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Defence And Strategic Affairs Blog

‘Ugly Stability’ in Southern Asia

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The key geo-strategic challenges in Southern Asia emanate from the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan and on the AfPak border; unresolved territorial disputes between India and China, and India-Pakistan; and, the almost unbridled scourge of radical extremism that is sweeping across the strategic landscape.

In May 1998, India and Pakistan had crossed the nuclear Rubicon and declared themselves states armed with nuclear weapons. Tensions are inherent in the possession of nuclear weapons by neighbours with a long history of conflict. The latest manifestation of this long-drawn conflict is the 20-year old state-sponsored ‘proxy war’ waged by Pakistan’s ISI-controlled mercenary terrorists against the Indian state.

While there was some nuclear sabre-rattling between India and Pakistan, particularly during the Kargil conflict, the two nations have never come close to a situation of deterrence breakdown. The “ugly stability” that is prevailing can be attributed primarily to India’s unwavering strategic restraint in the face of grave provocation, democratic checks and balances in its policy processes and tight civilian control over its nuclear forces. However, the Pakistan army, which also controls the country’s nuclear arsenal, has lost India’s trust after the Kargil conflict and the terrorist strikes at Mumbai. It is capable of once again stepping up trans-LoC terrorism or even engendering a Kargil-like situation that could escalate to a major war.

India’s border with China has been relatively more stable than that with Pakistan. However, China is in physical occupation of 38,000 sq km of Indian territory in Ladakh, J&K, and China claims the entire Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh (96,000 sq km) in the north-east. Even the Line of Actual Control (LAC) has not been demarcated on the ground and on military maps. Recently China has exhibited unprecedented assertiveness in its diplomacy and military posture. Until the territorial dispute between the two countries is resolved satisfactorily, another border conflict cannot be ruled out even though the probability is quite low.

China does not recognise India as a state armed with nuclear weapons and demands that India should go back to a non-nuclear status in terms of UNSC Resolution 1172 and, hence, refuses to discuss nuclear confidence building measures (CBMs) and nuclear risk reduction measures (NRRMs) with India. There is also a collusive nexus between China and Pakistan for nuclear weapons, nuclear-capable missiles and military hardware. Most analysts in India believe that this nexus will lead to India having to face a two-front situation during any future conflict.

The prevailing security environment in Southern Asia is not conducive to long-term strategic stability even though in the short-term there is no cause for major concern. India is developing robust military capabilities and is in the process of upgrading its military strategy against China from dissuasion to deterrence. In the nuclear weapons field, India is moving towards the deployment of the third leg of its triad, i.e. a nuclear-powered submarine armed with a submarine launched nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles (SSBN with SLBMs). This will give India genuine nuclear deterrence capability so as to prevent deterrence breakdown and reduce the risk of nuclear exchanges in any future conflict.

(Gurmeet Kanwal is Director, Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS), New Delhi.)

Indian-Americans and U.S. Politics Blog

‘The Voice of the Majority -1- ‘Don’t Tread on Our Religion, Our Culture’

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Every elite American newspaper is full of articles about Pakistan’s descent into religious extremism and the stunned reaction of the “westernized Pakistani elite” (as Washington Post put it) at the popular support in Pakistan for the accused assassin of Governor Salman Taseer. There is no question that successive Pakistani Military and Civilian regimes have nurtured Islamic extremism and built up the Taleban. It is also true that the assassination has severely shaken the confidence of the Pakistani elite and that of the Obama Administration.

Supports of Malik Qadri shower rose petalsI abhor any doctrine, regime or society that chooses to call itself the “Land of the Pure” or Pak-i-Stan. Once you call your society the land of the Pure, you sort of undertake the obligation to rid your society of any impure elements. That is what successive land-of-the-pure regimes have done by trying to cleanse their societies of Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, and Ahmadiyya Muslims over a 60-year period.

But I also recognize that Pakistani society has never elected religious parties in any election. They have usually voted for non-religious parties. So what turned this Pakistani society to shower rose petals on an accused assassin of a popular governor? Below is a contrarian and perhaps controversial answer.

•    The majority in every society or country expects its religion, its culture, its belief systems to be respected and protected by its government. I consider this fact to be self-evident. As a corollary, the majority tends to protest and rebel against any external pressure to modify its religious and social laws. When its own government aligns itself with the external source of pressure, the protests turn vehement. If the external forces are of another religion, then the anger can turn incendiary.

Perhaps, this is what happened in Pakistan. Rather than working quietly and discreetly to free the Christian woman sentenced under the 30-year old Blasphemy law, serious attempts were made to force Pakistan’s weak government to amend or abolish the law. This, I think, was a huge mistake. It changed the nature of the debate from being merciful to a poor woman to pressure from American and Western Christians to force a change in Pakistani society’s sacred religious principles.

In this context, an accused assassin of a popular governor became a symbol of defiance against American & Christian pressure against Muslims and a defender of the Prophet. Perhaps, a Muslim fighter against modern Christian Crusaders?  Is this so hard to understand?

I guess it is if you are a member of the American Elite and Media Elite in particular. If you think, I am being harsh, think back to their coverage of the Tea Party in America in 2010. This is the same elite section of American Establishment that once derided Core America as “small town people clinging to religion and guns”.  These are the same people who expressed outrage that over 70% of Americans were against construction of a new Mosque near the sacred Ground Zero. These American Elite accused Core Americans for becoming intolerant. It was preposterous.

There are over 90 Mosques in New York City, by some counts. So why did Americans protest so passionately against one new Mosque in New York? It was because that project seemed to symbolize an “in-your-face-America” message. It came across as a deliberate affront to America’s sacred memories and beliefs. So the American majority stood up and said, “Don’t tread on us”. The American Elite still don’t get this.

The American Elite express disapproval of religious beliefs and promotes an arrogant secularism. If they approve of someone, they call him or her “liberal”. If they don’t, they call the person “traditional” or “religious”. They misuse America’s clout to force their “secularism” on governments of countries that depend on American aid. They do not get the basic fact that the core of most societies is religious. They do not understand that their demands come across simultaneously as arrogant “irreligiousity” (to paraphrase Stratfor) and as attacks on sacred principles. So is it any surprise that their actions usually misfire as they did in Pakistan!

Perhaps they should watch Bill O’Reilly of Fox speak of “secular-progressives” in his tone of dripping contempt. If the American Elite cannot convince Bill O’Reilly, why do they think they should pressure Pakistan? If they cannot understand Core America, why do they think they can understand Core Pakistan or Core India?

How does this discussion lead to core India or to US-India relations? That is a topic for the next article.

Defence And Strategic Affairs Blog

Is It Terrorism Or A Long Term Covert War Strategy?

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This week a small bomb exploded in the Holy City of Varanasi at the Dashashwamedha Ghat where prayers are held. Hundreds of people watch this event either at the Ghat or from boats in the River Ganga. This bomb attack was terrorism, a dastardly act intended to injure and kill innocent people.

VaranasiBut this attack is very different from the horrific attack on Mumbai by commandos from Pakistan in November 2008. The attack on Mumbai was NOT terrorism, but a totally different operation. It was an exquisitely planned and flawlessly executed attack by professionally trained commandos armed with an arsenal of lethal weapons. Prior to the attack, the supporting cadres had scouted the targets, established base camps in nondescript buildings, and stockpiled on weapons and support material. The attackers traveled from Karachi to Mumbai in trawlers; they came ashore in inflatables in isolated portions off the Mumbai coastline at night, and went quietly to their planned rendezvous points. Then, like clockwork, they carried out their mission.

Based on the testimony and interrogation of David Coleman Headley, media analysts have reported that the attack was assisted or masterminded by elements associated with Pakistan’s Intelligence Service, the ISI. Whether this is true or not, we leave to the relevant officials. The more relevant question is whether this was one isolated attack or part of a long-term strategy.

The Pakistan military, in my opinion, has been a relentless enemy of India since the partition. They attacked India in 1947, 1965, 1971 and then finally in 1999. After the disastrous defeat in the 1999 Kargil conflict, I believe, the Pakistani Army came to the conclusion that they could not afford to engage the Indian Army in combat. It was time for a different strategy.

A New Strategy for Covert War against Indian Society?

We do not know what the Pakistani Army designed. But let us indulge in speculative analysis.

Readers, if you had to design a strategy, what would you do? You would realize that a successful strategy should pit your strengths against the weaknesses of your enemy. So a smart strategy against India should bypass the professional, well-trained Indian Military and attack the soft underbelly of India, the local Indian administrations. It is no secret that the local administrations in India are rather pathetic – inefficient, incompetent and sometimes corrupt. If the Indian Army is made of “Lions”, the local administrations are made of “Sheep”; complacent people content to graze in their local fiefdoms and conditioned to follow the direction of their shepherds or of their bosses above.

Ajmal KasabIt is a characteristic of wolves to attack sheep. Where would you find wolves? You would look to the poor, destitute areas of Pakistan-Pashtunistan. No shortage there of young men who, for a relatively small amount of money, could be trained in military combat, bomb-making and other terrorist activities. These men could be infiltrated into India for specific missions, a simple task given Indian complacency and laxness. If these young men are successful, mission accomplished. If these young men fail, no harm done as long as the masterminds could claim plausible deniability.

Such a strategy of attacking local Indian administrations would be easy and effective. It would cost little and create havoc in India. The pathetic state of the Indian political machine would render it incompetent to taker any effective action. In this way, you would be able to create a strategy of a long-term relentless Covert War against the Indian society.

How would such a strategy succeed? Go back and recall the events of November 2008. You will see that such a strategy could succeed brilliantly without incurring any liability or damage to the masterminds of the strategy.

Long Term Implications for India

If such a strategy actually exists, then it could have long-term implications for India. It would require the entire Indian establishment to act upon it. It would need an innovative hard set of responses, each calibrated to trigger upon a specific type or level of scenarios.

Unfortunately, this is not an Indian strength. India has not demonstrated any long-term strategic vision since Independence. No Indian agency has demonstrated the ability to work in tandem with other agencies, and the Indian Government has not created an awareness of the long-term danger to India.

At the current rate of economic progress, the Indian society would be richer, more educated and generally content with its prosperity within the next ten years. Next to this wealthy soft Indian society, the Pakistan-Pashtunistan area would be home to almost 300 million people, most of them poor, destitute and without any real means of employment. This would be an army of hungry wolves ready to descend on a rich, soft India to loot and plunder just like their ancestors began doing about 1,200 years ago. These would not be military attacks from a government but attacks from ‘independent’ groups of professionally trained wolf packs on Indian society.

What is the solution against attacks by Wolves on the Sheep? The protectors of the Sheep have to enter the den of the Wolves to unleash punishment.

Will India ever have the mental and military strength to do so? Or will India, the seeker of a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, keep running to America with its grievances?

India-US Relations Blog

How will Wikileaks affect the U.S.-India dynamic?

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Last week began with a bang as Wikileaks snuck out its latest offering of classified government cables and documents causing a stir in diplomatic circles. The leaked documents provide a glimpse into the U.S. State Department’s dealings with and impressions of various countries and global leaders. While the veracity of these documents will continue to remain suspect, there is little to suggest that all of the contents of the documents are doctored. Assuming that the information contained in these documents is partially true, there are some interesting and disturbing revelations for India, particularly with regard to Pakistan and China.

Image credit www.skuggen.comProbably the most disparaging of comments about India is a poor assessment of the Cold Start strategy, a military strategy to be implemented in retaliation of terrorist attacks in India. The exposed document revels U.S’ doubts about the deterrent capability of Cold Start for Pakistan, and India’s intentions of every using it given that it did not do so after the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai. It also says that several senior government officials have neither “supported, endorsed or advocated” for Cold Start.

Other documents reveal how China blocked a UN Security Council vote on sanctions against Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and its leader Hafiz Saeed at the behest of Pakistan before the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai.  JuD and Hafiz Saeed have been accused by India of having planned terrorist attacks on India. Since then JuD has been put under sanctions and the Pakistan government is tasked with implementing the freeze on assets. However, JuD and Saeed continue to be operational even today.

Another set of documents show the Lashkar-e-Taiba’s annual budget, raised through private funds and charitable networks of JuD, is $ 5.2 million. Hafiz Saeed and LeT’s Zakir-ul-Rehman Lakhvi are said to continue operating and generating funds in spite of having been detained by Pakistani agencies for their involvement in the Mumbai attacks. Still other documents talk of how Pakistan would not stop supporting terrorists against India no matter how much aid poured in from the U.S.  The documents shows a Pakistan obsessed with animosity with India and no amount of money would not make a difference to its intentions about India.

These and other documents from Wikileaks vindicate India’s allegations about Pakistan sponsored terrorism against India, and their role particularly in the 26/11 attacks. While the contents of these documents might not be particularly surprising, it brings a mixed bag of emotions as far as its relations with the U.S. are concerned. On the one hand the leaked cables show how the U.S. is concerned about terrorism emanating from Pakistan, the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and a circumstance necessitated relationship filled with suspicion and distrust. On the other it raises questions about what the U.S was doing sitting on such extensive information about Hafiz Saeed and other terrorist activities in Pakistan? Why did it not act against terrorism in Pakistan with the same speed and determination as it did against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan or against Iraq? Is the U.S. genuinely concerned about terrorism as a whole, or only when it lands on its shores? Is India good only as a trading partner for America, or does it appreciate its strategic importance in South Asia? How true is the ‘natural allies’ rhetoric, or would short term strategic considerations continue to override long-term gains that the U.S-India partnership can provide each country?

India has so far chosen to maintain a stoic silence on the Wikileaks and refrained from criticizing the U.S for the leaking of classified conversations. Irrespective of how damaging the leaks are to security interests or bilateral relations, the sheer number of documents leaked (over 90000) is enough to raise concerns about the confidentiality and privacy of future interactions with the U.S. Though the revelations might not have been too startling, diplomatic bridges have been damaged as is evident from the U.S’ hurried damage control response, including plans to charge Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. With time the memory of these embarrassing revelations will be relegated to history, and all might seem well with the India-U.S relationship. But will the two countries truly be natural allies? Or will the ghosts of Pakistan and U.S’ inaction to the detriment of Indian security interests loom large over this nascent relationship?

Important links:

“WikiLeaks U.S. embassy cables: as it happened”

“US doubts Pak will fight militants”

“WikiLeaks cables portray Saudi Arabia as a cash machine for terrorists.”

“Wikileaks: China thwarted action against anti-India terrorists”

“Cash from Haj pilgrims used to finance 26/11: WikiLeaks”

“WikiLeaks cables: Accused Mumbai plotter runs operations from jail”

Defence And Strategic Affairs Blog

26/11: India’s options two years after

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Two years ago, on Thanksgiving, as American families sat down to dinner, their TV screens came to life with a macabre spectacle. Ten terrorists, trained to numb their emotions, went on a killing spree in Mumbai unparalleled in modern history.

There have been commentators who’ve pointed out that after all, there are terrorist attacks on a daily basis in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia etc. So why should the Mumbai attacks raise so much consternation? And yet the Mumbai attacks stand out neither for their scale nor the murder – but for their modus operandi and intent. And it wasn’t just the fact that the attackers seemed unmoved by the horror of murder – the slow and calculated shooting of scores of unarmed people. It was also the fact that unlike in other terrorist attacks in the region, the terrorists in Mumbai were neither domestic insurgents nor disaffected citizens of the country. Instead, in Mumbai, the attackers were foreign nationals…Citizens of another country who had crossed an international border explicitly for the task of carrying out an essentially military action during peacetime. The causes cited by the Mumbai attackers were hardly personal. Given the legacy of relations between Pakistan and India the ten terrorists’ action could have been a causus belli. But, India chose not to respond with any form of military action and gave Pakistan an opportunity to deracinate Lashkar-e-Taiba from its soil. And yet the Lashkar, as much a nationalist group as it is a religious extremist group, has thus not been smashed by the strong arm of the Pakistani state. Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, despite being proscribed by the UN, continues to be in public life and the Jamaat-ud-Dawa continues to make news, most recently through its fund-raising drive during Eid-ul-Adha. Ajmal Amir Kasab’s confessions and David Headley’s testimony prove that Lashkar-e-Taiba’s plans are far from over.

Commandos in action during Mumbai attacksSome Pakistani analysts say that deracinating the Lashkar-e-Taiba is impossible because Pakistan’s establishment fears the repercussions of opening up another front by taking on Lashkar-e-Taiba which has powerful patronage networks in the country. Others aver that Pakistan’s military establishment needs such groups for the insurgency in Jammu & Kashmir and that they serve as a “strategic reserve” to achieve the strategic goals of the establishment vis-à-vis India. These reasons are anything but reassuring for anyone that believes in peace between the two countries.

It is clear that should a terrorist attack such as the Mumbai attacks recur, India would not be able to show restraint against the groups. Public opinion is often a strong factor in democracies as was seen in the U.S. response to 9/11. Unsurprisingly, a recent Pew poll indicated that most Indians would support military action against Lashkar-e-Taiba and other extremist groups if they conducted another terrorist attack in India. The only question for India is to determine when its red lines have been breached.

The response by India would be anything but vindictive. India’s objective would not be about destabilizing Pakistan. India recognizes the far-reaching consequences of such a scenario for India’s and international security.  Instead, should another such terrorist attack occur, what India is likely to do is target the cogs and wheels of the “terror machine” – the complex web of non-state actors who are willing to cross an international border to execute military actions – inside Pakistan.

India of course would have costs to bear.  Indian policymakers understand that there are no reliable patterns to be drawn from the history of military response to cross-border terrorist attacks. The attack and India’s response could alleviate tensions in the region enough to have an impact on the India’s economy. There would be costs in terms of human casualties. There may be no guarantees against future attacks. And yet… should a terrorist attack by a Pakistani national or a terrorist attack traceable to Pakistan recur on Indian soil, all the above costs for India would be overshadowed by the cost of doing nothing. India also remembers the adverse impact of the Mumbai attacks on the Indian economy. In short, the cost of doing nothing would have such a serious impact on the political-economy of India that it would have no other option but to respond and strike.

The onus of preventing a future attack therefore, lies as much with Pakistan as with India. The latter would of course have to strengthen its anti-terrorism institutions and structures. Pakistan, on the other hand, has to be resolute and come down hard on Lashkar-e-Taiba and its allies, and extend India the kind of security cooperation that it has extended to other countries such as Iran.

The Mumbai attacks will forever be remembered as one of the most brutal assaults ever perpetrated. Allowing another attack to happen would be just as grave a crime.