Air commodore Jasjit Singh, Editorial Advisor (Defence and Strategic affairs) to The Indian Express, answers your questions on strategic issues. Singh, a former director of the Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis, can be reached at jasjitsingh@expressindia.com.The government has ordered the withdrawal of military forces from the borders after 10 months. Do you think this was a good step since terrorism has not ended, and Musharraf’s promises are far from fulfilled?THE problem lies in interpreting coercive diplomacy as if it war itself. This denotes the use of military power for diplomatic purposes to influence the adversary’s policies. It’s built on the basis that escalation to war could take place if our interests are not adequately (and not necessarily completely) fulfilled. Historically, coercive diplomacy produces positive results if firm resolve is demonstrated. This implies that there should be no element of bluff, and the coercer country should be willing to initiate military operations if adequate results do not show up. The target country also must see this strategy as likely to be put into practice with negative effect on its overall situation. In the present case, the mobilisation did produce positive results in shifting the international community’s position from ‘‘freedom fighters’’ to terrorists, and forced Pakistan to acknowledge it besides committing it to stop terrorism. It also resulted in demoralising the militants and encouraged them to explore political solutions. This was reflected in the clear preference of the people for the democratic process.Eradicating terrorism would take a long time even in the best of circumstances. But the most potent instrument to defeat it is the democratic process. This has received a big boost in J&K. At the same time international pressure is important in dealing with such situations; and this is already influenced positively by the mobilisation and the willingness to go to war, and now our decision to de-escalate militarily. Meanwhile India would need to continue taking precautions and countering terrorism. Thus, military forces would remain on the LoC, as indeed they were even before December last year when mobilisation was ordered. Pakistan has announced withdrawal of its forces. Thus there are no risks in withdrawal. As some one said, the deployment was beginning to reach a point of diminishing returns. Is there any real danger of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons falling into the hands of the so-called jehadi groups? A fear that is being voiced more frequently now that the religious right has registered stunning gains in the elections?ONE things is very clear in the case of nuclear weapons of Pakistan: that its control remains firmly in the hands of the army. And the country itself remains under the control of the army even if elections have been held and a civilian government would be installed in due course. The optimistic scenario would be that the Islamic parties would inject a more moderate role than the pure jehadi terrorist groups into governance since they would have a role now in the governance of Pakistan, albeit a small one. The most pessimistic scenario would be a continuing decline in the socio-economic situation of Pakistan giving rise to increasing extremism which is bound to be based on religion. Even in such a case the army is unlikely to give up its control over nuclear weapons.
