Capt.Popeye
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The fact is that the PA has had a long-standing use of a military doctrine of hiding itself behind the 'shalwar-kameezes' of assorted wild tribal or religious "Yahoos" who have been variously name Mujahidden, Razakars or whatever. That conforms well to the "Doctrine of Plausible Deniability" which is something close to a religious doctrine. Simply put, it allows the State (and the PA) to act through proxies but say to the World: hey its not us doing all this, but some 'Orang-Utans' or some half-wild creatures unconnected to us who are responsible for all this.
And a neat euphemism for these "Yahoos" has also been coined------Non-State Actors.......
This Policy was created in 1947 and has been religiously followed right upto Musharraffff's misadventure in Kargil in 1999 and beyond. This Policy has even led to the PA having to disown its dead soldiers whether in 1947 or 1999 in a cruel charade perpetrated on it own faujis time and again.
As the Monograph quoted above explains the facts:
"While the contemporary narratives suggest that Pakistan began using militants and Islamists as a tool of foreign policy after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, in fact, Pakistan’s first dalliance with irregular warfare took place in 1947, soon after Pakistan became independent.
In prosecuting such conflicts Pakistan has relied upon irregular fighters and razakars (volunteers), as well as regular fighters drawn from the military, paramilitary, and intelligence agencies. These regular fighters usually were dressed “in mufti,” or disguised as irregular fighters."
Even the reasons for this misconceived policy gets explained a little later in the paragraph:
"The employment of mujahedeen or regular troops disguised as such has been the fundament of Pakistan’s denial and deception efforts to convince domestic and international audiences that these asymmetric operations were conducted by non-state actors, thereby conferring “plausible” deniability to shield the state from retribution."
However; the underlined part above was never achieved.....the PA could never pull it off. Every such effort only led to a full-fledged war as the monograph avers:
"The problem with this strategy is that it has resulted in three wars in 1947-48, 1965 and 1999 as well as several “crisis slides” that have brought India and Pakistan to the brink of conflict."
Thus one can conclude that this half-cocked policy did not achieve anything at all. It only led to the dismemberment of Pakistan, it led to Pakistan gaining the image of a rogue terrorist State; and worst of all, it has created a huge force of violent religious 'mad-men' who have now put the State of Pakistan in their "cross-hairs".
Now, @Samandri ; to answer you core-question: "why did the PA enter later into the conflict?"
Or more correctly speaking: "why did the PA eventually drop the 'naqab' and then expose its own role and presence?"
The answer can be found, going further in the monograph:
"The first such asymmetric venture of 1947 at first involved support for mid-level officers in the army corps but later, as the conflict expanded into a full-fledged war, the entirety of the army became engaged."
The reason for this is: the "pawns" or the foot-soldiers in this plan to infiltrate and attack Jammu and Kashmir were mainly tribals trained and led by PA regulars and Officers in mufti. After some time, these "soldiers" lost sight of their supposed military objectives and resorted to the more familiar and comfortable activities of looting and rape of the local Kashmiris. Their activities in Baramula (for example) are now well documented. Thus they got bogged down completely and even worse; the local poulace turned against them and fought them fiercely. In the mean-while the IA had commenced counter-attacking and pushing them back effectively. That is when the PA saw its plans going up in some unholy smoke and dropped its masquerade and exposed itself.
That is the answer to your question.
This may have been the first time that the PA had to do this ; but it was not the last time. It had to do it again and again, even upto the denouement and debacle in Kargil.
JUD and HM are full of Pushtuns.
