Border incursion: retaining the option of fighting back

If India was not playing the role of a spoiler, would we ever have an Afghanistan that would dodge Pakistan’s offers

The first rule on page 1 of the book of war is: do not march on Moscow, said by Field Marshal Montgomery in the House of Lords in May 1962. Oddly enough, nothing was said about the second rule, which is ‘never make war with Afghans’. But what if the Afghans themselves want to do so? If they draw the sword should we return ours to the scabbard? If now we have an insult to avenge should we become avengers and not the professional soldiers that we are?

If India was not playing the role of a spoiler, would we ever have an Afghanistan that would duck and dodge Pakistan’s offers of dialogue and instead respond by carrying out unprovoked firing at Pakistani troops guarding a census team on May 5^th?

This latest Afghan firing incident demonstrates that the Afghan guns have also started speaking the Indian language of murdering the innocent civilians who live across the border. If their guns now speak Indian language what about the mindset and mentality of the Afghan generals and their military officers who are trained in the Indian military academies and schools?

Days before the attack in Chaman that left 10 people dead and 47 injured, Islamabad made serious efforts to warm relations with Kabul. First, a high-level military delegation led by CGS Lt Gen Bilal Akbar visited Kabul and later the DG ISI, Lt Gen Naveed Mukhtar, also visited the country. These were high-profile visits, considering the unquestionable role that the Pakistan military and its intelligence agency are likely to play in determining what shape and course our future relations with Afghanistan should take.

Yet the Afghan president invited to visit Pakistan declined to come and then this firing. What is Afghanistan up to and how should Pakistan respond to an Afghanistan that is getting more and more Indianised in its speech and act?

The Indian-guided Afghan motive is clear, unless green-signalled by India, ‘rapprochement must always stay away and beyond Pakistan’s reach’. The Indian-Afghan dual policy of building pressure on Pakistan, calls for creating a “sandwich effect” in which there are no major wars of conquests but limited and small-scale proxies and military actions should be carried with a view to damaging and hurting the pride and prestige of Pakistan’s military.

The paradigm is there at the eastern front for Afghans to emulate, the one where the bellicose Indian army continues to threaten Pakistan with likelihood of retaliatory military actions and surgical strikes. The latest coming from their military chief, after the recent killing of the two Indian soldiers that India accuses Pakistan army for carrying. Gen Bipin Rawat said, “When this kind of action takes place, we also carry out retaliatory action… We do not talk about future plans beforehand. We share details after execution of the plan.”

One such action that India has already carried out is the abduction of Pakistan’s retired Lt-Col Habib. Picked up from Nepal airport and driven to India, the abduction looks like a reaction to the arrest of Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav. Another one that comes to mind is the sinking of a Pakistani boat off the Gujarat coast on the night of Dec 31^st 2015. The DIG of the Indian coastguard B K Loshali who made this claim, caught on camera, was dismissed from service not for telling the truth but for contradicting the government’s version on the destruction of the boat, which was that the “Pakistani fishermen blew up their own boat after the Indian navy’s chase.”

In the context of military operations before executing any retaliatory action the aggressor must first measure the cost of ‘reaction’ and only when it is found within tolerable limits such military (mis)adventures should be undertaken. Barring aside the imagined Indian “surgical strike” last year, India is yet to take a military action across the LoC that has not warranted a tit-for-tat response from the Pakistan army. Under the Indian military chief’s renewed threats would the Pakistan military not respond and retaliate? That’s a dangerous path that the Indian military chief is choosing to tread, a choice that will only escalate hostilities.

Gen Bipin cannot be expected to have an unprejudiced look at the whole incident and his ‘military bullying’ is in line with the anti-Pakistan ‘political bullying’ that PM Modi has been undertaking since the time he came to power. This hardly bemuses the Pakistan military, not least because unlike Bangladesh, Myanmar, Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan it is not ready to succumb to Indian political and military methods of imposing conditions on the regional countries for drawing favourable responses. No amount of Indian threats would sway Pakistan away from its time-tested national policy of continuing with its political, social and moral support to the people of Indian-held Kashmir, where the Indian forces resort to the worst form of state terrorism. The Indian policy motive of isolating and weakening Pakistan is meant to weaken Pakistan’s support for the people of Kashmir.

The basic outline of the Indian-Afghan thinking today reflects that it is anti-Pakistan to the core and whereas one is Pakistan’s natural and capable enemy, the other is militarily mediocre and present only for India’s support. Indian anti-Pakistani policy, which is cheesed with fraud and deceit, has unfortunately for Pakistan a subscriber that is Pakistan’s neighbour. Demonstrating more Indian tilt courtesy Indian promises, the political leadership of Afghanistan is biting something that the majority of Afghans will not allow it to chew.

Both countries have joined hands to accuse Pakistan of rearing jihadi outfits in its backyard, sponsoring groups like Taliban, Jaish-e-Muhammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba, and sponsoring and conducting hundreds of terrorist actions through its proxies in both the countries. But both of them need to make sure that their hands are clean before they point fingers at Pakistan. Given the circumstance, in international politics it became trendy and fashionable to accuse Pakistan of terrorism, but not anymore now, not after what the Pakistan military has achieved and continues to achieve victories against terrorists. Most that are left are now camped in Afghanistan or India, waiting RAW’s directives to move into Pakistan.

Lastly, Pakistan should be eagerly awaiting the Indian PM’s visit to the US later this summer. President Obama in September 2015 had asked the Indians for defence participation in Afghanistan. Would the Trump administration also want India to concede to the original Obama request? The likely contours of Afghan endgame and the role the US wants India to play in it will most likely be clear at the end of this visit.

For now, the message to the Pakistani military whether fighting on the eastern or western front is absolutely clear — ‘When under assault you have every right to fight back’.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 9^th, 2017.

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