UmarJustice
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Gen (r) Shahid Azizs effort to disclose an open secret has brought the Kargil conflict back into focus. Finding out who knew what and to what extent is certainly important. However, it is equally important to ask whether the operation was meant to serve a political purpose and, if so, then how seriously it was analysed for possible (and unintended) political consequences.
Military strategy, after all, as both Clausewitz and Liddell Hart would have us believe, is the art of employing military means to fulfil policy ends. It is therefore flawed in the absence of a clear-cut political objective.
No doubt there were military aims to be achieved: to sever the Srinagar-Leh national highway with a view to eventually choke supplies and reinforcements to Indian troops in Siachen; to draw in and tie down Indian Army reserves; to control substantial tracts of strategic land area across the LoC, and so forth.
However, did Musharraf & Cos Kargil-strategy have a particular, unambiguous and practically achievable political goal?
We are told that the military campaign was aimed at jogging international memory vis-à-vis Kashmir, while forcing India to come to the negotiating table for an eventual settlement of the dispute.
It is also argued by the pro-Musharraf camp that had the weak Pakistani political leadership not succumbed to US pressure for a military withdrawal, the political goal would have been met successfully. This line of argument revolves around the assumption that by employing territory-occupation as a bargaining chip, Pakistan could have forced India to make concessions favourable to Pakistan and that the US and other western nations would have exerted pressure on India in order to obviate escalation with a nuclear dimension.
Could holding ground have internationalised the Kashmir issue in favour of Pakistan? Given India and Pakistans respective positions in the 1990s, was it possible to isolate India and force the world community especially the US to support the Pakistani position? What leverage did Pakistan have with the US anyway?
Right after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989 and the end of the Cold War, Pakistans support for Kashmiri insurgents began to emerge as a contentious issue between India and Pakistan. A couple of years down the line America began to take the Indian point of view seriously.
The Clinton administration had begun warming up to India after some initial hiccups. Throughout the 1990s, the US remained Indias leading trade partner.
Even the Indian nuclear tests could not prove to be an insurmountable obstacle. Although sanctions were imposed on India following the May 1998 nuclear tests, they did not result in comparable pressure since India, unlike Pakistan, was not dependent on US military aid.
India had no history of selling nuclear technology to third parties and because of its immense economic and strategic potential many global players were willing to see India as a responsible nuclear power.
Conversely, Pakistan was facing crippling nuclear sanctions, effectively terminating US military and economic aid. The Pakistan specific Pressler Amendment was difficult to challenge because of its precise stipulations. With the Congressional triumph of the Republicans in 1994, it became all the more difficult to seek sanctions-relief.
Simultaneously, Pakistan was fast emerging as a pariah state supporting the repressive Taliban regime, on the one hand, and resorting to proliferation through the sale of nuclear technology to third parties, on the other.
Indian allegations of ISI complicity in the 1993 Mumbai bombings further tarnished Pakistans image abroad. Because of such developments Pakistan was on active US review for possible inclusion on the State Departments terrorist watch list in the early 1990s.
Under such circumstances, Kargil was bound to spawn apprehension of nuclear escalation and if there were any lessons to be learnt from the first Gulf War, Pakistans capture of the Indian side of the LoC would never have been acceptable to the US or the west. Thus, it is obvious that no serious thought was given to the political consequences of this operation by the military strategists in a changed post-Cold War international environment.
To give the devil his due then, Sharifs efforts to support the bus-diplomacy were far more prudent than Musharraf & Cos endeavours to derail it. Instead of assessing the post-Cold War international and regional trends with a clear-eyed approach, the armys top leadership remained stuck in the Cold War mindset.
Once Musharraf became army chief he knew he was the uncrowned king of Pakistan. And there was no dearth of courtiers willing to stoke his ego for personal aggrandisement or misplaced conceptions of patriotism. (Born-again critics like Shahid Aziz have a very weak case indeed.)
The we will show you macho approach turned out to be a military and political disaster. Never before were our martyrs treated with such callousness or our diplomats placed in such an untenable position. By neglecting to think through the political costs, our military decision-makers did no service to Pakistans international standing.
Conversely, the Kargil imbroglio added to the Indian militarys stature as being capable of launching well-planned attacks and making sacrifices to retrieve even high altitude mountain peaks; politically, it provided India the opportunity to tighten its grip over the Kashmir issue and added to the credibility of its accusations vis-à-vis Pakistan being a rogue state.
The Kargil operation stemmed from a flawed approach that focused on providing oxygen to the flagging Kashmir insurgency; this was accompanied by wishful thinking about bringing India to the negotiating table.
We need to look at the Kargil conflict not as an isolated incident but as a link in the chain of our Kashmir strategy since 1948. It is a symptom of a diseased, outmoded approach to policy-making. And it is this ailment that needs to be addressed and remedied if we are to come out of the present quagmire.
Kargil lows - Talat Farooq
Military strategy, after all, as both Clausewitz and Liddell Hart would have us believe, is the art of employing military means to fulfil policy ends. It is therefore flawed in the absence of a clear-cut political objective.
No doubt there were military aims to be achieved: to sever the Srinagar-Leh national highway with a view to eventually choke supplies and reinforcements to Indian troops in Siachen; to draw in and tie down Indian Army reserves; to control substantial tracts of strategic land area across the LoC, and so forth.
However, did Musharraf & Cos Kargil-strategy have a particular, unambiguous and practically achievable political goal?
We are told that the military campaign was aimed at jogging international memory vis-à-vis Kashmir, while forcing India to come to the negotiating table for an eventual settlement of the dispute.
It is also argued by the pro-Musharraf camp that had the weak Pakistani political leadership not succumbed to US pressure for a military withdrawal, the political goal would have been met successfully. This line of argument revolves around the assumption that by employing territory-occupation as a bargaining chip, Pakistan could have forced India to make concessions favourable to Pakistan and that the US and other western nations would have exerted pressure on India in order to obviate escalation with a nuclear dimension.
Could holding ground have internationalised the Kashmir issue in favour of Pakistan? Given India and Pakistans respective positions in the 1990s, was it possible to isolate India and force the world community especially the US to support the Pakistani position? What leverage did Pakistan have with the US anyway?
Right after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989 and the end of the Cold War, Pakistans support for Kashmiri insurgents began to emerge as a contentious issue between India and Pakistan. A couple of years down the line America began to take the Indian point of view seriously.
The Clinton administration had begun warming up to India after some initial hiccups. Throughout the 1990s, the US remained Indias leading trade partner.
Even the Indian nuclear tests could not prove to be an insurmountable obstacle. Although sanctions were imposed on India following the May 1998 nuclear tests, they did not result in comparable pressure since India, unlike Pakistan, was not dependent on US military aid.
India had no history of selling nuclear technology to third parties and because of its immense economic and strategic potential many global players were willing to see India as a responsible nuclear power.
Conversely, Pakistan was facing crippling nuclear sanctions, effectively terminating US military and economic aid. The Pakistan specific Pressler Amendment was difficult to challenge because of its precise stipulations. With the Congressional triumph of the Republicans in 1994, it became all the more difficult to seek sanctions-relief.
Simultaneously, Pakistan was fast emerging as a pariah state supporting the repressive Taliban regime, on the one hand, and resorting to proliferation through the sale of nuclear technology to third parties, on the other.
Indian allegations of ISI complicity in the 1993 Mumbai bombings further tarnished Pakistans image abroad. Because of such developments Pakistan was on active US review for possible inclusion on the State Departments terrorist watch list in the early 1990s.
Under such circumstances, Kargil was bound to spawn apprehension of nuclear escalation and if there were any lessons to be learnt from the first Gulf War, Pakistans capture of the Indian side of the LoC would never have been acceptable to the US or the west. Thus, it is obvious that no serious thought was given to the political consequences of this operation by the military strategists in a changed post-Cold War international environment.
To give the devil his due then, Sharifs efforts to support the bus-diplomacy were far more prudent than Musharraf & Cos endeavours to derail it. Instead of assessing the post-Cold War international and regional trends with a clear-eyed approach, the armys top leadership remained stuck in the Cold War mindset.
Once Musharraf became army chief he knew he was the uncrowned king of Pakistan. And there was no dearth of courtiers willing to stoke his ego for personal aggrandisement or misplaced conceptions of patriotism. (Born-again critics like Shahid Aziz have a very weak case indeed.)
The we will show you macho approach turned out to be a military and political disaster. Never before were our martyrs treated with such callousness or our diplomats placed in such an untenable position. By neglecting to think through the political costs, our military decision-makers did no service to Pakistans international standing.
Conversely, the Kargil imbroglio added to the Indian militarys stature as being capable of launching well-planned attacks and making sacrifices to retrieve even high altitude mountain peaks; politically, it provided India the opportunity to tighten its grip over the Kashmir issue and added to the credibility of its accusations vis-à-vis Pakistan being a rogue state.
The Kargil operation stemmed from a flawed approach that focused on providing oxygen to the flagging Kashmir insurgency; this was accompanied by wishful thinking about bringing India to the negotiating table.
We need to look at the Kargil conflict not as an isolated incident but as a link in the chain of our Kashmir strategy since 1948. It is a symptom of a diseased, outmoded approach to policy-making. And it is this ailment that needs to be addressed and remedied if we are to come out of the present quagmire.
Kargil lows - Talat Farooq
