How can India help Pakistan? - The Economic Times
By: Gen Ashok K Mehta
The killing of Osama bin Laden has led to a political tsunami in Pakistan not seen since 1971. Pakistan's former National Security Advisor , Gen Mahmud Durrani has said India must hold Pakistan's hand in its hour of trial. What can India do to help? Do nothing to make matters worse by turning the knife.
We should continue the dialogue. India Pakistan relations are bad enough. But currently Pakistan-Afghanistan ties are no better. Pakistan has been accusing Afghanistan of ganging up with India to foment insurgencies in Balochistan and Fata. Specifically, it has charged India with using its consulates in Jalalabad and Kandahar to train Baloch rebels and provide succour to Taliban in the Frontier region.
Islamabad has pulled up Kabul for encouraging activities inimical to it. This is the pot calling the kettle black. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's recent visit to Kabul has cleared the way to set the record straight with Pakistan on Afghanistan. The two could discuss how to cooperate rather than conflict in Afghanistan as they do in other multilateral fora, especially in UN peacekeeping.
Islamabad has fought the war on terrorism selectively despite periodic goading by the US to go after the Afghan Taliban in North Waziristan. Pakistan has told the US it does not have the resources since its forces are already overstretched.
According to the Australian Pakistan-Army specialist Col Brian Cloughley , It is neither the lack of capability nor intention but the fear that further depletion of troops from east to west will critically unbalance Pakistan Army facing India, which is enemy no 1.
In 2008 Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani briefed the Pakistan Parliament, the first time the Army had done so, on the scale and scope of counterinsurgency operations in Swat and Malakand divisions. The ownership of military operations appears settled and rests with the civilian government. Troops were first relocated from the east to west after 9/11 in the wake of the US-led war in Afghanistan.
Pakistan has two corps located astride the undemarcated Durand Line, one each at Quetta and Peshawar. Along with regulars, nearly 1,50,000 local militia are deployed. According to the Indian Army , Pakistan had redeployed almost three divisions of its forces from the Indian to the Afghan border.
At one stage, the assessment was that nearly 52% of its strike forces and 48% of the defensive elements had been relocated. Last year, testifying before Congress, outgoing defence secretary Robert Gates lauded Pakistan Army for its operations in South Waziristan, saying that nearly six divisions had been transferred from the east to west.
In 2010, the former corps commander of 11 Corps in Peshawar, Lt Gen Masood Aslam, now ambassador in Mexico, indicated that five divisions, 25 brigades and 88 infantry battalions were deployed under his command. Altogether these constituted 122 fighting units which included 15 artillery regiments in infantry role and 55 Frontier Corps battalions.
For an area as vast and rugged as the seven tribal areas of Fata, troops would always be insufficient. Gen Kayani has other worries if he thins out further from the Indian border. Not the least is the Cold Start doctrine which has reportedly rectified the sluggish onemonth long mobilisation of Operation Parakram following the attack on Indian Parliament in 2001.
Incidentally, the Army chief, Gen V K Singh , has disowned Cold Start, saying it is a creation of think-tanks and not an official doctrine. India's reaction to the Mumbai attack was not surprisingly measured without initiating any military response. In subsequent months, following the suspension of the composite dialogue, India took a number of steps to strengthen coastal defence and intelligence capacities.
On January 4, 2009, Air Marshal K D Singh of South West Air Command said at a public lecture that if Pakistan were to repeat a mass-casualty Mumbai- like attack, India's reaction could be a short and intense war. Home minister P Chidambaram has been warning Pakistan periodically "not to play any more games" and let Mumbai be the last such game. "If they carry out another attack, we will also retaliate with the force of a sledgehammer".
Notwithstanding the shrill but unworkable demand that India do an operation Osama to pluck Hafez Saeed or Dawood Ibrahim , it is clear that India has neither the political will nor the capacity for surgical operations inside Pakistan. Instead, let New Delhi settle for the more realistic objective of permitting Pakistan Army to redeploy more forces from the east to west to fight the Taliban with an assurance from India that it would not militarily exploit the strategic void.
Gates said recently that he was surprised that Gen Kayani had moved 1,40,000 troops from the east to west. That says something about India's strategic restraint.
(The author is founding member of Defence Planning Staff)
By: Gen Ashok K Mehta
The killing of Osama bin Laden has led to a political tsunami in Pakistan not seen since 1971. Pakistan's former National Security Advisor , Gen Mahmud Durrani has said India must hold Pakistan's hand in its hour of trial. What can India do to help? Do nothing to make matters worse by turning the knife.
We should continue the dialogue. India Pakistan relations are bad enough. But currently Pakistan-Afghanistan ties are no better. Pakistan has been accusing Afghanistan of ganging up with India to foment insurgencies in Balochistan and Fata. Specifically, it has charged India with using its consulates in Jalalabad and Kandahar to train Baloch rebels and provide succour to Taliban in the Frontier region.
Islamabad has pulled up Kabul for encouraging activities inimical to it. This is the pot calling the kettle black. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's recent visit to Kabul has cleared the way to set the record straight with Pakistan on Afghanistan. The two could discuss how to cooperate rather than conflict in Afghanistan as they do in other multilateral fora, especially in UN peacekeeping.
Islamabad has fought the war on terrorism selectively despite periodic goading by the US to go after the Afghan Taliban in North Waziristan. Pakistan has told the US it does not have the resources since its forces are already overstretched.
According to the Australian Pakistan-Army specialist Col Brian Cloughley , It is neither the lack of capability nor intention but the fear that further depletion of troops from east to west will critically unbalance Pakistan Army facing India, which is enemy no 1.
In 2008 Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani briefed the Pakistan Parliament, the first time the Army had done so, on the scale and scope of counterinsurgency operations in Swat and Malakand divisions. The ownership of military operations appears settled and rests with the civilian government. Troops were first relocated from the east to west after 9/11 in the wake of the US-led war in Afghanistan.
Pakistan has two corps located astride the undemarcated Durand Line, one each at Quetta and Peshawar. Along with regulars, nearly 1,50,000 local militia are deployed. According to the Indian Army , Pakistan had redeployed almost three divisions of its forces from the Indian to the Afghan border.
At one stage, the assessment was that nearly 52% of its strike forces and 48% of the defensive elements had been relocated. Last year, testifying before Congress, outgoing defence secretary Robert Gates lauded Pakistan Army for its operations in South Waziristan, saying that nearly six divisions had been transferred from the east to west.
In 2010, the former corps commander of 11 Corps in Peshawar, Lt Gen Masood Aslam, now ambassador in Mexico, indicated that five divisions, 25 brigades and 88 infantry battalions were deployed under his command. Altogether these constituted 122 fighting units which included 15 artillery regiments in infantry role and 55 Frontier Corps battalions.
For an area as vast and rugged as the seven tribal areas of Fata, troops would always be insufficient. Gen Kayani has other worries if he thins out further from the Indian border. Not the least is the Cold Start doctrine which has reportedly rectified the sluggish onemonth long mobilisation of Operation Parakram following the attack on Indian Parliament in 2001.
Incidentally, the Army chief, Gen V K Singh , has disowned Cold Start, saying it is a creation of think-tanks and not an official doctrine. India's reaction to the Mumbai attack was not surprisingly measured without initiating any military response. In subsequent months, following the suspension of the composite dialogue, India took a number of steps to strengthen coastal defence and intelligence capacities.
On January 4, 2009, Air Marshal K D Singh of South West Air Command said at a public lecture that if Pakistan were to repeat a mass-casualty Mumbai- like attack, India's reaction could be a short and intense war. Home minister P Chidambaram has been warning Pakistan periodically "not to play any more games" and let Mumbai be the last such game. "If they carry out another attack, we will also retaliate with the force of a sledgehammer".
Notwithstanding the shrill but unworkable demand that India do an operation Osama to pluck Hafez Saeed or Dawood Ibrahim , it is clear that India has neither the political will nor the capacity for surgical operations inside Pakistan. Instead, let New Delhi settle for the more realistic objective of permitting Pakistan Army to redeploy more forces from the east to west to fight the Taliban with an assurance from India that it would not militarily exploit the strategic void.
Gates said recently that he was surprised that Gen Kayani had moved 1,40,000 troops from the east to west. That says something about India's strategic restraint.
(The author is founding member of Defence Planning Staff)
..we dont need to help anybody...
