Category Archives: South Asia

The Paradox of Power: The Case for an Integrated Response Doctrine to Counter Cross Border Insurgency

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Vice Admiral (retd) Vijay Shankar

This commentary was first published on the Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies (IPCS) website in September 2013.

Keywords: Cross-border incursions, Proportional response, “Strategy of a Thousand Cuts,” Terrorism as an Instrument of State Policy, “focoism,” Indo-Pak border surveillance

Abstract:

It is no accident that Pakistan has learnt to exploit our traditional mode of politico-military analysis and response to border incursions. Apologists within India make a slanted argument that the problem of Pakistan sponsored insurgency is essentially political and  attacks on the Indian armed forces are more an effort to break the political process by provoking armed conflict, forgetting that it is the very institution that sponsors cross border insurgency that also controls the political process. Tragically inaction or inadequacy of response, as experience has shown, will cause the worst escalation. 

The Inadequacy of Proportional Response

The Pakistan army has relentlessly pursued its Politico-Military-Militant strategy of a “thousand cuts” to keep the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir on the boil and in consequence erode the will to federate. While success in this endeavour has been denied Pakistan, it has, for reasons not quite convincing, kept the response from the Indian side proportional, reactive and tactically restrained. This, Pakistan has achieved despite the fact of sponsoring the primary provocation. Ironically the balance of power is so heavily skewed towards India that it is a paradox that the “cuts” persist varying only in terms of gore.

Given the context and nature of the strategy that relies on bleeding India through the use of irregulars; the low risk, low cost and high return (to the Pakistan cause) of the stratagem and the enduring security predicament that it precipitates leaves the planner in a state of disquiet. In dealing with contrivance of this brand, leadership often makes flawed strategic choices because they are “misled by common sense”[1]. Attempting to restrict action through a one sided belief in the inviolability of the border or Line of Control (LoC) or defend it through a combination of diplomacy, economics and proportional reaction leaves the antagonist to decide where, when and how to inflict the fated forthcoming ‘cut’. Also, the sense of proportionality is hollow and often inconsequential since purpose and value are so distinctly in variance.

The Perpetual Imbalance

Normally in dealing with a conservative nation, strategic objectives do not present an existential peril and interests are governed by rationality, then a comprehensive strategy consists of sustained political, economic and diplomatic engagement backed by a military posture that supports the strategy. However, Pakistan is no normal conservative state; and, as Imtiaz Gul, the Pakistani journalist and author, has with so much distress emphasized “the perpetual imbalances in the civilian military equation continues to distort the political landscape.” The Army’s obsessive rivalry against India provides the reason for supremacy in affairs of state and the promotion of terrorism as an instrument of state policy. [2]

The dialectic of an asymmetric conflict is unique in that it is not just one of opposing wills, but, on the weaker side, of radical ideology and brutality in the application of force with protracted low level violence against civilian targets being the preferred tool. In these circumstances to restrain response from taking castigatory action is to effectively deny physical censure, concede the legitimacy of the assault and to invite the next ‘cut’. India’s counterinsurgency efforts in, not just Kashmir, but across India are not unlike the Latin American response to “focoism” [3] earnest, naïve, aggressive and impatient without an effective three pronged doctrine to challenge ideological inspiration, deter and punish the sponsor while at the same time eliminate the terrorist perpetrator. It must therefore come as no surprise that low intensity of conflict has endured in Kashmir for quarter of a century.

The Case for Escalation

Contemporary conditions in Kashmir are appropriate to enable the three pronged doctrine mainly because the ideological stimulant of an identity in religious terms rather than national is today, jaded. At origin, in the late 1980s when Pakistan’s strategy to equip, train and launch the indigenous Kashmiri militants began, the insurrection had a home brewed basis; today the fighters have been supplanted by itinerant and rootless Jihadists. These aliens neither share the ideology nor the beliefs of the Kashmiri. This single consideration must be taken advantage of vigorously through education and economic stimulants and is being done with some success, since the lure of Pakistan is hardly attractive, it’s politics lies in militant and sectarian tatters, it’s economic prospects uninviting and its fundamental beliefs exposed and universally objectionable. So much so that the prospects of an Indian political solution in Kashmir never seemed more bright while Pakistan’s involvement, never more vulnerable. However the problem lies not in the politics of that State but in the fractious control that the army exercises in the affairs of that nation.

It is no accident that Pakistan has learnt to exploit our traditional mode of politico military analysis and response to border incursions. Apologists within India make a slanted argument that the problem of Pakistan sponsored insurgency is essentially political and the attacks on the Indian armed forces are more an effort to break the political process by provoking armed conflict; forgetting that it is the very institution that sponsors cross border insurgency that also controls the political process. It is nobody’s case that military success must precede the political process for, indeed, the two are inseparable; however it is equally clear that political reconciliation cannot co-exist when strategies that seek to bleed are at play. The aim of the Response Doctrine is to bring about the ambience for a political process by raising the strategic cost (militarily, economically and diplomatically) to Pakistan of its maverick policies. Such being the case, the Indian military response must be so tuned as to introduce an escalatory factor that deepens the intensity of  response and enlarges the dimension of operations that in a calibrated manner emphasises the conventional weight that it carries and consequently deters intrusions.

As the function of military power in international politics undergoes fundamental change on account of its disproportionate growth in relation to most of the objectives in dispute,[4] so must the doctrines that drive it. There is often confusion in the establishment when instinctive conservatism controls the usage of an armed force dedicated to the principles of unlimited war fought by massive forces. Obviously such forces combating insurgents will result in poor efficiency of engagement. Under these conditions to persistently reason that escalation will invoke the philosophical abstraction of the Clausewitzian extreme is to deny an essential tool of state craft; that is, to develop integrated force response doctrines and reorganise specially equipped and trained personnel for the task of retaining focus, impact and precision of response.

Framework for Riposte

The Indian Army has absorbed and consolidated considerable experience in counter insurgency operations based on combating insurrection in the Punjab and the North Eastern states. But the nature of these operations was different since the dominant consideration was that you were dealing with your own citizenry and not foreign sponsored and trained elements being used as an instrument of an adversarial State’s policy. However the lessons of the past were that success against irregular forces depends on first class surveillance and intelligence; on effective coordination of political, administrative and military resources and training of local constabulary. These lessons remain true in countering the “strategy of a thousand cuts” with a distinctness introduced by the fact that the insurgents are in the main aliens, their sponsors a nation inimical to India and they operate from outside the territories of India.

This at once suggests a layered frame work for the riposte, it begins with the creation and enabling of an ‘Intelligence Region’ that concentrates its effort along the border, Actual Ground Position Line (AGPL) and LoC to a depth that covers launch pads, training areas, logistic and financial support and cover posts; this network is to be supported by national technical resources and global intelligence complex both national and international. The second layer is the ‘Surveillance and Tracking Area’ which extends from the border or LoC fencing and AGPL extending radially outward across the border and the LoC up to probable launch pads and cover posts, this Zone is to be under electronic and optical surveillance continually by airborne scouts, unmanned aerial vehicles and ground based cross spectrum means all operating from the Indian side of the frontier. The business layer is the ‘Kill Zone’ which starts at the LoC/border and extends inward to the fence and a little beyond which may be deemed to extend to a depth of three to five kilometres within which integrated force by air and land must rapidly be brought to bear. Beyond this Zone within the country, it will be left to ground forces to interdict the intruding insurgents. Coordination between the three layers must be swift and precise. Time in ‘Kill Zone’ will be short, between five to fifteen minutes demanding near immediate acquisition and brisk neutralization of targets. Engagements in this layer will be characterized by integration of forces, decisive command and control, speed and lethality.

Contours of a Response Doctrine: Conclusion

In framing a Response Doctrine the primary linkage is between executive actions on the frontier with the authority that has delegated these powers (the Cabinet Committee on Security, CCS, in India) to the Operational Commander. The doctrine must be guided by a set of principles governing armed action when two or more Services and other cooperating agencies are operating together in order to ensure impact and effectiveness of command in joint response operations. This body of response precepts is predetermined and established by the CCS. The doctrine must articulate guidance, directives, procedures, information flow and define command responsibilities in the three layered zones (mentioned earlier) and relationship within these zones for the conduct of integrated response operations. It must also address material issues earmarking forces available to the Commander including counter insurgency aircrafts, UAVs and Special Forces describing operational concepts and accomplishment of support tasks. Of essence to the response scheme and to assure doctrinaire credibility is time sensitivity of actions. To this end the agglomerate of operational/tactical knowledge will need be put into pre planned contingency matrices generating integrated execution plans in the ‘Surveillance and Tracking Area’ and the ‘Kill Zone’.

Devising its response, India has the entire spectrum of conventional and technical choices to deter cross border insurgency and bear down on the intruder; this is the only advantage that the victim enjoys. The resolve with which such a doctrine is enabled is the real challenge for it paves the way to political resolution. Tragically inaction or inadequacy of response, as Kargil, the Parliament assault and 26/11 have shown, will cause the worst escalation.

 

End Notes

[1] Shy, John.  Jomini, Makers of Modern Strategy P 168. Edited by Peter Paret Princeton University Press, 1986.

[2] Gul, Imtiaz. The Most Dangerous Place, Viking Penguin 2009, P 181, 183.

[3] Custers, Peter Dr. The Legacy of Che Guevara: Internationalism Today Sri Lanka Guardian, February 24, 2010. The central of principle Focoism  is that militancy and terrorist acts by cadres of small, fast-moving paramilitary groups can provide a focus (in Spanish, foco) for popular discontent against a sitting regime, and thereby lead a general insurrection.

[4] Kissinger, Henry A. American Strategic Doctrine and Diplomacy, The Theory and Practice of War,  P 276. Edited by Michael Howard, Indiana Unversity Press 1965/1975.

FMCT: Questioning Mass Destruction as the Basis for International Order

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Vice Admiral (retd) Vijay Shankar

This article was first published by the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies in June 2013.

Keywords: Pakistan nuclear doctrine, Indian Nuclear Doctrine, FMCT, Pakistan Foreign Policy and “India-centricity,” Deterrence Stability in South Asia.

Twenty eight years before Oppenheimer was stirred to note the significance of Krishna’s words from the Gita, “I am become death, the destroyer of worlds,” Tagore, in 1917, had expressed deep scepticism in the fortifying effect of weapons of mass destruction. He (Tagore was not a pacifist in the Gandhi mould) posited that bigger weapons invoked a proportionally more intense reaction that exposed the paradoxically weakening effect of escalating military power. His reasoning was based on the premise that a nation’s pursuit of armed might, beyond a definable threshold, actually increases the penalty of war dramatically.

Seen in this perspective, Pakistan’s FMCT debate would appear unidimensional. Pakistan’s stance is that a modest and austere equation exists between, on the one hand, its current position on the FMCT, and on the other, the sum of ‘organised hypocrisy’ of the international non-proliferation regime and India’s capability both conventional and nuclear. It is important then, to examine the coherence of their standpoint.

Rabia Akhtar in her essay “Pakistan: the FMCT debate within” has pointed out that the tri-condition that would catalyse that nation’s participation in the FMCT is that “the treaty first address the asymmetry in fissile material stockpiles; second, reduce the existing stockpiles of nuclear materials by each party as a disarmament measure; and lastly address Pakistan’s security concerns emanating from India’s growing nuclear and conventional capabilities.” Given the India-centricity of their nuclear posture (as stated in the essay), all three conditions are, presumably, directed at India notwithstanding the suggestion in the second, which if applied would advocate an unworkable comparison and proportionality with all nuclear weapon states. If this were the intent then consistency of the proposal is waylaid before the treaty can get underway.

The first rider proposes to bring nuclear parity by level pegging of fissile stockpiles which in a sense may be appropriate when comprehensive power equation is comparable, doctrine of intent is known, is compatible and transparent, and Controller and Custodian of the arsenal are embodied in two distinct and separate national entities. However, a No First Use (NFU) policy can find no matching urge when faced with an opaque doctrine of First Use under military control, predisposed to tactical nuclear weapons managed by indistinct decentralised control and stewardship. There is only one riposte to this precarious state and that is to assure massive nuclear retaliation in the eventuality of the first use of nuclear weapons. Noting the imbalance in comprehensive power which is weighted so much in favour of India (GDP almost ten times that of Pakistan), the demand for equivalence does not make sense—in the same vein, India neither demands equivalence with China or the USA, nor expects it. Macabre as it may seem, deterrence stability is better served by destructive assurance rather than mathematical equality in stockpiles. Under these circumstances lowering the nuclear threshold with the introduction of tactical nuclear weapons only serves to amplify the vulnerability that Pakistan has put itself in and undermines the cause of deterrence. The Tagore Conundrum would appear to be at play here.

The third precondition is their security disquiet arising from India’s conventional and nuclear capabilities. A nation’s security concerns are a function of history, geography, developmental and economic objectives, power equations and, most importantly, driven by the aspirations of its people. The key is often leadership’s ability to find and leverage opportunities within the international system to the larger benefit of the nation. However, in Pakistan’s case, given the omnipresence of the military, it ironically remains a security state driven in the main by military considerations and Indo-centric security paranoia both at the cost of and to the neglect of development. The very nature of such a siege outlook will demand that the India threat remains in perpetuity, so patently reflected in their stance on the FMCT.

If we were to pause and consider a situation when the military threat of war from India did not exist or was of a low probability, then by the logic of the Pakistan security paradigm the siege will lift giving way to establishing a relationship that may suggest stability; then again the same prudence will petition for civil control over the military. The current political conditions post the recent elections have, debatably, opened a glimmer of opportunity. At least the voices that we hear from across the border are ones of less tolerance of extremism, civil control over the military albeit diffident control, and an air of reconciliation; whether this translates to concrete steps only time will tell, but economic deprivation often has an earthy rationale.

The FMCT provides the elemental impulse to restrain and safeguard the spread of nuclear weapons by capping fissile stockpiles. It is a first step not towards bringing equity in nuclear arsenals but to question the basis of mass destruction as logic for international order.

Pakistan Elections 2013: On the Far Side

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Vice Admiral (retd) Vijay Shankar

This article was first published by the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies in May 2013.

Keywords: Pakistan elections 2013, Pakistan political tradition, US withdrawal from Afghanistan, Pakistan military, Political Islam, Punjab-centricity, ‘One Unit Scheme’, ‘Ayub’s Basic Democrats’

Recently, in the run-up to the general elections in Pakistan, one of India’s more reputed TV channels hosted a panel discussion on its outcome and the wider ramifications of the vote. Strange was the readiness of the panellists to set aside the actualities of Pakistan’s situation. To every critical predicament that the Anchor pointed to, the debate slewed on how people-to-people (Indo-Pak) engagement and the youth surge would overcome all; forgetting for the moment that it was this already strained human relationship that had to be cultivated and nurtured beyond the jhappi-pappi rhetoric. As for the youth, the speakers did not think it of importance to either underscore the magnitude of the uneducated or the state of joblessness and therefore the lure of the radicalized Madrassa. Was it the ‘ardour’ bit of our enduring love-hate relationship with that country at play? The panellists would have appeared to have surrendered reality for unfounded romanticism.

So, what in this situation, consistent with the affairs of that State, sways and bears upon Pakistan polity? I would posit that four considerations will have disproportionate impact on Indo-Pak relations:

  • The nature and tradition of egalitarianism and political beliefs in Pakistan.
  • The emergence of a radical strain of Political Islam and the far reach of fundamentalists.
  • Impact of the impending American pullout from Afghanistan.
  • The invasive and persistent influence of the military.

Taking each in turn, the nature of polity in Pakistan since independence is one marred by a rapacious impulse to power, an unwillingness to cede predatory feudal structures to democratic principles, and a fractured dualism between Islamic conservatism and modernity. Its 67 years of existence has seen a formative disruptive decade that spent itself in the dismantling and transforming of constitutional structures, a ten-year flirtation with a ‘One Unit scheme’, ‘controlled’ democracy (Ayub’s Basic Democrats), three unsuccessful coups, non-party elections, military (ISI) rigged elections, constitutional coups, and thirty-three years of military rule, leaving less than a decade and a half of disjointed civilian dispensation of which five years preceded the current elections of 2013. The only unremitting feature during the period was the ominous persuasion, either overtly or from behind the scenes, of the military. In this frame of reference, neither could liberal beliefs flourish nor leadership emerge without the undertone of military concessions. The significant casualty in all this was the development of national structures that could not only realise past expectations but also leverage the potential global advantage that the youth surge offers. The idea of an overnight change to egalitarianism is therefore illusory in the absence of well entrenched independent liberal institutions.

In the immediate wake of independence, Pakistan tenuously held onto a Sub- continental identity and a secular outlook to nation building. This, however, was ephemeral both in its impact and the resolve to persist with the idea, to the extent that exactly the converse by design became the inspiration for the nation. So, through the revision of history and media manipulation, ersatz religious, distinct cultural and idealized historical links were established (in a curious turn of events this very distinctiveness has been refuted by the intelligentsia in the more populous West Punjab). A peculiar brand of Islamization took root. General Zia’s push for Islamic practices of Zakat, Ushr, Islamic Hadood and the Sharia Penal code were manifestations of the traumatic break from its past. This fetched with it a radical strain of political Islam that permeated society, denied Sufism and served the cause of the military bureaucracy in its bid to develop a consensus on its vision of the nation. The levels of violence that have disfigured the current elections and the disproportionate influence of extreme forces in proscribing inimical secular parties is symptomatic of the heavy hand and far reach of fundamentalists.

The impending withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan will leave that nation much in the same state as when they invaded it: a weak centre; growing military influence of a resurrected and dominant Taliban; and an undermined Northern Alliance shorn of the steel of the US military. Further, an intensifying civil war will lead to loss of control of the South and East. Pakistan, with its unfinished and unpopular war against extremism, now more widespread than ever, exacerbates the volatile mix. In the absence of the US Army of Afghanistan, extremists will once again find safe sanctuary in the Taliban controlled areas, leading to either an expansion of the war across the Durand Line or of Pakistan cutting a deal with the Afghan Taliban (whose terms may well be active intervention alongside them). In the short term one may prognosticate a downward calibration of tensions in Kashmir, now left in the hands of Pakistan’s chosen extremists, and an intensification of operations in the West. The middle and long term, however, portends a continued amplified role for the military in the affairs of Pakistan unless the new dispensation in Islamabad is able rein in the military and, in an improbable act of control, thrust down a no-military-role Afghan policy.

The early years of Pakistan’s existence were imbued with political insecurity and uncertainty largely caused by the civil violence that preceded creation and the Western Wing’s urge to balance out the demographically weightier East. Both these dynamics wounded any stimulus towards a democratic slant. What did happen was the nurturing of a polity that enticed a greater role for the military in the internal as well as the external constituents of national security. The four disastrous wars with India, one of which resulted in the second partition of Pakistan, did not in any way serve to provide an altered perspective on national security issues, which remained a military one and the armed forces its core bastion. Internally, the loss of East Pakistan set the establishment on the course to Punjab-centricity and Islamization; both of which strengthened the hand of the army and the penetration of its ideology amongst the masses. The impending US retreat from Afghanistan is again seen as an abandonment of Islamabad, a condition which the military believe, only they could salvage the nation from.

Given the four realities that confront Pakistan and the state of their economy, the far side of the 2013 elections must see a path to deliverance beginning with civil control over the Army, letting go of grandiose schemes such as a military role in Afghanistan, and the government training their sights on societal enhancement to wean the youth from militancy.

Written as part of a compendium of views by several authors following the Pakistan Elections. To access the debate, visit: http://www.ipcs.org/article/pakistan/pakistan-elections-2013-on-the-far-side-3946.html