Human beings should never gloat over the misery of others, even if the victims belong to what is called an enemy state. The hardships and privations of the Pakistani people are part of the general misery of humankind and no cause for vulgar satisfaction.
Nevertheless, the fact remains, that at the state level, Pakistan is in a parlous condition. With a lack of self-sufficiency in basic materials and no foreign exchange to pay for imports, the condition of the people is precarious. The state’s power is tenuous and terrorism wracks society. The primary enemy of the Pakistan state is the Tehrek Taliban–e-Pakistan (TTP), whose aim is to create a radical fundamentalist state with the Sharia as the constitution.
Despite all this, there is a lobby of strategic thinkers in India, who believe that our country is threatened by a two-front war — from China and Pakistan, sometimes independently and sometimes acting in collusion. Historically there is justification for such a view since the two countries have fought three-and-a-half wars. The actions of Akbar Khan of the Pakistan army who was planning the invasion of Kashmir, while serving in the undivided army of India are well known. The Kashmir war was one of pure aggression by Pakistan, even more so, was the war of 1965. The 1965 war was preceded by battles in the Rann of Kutch and Operation Gibraltar — the infiltration of hundreds of commandos into Kashmir to foster a rebellion. China was entirely innocent of any blame other than defeating the Indian Army and giving the Pakistanis a false impression of the fighting spirit of the Indian Army. With a defence budget one-sixth that of India, the Pakistan army had an ambitious plan to cut off J&K, a dream fostered by the American military in army equipment and aircraft. The Chinese were non-participants, as they played no role in the 1971 war or in the battles for the Kargil heights.
But all that is now history, as much as the Anglo-French wars of the 18th and 19th centuries and the Franco-German wars of the 19th and 20th centuries. Strategic scenarios change over time as the US-Japanese alliance against China demonstrates. All these changes occur because there are institutions in these countries that write national security strategies, and update them annually or at least every four years. In India, we have no national security strategy in the first place, other than the reiteration by the raksha mantri that “we will not surrender one inch of our country”. Other than this absurd declaration, there is no concrete security strategy, and it has been so ever since 1986 when this writer was posted to the newly formed Defence Planning Staff to write a case for a National Security Council (NSC).
Since then we have had five National Security Advisors, but the defence budget is clearly a case of catering against a two-front war, by financing the largest standing army in the world, with an underfunded Navy and Air Force. In the first week of February, we had a reiteration of this land-centric defence budget, even though news channels are simultaneously screaming that Pakistan is about to collapse. Are we really dreaming up a scenario today of a repetition of 1965 when Ayub Khan, flush with the new Patton tanks and sabre jet fighters, dreamt of getting to Delhi? We have created the institution to write a National Security Strategy but never held it to account for not producing one. The nearest we have got to producing new literature is the document titled “Non Alignment 2.0”, produced about 10 years ago.
We have now rightly created a CDS and an integrated staff with some of the best strategic brains in the country. Logically they are also hamstrung in getting on with their task without a National Security Strategy. But how long will the country wait for the NSC to throw up its hands in surrender about its inability to write an NSS? If they do so, the Integrated Staff can start with a clean slate and write the theaterisation plan and a National Military Strategy, discounting a failing Pakistan. In this 21st century, both theaterisation and the geographical difficulties India faces in the Himalayas dictate an oceanic grand strategy. This is particularly so when we consider China’s poor maritime strategy and its deep vulnerability in the Indian Ocean. Rawalpindi has deftly played an asymmetric warfare game with one-fifth of the population and one-seventh of India’s defence budget for half a century. But the over-extension of resources has now led to its collapse. The game is now over.
India is screaming for a change in the strategic military direction to an oceanic strategy. Let our strategic thinking come out of the 20th century and face the new century with fresh minds. Who knows? Pakistan and India may not be fated to be perpetual enemies, wracked as they both are by terrorism.
The writer, a former rear admiral in the navy, is author of A Nuclear Strategy for India.
