Kargil was done by the overconfidence of Pakistani generals over its nuclear weapons and that India will take it laying down just like how Pakistan did in Siachen.
That is true. The incursion in Siacen was as blatent by India as was Pakistan's misadventure in Kargil. And yes Pakistan took it lying. The reason is found in the nature of dictatorships. Gen. Zia was caught napping while playing politics as opposed to guarding the countries borders. Instead of making any attempt to evict India the Zia regime just hid their failure under the carpet. This is the problem with dictatorships. They breed culture of hiding things.
Same with Musharaf. Nobody has asked him a simple question. If you were brave enough to launch a coup to kick Nawaz's as*s to
save your own skin in 1999 airplane incident why did not not launch similiar coup during the Kargil fiasco when Pakistani soldiers were dieing on heights of Kargil and you felt Nawaz was obstructing your operation? This simple question and a answer has never been given to the Pakistani public most of all dead heroes like Capt. Kernal Sher Khan.
But India did not care about nuclear weapons and went berserk in Kargil.
No. It did care. Bizzarely Kargil did show the configuration of war in South Asia had changed. In many ways Kargil was another Operation Gran Slam of 1965. However despite posturing India did
not attack along the international border unlike 1965.
In fact if you speak with those who are pro Kargil operation they say the operation did live up it's expectations but was not implemented fully by Nawaz. And that blame on Nawaz was the cause of the tension between Nawaz and Musharaf which led to the overthrow. It goes something like this. PA would attack the chicken neck at Kargil.
Slice it causing entire Indian Army in Ladakh to be trapped. This was similar to 1965. Only then it was slice the Jammu neck and Indian Army in Kashmir trapped. Things went awry when India instead attacked along the international border threatening Lahore.That of course released the pressure on Jammu saving Kashmir.
However the expectation was in 1999 that once Kargil was sliced India would not attack along the international border and with a India Army trapped in Ladakh she would be forced to come to the negotiating table presided over by the great powers who would inevitably get involved to prevent nuclear catastrophe. Things started to go wrong when the great powers [USA] began to put pressure on Pakistan to withdraw from Kargil. The claim is instead of looking as cold as ice Nawaz began melting and this prevented the plan to reach full fruition.
I am not convinced. To begin with the forces deployed on the heights had terrible logistical support. No real
provision had been made for sustained supplies to the pockets of men on the peaks. This can be seen in how many of these pockets ran out of food and some even ammunition. There were cases reported of them throwing stones down the hills to ward off the enemy. This fits in with the OP where it cites poor emphasis on logistics.
Also Kargil exposed the poor strategic planning. It failed to accont for massive pressure from the world which would hit Islamabad and the neccessity to hold cool for a protracted period of time. Nawaz being a dumb basket was not aware that this was going to be test of nerves and take time. He thought PA would take the peaks and then he would go on TV to announce himself as liberator of Kashmir.
When the whole ting began to play out and it did not go exactly like a-b-c Nawaz began to lose his cool. The plan also began to expose it's flaws. Failure of logistics a Indians simply cut off the precarious supply lines and the men on peaks began to starve. PAF was not informed and that also began to take it's toll. This again alludes to the OP where it says poor tri-services coordination.
I mean can anyone seriously give one good rasson why PAF and PN was not kept in the loop?
I also think if Nawaz began to melt so did Musharaf. He simply lacked the guts notwithstanding the bluster about 'commando' he built up later. If he was half the man he claimed to be the moment he saw Musharaf wavering he should have wlked into PM office, placed his pistol in Nawaz's face and arrested him. And then with a coup [which he did anyway later] taken over the reins of government.
Instead it turned into a blame game between Nawaz and Musharaf whilst our brave boys died on the peaks.
