Indian Defence Review

It is not surprising that India’s lack of strategic culture denies policy makers to think beyond Border Action Teams (BAT). Whether the BAT obsession is because of the penchant for cricket diplomacy is not known. This too maybe relevant to Pakistan but Chinese don’t play cricket. Yet, pundits attribute deep PLA intrusions to Chinese Border Regiments, who incidentally are very much directly under PLA not that this is not known especially to our mandarin speakers including the NSA.

Through the article, ‘Another Kargil in Keran Sector?’ published in these columns on 3rd October, I had pointed out that the massive intrusion in Keran Sector since 22nd September was deliberately kept under wraps to facilitate the Prime Minister meet Nawaz Sharif in New York – a shame. Whether the Army has been forced now by the political masters (under media pressure) to call off the operation and reduce it to ‘mopping up’ is the bulk opinion in civil circles but more pertinently, the following questions are being asked:

• Why has the Defence Minister not given any statement in last so many days? Wasn’t the daily situation report on his and the Prime Minister’s table every morning? Or is he too busy planning the joint military exercise with PLA this month?
• If the intruders had occupied an abandoned village, why were they not subjected to concentrated artillery fire and blown to pieces especially since they were on higher ground?
• Did we not learn the above lesson from the Kargil conflict?
• Was the Army stopped by the political authority from doing so?
• The Army Chiefs explanation that “we respect the ceasefire” is laughable in face of repeated Pakistani breaches and wasn’t this intrusion serious enough to blast the Pakistani post (s) itself that facilitated this intrusion?
• When the intruders were assessed as 30-40, how many are still inside if only eight bodies were found? Do you expect us to believe that balance bodies were “dragged back” across the LC?
• Is the army content with a brigade strength three sided cordon of the intruders, using Special Forces to flush the intruders like regular infantry and finally getting less than one third of the intruders?
• Has the abandoned village area been occupied now? If not, what prevents repeat of similar intrusion?
• Isn’t the Army concerned about the host of questions in TV debates about beatings taken in recent months or is it content with old timers writings about how they dealt with similar situations in their time?
• Why have we not reacted to the squeak by the Paki High Commissioner that they occupied an abandoned Indian post? Why has he not been called and handed a demarche?

Getting back to the good old BAT (not the cricket one), no doubt the BAT is a mix of Paki regulars including special troops (SSG?)and terrorists but do we need Sun Tzu to tell us that the enemy would have graduated far beyond leaving the planning and execution to forward troops as was happening for past several years, what with Kayani’s guile. Michael Hughes, Geopolitical journalist wrote two years back, “In a movement that should have floored US policymakers, Kayani was brazen enough to try and inveigle Afghanistan to strike a power-sharing arrangement with the Haqqanis. And Kayani, apparently the spokesperson for the Haqqani group, said they’d be willing to split from and denounce Al Qaeda, which is President Obama’s primary rationale for the war. However, there is a higher probability of General Kayani converting to Hinduism than there is of the Haqqani Network ever being decoupled from Al Qaeda.”

On 8th September 2013, a Pakistani Taliban spokesman told a group of reporters in Waziristan (Pakistan) that the Afghan Taliban and Pakistani Taliban are linked and that Afghan Taliban are financially supporting Pakistani Taliban. This blows the cover of Pakistanis convincing US to differentiate between the Afghan and Pakistan Taliban as so-called “good” and “bad” Taliban. The nexus gives Taliban more space to operate inside Afghanistan post US withdrawal and will provide the ‘strategic depth’ to Pakistan. Fazlullah, Pakistan Taliban Leader had stated on 21 Oct 2011, “Pakistani leaders approach us when their relations sour with the US and later forget their promises and become more harsh and cruel when their relations are restored with the US. We know these tricks of the Pakistani rulers.” This shows clear links of ISI-Taliban links. Presently Fazlullah is happily lodged in Kunar Province of Afghanistan under Afghan Taliban protection, as facilitated by ISI.

Any doubts that Pakistan will get its strategic depth once Americans thin out from Afghanistan?  What Kayani has done is that he has mated the Pakistani Taliban with hundreds of Mujahid troops from the Mujahid units after carefully convincing the world that no Mujahid soldiers are seconded to ISI. It is this Taliban-Mujahid Combo that will target Afghanistan post US pullout. Needless to mention that both Afghan Taliban and Pakistan Taliban will join hands and the Mujahids will support them in garb of Taliban fighters, as would regular Paki soldiers too. That is the reason you see the Mujahid josos attired and with bedraggled looks like the Taliban.

On the eastern front, Kayani has gone for similar arrangement mating the LeT with Mujahids, not that Punjabi Taliban would be taboo to join. So what India should be expecting to face is the combo of Paki regulars-LeT-Mujahids-Taliban. The difference this time would be that it would no more be BATs but BABs (Border Action Battalions), the subunits of which have probably been tried out in recent months to good effect. What we also need to understand is that the planning and coordination of these actions are no more left to forward troops. This is an era of unconventional, irregular warfare and covert operations, planning of which is done at the highest levels for the simple reason that the effects are no more at tactical level. Trifling such actions as small matters is outright stupid.

Any country other than India would have capitalized on a common enemy (Pakistan) sandwiched between two sovereign nations that have had excellent relations and a strategic partnership arrangement. Given the above setting and if we have the sense to acknowledge what is coming, we should be pulling out all stops and meet each and every military demand of Afghanistan including the wherewithal to liquidate the terrorist sanctuaries that have been targeting that country. Both countries should actually be coordinating similar action along either front under the strategic partnership arrangement, of which security is a major component. That would be the right action to what our headlines periodically blare. With our recent responses in face of grave provocations,  people at international forums actually snigger when our media says ‘India Talks Tough’.

If Kayani is not being given a second extension as an Army Chief, it is simply because all present Paki Corps Commanders would retire which would create tremenduous heartburn.  But he is sure to become the NSA or an all powerful Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff or something similar. After all, with his achievements including the above combos created by him, he has the right credentials to wrest more territory from India in conjunction China. He also holds all the cards to tell Nawaz Sharif who should replace him as Paki Army Chief, no matter the façade by Pakistani media.

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There should be no doubt about this. It also needs no genius to tell us that elections in both India and Afghanistan will likely witness plenty terrorist acts and enhanced insurgencies – more in India because of India’s hoary responses. We should be ready not only in metropolitan cities but should expect fireworks in many parts of South India.