Indian aims and Pak designs

The fiction of a people8217;s revolt has resulted in lack of global support and a studied low-key response from their friends to the Kargil misadventure.Pakistan has misjudged Indian resolve once again as it did in 1971. Lt-Gen Anis Bajwa, Vice-Chief of General Staff of the Pak Army, has said that India is in a political vacuum. Our political consensus would have surprised him. Our use of air power too would have come as a surprise to Pakistan as did our use of tanks in the same area at Zojila in 1948.

We have seen the damage done by Pak shelling in Kargil. We are aware of the difficulties that our troops are experiencing while operating at high altitudes. The cost in human terms is tragic. The logistic difficulties and expense in maintaining a force in such an inhospitable terrain are also apparent. The time taken in the conduct of operations and the logistic build-up at high altitudes is much more than in other mountainous regions.

Similar difficulties, if not more, are being experienced by Pak civilians and the militants on the LoC. The shelling from our 155mm Bofors guns is effective and causing considerable damage. Pakistan has to operate on a long and difficult line of communication through the northern areas. The difficulties of operating in a high altitude area are shared by both sides.

If they have constructed concrete bunkers, they would be ruing it, because concrete fragments easily when it sets in extreme cold.

The motley group of invaders composed of regulars, various Mujahideen groups, mercenaries and antinational elements are without the benefit of air support. The difficulties of controlling and motivating such a disparate group in Afghanistan have been described in The Bear Trap by Brig Mohammed Yousaf, ex-Director, the Afghan Bureau of the ISI. On the siege of Jalalabad, he writes: 8220;A decisive factor in the attacker8217;s Mujahideen failure to take Jalalabad was lack of cooperation between the commanders.

They attacked when the mood took them and without thought to concentrating or coordinating their efforts.8221; The situation in Kargil may not be the same. Better training from lessons learnt in past wars may have resulted in improved performance. But the basic problem remains.

Notwithstanding the positive developments, we must acknowledge that many mistakes have been made. This is not the first time that we have been faced with intelligence failures. Then as now, the failures have been due more to wrong assessments and complacency than to a total failure of the many intelligence agencies operating in the area. The initial disorganisation of flow of information to the media has been rectified.

Operations will continue till all Pak-occupied positions have been vacated. This may take anything up to three months or more. Talks will inevitably follow, in which restoring the inviolability of the LoC and penalties for violating it again have to be formalised. In case this does not take place and earlier bilateral decisions are not respected, the situation will become extremely serious. Contingency plans with fresh political and military aims will have to be put into action.

Either way, one of our aims will be to give additional tactical depth to our lines of communication. In Kargil, we face tactically what Pakistan faces strategically acirc;euro;rdquo; lack of depth. Maj-Gen Akbar Khan retd has explained how profoundly this has influenced Pak strategic thought in his book Raiders in Kashmir. He writes: 8220;One glance at the map was enough to show Pakistan8217;s military security would be seriously jeopardised if Indian troops came to be stationed along Kashmir8217;s western borders8230;she could establish such stations anywhere within a few miles of the 180-mile-long vital road and rail route between Lahore and Pindi8230;we would remain permanently exposed to a threat of such magnitude that our independence would never be a reality.8221;In 1965 and 1971, the LoC was pushed forward by us.

In 1965, as a result of the Tashkent Accord, some of the captured heights in Kargil were given back to Pakistan. There has, however, been no ambiguity on the alignment of the LoC after the Simla Agreement. It was accepted by both sides until recently. Pakistan8217;s sudden claim now that the area is undemarcated lacks credibility.

In order to achieve depth, alternative routes to Leh are being constructed. This will now have to be hastened. We need time to set in place new technical surveillance and satellite means for monitoring the LoC together with the inter-service and other organisations to service them. Till then, it will be necessary to hold additional posts in the Kargil sector. These will progressively be reduced as better surveillance equipment is inducted.

Nevertheless, the limitations imposed by adverse weather, climate and terrain conditions will dictate the physical presence of troops on some of the unmanned heights. Techint intelligence through Technical means can only supplement humint intelligence through human means. It can, however, help in reducing manpower deployment. Setting up of new posts will not be one-sided. Pakistan will be forced to mirror-image fresh Indian deployments.

Yet the Siachenisation of Kargil should be avoided by keeping the new posts to the minimum because the Army8217;s main task continues to be in the Valley.Over a decade ago, the US corporate world evolved a strategy, which aims at forcing increased expenditure by a rival in areas in which he is weak until he is economically unable to compete.

Getting India to pit regular troops against militants and mercenaries is an example of an attempt at this strategy. Gen Mirza Alam Beg would have us believe that, against just 50,000 Pak regulars and 30,000 paramilitary forces, India has been forced to deploy 290,000 regular troops and 230,000 paramilitary forces. What the general has not said is that militants and mercenaries do not go away once their job is done. They stay on and create problems as Pakistan is discovering now.

The writer is a former Deputy Chief of Army Staff

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