THE NATURE OF INDIAN AND INTERNATIONAL COERCION OF PAKISTAN

PAKISTAN’S PRESENT AND FUTURE WAR

India has carried out a revaluation of its strategic options with Pakistan. Coming years will witness an ‘All-out Strategy of Coercion’ effectively applied by Israel in the Middle East. India’s biggest advantage of seeking conceptual and technical military cooperation with Israel lies in the fact that its technology is largely indigenous and facilitates material transfer with no end user problems. Pakistan is already engaged in a War of Attrition and the futures will be a serious test of its strategy of defiance and ability to ride out the crises as a cohesive nation state.

India’s quest for security and response to perceived external threats is shaped and complicated by her past. India desires to exist as a great power with a capability to bully its neighbours to vassal states. Pakistan has been the major impediment towards this quest of great power status. Vary of the freedom struggle in Kashmir, an exaggerated threat of Islamic militants and fear of another Two Nation Theory from within; Indian strategists have been toying with the idea of using a small but lethal rapid reaction force for a limited duration inside Pakistan. However, India cannot accomplish what it has failed to do for the past six decades, unless the breeze blows in its favour. India feels it is time to test her new options.

Post 9/11, India sees an opportunity and is acting as a neo realist to minimise the importance of Pakistan through high profile coercion that falls in line with international perceptions. To capitalise this rare opportunity, India is even ready to forego its traditional mantra of keeping great powers out of the region and rather align with them for short term gains. In the final analysis, India wishes to frame a politically discredited, ethnically fragmented, economically fragile and a morally weak Pakistan. This can only happen if the role of armed forces in Pakistan’s policy making is pushed back; Punjab divided and the rallying call of Kashmir addressed for good.

Indian military structure and force goals for the past 10 years are geared towards such a capability with active assistance from Russia, Israel and now USA and UK. Having allied itself closely with Israel, India will now seek a continuous attrition of Pakistan’s politic body through high profile military coercion, control of river waters, diplomatic isolation and covert interference within Pakistan’s fragile areas. Mumbai and any such incidents in future will continue to provide a reason for such intimidation, all in concert with the US and western strategic objectives in the region. The policy is thus underlined by the need that Pakistan must have a very weak intelligence and surveillance capability.

Interestingly, much of the blame for having landed in the box and then be cornered into it must also be shared by the Pakistani establishments of the past decade. Though Pakistan’s declared nuclear capability was meant to deter all types of conflicts and pave way for sustained economic growth; international stature; and a political solution to the Kashmir Crisis, Pakistan through Kargil led India and the world to believe that notwithstanding a nuclear shadow, a limited military conflict in an existing conflict zone was still possible. Kargil and later 9/11 changed international perceptions on an armed freedom struggle in Kashmir as also Pakistan’s relevance to the new form of threat; the Non-State Actors. Seen in the backdrop of 9/11, it was the second effect that finally resulted in disowner ship of the freedom fighters in Kashmir by Pakistan while also resigning the Kashmir question to the impossibility of backdoor diplomacy.

Nuclear capability of Pakistan provides a very small window of opportunity to India to carry out a physical offensive action across the LOC or international border. This action could be a raid in the garb of Hot Pursuit through ground or heliborne troops, precision air strikes with or without stand-off; remote controlled targeting through a guided missile attack, and in worst case, an attempt to seize objectives close to the international border with little military but considerable political significance. India had a fully developed chemical weapon’s programme even before she signed the chemical weapon’s convention as a country not possessing chemical weapon’s but declared its arsenal soon after signing it and is not averse to using quickly diffusing chemical weapons. After 9/11, India has war gamed and fine tuned these concepts as also implemented some in a very limited manner during the escalation on the LOC.

Hot Pursuit, as the name suggests is only possible in an already hot theatre like LOC. These are launched through ground troops or heliborne forces. Such an option has little probability because of the bilateral ceasefire. However, such an option however remote cannot be ruled out.

With active assistance of Israel, some Indian aircrafts have acquired a beyond visual range, precision stand-off capability, something witnessed during the Kargil conflict. India may use her air force remaining inside her own territory and launch laser guided munitions diagonally inside Pakistan. However, the selected targets should be within 20 KMs of the LOC or international border.

Precision strikes imply that Indian aircrafts will physically violate Pakistan’s airspace and launch precision surgical strikes against selected targets from a very high altitude, or conventional bombing runs, or use of heliborne troops. In such a situation, these aircrafts will be vulnerable to Pakistani air defence and PAF.

In the Cold Start Strategy, India positions forces with offensive capabilities in military garrisons close to the international border, equipped, trained and tasked to capture some nodal points along the international border, before the Pakistani forces can react. India may not succeed in such an operation without a massive air cover. In Indian strategic calculus, the timing and lightening speed of such operations will solicit immense international pressure on Pakistan so as to curtail Pakistan’s conventional and nuclear response.

Notwithstanding such options hinging on military and diplomatic brinkmanship, India will benefit from the use of Israeli armed and surveillance drones operated by Israeli crews from inside India. Historical precedence for such cooperation already exists.

The whole body of war fighting reasoning in such limited conflicts warrants a ‘level of rationality’ and comprehension of a common strategic language between the belligerents. This is technically impossible. Different actors would draw varying conclusions from an animated Graduated Escalation Ladder (GEL) always vulnerable to a Fire Break Point that could result in uncontrolled conventional and nuclear escalation. It is therefore most important that the decision to graduate a conflict rest solely with the political leaders of the country, wherein a common strategic parlance could be evolved with more ease and international community enforce a carrot and stick syndrome over Pakistani leaders.

Taking a leaf from Israeli opaqueness in nuclear doctrine, India over time has applied a conceptual innovation in her nuclear strategy. The Indian revision in the nuclear doctrine implies the ambiguity in the “no first use clause” through a declared no first use and pre-emptive retaliation to create a perception that she is making a coercive transaction from doctrine of ‘Limited Conventional War’ to an opaque level of conflict in which the nuclear weapons remain in a very high state of alert. The implication is that India may flirt with the concept of a limited strategic coercion in the shadow of a very high non degradable nuclear alert beyond Pakistan’s capability to neutralise. It is also my opinion that as of now, after having signed the Nuclear Deal with USA, India benefits from an extended US Nuclear Umbrella, strategic and diplomatic support.

There are reliable reports from Afghanistan that Indian contractors are busy building billets and accommodation in Kabul and Baghram to station two Indian divisions groups in the area. At the same time, bids have been invited by the US Corps of Engineers to construct a divisional size cantonment in Kandhar. Hypothetically, troops in the garb of protection for Indian investments will actually seal off Afghanistan’s Pashtun Regions from the North. Then the US, NATO and Indian troops will go for an all out counter insurgency operation in the cordoned Pashtun areas. Effects of spillover to Pakistan will be pronounced and Durand Line would become a figment of imagination. Premised on the romantic notion of Pashtun Nationalism, the doors to Pakhtunkhwa would be opened. USA would then select the shortest route to Afghanistan through the Arabian Sea and Balochistan.

What ever the concept, scope and objective of such limited escalations, India with its new found allies has decided to maintain a constant vigil and coercion of Pakistan over a prolonged period of time but well below a Fire Break Point. The obvious targets in tandem with its allies will be addressed through diverse instruments like control of rivers, economics, diplomacy, international pressure, internal law and order, military intimidation and even insurgency. A trillion dollar question is; will USA be ready to occupy Balochistan for a secure supply corridor?
The war has already begun. The question is. When did it begin?

Brigadier Samson Simon Sharaf is a retired officer of Pakistan Army.
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