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On the road to conflict?

The war of words with India looks like escalating into an armed conflict, almost the only issue is when? In the circumstances it becomes incumbent to examine the situation dispassionately, study all our options and take certain positive actions in the time available to us. This is not to say anybody in his right mind would welcome war, experience with India has taught us that war will be thrust upon us whether we like it or not.

For the second time in four decades, Kashmir is aflame, the first time in October 1947 and now 43 years later in 1990. In 1965, we took a flicker to be the real thing, theoretically PLAN GIBRALTAR was very sound, unfortunately the most important ingredient, a genuine insurrection within Kashmir, was missing. Almost upto Akhnoor, late General Akhtar Malik brought us a heartbeat away from achieving our aim, this prompted a general Indian offensive all along our borders to relieve the pressure, surprisingly we were surprised. Compounded by various other factors we almost came to grief at the hands of Shastri’s “time and place of his choosing” promised to us after the Rann of Kutch operations earlier the same year.

The present insurrection in Kashmir is the real McCoy, the Indians have a genuine home-grown revolt on their hands. In keeping with the IPKF example in Sri Lanka, the Indian Army’s reaction has been ham-handed besides being brutal thereby exacerbating issues beyond the point of no return. Retribution starts a blood cycle that can almost never be restrained, the Indians are well on their way, no lessons having been learnt from Indian Punjab or Sri Lanka.

Across the Indian Lines of Communications (L of C) leading to Kashmir lies the territory of the Sikhs, Indian-Occupied Punjab or Khalistan. The Sikhs have been in open revolt for some time, have taken severe body blows and inflicted them. The least fanatic group among them took part in the recent Indian elections taking a majority of the available seats, even they want an independent Khalistan. Unfortunately for India, the Sikh revolt bodes no good for India in any future war with us as sabotage activity directed against the Indian Army’s rear echelons will tie down their forces facing ours, this hostile environment for the Indians must be made more complicated for them by all means possible. We must take a more active role in helping the Sikhs on their road to liberation. The Indians have accused as so often about helping the Sikhs, we might as well get on with it, vacillation on this issue would amount to criminal negligence.

Indian Army’s logistics have been spread because of Siachen and Sri Lanka. It will take sometime to dismantle this effort, moreover the diversion has a debilitating effect on the logistics effort against us. Given the long distances involved over open desert terrain in the Indian Army’s most likely scenario for major operations, Rajasthan-Sindh sector, the Pakistan Air Force will have a tremendous role to play. In the desert it is difficult to support more than two divisions (or at the very maximum three) on any one axis, with the L of C extended and vulnerable over open desert to both air and ground interdiction. Indian air activity will certainly appear over our major urban cities to try and destroy our civilian morale, this will be supported by long range missiles. Sacrifices will have to be made to ensure that our own air effort is not dissipated in protecting non-military areas but remains available for counter air-operations and against critical Indian military assets.

Within the Kashmir valley, the Indian Army should be made to defend every culvert, thereby tying down large number of forces in internal operations. The Kashmiri militants can carry out widespread sabotage of communications and electricity utilities with commensurate loss of operational efficiency of Indian forward troops, having a dampening effect on Indian morale besides shackling their freedom of movement. One of the major factors working to Pakistan’s advantage will be the propensity of Afghan guerillas to join the conflict, they have already taken deep offence at the repression of Muslims in Kashmir. If a large number of guerillas were to cross into the valley, these bands would badly tie down the Indian Army. Trained, motivated and hardy, they have already sent one Occupation Army packing, that of a Superpower.

The Indians have external problems from which they may not be able to disengage themselves quickly. They still have at least two divisions plus within Sri Lanka and about eight divisions in peace-time locations around Bangladesh including the two in Nagaland. At least nine to ten divisions (four of them mountain equipped) are deployed directly facing the Chinese which they cannot disengage. At the very minimum 15 of their infantry/mountain divisions cannot be re-located against us. If we get lucky and ask our good friends China and Bangladesh to keep some sort of activity going, this figure may even go upto 18 or 20. This would even the balance somewhat, giving us a favourable attack ratio at certain critical points, a winning edge that may be crucial for the scale of victory we must have, a stalemate would tantamount to a defeat for us.

Our great asset is our nascent democracy. No dictatorship has waged a successful war in this century, a statistic in which unfortunately we figure in 1971 when half our country was lost, more by aberrations of our own making. In the comity of developed nations, democracy is very much eulogised and respected, an accepted norm of life that is a must for every nation. A democratic Pakistan does not have an international image problem when compared to India, opposed to the terrible nightmare image we had in 1971. India has a great edge over us propaganda-wise, we are so far behind that sometimes it seems futile to play catch-up. However Ms Benazir’s international credibility and name recognition closes this gap somewhat. Look at the present situation inside Kashmir, entirely a home-grown revolt has been almost successfully projected to the world by the Indians as a situation arising out of interference from Pakistan. We have to try and overcome this propaganda-handicap, Indians tend to lie through their teeth, can turn night into day, falsehood is an accepted part of their heritage. In 1962, Jawaharlal Nehru ordered the Indian Army to evict the Chinese all along the McMohan Line, “Jawans swing into action”, “Evict the Chinese the PM orders”, and so on and so forth the news headlines screamed, Chinese attempts at negotiations were taken as a sign of weakness, the Indians look themselves to be invincible. Ten days later, having been thoroughly routed, the Indians were beseeching the Americans and the West to come to their aid to stop the “Chinese sneak attack” in the Himalayas. Among their wish list for mountain warfare to the generous US and western response was one for submarines! Neville Maxwell has documented this in “India’s China War”. To understand the ramification of their propaganda machine take a look at “Khaleej Times” and “Gulf News” published in UAE for the past week, the slant is definitely Indian, even a neutral stance would have been bad enough. This is not because of the ownership but because the Staff is mostly Indian, catering to the influence of Indian business interests in the Gulf. All is not at all lost however, the fact does remain that (1) Ms Benazir has excellent international credibility (2) India’s repression in Kashmir, particularly evicting the media is perceived as a genuine cause for international concern (3) Pakistan as the smaller nation has the “underdog” label (4) Ms Benazir being a woman adds to that in international Joan of Arc imagery (5) some of our friends will stay with us through thick and thin and (6) with the Soviet Union enmeshed in its own problems coupled with its new grown liberal international posture, India will not have the type of support they got in 1971. While nobody expects USA to jump to our aid, if they can keep Russia neutral that is good enough for us. Can we exploit all this or will we be rendered helpless before the Indian propaganda snow-job?

Arafat has been a tremendous disappointment, one does wish that his reported reaction to Kashmir is not true. At the risk of western ire we have been supporting the Palestinian cause blindly, we have always given short shrift to the Israeli position. Part of our bad international image stems from getting adverse attention from the world media, a fair amount of influential nodal points being Jewish. Four decades later, we are rewarded with a wishy-washy reply from the PLO chief. While we cannot dream of even abandoning the Palestinian legitimate interests, maybe it is time to have a less active stance, at the very least we should stop giving Head of State welcomes to Mr Arafat, in fact we have no real need to invite him to Pakistan ever unless he clarifies his position vis-a-vis the Kashmir question. Our more “loyal than the king” attitude must be replaced by a more judicious, less-biased view. We are the only other nation in the world other than Israel founded on an ideology of religion, moderating our views may help rather than hinder the Palestinian cause. We should be able to count our friends very clearly, one cannot afford that Turkey or China be neutral, Iran has already taken a principled stand despite our studied neutrality in the Iran-Iraq war. We should always have supported Iran, our neighbour and good friend, against Iraq, who has never been our friend after 1958. We should have played a more positive bridge-like role in Iranian differences with the west. In the same manner, we expect Saudi Arabia to support us to the hilt as well as the Governments of UAE and Oman. In the region, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka will certainly support us while Nepal and Bhutan shall be with us in spirit if not word and/or deed. We do not expect Syria to be supportive despite despatch of our pilots in 1973 to stop the Israeli run on Damascus but Egypt’s position should be interesting. India has tremendous influence among the Group of 77 but its once monolithic support from the COMECON countries is, except from the Soviet Union and Cuba, likely to waver. Our Foreign Affairs Mandarin has been an upright and professional soldier, one expects that in diplomatic circles his voice will carry credibility and weight, a peripatetic traveller, he should start travelling far and wide to capitals where his counsel is respected.

One important factor unnoticed has been that while both India and Pakistan have a large number of reservists, most of Indian reservists with fighting qualities are Sikhs, this must be causing Indian planners nightmares. Maybe we can add to that nightmare by creating Sikh battalions? On the other hand, we have highly motivated ex-servicemen with reserve liability. Some of our legendary heroes such as Raja Nadir Pervaiz would reach the fighting units in the frontline whether they receive the call up NOTICE or not. The NADIR PERVAIZes of PAKISTAN are living symbols of the motivation of the Pakistan Armed Forces. If he is in the political wilderness today, it is out of sheer loyalty, the type that is never up for sale.

In the end, it all boils down to the motivation and professionalism of the Armed Forces, particularly the Pakistan Army. Thank God we held Ex Zarb-i-Momin when we did, the whole Army and Air Force are fresh from combined manoeuvres on a total Army-Air Force level. If we have to go to war (and at this time it looks inevitable), this major training exercise will be the difference between victory and defeat. One has the greatest respect for Air Marshal (Retd) Nur Khan but his media attack on General Mirza Aslam Beg because of the wide publicity and exposure given to the exercise and other ramifications besides being unwarranted was not objective, it was personal and highly demeaning. Without adding to the controversy one expects the Air Marshal who is respected as a professional and a patriot, to remember “Qasm Us Waqt Ki” and realise that the “Waqt” may have come again and we need a united front — NOW! There are things in life which transcend personal likes, dislikes or even egos. One knows that the Air Force will be raring to undo their undeserved 1971 image, with the Fighting Falcon F-16 in their inventory and a continuing professional approach one expects them to achieve local air superiority over the battlefield. Hopefully the right airfields will already have been activated. The Pakistan Navy is quite capable of (1) keeping the Indian Navy away from the Pakistan Coastline and (2) inflicting painful blows on the enemy. Besides the motivation of defending their country’s integrity, they have a reputation to salvage. While long-distance blockade of Karachi by the Indian Navy is definitely on the cards, our Navy is certainly not the pushover they proved to be in 1971. The Indians will not dare utilise their aircraft carriers except outside the range of our combat aircraft and fleet of naval submarines. While sneak attacks by missile boats are still possible, our Navy is quite capable of keeping the Indians at a stand-off distance. One needs to take a hard look at possible activity along the complete Indian Coastline at all lucrative military and economic targets. We should turn the Indian advantage in numbers and naval equipment against them, the hunter must become the hunted, their aircraft carriers make reasonable targets for men of opportunity.

1971 is a war which should be forgotten but which must not be. The Pakistan Army must remember it every minute of the time leading upto battle, in 1971 the whole deck was stacked against our Armed Forces, today the circumstances are much more favourable. While the best thing is not to fight a war, the next best thing is to win the war if you have to fight one. The third best thing if you do not win the war is not to lose it. This time there is no ambiguity of purpose, no ambivalence about the real role, the political and military objectives are the same, defence of the nation. A functioning democracy is a tremendous support for the Armed Forces. A Muslim has a fatalistic viewpoint towards war, it is not sought, if it comes then we fight without expecting any quarter. If we are pushed into the war, then we must fight with the objective of ending all wars in the region, Indians have pretences to hegemony, Pakistan Armed Forces must be the instrument which must ensure the destruction of India’s capability to impose their hegemony and/or wage war forever.

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