Pakistan in Media

Daily Times, Pakistan
insight, Ejaz Haider
Friday, May 29, 2009

Pakistan itself has seen more terrorist attacks on its soil than any other country. It would be idiotic to think that the state of Pakistan is prompting these groups to attack its interests — or that the ISI planned an attack on its building in Lahore

The way any mention in the Pakistani newspapers of India in relation to Pakistan gets a rise from the Indian readers, one wishes the articles could be packaged as aphrodisiacs and marketed in that country.

I am thankful to the Indian readers, nonetheless.

That said, the problem I find in the dozens of emails I have received in response to my article (“Debunking arguments against eastern deployment”, Daily Times, May 27) is that most Indian readers, barring some exceptions, have reacted through the Pavlovian nationalist reflex rather than bothering to focus on my arguments.

For instance, one argument thrown at me is that while India may have the capability, it does not intend to attack Pakistan. I am surprised because I never said India was planning to attack Pakistan, just that the strategic calculus always involves capability, never intent. The reason is simple: intentions can change.

However, my argument about capabilities and intentions implied verifiable movement towards building more confidence. That is why I gave a bird’s eye view of numbers on the Indian side. One of the ways in which intentions can be signalled is through actual movement on the ground. Here are three scenarios.

* India retains its current troop levels without any hostile intent (this envisages routine deployments to peace and forward locations); Pakistan does the same. The pattern is familiar.

* India moves troops and equipment to forward locations. That’s mobilisation with possible hostile intent; Pakistan does the same. Given other factors, this could be the escalatory ladder.

* India reconfigures its routine order of battle by pulling back X number of formations (corps, divisions, brigades etc) and Pakistan-specific strike weapons (SRBMs, for instance). That’s a verifiable, positive move towards expressing the intent that India does not want a show of arms and is prepared to increase the cost of any future hostile action for itself. Pakistan does the same. This could even be formalised somewhat along the lines of the erstwhile CFE (conventional forces in Europe) treaty. (This scenario can have many models but a discussion of them is outside the scope of this article.)

Contrary to scenario 3 and more in keeping with 2, India is overtly wedded to a doctrine (Cold Start) that plans to locate independent battle groups (IBGs) close to the border in order to, among other reasons, cut down on mobilisation time for offensive, limited strikes against Pakistan along multiple axes. And while it will be years before India actually acquires the capability to do so, the intention is there.

The Indians may ask: why should India take the lead in effecting scenario 3? Answer: (a) because India has a fourfold numerical advantage in current deployments; and (b) because Pakistan is being asked to move troops to address an “internal” threat even though the Pakistan Army is quite comfortable in handling operations in the west without reducing troop levels in the east.

Here I will be remiss if I did not mention another argument trotted out by many Indian readers, most making the point aggressively: sure, India should thin its defences so Pakistan can infiltrate terrorists into India.

Those who made this point did not realise that they were weakening their own case. There are two inter-connected points here:

One, would India hold responsible and consider complicit the state of Pakistan for every terrorist attack on its soil until such time that Pakistan proved its innocence — guilty until proven innocent? If the answer is yes, and if India wants to not only retain its current troop levels but go into the mobilisation mode, then it would in any case be stupid on the part of Pakistan to unilaterally cut down on its force levels in the east and then bear the cost of moving them back to respond to such escalation.

Two, this itself shows that India does not trust Pakistan and therefore, to the extent of this distrust, is not prepared to lower its guard. But that clearly makes it that much more difficult for Pakistan to lower its.

The fact, however, is that Indian civil and military officials are on record as having confirmed that infiltration levels in Kashmir have come down to near-zero. Moreover, infiltration, when it does happen, is not necessarily state-sponsored.

There are a number of groups operating in this region. Pakistan itself has seen more terrorist attacks on its soil than any other country. It would be idiotic to think that the state of Pakistan is prompting these groups to attack its interests — or that the ISI planned an attack on its building in Lahore.

This brings me to another factor. Today’s wars may not be fought directly, especially between two nuclear-armed states. Despite India’s much-hyped doctrine of fighting a limited war and keeping it below the nuclear threshold, it is almost impossible for India to operationalise the concept both for reasons of capability as well as the inability to judge, absolutely accurately, the Pakistani response to any such Indian decision. Perfect information is never available, is not possible, in any situation.

So while states project overt military preparedness, they are likely to use an indirect approach to war-fighting. It makes more sense for X to isolate Y, outflank and out-manoeuvre it diplomatically and economically; and, if the model is conflictual, use proxies against it.

One Indian reader, a former army officer, wrote saying that “Z”, the internal threat, is more pressing and unfolding. True. I never said it was not and have written repeatedly about it. But addressing Z does not mean taking one’s eyes off X. Also, if indirect war is the game in town, X may find it opportune to worsen Z for Pakistan even as Z is not X’s creation.

There is increasing evidence of that now.

That completes the circle. Pakistan faces Z threat; Pakistan also faces X threat. There are linkages between X and Z. So by fighting against the Z threat, Pakistan is also addressing the indirect threat from X.

Nothing to grudge X for. If the model is conflictual and if X thinks that it now has the opportunity to pay Pakistan back, so be it. Only, that makes a hash of arguments against lowering the guard and using cooperative strategies.

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