Indian Defence Review

Strategic Depth is a term generally related to military operations. It has been  described as the distances between the front-lines or battle sectors and the combatant’s capital cities, industrial core areas, military installations, heartlands and population centres, while assessing the strategic depth is related to  how vulnerable all these are to an offensive and whether the military can withdraw into own territory, absorbing the thrust and enabling own counter offensive. But how far is this concept applicable any more when classics conventional wars have been relegated to the past though not completely.

What has become increasingly relevant is the application of asymmetric wars that are not only ongoing but are borderless and without any rules and regulations. Conventional war too would likely see enhanced application of smart power, which again would overlap with ongoing asymmetric wars. In this backdrop, the concept of strategic depth needs to be viewed in the larger politico-military context. Additionally, it would be prudent to also factor in and include sources from which strategic depth ‘draws’ strengths so as to dissuade the enemy to attack you.

Over the years, the issue of ‘strategic depth’ sought by Pakistan has been subject of discussion in many forums including in Indian and Pakistani, both in  media and intellectual circles. To some it was merely the parking space in Afghanistan for the Pakistani Air Force in the event of an Indo-Pak War, as indeed was offered by Afghanistan once in earlier such conflicts. Pakistani scholars are divided over the issue.

In May 2013, Muhammad Sadiq, Pakistan’s Ambassador to Afghanistan told a group of visiting Pakistani journalists to Kabul that Pakistan denies it is seeking strategic depth in Pakistan and Afghanistan does not offer any strategic depth to Pakistan either. Those being diplomatic words, sane scholars in Pakistan have been writing that high time Pakistan stops investing in terrorism and stop its quest for strategic depth in Afghanistan.

Interestingly, US and UK remain aligned behind the Pakistani Military-ISI despite latter being the major cause of some 5000 soldiers of the US led coalition killed in Afghanistan including over 2200 from the US itself. Little wonder that four years back, this led geopolitical journalist Michael Hughes to comment on 06 July 2010, “Nine years, nearly $300 billion dollars and 1900 dead coalition soldiers later, the US has officially verified that the entire war effort has been focused on the wrong side of the mountains”.

So what is the concept of Pakistan’s strategic depth today with her terror factories running full blast, strategic importance of irregular forces having emerged greater than conventional forces and war between conventional armies having become a thing of the past?

Robert H Kaplan in his book ‘The Revenge of Geography’ writes, “An Afghanistan that falls to Taliban sway threatens to create a succession of radicalized Islamic societies from the Indian-Pakistani border to Central Asia. This would, in effect would be a greater Pakistan, giving Pakistan’s ISI the ability to create a clandestine empire composed of the likes of Jallaluddin Haqqani, Gulbuddin Hekmetyar, and the Lashkar-e-Taiba able to confront India in the manner that Hezbollah and Hamas confront Israel”. Obviously Kaplan does not expect Taliban to completely overtake Afghanistan again, but yes the portions that go under Taliban control will certainly have Pakistani sway. And, what about the intricate terror web that Pakistan has painstakingly built pan India and her continued effort to bring terrorists and insurgent organizations operating within India under common umbrella (s)?

And let us not get overly excited about the current Pakistani offensive against the Taliban. During a similar offensive in 2012, the ISI had facilitated the escape of Mullah Fazlullah to Afghanistan, where he stayed as a special guest of the Afghan Taliban for a couple of months and has been shuttling back and forth. To this end, the present demand by Pakistan for Afghanistan to extradite Mullah Fazlullah is nothing but farce. Same is the case of Mullah Omar.

General John Allen, Commander, US & NATO Forces, Afghanistan had categorically stated in August 2012, “Mullah Omar lives in Pakistan, as do many of his commanders. From that safe vantage point, they’ve sent hundreds of young impressionable and helpless youth to their death and detention in Afghanistan. For this, they must forfeit their honor and any claim to Islamic virtues.” The fact is that the ISI is inexorably linked with both the Pakistan and Afghan Taliban, the former and Pakistani Military have the same recruiting base and the current offensive will not mean much other than some lives lost and medals awarded.

Nothing has changed in context of Haqqanis either who are part and parcel of Al Qaeda. On 31 October 2011,  New York Times had reported, “The Haqqani family, which runs the network like a mafia, maintains several town houses, including in Islamabad and elsewhere, and they have been known to visit military facilities in Rawalpindi, attend tribal gatherings and even travel abroad on pilgrimages. Experts say leaders of the Haqqani network may be hiding in plain sight in cities rather than in remote tribal areas.”

Michael Hughes had amusingly added, “There is a higher probability of General Kayani converting to Hinduism than there is of the Haqqani Network ever being decoupled from Al Qaeda.” The political dispensation in Pakistan is as intricately linked to terror, what with its patronage of radical Mullahs like Hafiz Saeed, Imran Khan’s political emergence based on radical support and Nawaz Shariff’s own brother as Chief Minister of Punjab officially doling out millions of rupees to terrorist organizations.

What about the strategic depth of the US? Outwardly, the US attributes its strategic depth to its military alliances and the militaries that she has trained while in occupation of countries like Iraq and Afghanistan. Has a new dimension to the US strategic depth been added by the expanded Sunni-Shia conflict in the Middle East? Take your pick whether the US has been surprised by the rapid rise of the ISIS or whether that was exactly the plan in conjunction Saudi Arabia. Is this why you find that of the some 2000 EU radicals assisting the rebels in Syria, many are now with the ISIS? Will the monarchy in Jordan be dumped next as the Shah of Iran was? And is Iran eventually going to be subjected to proxy war?  After all General Wesley Clark, former Supreme Allied Commander, NATO had revealed in 2007 that while Afghanistan was being bombed was part of the US invasion, the office of the US Secretary of Defense had already put on paper plans to ‘take out’ seven countries; “starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.”

Didn’t the US allow the Sunni bomb (Pakistan) but clamped down on Iran? George Friedman (Stratfor) stated in October 2012 that the new emerging foreign doctrine of the US is shifting from military domination to more subtle manipulation allowing regional crises to play out until a new regional balance is reached; controlled engagement, based on a realistic understanding of the national interest? Is that what we are witnessing in Middle East particularly in Syria and Iraq, and more importantly, will this be mirrored in the Af-Pak region? The US did not invest billions of dollars in Afghanistan for naught, $641.7 billion from FY 2011 to FY 2013 as per Centre for Strategic and International Studies (USA), and continues to support Pakistan’s military despite what has been described above.

Chris Sands reporting in Global Post, Kabul on 20 February 2013 wrote about a US backed militia led by a Hazara deliberately destroying houses, raping women and murdering dozens of civilians to fester ethnic tensions in Afghanistan’s southern province of Uruzgan. So why play up sectarian strife; pitting Hazaras against Pashtuns even before the security was handed over to the Afghan National Forces? Is it in US national interest to assist Pakistan get this strategic depth?

China has managed a fair expanse of strategic depth in all directions but what about her strategic depth against India, not counting the ‘string of pearls’. Both Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping had said that Tibet is the palm of China and Ladakh, Bhutan, Sikkim. Nepal and NEFA are its fingers. Isn’t that is the strategic depth of China in context of India? That is why despite years of Sino-Indian border talks, China has not exchanged any maps of their claims in Ladakh and NEFA. In NEFA, China has expanded her claims from Tawang to entire Arunachal Pradesh.  In Ladakh, Chinese claim lines have been expanding over the years and she has continuously resorted to nibbling of Indian Territory.

China does not recognize Sikkim as part of India. China has not resolved her border with Bhutan either. PLA patrols have been coming to Doklam Plateau in Bhutan, staying put for hours, threatening and jostling Royal Bhutanese Army personnel, telling them they should leave this being Chinese territory. China has invested Nepal through both soft and hard power. PLA troops have been observed in Northern Nepal even in uniform – just as they swarming Gilgit-Baltistan in civilian attire.

Interestingly, global social media has been agog in querying where is the strategic depth of Tibetans who don’t consider themselves part of China. Obviously their strategic depth lies in nations following Buddhism or in countries that have sizeable population of Buddhist. For that matter even a country like Spain where only 300,000 practicing Buddhists form part of the 47,370,542 Spanish population, Spain’s national court approved the indictment of Hu Jintao, former Chinese President, in investigation whether the Chinese government tortured and repressed the people of Tibet as part of an attempted genocide. Then is also China’s deadly proxy of USWA (United State Wa Army) of Myanmar which though lethally armed by China, is a predominant Buddhist organization.

Someone may then turn around and ask what about India – what is the strategic depth of India? But should we not let the new government first fill the 67 year void of defining a Comprehensive National Security Strategy?