The war scare

[fatman17]

The war scare

By M.A. Niazi

Two of the largest countries in the world, in terms of population, have remained locked in a war scare for some weeks, merely because one of them misused a major terrorist act that happened within its territory. In the end, India will probably not go to war because it never really intended to, but the entire episode has exposed two flaws it suffers from, which make it an unreliable partner in the region, let alone the world.

First, that it has a large religious minority that its majority religion mistreats, and that its majority religion includes as bad terrorists as any that afflict Islam, which it continuously excoriates. There is much the problem with Pakistan, but the bad things India claims to have identified are not the problem. Indeed, the position taken by India has actually helped the distortions within the system in Pakistan.

The latest Indo-Pak war scare has been only partially fostered by the Indian media. They have only been reporting the situation as the media people see it, that the Indian government wishes to go to war because of an inability to solve the mystery behind the Mumbai terrorist attacks. The main thing to remember about India is that it has twice before attacked Pakistan, in 1965 and 1971, and both times it engaged in an elaborate deception plan.

This military thinking was favoured by the USSR, which then had great influence in India, especially in its military, which it no longer has, but Indian military thinking has not found a different source of inspiration, so while there was an obvious attempt to use Mumbai as a base for a deception plan, India apparently had no other option to exploit to make an excuse for an attack on Pakistan. In other words, the deception plan had no other element.

However, using Mumbai had a number of problems. First, India had no real reason to go to war with Pakistan. In 1965 there was the Rann of Kutch, in 1971 there was a culmination of the East Pakistan issue, and the creation of Bangladesh, while it also met the aspirations of East Pakistanis, also served as the Soviet-style deception plan favoured by the Indians.

At this point in time, the Indians have no real reason to go to war with Pakistan, except the emotional. In 1965, and in 1971, which was essentially a continuation, Pakistan was cut down to size. However, while the Indian military victory in 1971 was comprehensive, the Kashmir issue was not solved, showing that that was not a subject between the two countries that could be settled by a war. Therefore, Kashmir is not a casus belli.

The two countries depend on the international community to keep them apart. This preceded their acquisition of nuclear weapons. Basically, because neither India nor Pakistan have developed indigenous sources of production of weaponry or weapons platforms, they are dependent on outside sources of weaponry for all their armed forces.

If a conflict occurs, the weapons would run out, so both countries look to the outside world to help stop a conflict before one or the other side runs out of weapons. Therefore, one way of limiting the 1965 and 1971 conflicts was an arms embargo. It was applied to Pakistan by the USA, as well as by those countries which had sold to both sides. The ultimate result of a prolonged conflict is that the people of the respective countries would not only have to sacrifice, but would also have to fight too. That is something that the armed forces, but especially the armies on either side dread.

This is especially true for the Pakistan Army, which has long presented itself as the sole defender of the country. There is a movement for the military to take over again in Pakistan, and it can be safely predicted that, assuming this movement is not sponsored by the military itself, there is a definite exploitation of the sentiment that the armed forces are the ultimate defenders of the country, and therefore have an inherent right to rule. Though the USA has exploited this sentiment in Pakistan at the time of the signing of the Baghdad Pact, Nixon’s overture to China, the Afghan jihad and the War on Terror, it must be aware by now that Bonapartism is alive and well in the Pakistani armed forces, and can always be exploited.
The war scare has presented the PAF the ideal opportunity of reviving the ‘spirit of 65’, which presumably were achieved by some protective patrolling of Lahore’s skies. The army also basked in the glory of being the nation’s protectors. This has all revived the belief in Pakistan that an Indo-Pak War will have no effect on the lives of ordinary civilians. This is the image that the armed forces wish to maintain in Pakistan, of being the real protectors of Pakistan.

But at the same time, the doctrine of foreign intervention seems to have been borne out: before the event, this time. The armed forces always rely on the UN to bail them out of a fight against India before they are reduced to using civilians to do the fighting. This time, the UN powers, or rather the USA, has already intervened, but the message that is being brought to Islamabad is not a congenial one. It is to cooperate with India. The latest visitor, the head of Interpol, has added some sense to the matter. In what is essentially a police matter, he has yet to be given evidence of the involvement of any Pakistanis. He was a better person to be given such evidence, for the Indians themselves want the Mumbai blasts to be treated as a police matter, as it deserves, and as do all acts of terrorism, including 9/11.

The Indian propaganda over Mumbai has incidentally allowed it to duck the obvious question raised, how it treats its Muslim minority. It has also ducked the question of the killing of anti-terrorist Squad chief Hemant Karkare, instead drawing obloquy on the (Muslim!) minister who raised the question of how Karkare’s death would act on the case that was being made out against a serving Indian colonel. Not enough people in India seem very concerned about that case, which lends support to the view in Pakistan that there are Hindu terrorists that the USA is ignoring.

The war scare is being related by some to the desire of India, and some supporters in the USA, to make Pakistan even smaller bits than it was left in 1971. This is the party that wants war. But war has to be seen from the point of view of whether it would serve or harm the War on Terror. While a scare serves to give a big diplomatic role to the countries fighting the War, an actual Indo-Pak war, even if it does not escalate into a nuclear conflict, which is by no means certain, would harm the War.

E-mail: maniazi@nation.com.pk

 

[Sadaf Riaz]

i think they have an eye on Balochistan... their presence in Afghanistan prooves this strategy to work in Balochistan... they are on our water .. and they have plans to get gas from IRAn.. they dont want to give us chance to cut their gas provisions is they stop our water.. i think they want tht all. secondly they want to know that wht will be our strategy of deployment of forces... and wht area we ignore... buh they have no idea that we are keeping eye on each aspect, they are concerned for...

 

[niaz]

Indian Media and think tanks are goading the Gov't to take some action. I found the following article in today's Hindusatn Times. The writer of this article being a professor of Strategic Studies at the Centre for Policy Research, Delhi, belongs to a very influental Think Tank; it goes to show that crisis is far from over and that Indian Hawkes are worse war mongers than Pakistani equivalents! I wonder they realizes that If Pakistan is destablised as a result of Indian armed action, the danger of the actions similar to Mumbai attacks repeated in other Indian cities would increase. Has US action in Iraq or in Afghanistan made the world any safer?



Words are all we have

Brahma Chellaney


On the ninth anniversary of India’s Kandahar capitulation, it is evident that its costs continue to multiply. That cave-in set in motion a seemingly inexorable dual process — making India an easy prey for transnational terrorists, and the further softening of the Indian republic. Today, India has the dubious global distinction of suffering the largest number of terrorism-related casualties. Yet, far from waging its own war on terror, it is more interested in collecting evidence on Pakistan’s complicity while obsessively craving international sympathy as a victim.

Such a masochist approach raises troubling questions. Are there no limits to India’s patience in the face of increasingly provocative transnational terrorism? How much further can India be assaulted and terrorised before it finally concludes enough is enough? Or is it that the more terrorism it suffers, the greater becomes its capacity to absorb strikes? The Parliament attack was supposed to be India’s 9/11. Now it is the Mumbai assaults. That is, before a new set of terrorists again expose the Indian leadership’s cravenness.

Strategically, India’s imperative not to brook the latest terrorist assaults but to respond effectively parallels America’s post-9/11 attitude. Non-stop live television coverage of the 67-hour strikes has created not only an upsurge of patriotic revulsion and national unity, but also a propitious international setting for Indian counteraction. The providential capture of one fidayeen attacker alive helped unravel the Pakistani-scripted plot. Yet, having offshored India’s Pakistan policy, the ageing leadership is throwing away a golden opportunity that won’t repeat itself. The December 12 Parliament resolution on terrorism thus will go the way the Parliament resolutions of 1962 and 1994 on Chinese and Pakistani territorial aggression did — as mere words. The latest resolution, in any case, is long on rhetoric. The terrorists and their patrons certainly will not be taken in by words that palpably ring hollow by spelling out no action, yet smugly declare India will be “victorious in its fight against the barbaric menace of terrorism”.

All talk and no action bleeds India. Punitive military action, of course, is at the top rung of the strategic ladder — a daunting choice tied to good timing so that the adversary is taken unawares and snow-blocked Himalayan mountain-passes bar China from opening another front. But Prime Minister Manmohan Singh thus far has not taken the smallest of small steps against the terrorists’ haven, Pakistan. By shying away from invoking the mildest diplomatic or economic sanctions as a token expression of India’s outrage, he has capped India’s response at impotent fury. Instead, Singh bafflingly expects — and indeed urges — the international community to deal “sternly and effectively with the epicentre of terrorism”.

Israel’s heavy response to however small a provocation and India’s non-response to frontal attacks on its security and honour make these countries polar-opposites. Still, as the international response to Mumbai and Gaza illustrates, it is the meek that get counselled while the intrepid wage action unhindered.

While Atal Bihari Vajpayee took India on a roller-coaster ride with an ever-shifting policy on Pakistan and terror, under Singh the chickens have come home to roost. Vajpayee’s blunders — of which Kandahar remains a bleeding shame — have been more than matched by Singh’s bungles, including his surprise action on the fifth anniversary of 9/11 in declaring the sponsor of terror, Pakistan, as a victim of terror like India. To consummate that policy somersault, he established a still-existing joint anti-terror mechanism — a case of unforgettable naïveté, akin to the police setting up joint investigations with the mafia. The advent of fidayeen attacks happened under Vajpayee. The manner Vajpayee fought the Kargil War — entirely on Indian territory, on the enemy’s terms — emboldened the invading state to launch fidayeen terrorism no sooner than that conflict had started winding down. Kargil was followed by Kandahar, after which terrorism morphed from hit-and-run strikes to daring assaults on military camps, major religious sites and national emblems of power. But under Singh, suicide attacks have qualitatively escalated to such an extent that India has come under a terrorist siege.

Singh now has a person of his choice in place of the home minister who was eased out as a scapegoat. Singh expects P. Chidambaram to bring down terrorism. The new incumbent has told Parliament: “We have to take hard decisions”. But so far nothing much has happened.


Let’s be clear: Had India’s leaders not ignored institutionalised policymaking in favour of an ad hoc, personality-driven approach, not repeated the very mistakes of their predecessors and not insisted on learning on the job, the terrorism problem would not have become so acute. In the manner a fish rots from the head down, the rot in India is at the leadership level.

Just the way Pakistan goes through the motions of cracking down on its terror groups, New Delhi responds to each terrorist strike in a perfunctory or mechanical way, without commitment or resolve. And just as Pakistan has a track record of easing up on its terror groups when the spotlight is off, India’s leaders go back to business as usual no sooner than a terrorist attack has begun to fade from public attention.

While Pakistan is guilty of sponsoring terror, India’s leadership is guilty of encouraging terror and making the country an easy prey. Make no mistake: If Pakistan is to dismantle its state-reared terror complex, India’s leaders will have to first dismantle their terror-emboldening outlook.

Singh now has a person of his choice in place of the home minister who was eased out as a scapegoat. Singh expects P. Chidambaram to bring down terrorism. The new incumbent has told Parliament: “We have to take hard decisions”. But so far nothing much has happened.

Let’s be clear: Had India’s leaders not ignored institutionalised policymaking in favour of an ad hoc, personality-driven approach, not repeated the very mistakes of their predecessors and not insisted on learning on the job, the terrorism problem would not have become so acute. In the manner a fish rots from the head down, the rot in India is at the leadership level.

Just the way Pakistan goes through the motions of cracking down on its terror groups, New Delhi responds to each terrorist strike in a perfunctory or mechanical way, without commitment or resolve. And just as Pakistan has a track record of easing up on its terror groups when the spotlight is off, India’s leaders go back to business as usual no sooner than a terrorist attack has begun to fade from public attention.

While Pakistan is guilty of sponsoring terror, India’s leadership is guilty of encouraging terror and making the country an easy prey. Make no mistake: If Pakistan is to dismantle its state-reared terror complex, India’s leaders will have to first dismantle their terror-emboldening outlook.

Brahma Chellaney is a professor of Strategic Studies at the Centre for Policy Research, Delhi.

Words are all we have- Hindustan Times