Pakistan in Media

Daily Times, Pakistan
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
insight: Ejaz Haider

If Pakistan is asked by the US and other western capitals to pull out troops from the eastern border and deploy them to the west, then perhaps India should also be asked to thin its much-heavier Pakistan-specific deployment

There is much talk in the Western media and also by visiting foreign dignitaries about the Pakistan Army’s east-oriented deployment and threat perception from India at a time when presumably Pakistan faces no threat from India but is grappling with an internal, existential crisis.

The question posed is: why doesn’t Pakistan thin its defences in the east and induct more troops in the west to fight the Taliban? While the question may be genuine, and I am being entirely charitable on this count, is it based on a sound understanding of military strategy?

Short answer: no.

There are two broad issues here. The first relates to Pakistan’s threat perception from India; the second to Pakistan’s ongoing counter-insurgency/counter-terrorism operations. Let’s analyse them in the same order.

The most important factor in threat perception is not the issue of “intention” but of “capability”. The military calculus, therefore, is never based on whether State X wants to attack or harm State Y but whether it has the capability to that end should it choose to do so.

Intentions can undergo a change. Hence the focus on capability. X is a good friend but X has a loaded pistol; I like X but I would keep my loaded pistol on me. It helps me like X even more. And if X is not a friend and has a pistol, I am not about to go to dinner with X without mine.

Here’s a reality check.

The Indian Army, standing at over 1.1 million active-service personnel and 1.8 million reserves, is configured under six area commands (operational) and one Army Training Command (ARTRAC). Three of these area commands — Western, Northern and South-western — are totally Pakistan-specific. The fourth, Central Command, with one corps (1 Corps) is also primarily Pakistan-specific. The Indian Army has thirteen corps, out of which eight, including one from the Central Command, are specific to Pakistan.

But more than the number of corps, it is the number of divisions — infantry, mountain, armoured — as well as independent armoured and artillery brigades that manifest the deployment pattern or order of battle (ORBAT) of the Indian Army. The Pakistan-specific area commands and corps have a much-higher number of lower formations, the actual fighting elements, than the Eastern and Southern Commands.

This is perfectly legitimate if the Indian Army’s threat perception comes from Pakistan.

After the Kargil mini-war, the Indian Army, under General VP Malik, began studying the possibility and feasibility of limited war. Then came the 10-month-long standoff (Dec 2001-Oct 2002) between Pakistan and India. The Indian Army realised that because of shorter internal lines, the Pakistan Army had completed its counter-mobilisation even before the Indian Army could complete its.

That fact, coupled with the need for integrated, quick operations against multiple targets without actually holding ground — a combination of limited, surgical strikes, hot pursuit, salami slicing — forced the Indian Army into rethinking its offensive options. The result of that was the “Cold Start” (CS) doctrine in early 2004, incidentally around the same time that Pakistan and India embarked on a normalisation process!

CS envisages the formation of eight Integrated Battle Groups (IBGs) deployed close to the international border. As Brig Naeem Salik (retd) wrote, the doctrine “aims at reducing the mobilisation time by disaggregating the cumbersome strike corps into more handy Integrated Battle Groups (IBGs), positioning these forces closer to the international border and gaining a head start by enhancing the ability of the defensive formations now termed as the ‘Pivot Corps’ to undertake limited offensive operations.

“The initial gains made by the pivot corps are supposed to be exploited by the rapidly moving IBGs. The operations by the IBGs are envisaged to be closely supported by the Indian Air Force and, where possible, the Indian Navy. The objectives assigned to the IBGs would be deliberately kept shallow to avoid crossing Pakistan’s nuclear red lines.” (“Cold Start: hot implications for South Asian security”; The Friday Times, Dec 19-25, 2008)

There can be a number of CBMs, like removing and de-commissioning the Pakistan-specific Prithvi SRBMs, CS or no CS. Interestingly, India may say that it needs this state of preparedness to counter terrorism on its soil. But that very argument, envisaging inter-state escalation, vindicates Pakistan Army’s stance on eastern deployment and war readiness!

This is not a place to either go into details of the Indian Army’s ORBAT or its operational plans — or even what all can be done to improve trust. Those issues need to be treated separately. The point I have tried to make is this: if Pakistan does not face the prospect of a hot war imposed on it by India, neither does India face that prospect any more.

If Pakistan is asked by the US and other western capitals on the basis of this argument to pull out troops from the eastern border and deploy them to the west, then perhaps India should also be called upon to thin its much-heavier Pakistan-specific deployment along the international border, the Line of Control, the working boundary and the actual ground position line.

Comfort levels must be raised on both sides. In any case, Pakistan’s deployment along the eastern border is much thinner, given half the numerical strength of its army compared to India’s. In Kashmir, for instance, Pakistan’s one corps and elements grouped under Force Command Northern Areas (FCNA) face India’s three corps! Would India reduce its strength there by, let’s say, two corps? It won’t.

The second issue is the number of troops currently engaged in COIN operations in the northwest, mostly in the tribal agencies but also in Swat and its adjoining areas. The troop strength is currently around 110,000. The kind of war that is going on there does not entirely depend on inducting more troops but making the application of force, where required, effective.

The normal arithmetic for COIN operations is 7 to 10 soldiers to one insurgent. Taking the higher figure of 10 soldiers, that would make the estimated strength of insurgents to stand at 11000. No one knows really. But it could be higher. One guesstimate puts it between 30,000 to 35,000 insurgents.

Whatever the figure, and it’s important to try and get it as close to reality as possible, the main issue, as I have noted, is the correct application of force, not use of force per se, or troop surge just to put more boots on the ground. No doubt, holding ground and effective long-term COIN operations require correct space-to-deployment ratio. But if the intelligence is credible and actionable, a combination of air-to-ground targeting and smaller, rapid action forces can be far more effective against scattered as well as entrenched targets than larger, slow-moving forces.

Finally, the issue is not whether Pakistan should or should not reconfigure its deployment pattern but whether it can. Unilaterally, it can’t.

Also, if the country has to induct more troops in the NWFP and station military elements in the area for a longer deployment, it needs to build infrastructure for doing that. That decision has to be taken at the political level (keeping in mind regional security requirements) and money found for it.

Therefore, before Pakistan is asked to do this or that, its threat perception has to be taken into consideration and money provided it for longer deployment on the west. The first involves pulling in India; the second, opening the purse strings.

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