kabooter_maila
FULL MEMBER
- Joined
- Apr 14, 2016
- Messages
- 644
- Reaction score
- -3
- Country
- Location
Now that Indians have exhausted their ultimate option of attacking Pakistan Army directly and have gotten a bloody nose in response, it is the high time that Pakistan gets on a counter offence to bring peace and sanity in the region. Pakistan needs to chart and execute a proactive policy (covering both the diplomatic and military fronts) keeping in mind the Indian stubborn nature and bigotry. Indians don't understand just the diplomatic language. They are utterly liars, rogue in behavior (they would cancel international treaties without caring about the implications), and deceptive in nature. Their history is a wetness on the fact that the only language that Indians understand is force. They have turned rogue UN resolutions only after realizing that Pakistan is militarily unable to force them to comply with these resolutions that their PM Nehru has promised so solemnly. Now that Indians find them incapable to control the situation in occupied J&K by force, thanks to the unparalleled determination and struggle of the people of J&K, it is the time for Pakistan to evaluate its options to turn the heat on the occupying Indian troops in J&K. I think Pakistan needs to follow a policy with the following policy objectives.
An Indian paramilitary trooper in Srinagar, Sept. 29. Tauseef Mustafa—AFP
THE URI RESPONSE AND MODI’S COMMITMENT TRAP.
In the intervening hours of Sept. 28 and 29, the Indian Army attempted shallow incursions at four points on Kashmir’s Line of Control.
At two points, they were detected before they could cross over, were fired upon, stopped, and thereafter the points settled into an exchange of small arms, light weapons, and mortar fire. At the two other points in the south, they came very close to the Line of Control and there was direct engagement. Units on the ground, dug into their defenses still, report direct engagement, with at least 14 Indian troops killed, while losing two noncommissioned officers to hostile mortar fire.
So far, that’s the information from Pakistan’s side. Officially, it has given no information on Indian casualties. The narrative is simple: the Indians opened fire and the Army responded effectively. In the coming days, we should expect more information.
Predictably, the 24/7 news cycle was hogged by this Indian attempt. India’s director-general of Military Operations, Lt. Gen. Ranbir Singh, and the spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs held a joint press conference in New Delhi—“joint” only to the extent that the spokesperson opened the presser and handed it over to Singh, who, after reading out a statement in English and Hindi, did not take any questions. That, however, did not prevent the Indian media, barring exceptions, to declare this a huge event, one that constituted a befitting response to the Uri attack and a paradigm shift, i.e., that the Modi government will not sit on its rear end while Pakistan continues its alleged terrorist attacks on India. The din of ‘celebrations’ since the presser is incredible, though not unpredictable.
What should one make of this? What did India achieve? This is what Pakistan should be concerned about. And this is precisely what is being ignored here, with focus only on an attempt that clearly failed in military terms.
There are two levels at which the current Indian government is playing: domestic and international. At home, Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived on the scene with his broad chest, metaphor for a dynamic leader who could do what his predecessors, especially those from the Congress party, could not do. A man who has a tryst with destiny, he is to turn India into an economic and military giant. Then Kashmir erupted. It is now the 85th day of an uprising that refuses to go away despite terrible state repression. Relations with Pakistan, already strained, have spiraled. The icing on the cake was the Uri attack, a major setback for the Indian Army. Pro forma, Pakistan was declared complicit within hours of Uri. Modi’s constituency began talking war, even nuclear war. His political opposition hit back, pooh-poohing his chest. Something needed to be done, but what?
The dust and heat of mobilization circa 2001-2002 is a nonstarter. Aerial strikes are a desire which first needs pigs to fly. Missile strikes are a dangerous escalation because who can determine whether an incoming missile has a tactical or a strategic warhead?
Now, imagine yourself in the Situation Room with Modi and his team. There’s the option of covert war, which India is already waging in Balochistan and through the Afghan National Directorate of Security in Pakistan’s tribal areas. That can and will be ratcheted up. But the problem with covert war is that you can’t own up to it. You might even ‘avenge’ something, but if you declare it, you lose deniability. So, while that front remains hot, it is cold politics domestically. The terrible political question of what Modi has done to ‘punish’ Pakistan remains. This is a particularly nasty question in view of the 2017 polls in Uttar Pradesh.
You decide on a course of action that can be packaged and marketed to both the domestic audiences and the international interlocutors. That is where “surgical strikes” come in. As I noted, Singh’s copy doesn’t seem to have been drafted at the Army HQ or the Military Operations Directorate. It had a visible South Block stamp on it. “Surgical strikes” were conducted “along [not across] the Line of Control” on “terrorist launch pads.” The operation has ceased [after achieving its objective]. “I spoke with Pakistan’s [director-general of Military Operations] and informed them of the action taken by us [or words to that effect].”
Let’s deconstruct this narrative: it was not a military operation against the Pakistan Army but an antiterrorism operation against terrorists—this fits the Indian hand perfectly in the Western antiterrorism glove. It assures the West (read: the U.S.) that India has no intention of escalating with Pakistan while throwing in for good measure the ‘fact’ that this antiterrorism operation was conducted on territory controlled by Pakistan. Corollary: Pakistan supports and encourages terrorism from its soil against India and is in clear violation of its 2004 commitment. This last bit was clearly spelled out in Singh’s statement.
The Singh statement, by mentioning Uri, strengthened India’s original position—also stated by its foreign minister, Sushma Swaraj, at the U.N. General Assembly—that Kashmir is troubled because of Pakistan. In doing this, it takes the gaze away from the Kashmiris’ right to self-determination as well as the state repression by India to focusing the issue as an India-Pakistan problem and one that is underpinned by Pakistan’s alleged sponsorship of terrorism.
It should be evident that Singh gave Modi a winner. The statement threw in the term “surgical strikes” and balanced it with “along the LOC.” In a charged partisan atmosphere, with a media waiting to jump on just about anything, few people have the time or the inclination for nuances. The Indian Army also knew that what it did will not be escalated by Pakistan because the latter has no immediate reason to do so. An action, desiring shallow incursions, which was effectively stopped in its tracks doesn’t need to be escalated.
That said, the trend cannot entirely be predicted. The mood can be read two ways: satisfied or craving for more. Going by the cacophony in India, it seems to have settled for more. That creates a worse commitment trap than the one from which Modi has tried to extricate himself.
Meanwhile, Pakistan has to read the situation at all levels, not just at the level of any military response. The central point of Islamabad’s strategy should be to bring back into sharp salience the Kashmiris and their struggle. This is precisely what tends to get lost when the issue is pushed back because of heightened India-Pakistan tensions. How to go about that requires new thinking.
Haider is editor of national-security affairs at Capital TV. He was a Ford Scholar at the Program in Arms Control, Disarmament and International Security at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C. He tweets @ejazhaider
http://newsweekpakistan.com/after-the-surgical-strikes/
1. Pakistan is a legitimate party of Kashmir dispute in the UN resolutions. If one party chooses to turn rogue on its commitments, other parties are rightful in perusing the means to force the rogue party fall in line. So, attacking the occupying Indian troops and their installations to end their illegal occupation is a legitimate and just cause. Pakistan needs to turn the heat further on under Indian butts for them to feel the taste of the pain that so far only the people of occupied Kashmir have been suffering from. Pakistan needs to attack Indian military centers and head quarters in the occupied land in collaboration with the people of the occupied land.
2, It is the time that Pakistan overtly support the people of Kashmir with weapons, training, and support (in terms of intelligence, logistics, planning, target choosing, and execution of strikes). There must be an end to the Indian oppression where they murder unarmed Kashmiri youth on daily basis in streets of occupied towns and cities. Keep in mind that the world community will not act against Indian massacre of Kashmiri youth just for the sake of humanity. You have to bring Indians to their knees first to beg for peace. The international community will then act for the sake of saving the world peace.
3. Indians for sure will cry and complain to the international community labeling these attacks on their troops in occupied J&K as terrorism. It is the responsibility of Pakistan's diplomatic corps to counter that false propaganda. The Indian rogueness regarding the UN resolutions and other international treaties must be highlighted to the civilized world. Specifically, Pakistan needs to make strong case that killing unarmed civilian protesters to sustain illegal Indian occupation is terrorism. Struggling and fighting for the just cause of Kashmiris cannot be labeled as terrorism and used as a tool for depriving the people of occupied J&K of their right of self determination as promised to them by the world community at the UN.
4. The solution of a just and fair water distribution is possible only when Indians stop stealing water from the rivers flowing through occupied J&K. These are not Indian rivers. The people of Kashmir must be in control of that water. That can only be achieved when Indians are forced to end their illegal occupation of the state. We have seen how Indians have used the Indus water treaty to blackmail Pakistan and destroy its economy. Pakistan has a strong case on the rogue and exploitive behavior. This Indian blackmail will end only when Indians are kicked out of the occupied J&K.
If Pakistan goes on such a proactive policy, Indians will try to bluff Pakistan and blackmail international community by extending the hostilities to the recognized international border between the two countries. Pakistan can call their bluff without any fear. Indian don't have the required wherewithal to launch an actual attack and they know well what will happen if they extended war theater to recognized international border.
getting bored.
India cannot afford the scale of cost of those corporate attacks of the developed world so you cannot copy them period.
