I dont agree.. There is no concept of surgical strike unless its a tactical Op during a full blown war. You cant expect one country to launch missiles into another country and leave it at that.. Obviously countries like USA excluded..
And there are multiple options if GoI suspects Pakistan's complicity in further terror strikes.. Some of those may already be in play and people like You and I will not get to hear about them in public forums.
For example, have you noticed that for last few months, Kashmir has lost its prominence in the noises coming from Pakistani leadership. Its all about Afghanistan.. Or have you noticed the pressure on Pakistan from US on LeT going up drastically in last few weeks.
I humbly disagree Karan....Kashmir has lost its prominence or not doesn't mean anything(Its more becuase Pak hands are full in WOT)...In fact it never had any prominence atleast in the world to give India a headache......Pakistan diplomatic offensive to make Kashmir an international dispute and have a mediator to solve it never fructify....Mind it i am not saying that Kashmir is not recognized as dispute however international POV is inline with GOI POV i.e. to solve it bilaterally...
Let me be very cleat the way surgical strikes is not going to solve anything the same way diplomacy won't achieve us anything...As far as diplomacy is concerned we have always been trying to isolate Pakistan on terror issue and guess what before 9/11 no one was interested...After 9/11 suddenly everything changed to the extent US interests are not in danger....So unless and until we don't see LET plaaning an attack of 9/11 magnitude there is little hope anything will be done...Just to give you an example please read this...
Hafiz Saeed calls for jihad against India
This happened after we calimed our current diplomatic effort as best diploatic victory agasint Pak in respect to terror...A man who is alleged by India as the mastermind of most horrible attack on India just an year ago...an attack that the world watched for 3 days....an attack that the world acknowledges as being planned in Pakistan...an attack that is carried by Pakistani national admitted by GOP....is out on the streats and openly asking for waging JIhad against India in broad day light and we can't do anything about it...Heck even God help those who help themselves...so how come we can rely on world to put pressure on Pak and solve our problems??? In short words they will not...So either we pray for another attack in US(which is idiotic and inhumane) by LET or see what we can do by ourself to fight this menace......Now please mind it i am not saying that our diplomacy is not effective but is it going to give us desired results..heck no...The only difference between surgical strikes and diplomacy is that later don't lead to a full-fledge war....but both in my eyes are ineffective....
So what is the need of the hour??? I my eyes we need to come up with innovative ideas of solving it...
- Solving Disputes with pak is the ideal solution. However it is a distant dream so let c how we can protect ourselves on short term...
- We need to ensure that State or Non-State actors get in their head very well that they will have to pay a heavy price for wagind Jihad against India...With such a goal in mind lets c what we can do
a) Surgical Strikes - With above goal in mind IMO this option is not very bad idea...It has risk of full-fledge war...No doubt about it but International pressure complemented with Nukes on both sides are good enough reasons to keep the conflict limited...Cold start strategy implemented withing Kashmir makes sense here....
b) Covert Operations - No doubt surgical strikes are risky but then how about covert operations...Why can't we build capability(who knows we are) to kill these pigs inside their den..Even you in your below post suggest that???
Issues : We do not have such capabilities and it would take good enough time before we master these acts..
c) Terror strikes with in Pakistan - I vehemenetally oppose this option....however the way it goes is Why not let enemy taste some of its own medicine...
Issue : Inhumane...Too much to loose on international front...
Conclusion : I watched a show on NDTV and heard Arun Shourie saying something about it...It sounded to me the most reasonable
Keep Growing and keep doing what Mr. Chidambram is doing...Now what option New Delhi will choose its hard to tell..However one thing is for sure You and I are not safe in the near future...
Not implying that at all. I am saying that the concept of just a surgical strike is vaporware and nothing else.. A surgical strike will niether achieve anything nor will stay limited to a surgical strike
Its either overt reaction like diplomacy or war or covert reaction aka Israel style or some of the things that Pakistani members keep blaming india for..
Karan, in the event of the covert action you allude to, since Pakistan/Pakistanis are already convinced that India is sponsoring terrorist activities on our soil, simply dialing up these actions against us would merely be an invitation for yet another salvo on Indian soil... even if the initial event was not engineered by the Pakistani government, a covert action that is suspected of being instigated by India will surely meet a similar and perhaps a higher-amplitude reply. Won't, therefore, the cycle of covert action simply escalate the situation and make the sort of low-intensity war India wants to avoid, the status-quo?
I do agree though that the other two overt options are viable; the first being diplomacy and the second being all-out war. I share your cynicism of the limited surgical strike nonsense. There can't be any such thing in the Indo-Pak context unless the action takes place in disputed territory and both sides agree to limit a war across the Loc. Personally, I don't think this would be favourable for India though, because the numeric superiority available to India would be negated when forces are concentrated in a small area.
I don't want to go into debate if we are only numerically superior or not however conflicts are unpredicatble so no matter theater is small or not you do not infuse all your resouces on one place...Not going into all that has been discussed to death and that too many times on this forum i would like to bring your notice on one point that seems both Karan and you might have missed...
PUBLIC PRESSURE - I have repeated it many times on my dicussion with members still let me repeat - lets not forget that we both are diplomacies coupled with animosity for over 6 decades...Public pressure is too much to handle when it comes to India-Pak...The way it is impossible for GOP to ignore any surgical striked by India very well knowing that it can lead to a nuke war it is equally impossible for GOI to ignore any surgical strikes in Pak if there is any more mumbai...
Sad but truth South Asia is sitting on a time bomb....Its imperative that GOI and GOP to pull up their socks and resolve their disputes....