Even before the wounds of terror attacks on Pathankot Airbase inflicted by Jaishe-e-Mohammad (JeM) in January 2016 had healed, a new terror attack came on 29 September at Uri Army Command. Earlier, the Indian Prime Minister (PM), Narendra Modi, the security establishment and the core public had taken a charitable approach to our neighbour’s misdeeds. Modi had even paid a surprise visit to Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif’s residence a few days prior to Pathankot. By now it is a well known fact that major foreign policy issues like nuclear weapons, relations with the United States (US), major powers like Russia, China and an anti-India policy are firmly controlled by Pakistan’s Military Establishment (PME).
Hence, despite grave provocation, South Asia experts had glossed over the dastardly attack on the Pathankot Airbase, by stating that it was an act of those in the PME who wanted to scuttle the India-Pakistan growing bonhomie; and any step on India’s part to retaliate might result in playing into the hands of spoilers. Despite that, the anti-India elements within the PME succeeded in organising terror attacks against Uri, killing 19 young soldiers in their sleep.
The surgical strike
Our retaliation came in the form of a surgical strike when it was executed by the Indian Special Force on 29 September. The story of the Uri attack and a successful Indian surgical strike are similar to an incident in 1962 in the Cold War period called the Cuban Missile Crisis – which is now discussed in every text book on American foreign policy of the post World War II period. If the Uri attack is similar to the Soviets stealthily keeping missiles in Cuba, and President Kennedy’s response was one of risking a nuclear war to get rid of the missiles or willing to face a nuclear war, the Indian response too has been one of boldly going for a surgical strike to punish the terrorists, and to nudge Pakistan to move away from using terrorism as an instrument of foreign policy.
Be that as it may, what do we mean by surgical strike? A surgical strike is a phrase used in military science to indicate a military strike carried out against a target in a foreign country with limited weapons to achieve a specific result of removing an irritant/constant problem faced by the body-politic. As much as the fact that a surgery is used only when there is a crisis causing critical pain in the human body, similarly, in the field of military/strategic studies, when an irritant in international relations becomes unbearable, a surgical strike is resorted to do away with the irritant!
The gains
The first gain is that this surgical strike has helped India to make Pakistan raise its threshold of tolerance in the use of nuclear weapons! Ever since it went publicly nuclear in May 1998, Pakistan has advertised how its nuclear threshold of tolerance is very low! During the eyeball to eyeball confrontation after former PM Vajpayee mobilised Indian forces on the India-Pakistan border in December 2001, post the terror attack on Parliament, Musharraf had claimed that he had conveyed to Vajpayee that if Indian troops “moved a single step across the international border or the Line of Control”, he can be expected to use nuclear weapons. One may recall Munir Akram’s boast in UN Security Council on the same fact soon after 1998.
Even three days before the Indian surgical strikes, Pakistan’s Defence Minister, Khawaja Muhammad Asif had threatened to use tactical nuclear weapons as he said: “We haven’t kept the devices as showpieces. But if our safety is threatened, we will annihilate them.” A similar threat was made by him one day before the Uri attack as well!
This nuclear-trigger happiness of Pakistan was taken theoretically as a given input in policymaking by the Indian leaders, till the surgical strike of 29 September. The Indian surgical strike has for once at least now called off the Pakistani nuclear bluff! Pakistan’s High Commissioner, Abdul Basit, who had also echoed his superiors on the subject of their low threshold of tolerance on the use of nuclear weapons, post-surgical strike said that “to even think” of nuclear attack, “is suicidal.”
As an offshoot of it, Pakistan’s calculated response to India has been to deny occurrence of any such surgical strike inside its territory! This has helped to deescalate the crisis. This might help policymakers and academics to ponder whether to consider Pakistan as a rational actor in international politics. Of course, any such admission would have jeopardised Pakistan’s position nationally and internationally that it doesn’t have terror-training-camps on its soil! Nationally it would have come under domestic pressure to retaliate against the Indian surgical strike; internationally, it would have amounted to Pakistan’s admission that such terrorist training camps do exist within its territory or territory controlled by it.
Second, Indian surgical strikes against Pakistan has helped India to drive the point that terrorist attacks against Indian assets are no longer risk-free; it involves a cost. Third, the surgical strike has implicitly accepted two interrelated facts: One, Jammu & Kashmir is an integral part of India, she has a right to enter into any part of the territory. And two, India has asserted its right to pre-emptive strike if it has information on terrorists preparing for infiltration from training camps. Fourth, it has also to be noted that this act of Indian surgical strike has initiated an intense internal debate in Pakistan between its all powerful Army-ISI and civil-politically elected government on the need to control/eliminate all terrorist groups. The first salvo was launched by PM Sharif himself, who has reportedly urged upon the need to control terrorist groups. But military pressure on the civilian government prevailed, and the PM denied any such statement. But in a well-coordinated move, the US first made a clear and unambiguous statement asking Pakistan to act; it threatened, the US would act on its own. Such a threat on the part of the US could not be ignored by the PME in the light of the US action in May 2011 to eliminate its most wanted terrorist, Osama bin Laden. A small action was initiated with the freezing of JeM’s accounts.
Conclusion
Pakistan’s civil government led by PM Sharif does find it extremely difficult to control terrorism unleashed by PME-controlled terrorist groups commanded by Hafiz Saeed or Masood Azhar. After all, former General Musharraf had called army of terrorists as the ‘first line of defence’ of Pakistan! But democratic-minded politicians and people without considering factors like political affiliation or religion should welcome Indian contribution to their efforts in maintaining fragile democracy in Pakistan by helping them to dismount from the tiger on which it has been riding ever since the creation of Pakistan. There seems also to be a method in the madness in PME. While Congress was in power, Pakistan used LeT for the Mumbai terror attacks of 26/11(2008), while during the BJP tenures during Vajpayee it used JeM for the hijack of the Indian Airlines flight in December 1999, as also in the case of Pathankot and Uri!
Finally, PM Modi had clearly mentioned that Indian policymakers should not gloat over surgical strikes. While it apparently has been generally followed, I think, it is incorrect for the Defence Minister to say that Pakistan after the surgical strike has gone into a coma! There is also a lesson to Pakistan: whether to match India in every respect and face eventual disintegration, or to decide to end its confrontational politics and reinvigorate regional cooperation.
