Category Archives: Non-State Actors

No Responsible Steward of Nuclear Weapons This

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By Vice Admiral (retd.) Vijay Shankar

Two seemingly disparate incidents in recent days hold the portents for unsettling times. The first was, the “absconder General” and erstwhile Pakistan President Musharraf’s declaration on 05 December 2017, of not only his cosy ties with the proscribed head of the terror organisation Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT) Hafiz Sayeed; but more worrisome, the open invitation to the latter’s political party the Milli Muslim League to join Musharraf’s Pakistan Awami Ittehad (PAI). The second incident is, President Trump while launching his administration’s National Security Strategy (NSS), asserted, “Pakistan must demonstrate it is a responsible steward of its nuclear assets… while taking decisive action against terrorist groups operating on their territory.” The NSS, it will be remembered provides strategic guidance to US security agencies for developing policies and implementing them.

Rationally, no nuclear policy, by nature of the weapon involved, can conceivably be inclusive of terror groups. And yet the strategic predicament posed by Pakistan is perverse, for their policy on select terror groups such as the LeT has always been that they are instruments of state policy. The absurd reason proffered is their zeal to fight the external enemies of Pakistan while undermining fissiparous religious elements within.

The question now remains: when militants fundamentally inimical to the Indian State (Israel and the US too) shed the need for subterfuge and quite openly enter Pakistan national politics, is “responsible nuclear stewardship” a prospect at all? Rather, does not this new dimension of political cosiness make for a nuclear nightmare, where an opaque nuclear arsenal under military control is guided by a strategy that not only finds unity with state licensed terror groups but has now unveiled a future for terrorists in politics? Indeed the nuclear nightmare has moved that much closer.

Now, consider this: Pakistan promotes a terrorist strike in India and in order to counter conventional retaliation uses tactical nuclear weapons and then in order to degrade nuclear retaliation launches a full blown counter-force or counter- value strike. This is an awkward but realistic recognition of the logic that drives Pakistan’s nuclear policy.

Cyril Almeida, a columnist for the Dawn newspaper commenting on the reason why the army will not clampdown on terror groups that hurt India suggested that the problem was “the boys (meaning the army) wouldn’t agree, you could see why: you can’t squeeze your asset at the behest of the enemy the asset was recruited to fight against.”

What if the political mainstreaming of jihadists enlarges and gains nation wide acceptance and, while doing so, creates a state and movement largely motivated by fundamental politico-religious ideology? The Taliban and its five year rule in Afghanistan attempted precisely this and failed because a creed that sought a particular kind of Islamic revival through suppression of all else, was but a return to medievalism. A regime of this nature quite wontedly spewed elements that saw salvation only in the destruction of contemporary order. The image of Mullah Omar appearing on the roof of a building in Kandhar 1996 shrouded in the relic of “the Cloak of the Prophet Mohammed,” while other mullahs proclaimed him Amir-ul Momineen the Commander of the Faithful, will remain a watershed moment for the ideology. It placed in perspective the unquestionable authority of the Amir as the people’s voice was made increasingly irreconcilable with Sharia, as was regard for human rights and the rule of law. In this ‘divinely ordained’ disposition, the savage destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas as symbol of an end to idolatry, came as no surprise. As events unfolded it also brought to the fore how modernity and the political mainstreaming of jihadists is a doomed enterprise.

And what of “responsible stewardship” of nuclear assets? We have thus far argued the hazards of a political future for terrorists in Pakistan. In this reality, given access to a nuclear arsenal, do we not perceive its utilisation to prosecute jihadi objectives? The Pakistan military hardly minces its words on the use of jihadists and the latter’s correlation with their nuclear policy (Pakistan Army Green Book 2004-2015). And what is the Pakistan sponsored terror objective other than to weaken the secular fabric of the Indian state, subvert society and to bring about enabling conditions for secession of Kashmir. It is not a coincidence that these very same objectives find recurring mention in the strategic aims of the military in Pakistan.

In the nine years after 26/11, terror attacks in India originating from across its western borders persist, however with a difference that principal control from Pakistan has devolved to decentralised and often scattered control. Targets are relatively less sensational, albeit these attacks are executed with no less brutality or with diminished politically motivation. Musharraf’s invitation for militant groups such as the LeT to join the political mainstream in Pakistan will have changed all that for the worse.

Pakistan, decidedly, has legitimate security interests, but when these interests are revisionist in nature, be it an aggressive quest for strategic depth in Afghanistan or attempting to destabilise India through the use of state sponsored terrorists or even to suggest that there is a nuclear dimension to these dynamics is to plead a stimulus much deeper than a politico-ideological pledge. For to challenge India or, in Afghanistan, the United States, is to withdraw from what makes for contemporary order. What is emerging and must be recognized is that with Pakistan there is a virulence that ought not to be allowed to thrive under the duplicitous belief that it can be both legatee of international largesse and continue to cavort with jihadists.

 

 

 

 

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Aberrated Strategies: of “Snakes in the Backyard”

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Vice Admiral (retd) Vijay Shankar

In the immediate aftermath of the 26/11 terrorist assault on Mumbai a grisly prayer was being intoned in many of the two lakh mosques of Pakistan. The Qunut-e-Nazla, prayer in times of war was accompanied by a fervent imprecation that Al-Qaeda and the Pakistan Army fight India jointly. The verity of this statement is borne out by Azaz Syed in his recently published ‘tell-all’ book Secrets of Pakistan’s War on Al-Qaeda (Al-Abbas International: 2014, p.69); the aim of the linkage was the creation of an Al-Qaeda State in Pakistan in the wake of a nuclear war between India and Pakistan.

The link between sub-conventional warfare and nuclear war fighting is at best a tenuous one. Conceptually no nuclear policy, by the very nature of the weapon involved, can conceivably be inclusive of terror groups. And yet the strategic predicament posed by Pakistan is perverse, for their stratagem on select terror groups is that they are instruments of state policy. Now, consider this: Pakistan promotes a terrorist strike in India and in order to counter conventional retaliation uses tactical nuclear weapons and then in order to degrade massive retaliation launches a full blown counter force or counter value strike. This extreme chain of events would suggest the reality of a self fulfilling logic of nuclear apocalypse.

A Pakistan, controlled by a military-ISI-jihadi combine, is plagued by an obsession for parity with India and an inspiration that wallows in the idea of India as a threat in perpetuity (in great part to provide a reason for the army’s pretentious existence). One is spoilt for choice when discerning instances of Pakistan’s military-intelligence links with terrorist groups: it began at partition when tribal lashkars along with regulars invaded Kashmir; the clumsy and doomed Operation Gibraltar in 1965; State-sponsored insurgencies in the Kashmir valley during the 1980s and 90s; war following invasion of Kargil in 1999; failed attack on the Indian Parliament; the Kaluchak massacre of 2002; Mumbai assault of November 2008; and the continuing low level insurgency across the LOC, the latest manifestation of which was the failed assault on the Pathankot airbase on 02 January 2016, coordinated with the failed attack on the Indian consulate at Maza-e-Sharif in Afghanistan on 03 January 2016.

For India to suffer the violent effects of covert action in silence makes for poor internal as well as external policy. It is here that Pakistan will have to pay for Indian restraint (now frayed to the extreme), which in turn places before the Indian planner a host of considerations and a set of possible responses which includes covert action against targets across the LOC or border known to have liaison with jihadi forces. Planners will do well to heed that it is Pakistan’s policy that has to be targeted; more specifically it is control of that nation by the ‘Deep State,’  by which is implied the sway of the military-intelligence-jihadi combine, which must be subordinated.

Recently, the author engaged US Secretary of State Kerry’s International Security Advisory Board (on Strategic Stability chaired by Dr. Raymond Jeanloz) in dialogue on sub-continental strategic stability. During the deliberations which began with a thirty minute presentation by the author followed by an hour and a half discussion with the group, two issues became apparent. First, the State Department group was split down the centre as to what defined strategic stability. The proposition on one side was the cold war paradigm that perceived stability through the ‘nuclear equilibrium’ prism; of survival through a nuclear first strike and then retaliating massively. A mirrored rationality of survivability and credibility of retaliation was of essence. The equilibrium between nuclear weapon states, from this perspective, was given surety by developing a nuclear war fighting capability and retaining a ‘limited nuclear option’ at hair-trigger notice to control the escalatory ladder. This “Strangelovesque” advocacy appeared to disregard the fact that limits on use of nuclear weapons (by the nature of the weapon) defied escalatory control. Second, the group also perceived the potential of terrorists being armed with nuclear devices justifying collaboration with Pakistan at any cost; this presented a strategic irony since it was the Pakistan Deep State that made terror groups an instrument of state policy in the first place

On the other side of the divide was the group that saw, in the contracting role of the US in Afghanistan, diminishing utility of Pakistan. The sense that emerged was the need for strategic recalibration of their Pakistan policy. A common discernment in this group was that time had come to contend with the deep state in Pakistan for its’ duplicity throughout America’s war on terror beginning with the evacuation of jihadis at Kunduz, providing a haven for the al Qaeda, giving vital intelligence to the various terror organisations, screening the AQ Khan network or indeed, providing sanctuary to Osama bin Laden. This group also found definition in a holistic analysis of the various determinants that contributed to strategic stability (in line with the authors presentation). The determinants ranged from historical wholeness to geographic recognition; politico-social-religio conformity to economic friction; purpose and adequacy of military power to the quest for a stasis and lastly the correlation between leadership. The question then reduced to what manner, intensity and degree did the interplay of determinants influence interstate relationship? While it was generally accepted that transactions between determinants could either spell a proclivity towards a symbiotic approach in relations or it could persistently precipitate friction and conflict; in both cases the basis of outcomes were largely predicated on discernability and rationality of both polity and leadership.

Unfortunately, the South Asian context is blurred by three contumacious factors. First, Pakistan’s cultivated reluctance to accept the anthropological reality of their identity as sub-continental Muslims, the preferred fiction is in favour of Arab or central Asian descent rather than the truth of the vast majority being descendants of converts; this poses a unique dilemma when leveraging civilizational empathy as the basis of amity. Second, military power without political accountability is views itself as the sacred keeper and absolute champion of national interests; this presents an awkward predicament as to who is in charge when dealing with that State. But the most impious obstacle promoted by the deep state is its one track agenda of hostility towards India as the basis of its ascendancy. After all, if the question is put to the Pakistan establishment whether they accept a regime of strategic stability, the answer will most certainly be in the affirmative with the caveat that control of the nation remain in the hands of the military-intelligence-jihadist nexus.

The strategic nuclear ‘self fulfilling logic’ mentioned earlier cannot be the basis of doing business with Pakistan. For far too long the world, particularly the US, has taken an ambiguous and at times set double standards for terror groups and their sponsors. What needs to be recognised is that terrorism emanating from Pakistan is, unequivocally a global scourge; no other interests can justify their continuation; for as former US secretary of state Hilary Clinton famously put it Islamabad could not keep “snakes” in its backyard to strike its neighbours. “It’s like that old story – you can’t keep snakes in your backyard and expect them only to bite your neighbours. Eventually those snakes are going to turn on whoever has them in the backyard.” The establishment that promotes it as an instrument of State policy must be targeted internationally through exacting sanctions while the perpetrators of terror along with their handlers and infra structure must be struck by covert military action.

 

 

‘Jihadi Aggression’ and Nuclear Deterrence

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Vice Admiral (retd) Vijay Shankar

This article was first published on the Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies Website in September 2015

Pakistan’s use of terror organizations as a tool of state policy to wage unconventional war against India [1] has perverse consequences that link sub-conventional warfare with nuclear escalation. This bizarre correlation, Pakistan will have the world believe, comes to play if and when India chooses to respond with conventional forces to a terror strike puppeteered by their “Deep State.”[2]

Notwithstanding the reality of interstate relations that finds expression in a byzantine system of the larger un-codified international relations, common ground exists in the challenges that threaten the very existence of the State. Military power, economics, politics, religion and the dynamics of change provide very convincing provinces within which to fix challenges, yet it is the hazard of mass destruction that, without debate, presents itself as the “emperor-of-challenges.” Willingness of the Deep State in Pakistan to catalyze such a scenario, keeping that country always “on the brink” in order to preserve the position of the army, the ISI and the jihadis as upholders of the State, is the peril of our times. And yet if this be the substance then it must equally be true that willfully enabling a nuclear exchange carries the immanence that will finish the Deep State. Keeping the nation persistently on the edge has left Pakistan’s internals in a state of violent turmoil, as several interest networks such as the elites that drive military autonomy, the security apparatus, enfeebled political groups and the fractured jihadis battle for supremacy. The circumstances are fraught since the fallout is demise of (already impoverished) democratic institutions and the wasted idea of a unified Pakistan. In this milieu the cracks in control of nuclear weapons are apparent. After all, the internals may, in the extreme, catalyze the use of nuclear weapons in a plot that begins with a terror strike on India.

The question of motivating Pakistan to demobilize anti-India terrorist groups and thus defuse the reason for escalation of conflict is the most pressing strategic imperative. China, in this frame of reference, though cognate, is a more distant strategic intimidation. Relations between India and China have been stable and improving, save for occasional flares on account of a border that has denied definition. There have not been sustained hostilities since 1962 nor has there been a predilection to reach, even in rhetoric, for nuclear weapons. Deterrence between the two large states has also been relatively stable, since the Chinese nuclear doctrine founded on NFU and minimality finds accord with India’s doctrine and neither country is seeking to change the status quo by exploring space below the nuclear threshold. India’s nuclear deterrent is not country specific; its credibility will remain an abstraction in the mind of the potential adversary, while minimality is magnitude in the mind of the Deterrer (India in this case). On the other hand, Pakistan and India have experienced four wars, two of which were initiated and waged in concert with non-state actors. The two states have also confronted two major crises initiated by terror attacks in India. To strategic planners in India, Pakistani use of jihadi groups as an instrument of state policy is a factor that is always considered when mapping a conventional riposte. Despite successes in recent history, it is equally clear that that sub-conventional warfare can only be beaten by state policy on both sides coupled with conventional forces. The clamping down on terror activities from Pakistan post operation “Parakram” (the military standoff between India and Pakistan between December 2001 and October 2002 following jihadi assault on the Indian Parliament on 13 December 2001) that resulted in the massing of troops on either side of the border and along the Line of Control in Kashmir. One of the positive outcomes of the mobilization and coercive threat of military action was President Musharraf’s policy statement of 12 January 2002 not to permit Pakistan soil to be used for launch of terror activities. Significantly, on ground, the declaration held till 2008. This aftermath stands in testimony as to what works.

Evolving Nuclear Context

The link between sub-conventional warfare and nuclear war fighting is at best a tenuous one. Conceptually, no amount of tinkering or reconstitution of nuclear policy can deter terror attacks. Such a notion would appear far fetched because of the very nature of the weapon involved. Clearly it is the policy that harbours terror groups as instruments of state policy that has to be targeted. Pakistan has today inducted tactical nuclear weapons (TNWs) into its arsenal with the stated purpose of countering an Indian response to a terror strike. Almost as if to suggest that they control the levers of nuclear escalation. This an odd proposition since India does not differentiate between tactical and strategic nuclear weapons, (this is not only stated by most scholars in the know, but is also the bed rock of a nuclear deterrent relationship). Also, TNWs involve decentralization and dispersal, both of which dilute command and control and multiply the risk of the weapon falling into wrong hands. In the end analysis, the use of nuclear weapons introduces a new and uncontrollable dimension. Logically, if a Pak sponsored terror attack is the triggering event of a sequence of reactions, then it must equally be clear that their nuclear red lines give space for a conventional response. After all, the premise that a terror attack is seamlessly backed by nuclear weapons is not only ludicrous but is not even the Pak case. For, when dealing with the threat of use of nuclear weapons, to suggest that ambiguity and first use provide options, is to suggest that nuclear war fighting almost in conventional terms is an option. This, by most, is denial of the nature of nuclear weapons, characterized by mass destruction and uncontrollability.

There is a suggestion in some scholarly quarters, that there was little or no Pakistan sponsored terror activity before nuclear umbrellas were raised in the sub-continent. This is repudiation of history (whether at partition in 1947-48, in 1965 or in the 1980s to 90s). Unfortunately this mistaken assumption has led the narrative on a quest to seek answers to sub-conventional warfare in nuclear weapons and their deterrent effect, increasing in turn the dangers of early use. This does not serve the interest of deterrent stability. Yet, as with the conventional military options, some experts and former military officials in India, echoed by western analysts, have begun to question whether India should alter its approach to nuclear deterrence in ways that would affect Pakistan’s calculus. The relationship between nuclear deterrence and sub conventional aggression—what has been colorfully described as “jihad under the nuclear umbrella”—is not a new phenomenon in South Asia. But since 2008, and especially after Pakistan tested a new short-range missile in 2011 and declared it part of a policy of “full spectrum” deterrence, Indian strategists have begun to question more vocally whether New Delhi’s approach to nuclear deterrence should more directly confront this challenge through the induction of TNWs. Nuclear weapons in any nuclear weapon state, barring Pakistan, are today a political tool. So why there is a contrary belief is, least to say, inexplicable. To advocate that deterrence success has been achieved by Pakistan because it was able to indulge in terror activities since 2008 is also to suggest that India’s nuclear weapons were made to deter jihadist-this is quaint! Analogous would be that Pakistan achieved deterrence success over the US since it harboured Osama bin Laden till 2011 or Mullah Omar till 2013!

Pakistan has suggested that the induction of TNWs into its nuclear arsenal is in response to India’s Cold Start doctrine. It must be noted that the Cold Start is a conventional war fighting strategy that aims at overcoming the ponderous mobilization process. Remember, it is a reactive conventional artifice that clutches in, should the need arise to take rapid military action across the border. Its pre-emption does not lie in a nuclear response but in reining in terror activities. For Pakistan to turn to TNWs and varyingly call them “Full spectrum deterrence” or “shoot and scoot” options, one wonders if the lessons of the cold war have sunk home or, where they intend to scoot.

Some scholars question India’s nuclear doctrine as an emerging contest between “policy and strategy”, presumably that is to imply military control over a slice of the nuclear arsenal limited by yield, vector and purpose; that is, provide the military with a limited nuclear war fighting alternative (LNWA). This option, for reasons that have been laboured upon earlier is characterised by the absence of escalatory control, a denial of political oversight and ambiguity between Controller and Custodian of the nuclear arsenal. To the Indian strategic planner there is no such thing as LNWA since the absence of escalatory control negates any notional gains that it may bestow. Retaliation that is either punitive or proportional implies a nuclear war fighting strategy; this is anathema to Indian strategic thought. As far as the correlation of Policy and Strategy is concerned, it remains the influence of policy on military strategy with a clear demarcation between conventional military resources and control over all nuclear forces.

The Perverse Nuclear Chain of Events and Capabilities

The nuclear scenario and the chain of events that currently finds articulation may in essence be outlined as follows: Pakistan promotes a militant strike and in order to counter conventional retaliation uses TNWs and then in order to degrade a massive retaliatory second strike launches a full blown counter force/counter value strike. This is perverse for by this logic even a bolt from the blue strike is in the realm of possibilities and for Pakistan to launch a nuclear strike it does not even need a nuclear adversary at all! The use of nuclear weapons releases restraints on retaliation. It is compelling to note that the Kargil conflict of 1999 was brought to closure because both military and economic pressures were becoming intolerable for Pakistan. Of equal significance is that it did not reach for the nuclear trigger but capitulated.

Western sources have in recent times has been quick to point out that India has either fallen behind in quality, technology or quantity of nuclear weapons. It need hardly be underscored that the 4th and 5th of the 1998 tests were low-yield warheads. India’s nuclear doctrine, NFU policy, minimalistic approach to its arsenal size and the current quest for strategic nuclear stability is more swayed by China than Pakistan. Doubts that have also been cast on the technical capabilities and yields of the nuclear weapon programme based on the words of one disengaged member of the Indian scientific community, these are misplaced.Yields that have been operationalised are far in excess of 25kt, they include thermonuclear devices. Numbers are adequate. The ability to reconstitute to low yield weapons also exists.[3]

Seeking Escalation Dominance

For India to emulate Pakistan’s nuclear policies i.e. FU and TNWs, runs counter to every logic that has so far been propounded. To promote that the solution to nuclear deterrence asymmetry is escalation dominance is not to state the entire theorem, which is, that the corollary is nuclear war fighting, which most scholars agree is a rather flaky concept. LNWA and proportionality of nuclear response are all sub-texts to the same. To transpose conventional strategy on nuclear policy can prove disastrous more so when dealing with a state controlled by its military and intelligence apparatus. Once again the logic of orderly nuclear escalation is fallacious. Deterrence in essence is a mind game that does not brook any logic other than total escalation when confronted by a nuclear strike. The three options before India in response to a TNW strike are LNWA, punitive nuclear strike or doctrinal massive retaliation. The former two may sound reasonable on paper but notions of counter force strikes, flexible response, LNWA etc. do not make sense in the face of total escalation.

A Conclusion: One Answer to Jihadist Aggression

Conventional forces are different by nature from nuclear forces. The former is susceptible to control, escalation, geographic spread, and indeed to economic pressures. The latter is not. Tolerance to conventional forces is the rub; where their limits lie is the question that planners must answer. India’s incentive to keep below the nuclear threshold is as pressing as it is for Pakistan. This is deterrence at play. The conclusion that nuclear weapons do not deter sub-conventional warfare is appropriate. At the same time conventional forces can and do suppress the use of jihadists and if this policy is brought to bear in concert with anti terror polity answers may be found to jihadist violence.

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 Endnotes

[1] Fair Christine, Fighting to the End, pg 226

[2] Tariq Khosa’s admission of the complicity of organs of the state in launching acts of terrorism in neighbouring countries. It is said that there was an entire rogue ISI and that Gen. Gul, hardliner among hardliners — he said 9/11 was a Jewish conspiracy — was its head. For many people he continued being a spymaster. If the regular ISI is a “state within the state”, then the rogue ISI was/is a state within that “state within the state”; a “deeper” state. Nonetheless, after Gen. Gul died on 15 August 2015, there was a spontaneous outpour of praise for him in Pakistan. The Urdu press was unanimous in praising him as a nationalist and patriot; even liberals in the Urdu media, like Nazir Naji of Roznama Dunya, who is unapologetically anti-Taliban, called Gen. Gul a patriot. His funeral was attended by former Army Chief Ashfaq Parvez Kayani as well as current Army Chief Gen. Raheel Sharif — who is supposedly against terrorism. It would appear they were mourning the passing of the man who was, more than Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the ideologue of modern Pakistan, led by its Deep State.

[3] http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/1998-nuclear-tests-were-perfect-says-kakodkar/article64687.ece