The fact of matter remains that US is fast loosing interest in the region and is desperately looking to exit both Afghanistan and Iraq. Since Soviet invasion of Afghan, the well oiled assembly line of producing Self Appointed Jehadis has run continuously fueled by US taxpayers money in name of WOT.
Pakistani Army and Govt. must ponder who is going to foot the bill 10 years from now. I believe a section of Pakistan Media, Administrators and perhaps armed forces assume that Saudi Arabia and/or China will step in and makeup for vacuum created by US retreat. This looks highly unlikely as both Saudis and Chinese have business and trade interests in India.
Pak is only doing disservice to itself by allowing these motor-mouths to run amok. Sooner or later these beasts will bite the very hands that are feeding them.
This is a rather interesting point that you've brought up.
Training and maintaining Mujahid forces maybe a relatively cheaper procedure than training conventional forces for similar purposes in a similar proportion but in absolute terms it is not a cheap prospect at all. The Americans are rather concerned about China's rise and seem to view India as a counter-weight
( although they seem to have an inflated and disproportionate view of the hostilities that exist between the two countries, they are perhaps yet to come to terms with the fact that while India may align some of its interests with theirs any hope for an organized and officially driven alliance is naive at best ), as such they will be loath to allow their funds or any Saudi funds to flow into such operations. Let us be clear though,
this does not mean that they shall take any active steps to halt such insurgencies (that is to say that we cannot expect them to actively spend any of their capital on our issues) nor does it mean that suddenly the Americans are to be trusted without verification (engaging in the latter would put us in the same bind that pakistan faces today). Pakistan needs to seriously review its doctrine, the bombastic and often religiously fueled support for such insurgent forces maybe all well and good from a jingoistic standpoint but the GOP and the PA/ISI will have to concede that their efforts have met with little or no success.
If the insurgency does catch a second wind in Kashmir then one must remember that the assets we have deployed there are quite adequate.
COIN operations will still see attrition taking center stage but the multi-layered anti-infiltration systems will make the large scale infiltration of yesteryears all but impossible. Bare in mind that
shallow infiltration bids are still possible and maybe successful but they will have little impact on the overall situation in Kashmir although regrettably they will still cause casualties. The sheer quantum of assets such as the border surveillance equipment
(night vision cameras, motion sensing devices, passive surveillance devices, foliage penetration radars) and the old fashioned ground dominance patrols being utilized along the LOC
make infiltration bids an exercise which requires precise planning which can take unto a month and often needs inclement weather conditions to be successful. Bare in mind that one must draw a distinction between shallow penetrations and skirmishes- the likes of which we are seeing at the LOC at the moment and proper infiltration in depth which would be required for an insurgency to gain strength again much less push out the forces that are present in the area to combat such insurgencies. The LOC is vast and we cannot stop every infiltration bid but our forces are very adept at hunting down any terrorists/insurgents who find themselves deep within the valley. I could go into further detail regarding how our forces hunt these terrorists down once they've somehow managed to cross over but I don't think that we need to go that far at the moment.
