Indo-Pak military crises: some fallouts M V Ramana
The Daily Times
Thursday, July 26, 2002
Thankfully, the recent attack in Kashmir has not set off another military build-up. But the border confrontation between India and Pakistan is now several months old, starting with the December 13, 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament by militants. The Indian government alleges that the attackers were Pakistanis and the attack was sponsored by Pakistan. But as must be obvious to anyone who follows South Asian politics, such allegations can neither be trusted given the poor track record of the governments in the region, nor can they be completely dismissed given the sorry history of meddling and infiltration in the subcontinent.
The eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation between Indian and Pakistani armies that followed the December 13 attack has now persisted for several months, with tensions going up and down and leveling off at various points. In May, just when things looked like they were improving came two gruesome attacks in Kashmir within the space of two weeks, the first of which killed dozens of non-combatants, primarily the wives and children of Indian soldiers posted in the region.
That attack brought the two countries very close to the brink until diplomacy � especially US efforts � prevailed. After several tense weeks, the situation cooled down and has since remained at a manageable level. Anxious not to have tensions between India and Pakistan get in the way of Washington�s continuing war on Afghanistan, US leaders have made a number of promises to India, while at the same time supporting General Pervez Musharraf.
The US intervention to defuse the present crisis reminds one of its mediation during the Kargil war. However, a number of factors have contributed to making the recent crisis much worse. Here we look at two of them, both having to do with the lessons learnt � right or wrong � from the 1999 Kargil conflict.
The first factor is the increased levels of nuclear brinkmanship indulged in by both countries, in part because the Kargil war did not escalate despite much nuclear sabre rattling. This appears to have increased the level of confidence among political and military leaders that they can go closer to the edge without actually falling over. And, of course, it makes them look good to domestic constituencies that have been continuously fed ultra-jingoistic propaganda.
Nuclear brinkmanship took both the form of threats and actions. For example, during his January 2 speech in Lucknow, Indian Prime Minister A B Vajpayee reportedly stated: �no weapon would be spared in self-defence. Whatever weapon was available, it would be used no matter how it wounded the enemy.� Indian Army chief General S. Padmanabhan warned that if Islamabad dared to unleash its nuclear arms, �The perpetrator of that particular outrage shall be punished, shall be punished so severely that the continuation of any form of fray will be doubtful,� and expressed his readiness �for a second strike� since he felt that India had �enough� nuclear arms.
There were threats on the other side of the border as well. In an interview to Der Spiegel magazine, General Musharraf warned that if pressure on Pakistan becomes too great then �as a last resort, the atom bomb is also possible� (as reported by The Guardian). Former chief of the Pakistan Army General Mirza Aslam Beg declared: �We can make a first strike, and a second strike or even a third.� (To put this in perspective, it helps to look at General Beg�s attitude towards nuclear war: �You can die crossing the street, or you could die in a nuclear war. You�ve got to die someday anyway.�)
In the midst of the crisis, both India and Pakistan tested new nuclear-capable missiles. India started off the race with a test of a 700-km version of the Agni on January 25. Pakistan�s response, later in the year, was amplified: it tested three missiles � the 1500-km Ghauri, a 300-km Ghaznavi, and the 180-km Abdali.
There were also attempts to move missile arsenals to a more useable posture. In January, it was reported that Prime Minister Vajpayee had authorized the armed forces to use the short-range Prithvi missile at their discretion while US intelligence reports suggested that Pakistan was building missile launch-sites near its border with India.
The second factor in the current standoff is the Indian military�s impatience after Kargil. Although the Kargil war was extremely limited in a geographical sense, it took a toll of nearly 1300 lives (according to the Indian government) and over 1750 (according to Pakistan). Since that combat involved Pakistanis occupying high terrain and controlling approach roads, the Indian army literally and figuratively had to fight an uphill battle. The lesson they seem to have learnt from that war is that they did not want to be limited in their options in such a situation. Even at Kargil, India called on its air force to launch attacks for the first time since 1971 and there were calls to open up other battlefronts or resort to bombardment of Pakistani supply routes to the border.
Such recommendations became more common after the end of the Kargil war. In January 2000 India�s Defence Minister George Fernandes declared that the Kargil conflict had shown that nuclearisation of India and Pakistan had not made conventional wars obsolete. Reflecting the thinking that had been popularised by US nuclear strategists (or to put it more bluntly, psychopaths) like Herman Kahn, then Army chief V. P. Malik elaborated on his concept of limited war. �The escalation ladder would be carefully climbed in a carefully controlled ascent by both protagonists.�
Given the confusion and chaos of war, ideas about limited war and carefully controlled escalation ladders are wishful thinking at best. At worst, they will lead us to nuclear catastrophe, especially if escapades like Kargil or attacks like the one on the Indian Parliament continue to occur.
