HOW TO PUNISH PAKISTAN

Raj Chengappa | Sandeep Unnithan September 22, 2016 In the aftermath of the Uri attack, the government faces a clamour of heated opinion, demanding retribution for Pakistan's most recent transgression. India is not without the means to answer its neighbour's provocations. But it also has much more at stake. We weigh the options. In his hour of crisis, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi decides what 'punishment' Pakistan deserves for crossing the threshold of Indian tolerance with the Uri attack-in which 19 army personnel were killed-he could do with some age-old wisdom that would also sit well with his party's Hindutva moorings. Some 2,500 years ago, ancient India's foremost strategist, Kautilya, in his seminal treatise, the Arthashastra or the science of politics, discussed in detail how to deal with enemy nations. Like his predecessor Sun Tzu, Kautilya was not an advocate of rushing into war but of weighing all options carefully before proceeding. Kautilya declared: "If there is equal advancement in peace or war, one should resort to peace." Like the Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz centuries later, Kautilya believed war was only a continuation of politics by other means and considered it the last option. According to him, the key to winning was not military might alone but perspicacious judgement, comprehensive intelligence and a deep grasp of politics. REVENGE MANTRA Pakistani leaders may have reasons for their dangerous brinkmanship. Since the Panama Papers expose, Sharif has been under pressure to quit, and desperately needs a diversion to restore his credibility. Embracing the Kashmir cause with renewed vigour is a way out. Pakistan army chief Raheel Sharif, who has overtaken Nawaz in both domestic popularity and clout, is due to retire in November but is possibly looking for an extension. When Modi upped the ante by raising the Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan regions in his Independence Day address, the Pakistan army hit back by stepping up infiltration attempts and backing fidayeen strikes. The Uri attack and the attempts that preceded it in the past month are seen as a direct response to Modi for having thrown down the gauntlet. The space for reconciliation between the two countries has considerably narrowed as they weigh their options, including waging a war. HYBRID WARFARE India has a whole range of options available to bring Pakistan to heel, including diplomatic and economic measures, as well as using military force, covert or overt. Says retired Lt Gen Syed Ata Hasnain, who has served in Kashmir: "Naming and shaming doesn't seem to work. We are suffering from the impact of a hybrid warfare launched by Pakistan. Our response has to be both diplomatic and military but we should weigh each option carefully and not get caught in Pakistan's trap." The first effort was to thwart the diplomatic blitzkrieg that Pakistan had launched in a bid to focus world attention on the trouble in Kashmir. India moved fast, with Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar and other external affairs ministry officials contacting major powers such as the US, Russia, France, Germany, Japan and the UK, and getting them to come out strongly against Pakistan for the Uri attacks. At the United Nations, despite Nawaz Sharif writing three letters whining about the situation in Kashmir, neither Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon nor the Security Council took it up. It was clear that the world was tired of Pakistan and its shenanigans in Kashmir. While round one of the diplomatic war was won, India still had to deal with a recalcitrant Pakistan. As a senior official says, "the diplomatic challenge is over, the counter-terrorism one remains-that still has to be tackled." Inevitably, international pressure has fallen short on this score and it is clear to India that it will have to fight its own battle. Economic sanctions, which usually top the list of any country's 'options other than war' list, are also unlikely to work against Pakistan. The last time India attempted to squeeze Pakistan economically was after the 2001 attack on Parliament, by halting air and land trade. Since these sanctions, trade between the two countries has grown, but in unusual ways. The direct overland trade stood at $2.6 billion in 2013, heavily loaded in India's favour with $2 billion in exports from India. Meanwhile, the indirect trade-via third countries such as Dubai-has shot up and is now estimated to be at $4.7 billion. The existence of third-country trade routes is the reason why formal sanctions will not work. "The trade will merely shift to other channels, like sea channels or via Dubai, which is a free port," says Nisha Taneja of the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER). This is one reason why Modi and India are now confronted with using hard options, including a limited war. DEFINE OBJECTIVES Military strategists rightly argue that war is only a means to an end, not an end in itself. As retired Air Vice-Marshal Kapil Kak of the Centre for Air Power Studies in New Delhi points out, "war cannot be an option to satisfy electoral demands, anger, hurt sentiments or revenge. War must always be an endpoint to achieve political and strategic objectives." If India decides to use force against Pakistan, there has to be a clear objective in what it hopes to achieve and an assessment of whether using force is the best way to get there. In 1999, when Vajpayee was confronted with the Kargil crisis, he was under tremendous pressure to widen and expand the conflict right across the border so India could gain a tactical advantage elsewhere and use it to force Pakistan to vacate the hilly regions it occupied. Vajpayee deliberately refrained from telling Indian forces to cross the LoC or expand the conflict to other theatres. Instead, he got them to focus on using both ground and air power to evict Pakistani troops while maintaining the sanctity of the LoC. Simultaneously, Vajpayee worked on bringing international pressure to bear on Pakistan by telling the US he would be forced to go for a full conflict if Islamabad wasn't told to pull back. There was also concern that if an all-out war broke out, it would escalate to a nuclear one as both countries had made their capabilities apparent the previous year. The pressure worked and Pakistan was forced into a humiliating withdrawal. In 2001, after the attack on India's Parliament, Vajpayee contemplated war again. He ordered a massive mobilisation of troops along the border, called Operation Parakram, to threaten Pakistan if it continued with terror strikes. But Vajpayee did not give the order to attack despite a 2002 fidayeen strike on an army base at Kaluchak in Kashmir resulting in the death of 31 people, including 17 civilians. Meanwhile, the US had mounted pressure on General Pervez Musharraf to come out with a statement committing to cut off state support to terrorists. India finally pulled back its troops, but only after Musharraf agreed to observe a ceasefire on the LoC and strengthened his promise to rein in terrorist groups. In 2008, Manmohan Singh faced a similar dilemma after the brazen Mumbai attacks, in which India's premier metro was held hostage by a handful of heavily armed terrorists. Manmohan Singh was presented with a range of options, including going to war, but he exercised restraint and chose to mount diplomatic pressure to isolate Pakistan internationally. After that, every time there was a violation of the LoC or a terror strike, the Indian army was ordered to retaliate in equal measure without too much chest thumping. In his account of the reasoning behind the UPA government's strategy, M.K. Narayanan, who was then the national security advisor, writing in The Hindu, stated, "it was not pusillanimity but mature judgement, based on a cost-effective analysis, that led to the withholding of direct action in the form of an overt attack on Pakistani targets. A mature nation like India could hardly afford to function like a rogue state viz. Pakistan." As Modi takes on Pakistan, he has to be clear about the objectives and make an honest assessment of the wherewithal he has to achieve them. If India didn't go to war when there were major terror attacks, how would he justify to India and the world that the killing of 19 military personnel deserved a massive retaliation? It is important to consider the objectives of a military offensive of any kind. Does India want to dismember Pakistan as it did in 1971, and hence develop Modi's Balochistan gambit? Does it want to regain PoK, which India rightfully claims Pakistan took by force? Does India want to neutralise terrorist hideouts and camps and kill the leaders? Or does India want to deliver a tit-for-tat response by killing a similar number of Pakistani soldiers across the border to assuage domestic anger? RATIONAL CHOICE When faced with daunting objectives such as these, Kautilya advocated a rational choice, pointing out that it was important that a ruler and his advisors engage in a dispassionate review of their own country's capabilities and those of the rival. Kautilya asserted: "The attacker should know the comparative strengths and weaknesses of himself and of the enemy, and having ascertained the time of marching, the consequences, the loss of men and money, and profits and danger, he should march with his full force; otherwise he should keep quiet." The objective of dismembering Pakistan and wresting PoK by force is likely to escalate into a nuclear war, making the cost extremely high for India. Pakistan has already enunciated the red lines, which, if crossed, would trigger their nuclear response. These include: losing substantial chunks of territory, their armed forces facing decimation, or a debilitating economic blockade. Pakistan has recently added tactical nukes to its nuclear arsenal. These have a shorter range and can be deployed in battlefield formations. India may emerge the winner in such a nuclear conflict, but apart from taking enormous civilian casualties, many of our major cities would be devastated in this scenario. A nuclear war is something India does not want to get into; its possible consequences beggar description. Can India dismember Pakistan through covert means, including employing the same tactics that Islamabad uses in Kashmir by fostering insurgents and sending across militants? Modi hinted at moving in that direction by uttering the 'B' word during his August 15 speech, and also talking about human rights violations in PoK. However, as a senior J&K leader is said to have bluntly told Modi, "India may have 100 people to help them in Balochistan, but in Kashmir, Pakistan has 10,000." India's ability to launch covert subversion remains in doubt. In the early '70s, it did foment insurgencies in what was then East Pakistan and in the '80s in Sri Lanka. Intelligence agencies of many countries have wings dedicated to handling outfits that carry out deniable operations. The ISI's 'S' branch, for instance, is known to handle terrorist groups like the Afghan Taliban in Afghanistan and the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) in India. Iran's Revolutionary Guard arms, trains and funds a powerful non-state actor, the Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Shia groups like the Houthis in Yemen. Such capabilities existed within India's R&AW in the '70s through the '90s, on the orders of former prime ministers Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi. An operation called Counter Intelligence Team-X (cit-x) operated through the '80s and '90s, aimed at tit-for-tat operations against Pakistan's role in fomenting terrorism in Punjab. CIT-X was wound down by former prime minister I.K. Gujral in 1997 as part of his outreach to Pakistan. Successive prime ministers are believed to have resisted requests to restart this option. But it is learned that after the Mumbai attacks in 2008, a range of options, including covert operations, was developed. George Perkovich, vice-president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP), who recently co-authored a book on India-Pakistan relations, No War, No Peace, points out, "covert action is the most plausible course of action in the current situation and the least risky." Yet, this is not an easy option for civilian politicians to resort to, nor one that brings swift results. Intelligence officers say it takes years to build assets, and to recruit and train personnel. One of India's covert plans, reportedly, is to use precise guided munitions, such as the BrahMos cruise missile, to hit the LeT headquarters in Muridke and nail its former chief Hafiz Saeed. But such a surgical strike is risky as the LeT headquarters is surrounded by hospitals and schools and the collateral damage would likely be high. It could lead to rapid military escalation, with Pakistan also retaliating by launching missiles to hit targets in India. It might also provoke terrorist groups to seek revenge by launching a flurry of terror strikes. Military experts believe that the consequences of surgical strikes often end up being bloodier than intended. In 2009, India's security establishment briefly contemplated a 'cyber terrorism' response to the 26/11 Mumbai attacks. It put together an extensive cyber warfare plan, targeting facilities in Pakistan. National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) cyber warriors prepared a list of over 2,000 commercial targets inside Pakistan-airlines, electricity and gas grids, the stock exchange, and internet service providers-and targeted them for defacement and disruption. The project mapped vulnerabilities of these computer-based networks that could be targeted in a retaliatory strike. The classified programme, the first exercise of its kind, was called off on the 11th day after it began, even though its planners were confident of its execution. This is one option that is definitely on the table as a plausibly deniable operation. LINE OF NO CONTROL Perhaps the most feasible option is to make a strike across the LoC, the likely international reaction to which is expected to be muted. The battle for moral ascendancy is a continuous struggle along the severely contested 700 km LoC, where the Indian and Pakistani armies eyeball each other. Pakistan is able to utilise an advantage India lacks-non-state actors such as the LeT and JeM, which allows them to deny outrageous terror strikes such as the Uri attack and the January 8, 2013, beheadings of Indian soldiers. A general mentions how the 2013 incident was avenged a few months later. The army struck at a time and place of its choosing and a strong message went across the border that such incidents wouldn't go unpunished. The Indian army usually responds to each such incident on the ground in kind. Calibrated retaliatory options still exist-cross-border raids by para-commandos, mortar shelling, L-70 anti-aircraft guns in direct fire mode and, as a last resort, heavy artillery. One option being considered is a covert raid on Forward Defended Localities (FDLs) in Pakistan, which house terrorists for cross-border infiltration. This may have already happened. On September 21, there were unconfirmed reports that at least "20 terrorists had been neutralised" in a cross-LoC strike by the elite 2 Paras unit of the Indian army. The defence ministry, though, had not confirmed this at the time of going to press. The Modi government could employ such strikes to prove a point that it will make Pakistan pay for its adventurism, as well as to assuage domestic anger. But it is not going to put an end to Pakistan's capability of doing mischief. THE CHINA FACTOR As India weighs its options in punishing Pakistan, a looming consideration in its calculus is China, with Beijing playing an increasingly prominent role in backing its 'all-weather ally' to the hilt. China is today more economically invested in Pakistan's fate than ever before, which is why Beijing ensures it has its ally's back diplomatically-even if this means damaging India's interests. Gone is the 'neutrality' that Beijing's mandarins would routinely stress when assuaging Indian concerns. China's dealings with Pakistan, analysts say, have been driven more by cautious self-interest than romanticism or largesse. Militarily, both countries have deep army-to-army ties, but this doesn't mean China is likely to intervene in Pakistan's wars, as history has shown. Chinese officials often point to 1971, when the US was encouraging its intervention but Beijing declined. They insist this logic of non-intervention hasn't changed, and even that it is a fundamental pillar upon which the country's entire foreign policy rests. So India may have little reason to worry, at least for the time being, about the prospects of a two-front war and Chinese military intervention. On the economic front, things are changing rapidly. Andrew Small of German Marshall Fund says that China places "a far greater premium on ensuring that Pakistan isn't economically weakened" in the wake of the ambitious China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) plan launched last year. The corridor, which envisages highways and railway lines as well as energy projects estimated at a cost of approximately $46 billion, is being seen by many as a game-changer in altering the delicate balance that has so far dictated China's diplomacy with Pakistan and India. However, India could use this as an advantage to get China to control Pakistan by threatening to destabilise PoK if Islamabad continues to abet cross-border terrorism. As Small says, "the CPEC does make it even more important to China that Pakistan is able to mitigate tensions with its neighbours, in order to reduce threats to the project." The current trajectory, he notes, is not one they will be happy about. Also, terrorism has become an increasingly sensitive issue for China in the wake of a string of attacks in Xinjiang since 2008 and the emergence of hundreds of Uighur jehadists in Syria. "The stance they take has clear ramifications for their own interests, and they can't afford purely to politicise it," notes Small. India will have to contend with the dragon in the room and use it to its advantage. WHAT INDIA MUST DO While it may look like India has a wide variety of options, it also suffers from severe constraints. As Ashley Tellis, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP), who has written several seminal books on India's security, points out, "the key question is not the entry cost of these options but what is the exit cost. Successive Indian prime ministers have kept the long-term interests in mind and concluded it was cheaper to bear the cost of a terror attack than go in for a provocative response." India has been a far more successful state than Pakistan despite having weathered three decades of intense cross-border terrorism. Tackling Pakistan is no longer a major electoral issue. UPA-I, despite having come in for severe criticism for its lack of preparedness in preventing the Mumbai 2008 attacks, won the general elections the following year. It is bread-and-butter issues that seem to matter to the electorate, not macho posturing. Tellis believes the most effective way to counter Pakistan is for "India to focus on economic reform as part of a grand strategy, running so far ahead of Pakistan that it leaves it behind in the dust". The other way of taming Pakistan is to build an effective homeland security structure. As the attacks in Uri and Pathankot have shown, India is still not able to secure its armed forces bases, leave alone civilian establishments. Even if India retaliates strongly, it remains vulnerable to a counter-attack by terrorists. India needs to beef up its surveillance and intelligence systems as well as its perimeter defence to ensure that it can frustrate Pakistan's gameplan. A prerequisite to this is to ensure that peace and stability return to Jammu and Kashmir. There may even be some space for (very) cautious optimism: war-like situations in the past have led to reconciliation, notably in the aftermath of the 2002 crisis. For five years, India and Pakistan entered into sustained back-channel talks that almost produced a resolution on how to handle the Kashmir dispute. And the LoC remained relatively tranquil right through that period. Even today, the international community should make Pakistan see the sense of getting into a constructive dialogue instead of perpetuating senseless violence. As Sun Tzu said, "victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win