balancing. Alongside, external balancing is by taking on Pakistan’s hitherto role as rentier state, offering India’s strategic location for the US for use in its faceoff against challenger China. Deft diplomatic footwork is expected to keep the strategic pot from boiling over.

Locating nukes

This rather long introduction is to help situate nuclear weapons in India’s strategy. The current storm in the tea cup is the reported intention to acquire the Tupolev 160 for the role of a strategic bomber. An ability to threaten China’s eastern seaboard would stay Beijing’s nuclear hand. Having both the nuclear and conventional advantages, China has escalation dominance.

A serving Indian colonel, writing for the website of the Army’s think tank, bids for counter value targeting by India for deterring China. He advocates that India, “(A)dopt a ‘Conditional First Use’, nuclear policy which would permit India to launch its counter value nuclear strikes if the casus-belli of Indian Redlines are crossed.” Intriguingly, his very next point rides on the back of a Herman Kahn quote: “holding the enemy’s population centres as intact Hostages can guarantee survival of own population centers.” With this, he contradicts himself, in that if India is to go counter value at first blush, then how are cities held hostage? Cities can be held hostage if India does not go in for counter value targeting on its invoking the ‘conditional First Use’ when China trips up a trip wire. The author predicates First Use with ‘conditional’ as he appears shy of calling for ‘first use’ right off. No First Use (NFU) has been India’s virtue signaling for close to a half-century. Jettisoning it is not easy for the colonel. All first use is ‘conditional’, even a ‘bolt from the blue’ first strike – conditional on, say, a closing window of opportunity. In any case, India’s NFU has been undercut by at least two defence ministers, who sit in its Nuclear Command Authority.

What’s intriguing is advocacy for first use to be massive (counter value or the going after cities, and, if Karnad is persuasive, dams). It would expose India to counter strike of more grievous proportion. This blindsides India’s vulnerabilities. It is implausible that the incomplete-as-yet acquisition of the S-400 and nuclear defences, that rest on the defence research organization’s tall claims and tunneling in environmentally vulnerable mountain zones, can assuage these concerns.

Nuclear thinker, Ashley Tellis, in his latest opus for the Carnegie think tank, writes that despite nuclear developments across the board in Southern Asia, India largely maintains its nuclear doctrine of deterrence by punishment, predicated on NFU and punitive retaliation. However, both have come under cloud. As per the preceding NSA, India contemplated the launch-on-warning option, that, to a couple of strategic hands has first strike proportions. Tellis informs there is not only doctrinal flexibility but also operational capability for proportionate retaliation. Even so, he flogs his quarter-century old thesis of the Indian deterrent being more of a force-in-being.

However, there is a sound perspective that the deterrent is more readily usable and in a war fighting mode informed by deterrence by denial. Pakistan has broadcast its deterrence by denial philosophy, which when matched with India’s deterrence by punishment promises escalation. Since India has more to lose and Pakistan – having little - has little to lose, escalation dominance is not necessarily in India’s favour. Against China, it would be fool hardy to provoke higher order exchanges from a position of disadvantage. India too has much to lose, therefore cannot replicate Pakistan’s gung-ho attitude to wrest escalation dominance from China.

Escalation dominance is not about equations alone, it’s also judgments on moral strength. What stays the hand of a decision maker is the assessed degree of hurt received, even if what makes a finger itchy is the degree of harm that can be inflicted. The hurt-harm calculus is central to escalation dominance, more a moral than a material factor. In India’s case it must be seen against the Hindutva project, central to the regime’s grand strategy.  

Returning to the Tupolev

Tellis’ thesis on Indian nuclear conservatism – sticking with a doctrine beyond its sell-by date - better explains the acquisition of the capability to inflict punitive retaliation that is conferred by the Tupolev. The regime is tacitly revealing a capability to hit mainland China. The capability is questionable since a nuclear package would require half of India’s Air Force to see it through to target. The force package for the Balakot strike and the response to Pakistan’s Operation Swift Retort indicate as much. Losing the Tupolev enroute – the defence-offence game always being of indefinite outcome – would be equivalent to losing the HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales. Therefore, its fit with the regime’s grand strategy is a better way to figure out what it really means.

There is little threat of the two sides coming to meaningful blows. Post-spring 2020, China is satiated, having never claimed Ladakh beyond its 1959 claim line. It has kept up a notional claim to ‘South Tibet’, but having vacated it in 1962 has left the difficulties of its  defence to tie India down. Evidently, Tibetan territorial interests only instrumentally drive the Chinese. In any case, Indian deterrence, regurgitated with two divisions, has held up. India is not about to precipitate matters in light of its switch to appeasement. Its plurilateralism allows cover for engaging China, with trade hitting record highs as is the adverse trade balance. Even Chinese provocation of the levels that obtained in Ladakh could not budge India from strategic restraint, a term associated with the preceding, Congress-led government. This suggests that with hostilities remote, it is possible for India to remain in the game by projecting a capability to take on China. At upper rungs of a nuclear ladder this will only remain untested, a bluff not about to be called.

Apologists might have it that India was unable to respond with gusto in Ladakh on account of force asymmetry. It was hobbled by escalation dominance in Chinese favour. Were India was to have forcefully pushed the Chinese out, conventional escalation – horizontal and vertical – might have ensued. If India was to compensate by asymmetric escalation, it would still have been shy of escalation dominance at the nuclear level. Self-deterrence would keep it from going nuclear at its lowest rung – tactical or operational level nuclear first use. The ability of China to withstand escalation pressures had to be whittled by acquiring an ability to render China’s urban heartland insecure. Geography has given India a poorer hand, with its Gangetic heartland being within sight of the Tibet plateau, site of Chinese missiles. In contrast, India’s ballistic missile submarine force is taking time to gain potency. It’s doubly short: of boats on patrol and ballistic missile range. Its land based ballistic missiles need complementing with an air delivery vector.

This is where the Tupolev comes in. A fledgling strategic triad duly reinforced in one medium – in this case air – helps ward-off self-deterrence, enabling reaching for nukes are lower rungs of the escalation ladder, commensurate with the trip wire crossed. A deficit in escalation dominance at the conventional level, that apparently prevented India from responding adequately to the Ladakh provocation, seemingly stands addressed by enabling India to countenance asymmetric escalation and deterrence by denial. At lower nuclear rungs, the match is relatively equal since any exchange would not involve several iterations, either being discontinued on better sense prevailing or escalating to consequential exchanges prior to either of the two expending their respective nuclear armoury designated for that level. Thus, India can checkmate China.

Politically, when the bluff is not going to be called – appeasement having made it more remote - it’s easier to trade on it. An internal political dividend is the offing. The regime can tacitly present itself as weighing-in in the Chinese weight category, matching it at the higher end of the nuclear ladder. The timing of the annoucement suggests a need to dispel the critique that India might fall military to China within a mere ten days. At the organizational level, since this puts the Air Force closer to pole position in the strategic triad stakes, prosaic reasons can also be at play. It gives the Air Force some reason for bluster, as sweetner to fall in line with the theaterisation concept it is reluctant to sign up to.

Factoring in grand strategy

For Tupolev like acquisitions have a strategic rationale, this is not what carries the day. Just as in the US system, the predilections of the military industrial complex and inter-service bureaucratic politics cannot be wished away, in India, strategic calculations provide rationalizations while the impulse behind strategic moves must be sought elsewhere. In India, this is in viewing the move in relation to the regime’s pet project: Hindutva. Moves that further the project have political backing. Therefore, strategic rationale must be complemented by a political level perspective to understand India’s strategic moves. Here the case study was of the Tupolev. The approach of factoring in grand strategy can serve as a model to holistically view other and future strategic moves of the regime.

 https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/the-challenge-for-this-generations?utm_source=twitter&sd=pf

The challenge for this generation of commanding officers

The first commanding officer (CO) of a Rashtriya Rifles (RR) battalion of which I was once a member passed away this week. We had heard of the challenges he and his team had faced, not only in raising the battalion, but also in its simultaneous operational employment. Arguably, the first set of RR COs had perhaps the roughest – if the most professionally exhilarating – time of the generations of COs of the Indian Army thus far.

Though battalion level command is taken as the epitome of command in the army, there would be strong votaries of the company command level as offering a sterner test of leadership. The argument shifts easily in favour of the latter when the environment is of intimate, close quarter battle, such as on the Kargil heights. Even there, COs were not only equally salient - recall Joshi, Rai and Thakur – but junior leaders – as Batra and Pandey – effortlessly snatched the crown. 

Even if in battle company commanders figure prominently as the key leadership rung – judging from examples as of Zaki in 1965 and Hoshiar Singh in 1971 - COs are never far behind. Dewan Ranjit Rai in 1947, Tarapore and Hayde in 1965, Hanut in 1971, Khan in 1984 and Santosh Babu of Galwan fame are examples. Close quarter battle too has seen COs upfront, though mostly in counter insurgency or on the Line of Control (LC). Nair, Sarna and Vasanth readily come to mind. Of Nair’s feats, it’s not an easy pick between his Kirti Chakra-meriting one as a young officer and his Ashoka Chakra-winning one as a CO. 

The film Thin Red Line shows up the inter-se salience of the three leadership rungs at the tactical level – battalion, company and platoon. Bana eclipses Varinder, even if there could not have been one without the other. The moral is that none of the leadership rungs is dispensable, one or other coming to fore as the battle progresses or its fog and friction throw up imponderables.

Be that as it may, the battalion level takes the cake in the leadership hustings presumably due to operations being the less usual preoccupation of the army. The Kargil War came about some 30 years after the preceding war and even then, only involved - hands-on - merely nine battalions of the army. The rest of the army was only partially mobilized. Operation Parakram that soon followed saw the entire army on war-footing though no part of it engaged in battle itself. The LC has intermittently seen small scale cross-LC operations, the recent well-known one christened ‘surgical operations’.

The profession of arms is one in which participation in the real thing is not always possible. Not all countries are hyper-powers looking for the next country to invade. Once the neighbours are deterred and the internal security situation steadies, professional effervescence settles to a peacetime rhythm. So is the case with the Indian Army more engaged in preparing rather than partaking in operations. Even its participating in low intensity operations has been so extensive to almost be routine. The ‘intensity’ of these operations varies with the political context and location, even when part of the same campaign.

Given the preeminence of the battalion command level in the Army’s scheme of things, what does the future - strategically appraised - hold for this level of command?

Command experience is a combination of preparation and luck – luck meaning being at the right place at the right time. It can be that a combat opportunity does knock on the door, and find the commander with his pants by his ankles. Since combat opportunities are fast and fleeting, being caught flat-footed means dishonor if the enemy gets the better of one, or waiting indefinitely for the next knock.

Peak preparedness cannot be maintained forever. Socks are to be pulled up and belts tightened on receipt of strategic warning. In India’s case, that is a consistent deficit. The battalions pitch-forked into Golden Temple in 1984 required to be bailed out by tanks taking down the façade of Akal Takht. The initial assault on Jaffna – from a ‘cold start’ as it were – found some battalions at the wrong end of the Tamil Tigers’ stick. 13 Sikh Light Infantry is forever a stern reminder. Similarly, the battalions along the Kargil front were surprised by the intrusion. Since information is scarce and contradictory, the case of Galwan should find unbiased study at the war colleges.

The command challenge at battalion level therefore appears to be to keep the pot of preparedness boiling, without having it boil over prematurely. Or to put it in another way, the commander has to ‘Cry, Wolf!’, but with a straight face. However, a perennial hurdle with this is ennui. It is never easy to cook up worst case scenarios and keep the battalion tuned-in. As peace station commanding officers well know, the organization ‘conspires’ against battalion’s keeping focus. Now there are five colonels in the division headquarters, looking to distract, where once there were two. The situation has likely only worsened.

India has a mass army and no existential threat. It is also not an expansionist power, howsoever much a politician or a pseudo-cultural politico might like to strike a Napoleonic pose calling for Akhand Bharat. The Pakistan front is now in cold storage. A spent case, its proxy war is at ebb. Even though redoubtable Minister Amit Shah has thoughtfully kept the Valley alienated, Pakistan is too internally preoccupied – economically, socially and politically – to profit. Further, we have incentivized it by diverting our west-centric military power to the China front. Pakistan no longer needs proxy war to undercut our conventional advantage. It stands proven Kashmiris were only rhetorically, a jugular. The Pakistan front ameliorated, we can afford the dilution.

 The China front sees much shadow boxing but it’s unlikely the gong will sound for the real thing. There would be instances of a repeat of the occupation of the Kailash range to spook the Chinese, but not having rolled down to Moldo-Rudok then, we can be sure we are unlikely to be doing so now. And this is not because Chinese have bolted any doors left untended, but because there is no stomach for it. The excuse is that we are catching up with the head-start the Chinese have over us and shall keep our powder dry till we do. That the gap is increasing – China is putting together a new bridge at the Pangong Tso and cutting a new road alignment - is a contradiction the ‘let’s play catch-up’ strategy is understandably very quiet on. What this bespeaks of is that there will be much ‘kadam taal’ but no assault as such from the line-of-march. Perhaps on this count, a sage has it that our military might shall remain untested, fated as we are according to his lights, to lose the next war against it within 10 days.

Where does all this leave the current generation of commanding officers?

They have the pre-1962 War and post-1971 War generations to look to. The former period was described once as the heyday of cantonment soldiering. The latter period witnessed India at its strategic peak, having exorcised the ghosts of 1962 with its 1971 vanquishing of a kin-foe. That the two periods respectively ended rather abruptly in a reckoning – with 1962 debacle and a reckoning in Sri Lanka – has the lesson. Whether, when and where a denouement will precipitate is uncertain. What commanding officers have to deliver on is that the army is not scalded when it does. They carry an inter-generational responsibility.

The official line is that there is a ‘two front’ threat. That’s been on now for some 12 years. That Pakistan did not take advantage of India’s discomfiture in Ladakh could be attributed to the Covid pandemic. But it could equally bespeak of a more stable strategic environment than the ‘two front’ hype lets on. With appeasement on both fronts, the two-front threat stands allayed - for now. The key piece of evidence of an eternal peace dawning is the Agnipath scheme. Surely, the enemy would know our defensive and non-expansionist intent by seeing how we are hobbling ourselves. His security dilemma dissipated, he would not incite ours. They can receive the message loud and clear in India continuing without a Chief of Defence Staff that we don’t mean business, strategically.  

So, does the partial mobilization in the Ladakh theatre and stepping up of alert levels along the China front show seriousness or obfuscation? China is a satiated power, having gained its 1959 claim line at little price, even if one includes our figure for its dead at Galwan. It never had a claim on rest of Ladakh and is not about to take ‘South Tibet’, which is not quite Taiwan.

This leaves the latter impulse standing: obfuscation. Inactivity would betray the policy of appeasement operational. Admitting to it is not possible since appeasement – though a legitimate strategy – acquired a bad name since Chamberlain was accused of it. Therefore, the show of seriousness, while pointing to alleged Chinese upgrades in its strategic posture. An exercise with Chinese bête noire, the Americans, is due this autumn in high-altitude Auli, a day’s drive from a disputed site on the Line of Actual Control, Barahoti. Alongside, acclimatization concerns force units even in peace tenures to keep a proportion of troops on field stations. The catch-up policy could backfire in the interim. This may be not so much from any inherent weakness, but from unfathomable internal politics at Zhongnanhai. National security could suffer as much as it did in 1962. Then, Nehru had the decency to bear the brunt, at the cost of his life. Politics has deteriorated since. The military may end up the fall guy.

Even on the Pakistan front, Cold Start levels of alertness necessitate having a proportion of peacetime units stationed in field conditions. Cold Start - let out of the bag by General Rawat – entails integrated battle groups on the start line. This compels a small quantum of troops in a trip wire role on the border since Pakistan too could bite off an equivalent portion. With terrorism being our one-track foreign policy, we could be hoist by our own petard by but a bunch of terrorists.

Commanding officers of this generation thus have their task cut out: manage ennui from inaction and pseudo-action. Emulating he recently departed RR CO may provide a hint on how to navigate the interim: “He later raised and successfully commanded a Rashtriya Rifles Battalion in a highly active area of Poonch-Rajouri in J&K, during which time, he had rubbed enough seniors the wrong way. They reciprocated by making sure that he was curtailed in terms of rank. He did not care. The only thing he cared for was his loyalty to professional ethics.” Such an officer must no longer be ‘a military leader of a rare breed’.

 https://usiofindia.org/publication/usi-journal/operational-art-in-peace-operations-balancing-the-peace-triangle/

Operational Art in Peace Operations: Balancing the Peace Triangle

Journal of the United Service Institution of India, Vol. CLII, No. 628, April-June  2022.

Abstract

The article postulates a ‘peace operations’ triangle’ with peacekeeping, peacemaking and peacebuilding as its three sides. It argues, through a case study of the UN’s Abyei Mission, UN Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA), that the three sides of the peace operations’ triangle need to be ministered adequately for success of a mission. Through the lifecycle of the UNISFA, it foregrounds observations on the inter-linkages between the three sides. UNISFA’s turn from being a mission with a largely military mandate to a multi-faceted mission indicates the significance of the three sides in peace operations. The operational art of peace operations, therefore, lies in arriving at a balance between the three.

Introdution

The heuristic on peacekeeping, made famous by Boutros-Boutros Ghali, had four components: peacekeeping, peacemaking, post-conflict peacebuilding and preventive diplomacy.1 Preventive diplomacy, as the term suggests, is prior to the onset of violence. The other three lines of operation are not sequential and have a degree of overlap.2 Challenges in peace operations are usually faced when there is imbalance in the attention and resources devoted to these. A peace operation’s success depends on a masterly employment of the tools respective to each line of operation. As strategy, in general, is an art, so is efficacious employment of peace tools, termed here as the Operational Art of peace operations.

In this article, a case study of the UN’s Abyei Mission is undertaken through the ‘peace operations’ triangle’3. The length of the three sides depicting that the salience of the side varies at different junctures in the lifecycle of a Mission. Preventive diplomacy brings about a peace agreement that allows for peacekeeping. The ‘peace to keep’ is used for peacebuilding, deepening constituencies in favour of peace, that in turn helps with peacemaking involving dealing with ‘root causes’. Thus, an interactive relationship can be seen between the three. Slovenly peacemaking aggravates peacekeeping, thereby constricting space for peacebuilding. On the other hand, peacemaking expands the space for peacebuilding, easing the onus on peacekeeping. Operational Art lies in ensuring none of the three sides loses ballast, while the three are energised to situation-specific levels. The aim is a positive, self-reinforcing equilateral triangle.

Background to the Abyei Mission

Abyei is a territorial dispute between Sudan and South Sudan,4 a left over from the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) period.5 Along with the Two Areas — Kordofan and Blue Nile — Abyei remained an outstanding border dispute issue, along their 2100 km long border.6 The UN Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA) was inserted as a military mission to prevent the territorial dispute from becoming a thorn in the relationship between the two new neighbours.7 UNISFA acquired another significant dimension: that of border monitoring and verification.8 The expanded mandate that brought about the Joint Border Verification and Monitoring Mechanism (JBVMM)9 assumed significance with the two States indulging in a brief border war in early 2012 over sharing of oil proceeds.10

The mission turned out not only the most remote one, but also unique in having a single troop contributing country (TCC), Ethiopia. There is a division of labour between the UN and the regional organizations — the African Union (AU) and the Inter-Governmental Authority for Development (IGAD) — with the latter two in the lead on peacemaking,11 while the UN did peacekeeping. Peacebuilding in the form of humanitarian relief, reconstruction and support of refugee returns was the realm of respective UN Country Teams (UNCT). UNISFA, not being an integrated mission, limited its activity to provision of security for humanitarian actors and lobbying the UNCT in both capitals to pay attention to Abyei’s needs.

Lifecycle of UNISFA

The intimate interplay between the triangle’s sides can be seen over the lifecycle of the UNISFA.12 In light of the border war outbreak in early 2012, the AU turned its attention through the AU High Level Panel (AUHIP)13 to tidying up the CPA period leftovers. It put forward proposals on Abyei in September 201214 and an implementation matrix with a timeline in March 2013.15

Peacemaking in Abyei was through the implementation of June 2011 Abyei Agreement that had requested the Mission deployment.16 The Agreement formed the basis of UNISFA mandate. Talks proceeded for setting up an interim joint administration over the disputed area, reporting to a joint oversight committee (AJOC) between the two sides. However, a debilitating setback occurred when in May 2013, the paramount chief of the Ngok Dinka community was assassinated by a Misseriya youth.17

Hardening of the Ngok Dinka position, led to a unilateral referendum by the Ngok Dinka on Abyei’s status in October 2013. The referendum under AU auspices had been held up with disagreement over the definition of a ‘resident’. The Misseriya are a migrant community that is present in Abyei Area only during the dry season for cattle grazing. On the other hand, the Ngok Dinka is a settled community, mostly residing in the southern part of Abyei Area.18 In the event, the unilateral October 2013 referendum was not recognized by either South Sudan or the AU.19

Resulting insecurity at ground level held up local inter-community peacemaking and setback peacebuilding effort on part of UN Agencies, Funds and Programs (AFP). At the local level in Abyei, the Mission resorted temporarily to a ‘zone of separation’, wherein the Misseriya herds were not allowed to cross into settled Ngok Dinka areas for pasture. An intercommunity peace committee was formed in 2016 to dialogue on resumption of relations. This UNISFA supported the initiative for setting up of a joint market at Amiet. The Abyei common market became an economic hub, with a cascading effect on intercommunity relations as commercial stakeholders acquired a stake in peace. Equally, spoilers were active, periodically disrupting the peace effort with violence directed at the common market. UNISFA used troops to secure the market, but also bid for formed police units for the task.20

By end 2013, South Sudan was in the midst of a deadly civil war.21 This held up the political process at the national level. The period witnessed UNISFA slowly expanding its presence for border monitoring to a four point deployment on both sides at sector level, and, by 2018, also at team site level within a 20 km broad Safe Demilitarised Border Zone (SDBZ). The two sides promised to demilitarise the zone in anticipation of AU-coordinated demarcation activity, logistically supported by JBVMM.22

There was an interesting tug-of-war of sorts between Sudan that only wanted a military predominant mission, while the Mission attempted to expand its scope of activity as per best practices elsewhere in integrated missions. Security Council Resolutions added facets, such as human rights, women and child protection, to the UNISFA mandate. Sudan — the host state — being weak and internally distracted, asserted its sovereignty through being difficult with the Mission on issues as visas and transit of logistics.

Peacebuilding progress was reflected in the return of refugees and recovery activity. However, the divided responsibility between the two UNCTs, distracted from a joint effort. There was a sense of alienation in northern Abyei among the Misseriya, since Khartoum-based AFPs were thinly represented in Abyei.23 The AFPs argued that the Misseriya were not as much conflict-affected as poverty-struck, precluding equivalence between the two communities.

In the interim, national level peacemaking under IGAD auspices concentrated on the fallout of the South Sudan civil war,24 a proxy war of sorts between Sudan and South Sudan. The two sides were agreeable to disengaging from their proxy war and even went so far as to not only rein in respective proxies but bring them to the table for settlement with the opposite capital. By 2018, insurgencies in both sides ceased, brightening prospects that the two could now discuss Abyei and the border issue.

On the Cusp of an Exit Strategy

Even as South Sudan embarked on implementing the Revitalized Agreement (R-ARCSS) signed on 12 September 2018 in Addis Ababa, the situation in Sudan unravelled. A civilian uprising unseated Omar al Bashir in April 2019. However, the military continued with its peacemaking — with South Sudanese assistance — with Sudanese rebels in Darfur and Two Areas.25  On the other side, the South Sudanese civil war protagonist, Riek Machar, re-joined the government in South Sudan in February 2020.26 These political developments put in place the political atmospherics necessary for settlement.27

However, peace at the local level proved elusive. The Ngok Dinka worried that with inter-capital bonhomie might see their cause sold down-river. They sought to be more hardline. In turn, Sudanese followed up by putting in a unilateral local administration in place.28 The two local administrations displaced the traditional chiefs, on whose back the local peace process was run, to a subordinate role. At the local level, the Ngok Dinka resiled from the local level peace process. A particularly gruesome incident in January 2020 had left some 35 Dinka dead.29 The annual Misseriya migration was held up. Fallout has been in a de-facto separation of the north from southern Abyei. This irks the Ngok Dinka who emphasise the de-jure borders of Abyei, arrived at under Permanent Court of Arbitration award during the CPA period.30

The mechanism AJOC, that was to oversee the joint administration as per the June 2011 Agreement, went into a limbo. The last time the AJOC met was at Addis Ababa in November 2017, when the AU facilitator last exerted his political role. At the time the chieftains of both sides also met.31 The Ngok Dinka viewed a joint local administration as Khartoum’s way to reassert its sway over the area. They want a time bound joint administration charged with holding a referendum. The Misseriya want the joint local administration to restore sway of Sudan over southern Abyei Area.

The Mission brought the two sides to dialogue again in Abyei in 2020.32 Peacemaking involves inclusivity, but this brings the problem of too many voices at the table and conflicting agendas. The national authorities like to play the lower levels against each other, sometimes using plausibly-deniable violence through non-state armed groups. This aggravates the protection of civilians (POC) task. Insecurity keeps peacebuilding from moving from humanitarian recovery to the development stage with donors shying away. Counter-intuitively, the Mission’s peacekeeping success served to setback peacemaking at the national level, since the two sides were each distracted with other more compelling crises. Peacebuilding in terms of reconciliation, therefore, got held up at the ground level, subject as the two communities are, to cues from the national level. Reviving the grassroots peace process has been the Mission’s priority, which has only recently borne fruit.  The Mission brought the two together for three conferences over 2020, to little avail. An innovation was in the Mission taking their representatives to a peace conference in Northern Bahr el Gazal State of South Sudan in 2021.33 This was followed up by another peace conference in Entebbe in May 2022.34

The competing demands on the transitional administrations in both capitals, and bouts of instability such as most recently in Sudan,35 make the Abyei issue recede further from national priorities. The UN is thus left with a lack of peacemaking to complement peacekeeping. This put paid to an exit strategy, eating up limited UN resources.

Lack of an exit strategy leads to risk from unforeseen events. The Sudanese-Ethiopian relations soured over a border issue in wake of outbreak of the Ethiopian civil war.36 Sudan asked for a changeover from the single TCC format.37 India has reportedly volunteered one battalion.38 Thus, the Mission is in midst of transition, opening up space to spoilers.39 At the local level, such risks are reflected in the spate of intra-Dinka violence with its unexpected onset in southern Abyei, between the Ngok Dinka and the Twic Dinka, from Twic County, Warrap State, South Sudan, to the south.40

With improved relations, prospects of advance on vexed issues such as the border, stand enhanced. In anticipation, local border communities have become more assertive, worried that their traditional homelands will be rent asunder by modern-day borders. The local communities evicted the JBVMM from three sites in the SDBZ and a sector headquarters in 2021.41 The two defence ministers meet periodically in a Joint Security Committee (JSC) to resolve such matters. The JSC could use the improved relations to put confidence building measures in place on the common border as per the security agreements of 2012. Whereas a border war has not recurred, proxy war has occurred across the SDBZ. The JBVMM can be enlarged to assist with border management, pending territorial resolution. The Abyei issue also awaits joint attention.42 Abyei is part of the basket of border problems, numbering 10 sites.43 Therefore, it will be part of the give-and-take of border negotiations. The Mission may therefore have to craft a pragmatic exit strategy with a time horizon into mid-decade, taking on board the political compulsions of the two sides.44

Conclusion — From a Scalene to an Equilateral Triangle

As seen from this case study on Abyei, each of the sides — peacekeeping, peacemaking and peacebuilding — is significant on its own count, as also the three together are mutually reinforcing. Operational Art is to get to a successful closure through synergy between the three. To be sure, there would be periods of predominance of one: unless security is provisioned by peacekeeping, peacebuilding cannot proceed; peacemaking opens up space for peacekeeping; and bottom-up peacebuilding and national level peacemaking are intertwined. Strategizing for a peace operation can use the visualization of an equilateral triangle as guide for operational planning and decisions.

Here Abyei has served as locale for application of this model of Operational Art. The Mission has been hobbled by outsourcing of peacemaking to the regional organizations. Its local level peacemaking suffered since the two communities adapted their stances to suit the position of the two national capitals. Constrained by an outdated June 2011 Agreement, the Mission can facilitate peacemaking, rather than take on mediator role. This deficit in peacemaking places a premium on peacekeeping. While a single TCC model has its advantages, particularly in a mid-sized mission, the regional political flux led to substitution by a multi-national force. Peacekeeping is thus back to square one with the resulting loss in institutional memory and preoccupation with transition logistics, the latter being difficult at the best of times in a UN setting, made worse in Abyei’s case as it’s the most remote mission in the world besides being only helicopter supported.

Given the vicissitudes of peacekeeping, peacebuilding faces the challenge of resource mobilization. The new Mission in Sudan, the UN Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan (UNITAMS),45 which is an integrated Mission, can oversee AFP activity in northern Abyei, easing Misseriya concerns. However, it is challenged by the scope of needs, stretching as they are from the newly opened up Two Areas and Darfur, to refugees from the Ethiopian civil war.46 The Abyei Mission is poised for continuing tension between the three sides of the peace operations’ triangle, balancing which should keep the Mission leadership, the Secretariat and the Security Council engaged out to the middle term. Once the two States have had their respective UN-supported democratic elections, UNISFA may return to center stage. It would have to persist with enlightened conflict management in the interim.

Endnotes

1 Report of the Secretary-General, An Agenda for Peace Preventive diplomacy, peacemaking and peace-keeping, A/47/277 – S/24111, June 17, 1992

2 United Nations, United Nations Peacekeeping Operations: Principles and Guidelines, Department of Peacekeeping Operations – Department of Field Support, 2008, 19.

3 The term is inspired by Johan Galtung’s 1969 paper, “Violence, Peace and Peace Research,” Journal of Peace Research, 6, no. 3 (1969): 167-191.

4 Ajay Jaswal, “United Nations Interim Security Force in Abyei (UNISFA): A New Mission in the Hot Spot of Sudan,” USI Journal, CXLII, Jan-Mar 2012, 90-104, https://usiofindia.org/publication/usi-journal/united-nations-interim-security-force-in-abyei-unisfa-a-mission-in-the-hotspot-of-sudan/.

5 For a background to the UNISFA, see https://unisfa.unmissions.org/background.

6 Details on UNISFA are at https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/mission/unisfa.

7 Security Council Resolution S/RES/1990 (2011), June 27, 2011, http://unscr.com/en/resolutions/doc/1990.

8 Security Council Resolution S/RES/2024 (2011), December 14, 2011, http://unscr.com/en/resolutions/doc/2024.

9 “Agreement on the Border Monitoring Support Mission between the Government of the Sudan and the Government of South Sudan,” July 30, 2011, https://www.peaceagreements.org/view/1372.

10 Security Council, “Report of the Secretary-General on the situation in Abyei,” S/2012/358, May 24, 2012.

11 Permanent Mission of India to the UN, “Explanation of Vote by Ambassador Manjeev Singh Puri, Deputy Permanent Representative, on Resolution 2046 on Sudan & South Sudan at the United Nations Security Council, on May 02, 2012,” https://pminewyork.gov.in/pdf/uploadpdf/42390ind2018.pdf.

12 For details on the UN’s activity in Abyei through its lifecycle, see https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/sudansouth-sudan/.

13 Aman Sethi, “Deadlock on Abyei persists,” October 25, 2012, The Hindu, https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/deadlock-on-abyei-persists/article4028441.ece.

14 AUHIP for Sudan, “Proposal on the Final Status of Abyei Area,” appendix to African Union (Peace and Security Department), “Progress Report of the African Union High-Level Implementation Panel for Sudan and South Sudan,” December 14, 2012, https://archives.au.int/bitstream/handle/123456789/8219/PSC%20PR%202%20CCCXLIX_E.pdf?sequence= 1&isAllowed=y.

15 AU press release, March 9, 2013, https://au.int/en/newsevents/20130309/chairperson-commission-welcomes-signing-agreement-modalities-implementation.

16 “Agreement between the Government of Republic of Sudan and the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Army on the Temporary Arrangements for the Administration and Security in the Abyei Area,” June 20, 2011, https://peacemaker.un.org/sites/peacemaker.un.org/files/SD_110620_Agreement TemporaryArrangementsAbyeiArea.pdf.

17 Security Council, “Report of the Secretary-General on the situation in Abyei,” S/2013/294, May 17, 2013.

18 Human Security Baseline Assessment (HSBA) for Sudan and South Sudan, “Update on Abyei,” Small Arms Survey, July 13, 2015.

19 AU press release, October 28, 2013, https://au.int/en/newsevents/20131028/african-union-strongly-condemns-holding-unilateral-referendum-abyei.

20 For the 2018 UNISFA Strategic Review, that dwells on the Mission during its consolidation phase, see “Letter dated 20 August 2018 from the Secretary-General addressed to the President of the Security Council,” https://undocs.org/S/2018/778.

21 Global Conflict Tracker, “Civil War in South Sudan,” Council on Foreign Relations, https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/civil-war-south-sudan.

22 “Special report of the Secretary-General on the review of the mandate of the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (S/2017/293),” https://reliefweb.int/report/sudan/special-report-secretary-general-review-mandate-united-nations-interim-security-force.

23 Details on the UN Country Team in Sudan are at https://sudan.un.org/en/about/about-the-un.

24 United States Institute of Peace, “South Sudan Peace Process: Key Facts,” https://www.usip.org/south-sudan-peace-process-key-facts.

25 International Crisis Group, “The Rebels Come to Khartoum: How to Implement Sudan’s New Peace Agreement,” February 23, 2021 https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/horn-africa/sudan/b168-rebels-come-khartoum-how-implement-sudans-new-peace-agreement.

26 “South Sudan rivals Salva Kiir and Riek Machar strike unity deal,” BBC, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-51562367.

27 Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, “Special Envoy commends the continued strengthening of the relationship between Sudan and South Sudan,” October 22, 2020, https://dppa.un.org/en/special-envoy-commends-continued-strengthening-of-relationship-between-sudan-and-south-sudan.

28 Security Council, “Report of the Secretary-General – Situation in Abyei,” S/2020/1019, October 15, 2020.

29 “More than a dozen killed in attack in South Sudan border region”, Al Jazeera, 23 January 2020, available at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/1/23/more-than-a-dozen-killed-in-attack-in-south-sudan-border-region, accessed on 30 January 2022.

30 Permanent Court of Arbitration, “The Government of Sudan / The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (Abyei Arbitration),” https://pca-cpa.org/en/cases/92/.

31 AU press release, “The Chairperson of the African Union Commission Welcomes the Outcomes of the African Union Joint Oversight (Abyei) Meetings 24 November 2017”, https://archives.au.int/handle/123456789/7920.

32 UNISFA, “Inter-Community Meetings Between The Ngok Dinka And Misseriya,” https://unisfa.unmissions.org/inter-community-meetings-between-ngok-dinka-and-misseriya.

33 Security Council, “Report of the Secretary-General Situation in Abyei,” S/2020/1019, October 15, 2020.

34 Press release, https://unisfa.unmissions.org/unisfa-brokers-peace-accord-between-two-communities-abyei, May 19, 2022.

35Rajen Harshe, “Another military coup in Sudan,” Observer Research Foundation, November 8, 2021, https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/another-military-coup-in-sudan/

36 Zecharias Zelalem, “Rising tension as Ethiopia and Sudan deadlocked on border dispute,” https://www.aljazeera.com/ news/2021/2/1/rising-tension-ethiopia-sudan-deadlocked-border-dispute-fashaga.

37 “UN to withdraw Ethiopian peacekeeping force on Sudan’s request: Khartoum,” Al Arabia, August 24, 2021, https://english.alarabiya.net/News/middle-east/2021/08/24/UN-to-withdraw-Ethiopian-peacekeeping-force-on-Sudan-s-request-Khartoum.

38 Rajat Pandit, “India to send a battalion for peacekeeping ops in Africa,” Times of India, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/88939315.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_ campaign=cppst.

39 Press release, https://unisfa.unmissions.org/ sites/default/files/unisfa_pis_pr_97.pdf, October 17, 2022.

40 “Ngok-Twic Border Conflict: A Manifestation of Botched Socioeconomic Development in South Sudan,” Reliefweb, https://reliefweb.int/report/sudan/ngok-twic-border-conflict-manifestation-botched-socioeconomic-development-south-sudan.

41 “UNISFA expresses grave concern over the development in JBVMM’s Sector One,” Reliefweb, September 4, 2021, https://reliefweb.int/report/sudan/unisfa-expresses-grave-concern-over-development-jbvmm-s-sector-one.

42 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, “Chapter IV – Resolution to the Abyei Conflict,” https://peacemaker.un.org/node/1369. It was signed at Naivasha, Kenya, on May 26, 2004.

43 Elsheikh Chol, “Sudan, South Sudanese officials discuss border disputes,” Eye Radio, https://eyeradio.org/sudan-south-sudanese-officials-discuss-border-disputes/.

44 UN press release, “Security Council Extends Mandate of United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei, Unanimously Adopting Resolution 2609 (2021),” December 15, 2021, https://www.un.org/press/en/2021/sc14738.doc.htm.

45 UNITAMS website is at https://unitams.unmissions.org/en.

46 UNITAMS press release, ‘Security Council briefing on the UN Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan, , https://reliefweb.int/report/sudan/security-council-briefing-un-integrated-transition-assistance-mission-sudan-unitams-14, Reliefweb, September 14, 2021.