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India could not attack Pakistan in 2009
Predominant Religions in NW British India 1909
December 1, 2010
Both Bharat and Pakistan became declared their Nuclear prowess in 1998 with the fizzled explosions at Pokhran and the successful explosions at Chaghtai. In 2001 Bharat had contemplated a full fledged invasion of Pakistan. The invasion was thwarted due to Pakistans timely response made possibly by the slowness of Bharat to assimilate its forces. Pakistan rapidly deployed its full force on the boundary-line, and Bharat arrayed its forces along the border for several months before realizing the futility of its insanity.
Apparently Bharat considered various options but could not attack Pakistan due to the following reasons:
■Limited Strikes would not be affective and Bharat could expect a massive response
■Sneak attacks had already been thwarted by Pakistan which had scrambled its F-16s
■The n-threat from Pakistan could not be ruled out and Bharat had no answer to the intensity of nuclear or non-nuclear missile strikes
■Deniable option of terrorism in Pakistan could not be carried out because allegedly Bharat did not have assets on the ground, after the decimation of those assets in the aftermath of the destruction of the Babri Mosque.
■Us role of sympathy and empathy allowed Bharat to cool its jets.
The Indian Express has narrated a blow by blow account of Bharati frustration after the so called attack on Mumbai. The article starts out with the usual rhetoric against Pakistanmuch it meant for Western audiences which are monitoring the press. The paper is full of brimstone and fire on how incensed the Bharatis were during the tanks giving season of 2009.
The paper then narrates the options available to Bharat viz a viz Pakistan. It is amazing that the Bharati Armed forces had to do research from scratch and then come up with the obviousBharat could not attack a Nuclear Armed Pakistan. It is comical to assume that Bharat had to go through the exercise in futility. It is amazing that the facts about Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) has still not sunk into the Bharati psyche.
No wonder Stephen Cohen and the Bharatis continue to come with with cartoonish theories like the Cold Start Strategy (CSS). It is humorous that Bhratis now deny the existence CSS. the Indian Express theory in fact proves that the Bhratis considered many different versions of Cold Startand considered waging war on Pakistan despite the Nuclear shield.
The deep insight into the nuclear bunkers of Bhrat gives us a vignette into Bharati thinking. While Hillary Clinton often lectures Pakistan about its paranoia about Delhi and always makes fun of Islamabads threat perceptionit is pedagogical to note that deep insights into the war rooms of Bharat display a deep rooted desire of Delhi to teach naughty Pakistan a lesson, so that it can become a pawn in Delhis hands.
■Problems with Indias military doctrine, and a lack of clarity within the Union Cabinet and on its war objectives may have undermined Operation Parakram at the very outset.
■In an exclusive interview to The Hindu , the former Chief of the Army Staff, General S. Padmanabhan, has thrown new light on the reasons for the failure of Operation Parakram, the massive build-up ordered in the wake of the December 13, 2001, attack on Parliament House.
■He was responding to criticism that a slow mobilisation of the troops gifted Pakistan time to prepare its defences and eventually meant that the Operation had to be called off. The Hindu
The Indian Express article describes how the Bharati Prime Minister did not want a repeat of the failed operation called Operation Parakram which was totally nullified by Pakistans Azma e Nao exercise.
Yet, the Prime Minister kept his calm and turned to the three service chiefs. He asked them whether they had any options in mind. In the same breath, he preemptively made it clear that he did not favour another Operation Parakram. That option was off the table from day one, recall sources. The then Navy Chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta chose to remain quiet. After all, the Navy was carrying out exercises in the area when the 10 terrorists slipped in without raising an alarm. The Army Vice-Chief wanted to wait for Gen Kapoor to return before they could crystallise their thoughts.
It was Air Chief Marshal Fali Major who eventually spoke up and suggested striking terror camps in ***. The Air Chief was sure that his planes and pilots could do the job but the intelligence agencies would have to provide the coordinates. There was no further discussion on the subject that day, but it was also not the last conversation.
So, how close did India and Pakistan come to war? The views range from very close to fleetingly close but the fact which all key players confirm is that the military option was indeed on the table. It was subsumed by only a larger question of how would Pakistan react?
LIMITED STRIKES
IN the days that followed, the military top brass went about working on the options. The Air Force, in particular, did go into the finer aspects of conducting a limited air strike in *** but the political decision-making never moved any further.
However, the Defence Minister did hold a meeting with the three service chiefs after the PMs first meet. At that point, the Army Chief was asked whether limited ground strikes could be carried out. Gen Kapoor is said to have responded that an operation was possible but he would need a weeks notice and that it would be a highly risky affair. He is said to have added that any political approval on this must include flexibility for the Army to respond anywhere along the LoC or for that matter, even the international border. In the Armys assessment, any strike would definitely lead to an escalated military conflict and the government ought to prepared for it. The Air Force agreed that a strong Pakistani reaction was certain but was not willing to predict the levels of escalation.
F-16 scramble
While this continued, the Army proposed that it would like to prolong the stay of two of its brigades involved in a scheduled peacetime military exercise on the Rajasthan border. The go-ahead was given and the two brigades overstayed for about two weeks.
Much later, in early January, when then Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon, who is now the National Security Advisor, visited the US, his eloquent assertion in all his meetings about how India had not provoked Pakistan was only once challenged. Gen David Petraeus is learnt to have told him that this was not true because Indian troops had overstayed after finishing their military exercise. To Pakistan, he felt, this was a provocation to which it gave a disproportionate response by placing troops on alert and moving its fighters closer to the border.
There was also another incident about an Indian plane violating Pakistan airspace which apparently led to a F-16 scramble on the Pakistan side. Islamabad lodged a strong diplomatic protest. India denied with equal conviction. But at the same time the Air Force was asked to carry out an investigation.
The result was that there was indeed some violation by a reconnaissance plane of the Aviation Research Centre, RAWs air wing, that was conducting a sortie along the LoC. This aircraft, perhaps, went too close to the LoC, violating the rule that both sides will not send their aircraft that near.
The N-threat
A few days later, a meeting was held in the nuclear bunker where the top leadership of the government is to be rushed in case of a nuclear strike. This was not provoked by 26/11. It was scheduled much before the attacks with the objective of familiarising the PM and other ministers of the emergency drill. But in the backdrop of the Mumbai attacks, the meeting could not have ignored the security environment of the day.
The PM is believed to have asked how would one distinguish a nuclear strike from any other non-nuclear, yet devastating attack. This was important because like many in the bunker, he too wanted to be sure that sufficient safeguards were in place to prevent a mistaken response. A long explanation was given. The PM then wanted to know if there was a chance Pakistan could misjudge a conventional strike by India and trigger a nuclear response.
There was near silence. Pakistan, by then, had already created war hysteria which many felt was unprovoked. The larger consensus was that you could not be sure about Pakistans response. Its reliably learnt that it was this uncertainty which halted Indian strategists from fully backing any military response.
Under considerable pressure to show some response, the Prime Minister had independently tasked Menon to draw up a list of Indias options. Menon did carry out the exercise like a professional and gave an unsigned note that started with extreme measures like a limited military strike to less effective but dramatic steps like scaling down diplomatic relations, stopping cricketing ties, visa restrictions among others. He and Narayanan met regularly, at the PMs instructions, to discuss the question of options in the days and weeks after the attacks.
Deniable Option
In the wake of all the uncertainty over how Pakistan would respond, there was also talk about the deniable option. One which would involve covert operatives carrying out a sensational strike in Pakistan or in ***. Its learnt that RAW and the Army were specifically asked this question. RAWs response to the NSA stunned all except, perhaps, Narayanan himself who is among the doyens of Indian intelligence. Indias premier external intelligence agency admitted that it had no assets in Pakistan to carry out such an action. It was explained that India lost all the meagre local support it had in pockets of Pakistan after the Babri Masjid attack and what little was left, was shut down by a prime ministerial diktat during I K Gujrals tenure.
The Army said it had the ability to carry out commando operations but the government had to be clear what would be the approach if anyone was apprehended. Also, the Army let it be known that it was not sure how Pakistan would react if it found out.
This discussion headed nowhere after this because the ground realities were clear that India had consciously not cultivated this option. Some others felt it was pointless to discuss the deniable option because the whole idea of a response should be that the other side should know who did it.
JUST as Singh deliberated these issues here, on November 29 itself, then US President George W Bush held a meeting with his security advisors and also on the video link with his missions in India and Pakistan. He told them that the last time something like this happened in the United States, we went to war. Prime Minister Singh, he added, was also under immense pressure and that the United States must do all it can to help him so that he does not go to war.
That eased matters a bit as Bush made it clear to Pakistan that it needed to roll up and crush the terror outfit behind the attack. US assistance was unprecedented, forcing Pakistan to accept that the attack was carried out from its soil.
But when the dust settled, all agreed that the unpredictability on the Pakistan side and the fear that its decision makers could opt for a disproportionate response, including the nuclear option, stymied any possible chance of military action on Indias behalf after 26/11.
After the first two weeks following the attack, the question that overtook everyones mind was what if there is another terror strike? Would India be able to hold back then?
Two years later, when asked if that phase is now over, a high-ranking security official remarked: I cant say, but I think that the question is still as serious. Can we keep quiet if there is another Mumbai? No, this question is still relevant. 26/11: Indian Express. How India debated a war with Pakistan that November
India could not attack Pakistan in 2009 | The Dawn
