Research Story of the Week

India's Compellance Strategy: Calling Pakistan's Nuclear Bluff Over Kashmir

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Indian Ceremonial Guard

By Gaurav Kampani

Related links: Background Analysis of the Indo-Pakistani Standoff, March 2002 (PDF format)

Just when it seemed that the Indo-Pakistani military standoff had begun to show signs of de-escalation, tensions have flared up again. In response to the recent terror attacks (April-May, 2002) by Pakistan-based insurgent groups in Indian controlled Kashmir, India's Vajpayee government has threatened to prosecute a limited conventional war against Pakistan to punish Islamabad for what New Delhi describes as "cross-border terrorism." Pakistan has denied culpability in the terror attacks. Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf claims that his government lends only moral and political support to disaffected Kashmiri militants fighting Indian security forces in Kashmir. However, New Delhi and the international community disagree. Exasperated with Pakistan's mendacity, the Indian government has threatened strikes against militant camps and related infrastructure in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.

In turn, Pakistan has expressed alarm at the threat of war and warned India of a ferocious response. In late May, Musharraf threatened that if attacked, Pakistan would take the war into Indian territory. More ominously, Pakistani government representatives have made it plain that if pushed into a corner by its larger and more powerful neighbor, Pakistan would not hesitate to use its nuclear arsenal in self-defense.[1] To reiterate this point, Pakistan conducted a succession of ballistic missile tests in the last week of May. Although the tests were aimed primarily at a domestic audience, they once again highlighted the dangers of larger conventional war in South Asia and how such a war could easily take a tragic nuclear turn.

However, military tensions that peaked in the last week of May now appear to be winding down. International pressure has forced Pakistan to back down in the crisis; the Musharraf regime has capitulated before Indian demands to end the cross-border insurgency. Both India and Pakistan are now taking steps to defuse military tensions. In an acknowledgement that Pakistan is indeed taking positive steps to halt cross-border infiltrations, India has lifted the overflight ban imposed on Pakistani commercial jets following the attacks on the Indian parliament in December 2001; the naval armada massed in the North Arabian sea has also been ordered back to its home base. India is also expected to upgrade diplomatic relations with Islamabad and shortly undertake other steps that would signal a symbolic stand down from war time alert.

This paper begins by presenting a brief overview of India's and Pakistan's respective narratives on the post-1989 Kashmir insurgency. Next, it explains the rationale behind India's compellance strategy and how the Indo-Pakistani crisis is viewed in Washington. After reviewing the twists and turns in Pakistan's post-September 11th Kashmir policy, this paper concludes that Islamabad's apparent decision to accept war termination in Kashmir on New Delhi's terms essentially implies that India may have finally called Pakistan's nuclear bluff over Kashmir.

What is the Problem?

Although the international community is focused on the prospects of another war in South Asia, India and Pakistan have actually been at war for nearly 12-years. For more than a decade, Pakistan has preyed on India's political mismanagement in Kashmir to finance, train, and arm Kashmiri and foreign civilian combatants to wage a low-intensity or sub-conventional war against Indian security forces in Kashmir. The sub-conventional war in Kashmir is a spin-off of Pakistan's success in using Mujahideen proxies to defeat the Soviet Red Army in Afghanistan in the 1980s; it is also part of a policy of deploying semi-autonomous radical Islamic groups to achieve foreign policy and strategic goals abroad.

Pakistan supports the insurgents in Kashmir for several reasons. First, it argues that India is responsible for "state terrorism" in Kashmir and military pressure alone will force New Delhi into granting the "oppressed Kashmiri Muslims" their right of "self determination." Second, the insurgents tie down a disproportionate number of Indian military and paramilitary forces in domestic fire fighting operations, which erodes India's overall conventional edge against Pakistan. And finally, Pakistan hopes that the defeat of the Indian military in Kashmir will be sweet revenge for New Delhi's role in Pakistan's break up after the 1971 Bangladesh War. More significantly, Pakistan's prosecution of the sub-conventional war against India has been facilitated by the acquisition of a nuclear weapons capability since the late 1980s. The military establishment in Rawalpindi until very recently believed that its nuclear arsenal would deter India from widening the war and force New Delhi to fight the insurgency in Kashmir on terms determined by Pakistan.

India admits that the root causes of the insurgency are the consequence of myopic policies pursued by successive governments in New Delhi since the 1950s. But it blames Pakistan for the insurgency and the endless spiral of violence, which in its view has prevented India from negotiating with the disaffected groups and restoring normalcy in Kashmir. In India's view, misgovernance is not confined to Kashmir per se; it is a tragic consequence of the poor quality of Indian democracy, which affects other Indian provinces as well. New Delhi also blames Pakistani sponsored militants for destroying Kashmir's syncretic culture (a blend of Sufi-Islam and Hinduism), ethnically cleansing the region of its Hindu-Pundit minorities, and promoting a Talibanized brand of Islam. The Indian army is also tired of fighting a reactive war of attrition against a hostile population that it cannot possibly win. The 12-year war has sucked in nearly 200,000 Indian military and paramilitary troops. New Delhi has estimated its military and civilian casualties during this period between 35,000-70,000. Cumulatively, these losses exceed the combined losses of all four conventional wars that India has fought Pakistan during the last five decades.

As a result, New Delhi has concluded that it cannot resolve the Kashmir problem politically short of terminating the insurgency in Kashmir. Since the insurgency cannot be defeated by fighting the civilian combatants in a reactive campaign in Indian-controlled Kashmir alone, India must take the battle into Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. This can be achieved in two ways. First, India can either politically coerce Pakistan by threatening war to end support to the insurgents in Kashmir. Or alternatively, India can change the terms of the insurgency in Kashmir by initiating a limited conventional war to raise the costs of the sub-conventional war for Pakistan to a point where they become unsustainable.

The meaning of the limited war strategy is that India has reached a point where it is willing to test Pakistan's nuclear resolve over Kashmir

Why Is India Doing What It's Doing?

The Indian government has essentially capitalized on the political opportunity created by the September 11th terrorist attacks on the United States and the Bush doctrine against international terrorism to resort to a high-stakes strategy of coercive diplomacy to compel Pakistan into making a U-turn on its Kashmir policy. The events of September helped create a favorable environment for India to act in three ways.

First, the attacks by Al Qaeda highlighted the role of Pakistan's military and intelligence agencies in supporting the Taliban and other radical Islamic militant groups in Afghanistan and Kashmir. U.S. pressure forced Pakistan into abandoning the Taliban. As there was an organic link between Pakistan's support for radical Islamic groups in Afghanistan and Kashmir, India succeeded in framing Pakistan as part of the problem of terrorism.

Second, the war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan created a strategic convergence between the United States and India as both countries saw terrorist-related national security threats from radical Islamic groups operating out of Afghanistan and Pakistani-controlled territories. India and the United States were thus able to apply joint pressure on Islamabad to abandon support for such groups.

Third, the events on September 11th blurred the distinction between terrorists and "freedom fighters." The magnitude of the violence unleashed by Al Qaeda swung international opinion behind governments fighting radical non-state actors, especially when the targeted state was a democracy. In particular, India was able to frame the insurgency in Kashmir as a war between a multicultural democracy and "monocultural" sectarianism.

Although the Indian government is prepared to allow coercive diplomacy to run its course, several Indian leaders believe that Pakistan's diplomatic isolation, economic bankruptcy, and conventional military inferiority have created a strategic space where India can successfully fight a limited conventional war with Pakistan short of an all out conflict or nuclear exchange. Such nonchalance in the face of Pakistan's nuclear threats might be part of an Indian strategy of nuclear brinksmanship. Alternatively, the Vajpayee government may have concluded that Pakistan would be unlikely to escalate to the nuclear level due to fears that the United States would effectively restrain Islamabad from using nuclear weapons. Likewise, India's national security managers have probably also accurately calculated that in the event of a limited conventional war, the United States would intervene to either terminate or limit any shooting war between India and Pakistan to safeguard its strategic objectives in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

India's current belligerence stands in sharp contrast to its diffidence in the early and mid-1990s. At the time Indian elites feared that an Indo-Pakistani war would internationalize the Kashmir dispute and generate pressure on India to cap and roll back its strategic nuclear and missile programs. In the present strategic environment, however, Indian leaders are confident that the great powers including the United States share India's perceptions of the dangers of Islamic fundamentalism and sympathize with New Delhi's stance on Kashmir. In fact, in the present crisis, great power intervention has favored India as the United States, European Union, Japan, and Russia have applied unremitting pressure on Islamabad to stop cross-border infiltrations into Indian territory. Similarly, India's growing strategic partnership with the United States and relative success in persuading Washington to accept its case for a minimal deterrent have provided the Vajpayee government added confidence that the diplomatic repercussions of a limited conventional war in South Asia can be kept within tolerable limits.

How Does The United States View The Indo-Pakistani Standoff?

As tensions simmer in South Asia, the United States has emerged as the principal mediator between India and Pakistan and led international diplomatic efforts aimed at conflict avoidance. While the U.S. alliance with Pakistan is tactical, the growing partnership with India is based on a longer term post-Cold War convergence of strategic interests. Washington is well aware of Pakistan's past involvement with the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and its present role in aiding and abetting the cross-border insurgency in Kashmir. But it also believes that President Musharraf's regime is perhaps the best antidote to Islamic militancy in Pakistan. Therefore, the United States has attempted to safeguard its emerging partnership with India by leaning on Pakistan to terminate support for the Kashmir insurgents in a manner that avoids humiliating President Musharraf publicly or compromising his domestic credibility. Above all, Washington has sought to prevent a nuclear conflagration in the region.

The United States regards Pakistan as an important ally and frontline state in the battle against global terrorism. There is much appreciation in Washington for Pakistan's role in helping "root out" the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Following the exfiltration of Al Qaeda leaders from Afghanistan into the "no-man's-land" that constitutes Pakistan's tribal areas, the Musharraf regime has taken the unprecedented step of deploying the army and paramilitary forces to arrest them despite considerable tribal opposition. Pakistan's security agencies are also cooperating with the United States in trying to net Al Qaeda leaders who are presumably taking shelter in Pakistani cities.[2]

The Bush administration is justifiably concerned, therefore, that a war in South Asia and continuing military tensions with India could distract the Pakistani army from its operations along the Afghanistan border; withdrawal of Pakistani forces from the tribal regions could allow Taliban and Al Qaeda forces to regroup.[3] Indeed, one theory circulating is that Al Qaeda members are collaborating with militant groups in Kashmir to create incidents to provoke an Indo-Pakistani war; the rationale being that such a war would release pressure from the Pakistani army to hunt them down.[4] Similarly, domestic turmoil in Pakistan, a consequence of a potential war against India, could undermine the Musharraf regime, and seriously constrict its capacity to combat Islamic militant groups at home. Senior U.S. officials also fear that in the worst case scenario, a war might force the United States to evacuate its forces from Pakistan.[5] Such a move would invariably break the momentum and possibly disrupt U.S. military operations against the Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders hiding in the treacherous mountainous terrain along the Pakistan-Afghan border.

The official and unofficial view in Washington is that the concept of a limited conventional war under nuclear conditions is a dangerous proposition. There are no guarantees that such a war could be kept limited; wars have a momentum of their own, and there exists a high risk that such a conflict could soon spin out of control. As U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage put it bluntly in a recent interview, "the problem is once the iron starts to be engaged between the two sides, then reason and logic seem to go out of the window."[6] The U.S. understanding is that nuclear deterrence in South Asia is based on crude nuclear arsenals and delivery systems that are relatively vulnerable and unstable, rudimentary command and control, weak communications, and poor intelligence. At the same time, both India and Pakistan are geographically proximate, have a history of misperceiving each other's intentions and resolve, and have scant understanding of the nuclear "red lines" on either side of the border. Under such circumstances, New Delhi and Islamabad could end up in a nuclear war accidentally, or through inadvertence or miscalculation. Should such an eventuality come to pass, it would create a human and environmental disaster on an unprecedented scale and set Indian and Pakistani societies back by several decades.[7]

But despite these concerns, the United States has implicitly and explicitly accepted India's argument that Pakistan is part of the problem of terrorism, and has rejected Islamabad's claims that it lends only moral and political support to the civilian combatants in Kashmir. During the first phase of the Afghan campaign (October-December 2001), senior Bush administration officials were guarded in their public criticism of Pakistan's role in fomenting the sub-conventional war in Indian-controlled Kashmir. That was largely because Islamabad's logistical and intelligence support were critical for the success of the campaign against the Taliban. At the time, the United States also wanted to avoid embarrassing and undermining President Musharraf, who was then facing considerable heat from Pakistan's religious parties and Islamic militant groups who opposed his decision to abandon the Taliban and support U.S. war-related efforts.

But as India and Pakistan stand on the brink of war, senior Bush administration officials from the president on down have publicly admonished President Musharraf and demanded that he deliver on his promises to stop cross-border activities of civilian combatants into Indian-controlled Kashmir.[8] High-level diplomatic emissaries from the United States, Britain, and the European Union have unanimously made the point that the onus lies on Pakistan to reduce the political temperature in South Asia.[9] Washington has also made it plain that it will no longer countenance the Pakistani government's characterization of the militants fighting the insurgency in Kashmir as "freedom fighters." Instead, the United States expects Pakistan to dismantle the camps and related infrastructure for these groups permanently; the United States will also independently verify this using national technical means.[10] Should Pakistan fail to comply with U.S. demands, it risks jeopardizing its post-September 11th relationship with Washington.

Simultaneously, the United States has exercised considerable diplomatic pressure on India to exercise restraint and let diplomacy run its course before initiating any military action. Bush administration representatives have urged that once Pakistan begins to dismantle the insurgent training camps, and levels of cross-border infiltrations decline, the Vajpayee government should reciprocate by demobilizing its forces currently deployed along the border. India should also reciprocate by restarting a diplomatic dialogue with Pakistan on all issues, including Kashmir. More significantly, India should hold free and fair elections in Kashmir, and begin a serious dialogue with Pakistan, with U.S. and international facilitation if necessary, to find a political and peaceful resolution to the Kashmir dispute.[11]

Can Musharraf Deliver?

Pakistan's Kashmir policy has clearly failed. Despite waging a sub-conventional war against India for more than a decade, Islamabad is nowhere close to its goal of wresting Kashmir from Indian control. To the contrary, Pakistan is now confronted with the possibility of a conventional war with India, a war that it does not want, and one that it cannot win. And despite the overall alienation of the Kashmiri Muslims from Indian rule and India's record of human rights abuses in the region, the international community has rejected Pakistan's Kashmir policy. Equally significant, the international community has made it plain to Islamabad that regardless of the moral legitimacy of Pakistan's claims on Kashmir, its policy of waging a sub-conventional war using Islamic fundamentalist proxies in Indian-controlled Kashmir is unacceptable.

Pakistan was forced to make the first U-turn in Afghanistan in September 2001 after U.S. pressure forced it to abandon the Taliban. At the time it was clear that Pakistan would sooner rather than later have to end its policy of arming insurgents in Kashmir, given the organic link between its Afghanistan and Kashmir policies. In both cases, Pakistan's military-intelligence establishment deployed militant Islamic proxies to achieve foreign policy and strategic goals. But the generals in Rawalpindi and Pakistan's radical Islamic parties and groups refused to pay heed. In September last year, President Musharraf disingenuously attempted to defend the military establishment's ignominious failure in Afghanistan, especially the abandonment of its Taliban ally, by arguing that it was done to safeguard the Kashmir cause.

In January 2002, President Musharraf responded to international pressure and India's military buildup by making a seminal speech in which he spelled out his vision of Pakistan as a moderate Islamic state.[12] Musharraf boldly declared his government's resolve to stamp out Islamic militancy in Pakistan. He also made public assurances that Pakistan would not allow its territory to be used for terrorist activities anywhere in the world, including Kashmir.[13] Pakistan's international interlocutors interpreted this statement as a signal that Islamabad would finally begin reigning in the militant groups waging sub-conventional war in India. But these assurances turned out to be false. Although cross-border infiltration into Indian- controlled Kashmir showed a visible decline in January and February, after March 2002, they bounced back to their earlier levels; according to preliminary data, the number of violent incidents against Indian security forces between March and early May 2002 actually exceeded the number of similar incidents in April-May 2001.[14]

Perhaps the military establishment in Rawalpindi genuinely believed that as long as Pakistan cooperated with the United States against the Taliban and Al Qaeda, Washington would turn a blind eye to Pakistan's policy in Kashmir. Or in other words that the Bush administration would continue to paint the Taliban and Al Qaeda with the brush of terrorism, but accept the civilian combatants trained and abetted by the Pakistani military to fight the insurgency in Indian-controlled Kashmir as "freedom fighters." This proved to be a grave miscalculation.

Even worse for President Musharraf, Pakistan's domestic elites stand divided on his Kashmir policy. Although the Islamic parties want him to continue the supposed Jihad in Kashmir, mainstream opposition parties and liberal intellectuals have made a strong case for terminating the insurgency. The latter have forcefully argued that perpetual confrontation with India has financially bankrupted the Pakistani state; the policy of carving a political space for radical Islamic militants in Pakistan's civil society has led to the growth of militant Islamic sectarianism within Pakistan. These liberals and several mainstream politicians maintain that so long as the military-intelligence establishment continues to allow such groups to operate from within Pakistani territories and arms them to wage wars abroad (as in Afghanistan and Kashmir), Pakistan will be unable achieve domestic and external peace.[15]

Slowly though inexorably, the Musharraf regime has begun to change Pakistan's decade-old Kashmir policy.[16] There are indications that in the last week of May, President Musharraf finally ordered his military to reign in militant groups operating from Pakistani-controlled territories. Militants have been advised to stand down and desist from crossing into Indian territories; their wireless communications have been cut off; and camps where militants were housed and trained are being dismantled.[17] Those militant leaders resisting the Pakistani army's diktat have been placed on a watch list and implicitly threatened with arrest.[18]

The two key questions now are whether Musharraf can successfully implement a U-turn on Kashmir and contain the subsequent domestic fall out without jeopardizing the stability of his regime. And second, whether Pakistan's army and intelligence agencies can actually force the Islamic militant groups to do their bidding and halt insurgency operations in Indian-controlled Kashmir.

Domestically, doing an about turn on Kashmir will be a tough sell for President Musharraf. Last year, when the Musharraf regime abandoned the Taliban and cracked down on the Islamic political parties and groups protesting that decision, it enjoyed extensive support from Pakistan's silent majority and the mainstream political parties. However, after Musharraf imposed himself as president for a period of five years in May 2002 through the instrument of a rigged referendum of doubtful constitutional legality, he stands politically isolated. The liberal elites and mainstream opposition parties who applauded Musharraf enthusiastically for his bid to reign in Islamic militancy in Pakistan, now stand united in their opposition to his rule. Hence, Musharraf is now trapped between the devil and the deep sea. On the one hand he risks war and possible national ruin for Pakistan; on the other, he is vulnerable to accusations of being a national sell-out.

At present the Musharraf regime is engaged in a war against Islamic militants on two fronts. It is assisting U.S. forces in their fight against the remnants of the Taliban and Al Qaeda leadership, which has melted into Pakistani cities and most likely taken shelter in the mountainous terrain along the Pakistan-Afghan border. Simultaneously, it is battling militant Islamic sectarian groups and terrorists at home. The regime is now confronted with the onerous responsibility of reigning in the militant proxies fighting the Indian security forces in Kashmir. In the last six months, Al Qaeda and domestic terrorist groups in Pakistan have carried out a series of murderous terrorist attacks in retaliation against the military's crackdown on militant Islamic groups as part of the U.S.-led global campaign against terrorism.[19] There is now the very real possibility that the militants trained by Pakistan's military and intelligence agencies for insurgency operations in Kashmir could ally themselves with these terrorist groups to wage a war against the Pakistani government.[20]

There is also the question whether Pakistan can effectively control the militant proxy groups to do its bidding. The militants trained and armed by Pakistan's army and its intelligence agencies are not entirely creatures of the Pakistani state. They are semi-autonomous in nature and often pursue their agenda independently of the priorities and policy shifts in Islamabad. After receiving state patronage for nearly two decades, the militant Islamic groups have developed deep roots in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir and Pakistan's civil society in general. Indeed, some banned militant groups such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba have vowed to continue the fight in Indian-Kashmir, regardless of any changes in Islamabad's agenda.[21] The possibility that such renegade groups might continue receiving help from the middle ranks within Pakistan's military-intelligence agencies is also not far fetched. There is also the possibility that some groups or individuals might team up with remnants of the Taliban and Al Qaeda to carry out terrorist attacks in India with the goal of sparking an Indo-Pakistani war.

Hence Musharraf needs a political cover to cloak his retreat in Kashmir. Thus far, the Indian government has refused to oblige. If India ends up humiliating the Musharraf regime by desisting from making any reciprocal concessions such as demobilization, or restoring the dialogue to discuss a political solution to the Kashmir dispute with Pakistan, then the Musharraf government might find its credibility at home entirely compromised. There would then be the danger that the Islamic political parties, alienated Kashmiri militant groups, and the remnants of the Taliban and Al Qaeda leadership might regroup and exploit the discontent within Pakistan's civil society and sections of the military establishment to destabilize the Musharraf regime. In the worst case, Musharraf might himself become the victim of assassination or be toppled in a coup from within the army ranks.

Pakistan will therefore have to make careful domestic and foreign policy choices in the next several months. If President Musharraf and the Pakistan army deliver on their promise to reign in the militant groups waging war against Indian security forces in Kashmir, they will win economic and political support from the international community. The onus will then be on India to grant political autonomy to its alienated Kashmiri-Muslim populace and more significantly, to negotiate a political solution to the Kashmir dispute with Pakistan. However, should Pakistan's military leaders renege on their assurances and return to their earlier policy of waging a sub-conventional war with India, they will risk international political isolation, economic sanctions, and possibly war with India.

Preliminary Conclusions:

The crisis in South Asia that reached its peak in the last week of May 2002 now appears to be winding down. India has publicly acknowledged that President Musharraf is making good on his promises; during the first week of June, cross-border militant infiltrations have declined substantially. According to the Indian foreign ministry, the shift in Pakistan's policies marks the beginning of a "promising process." India's foreign minister Jaswant Singh has also declared that if General Musharraf's pledges are "converted on the ground into action...India will reciprocate in a manner that is befitting."[22] This statement is being viewed as an indication that India will shortly reciprocate Musharraf's actions by both upgrading its diplomatic relations with Islamabad and as well taking symbolic steps to signal a reduction in military tensions before U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld visits the region.[23] Similarly, across the border, President Musharraf has also acknowledged that the chances of a war in South Asia are now "minimal."[24]

Prime Minister Vajpayee has proposed that India and Pakistan follow up by establishing joint military patrols along the line of control (LoC) to monitor cross-border infiltrations.[25] Although Pakistan was initially cool to the idea, it has not rejected it out of hand.[26] Pakistan would prefer the deployment of UN monitors along the LoC. Islamabad is also receptive to the idea of having a joint U.S.-U.K. border patrol. But India has rejected both proposals. New Delhi believes the LoC is too vast to be policed by a small international force. But more to the point, India does not want to internationalize the Kashmir dispute and prefers that both India and Pakistan reach a modus vivendi on Kashmir bilaterally.[27]

However, regardless of Indian sensitivities, the Kashmir dispute has become internationalized. In the recent crisis, the great powers -- United States, Britain, European Union, and Russia -- played a significant diplomatic role in conflict prevention. And despite public noises to the contrary, India welcomed international diplomatic efforts aimed at pressuring Pakistan into changing its decade-old Kashmir policy. So whether India likes it or not, the great powers are likely to take a greater interest in the Kashmir dispute than in the past. Although it is unlikely that the United States will follow up with a major peace initiative like in the Middle East, a low-key effort on the part of the Bush administration to facilitate an Indo-Pakistani dialogue is a possibility.

Ironically, this crisis demonstrated that the internationalization of the Kashmir issue favored India and not Pakistan. Historically, it was Pakistan that has always tried to internationalize the Kashmir issue in the hope that third-party mediation would counterbalance India's greater strength. From the early 1990s, it was Pakistan that beat the drum of a potential nuclear war over Kashmir to try and draw the attention of the international community to pressure India into accepting international mediation efforts and into making good on its promise for a plebiscite. However, as it turned out, the U.S. campaign against Islamic fundamentalism and Washington's new approach of "zero tolerance" towards terrorism turned the tables on Pakistan. Much to Islamabad's chagrin, international pressure focused on Pakistan to end cross-border infiltrations. Similarly, the threat of a larger conventional war in the region and Pakistan's nuclear first-use doctrine brought international pressures on Islamabad to back down in the crisis. Worse, Pakistan's international image has taken a beating. Pakistan is now not only regarded as the "problem child" in South Asia, but is also viewed as a revisionist as well as an irresponsible nuclear power.[28]

The Pakistani military-intelligence establishment's decision to end cross-border infiltrations and ultimately dismantle the militant training camps and related infrastructure, marks the logical end of policies initiated following the September 11th terrorist attacks on the United States last year. In the first phase, Pakistan abandoned the Taliban in Afghanistan. In the second phase, Islamabad initiated a crackdown on Islamic militancy within Pakistani territories. Now it has decided to stop radical Islamic militants from waging sub-conventional war in Indian-controlled Kashmir. Although the Pakistani government might not admit it, all three decisions are organically tied to one another. These decisions cumulatively mark the beginning of an attempt to reform Pakistani society domestically; they also constitute an attempt to rethink and recast Pakistan's national security goals. General Musharraf's decision to end Pakistan's two-decade old policy of using the instrument of Islamic radical proxies to achieve foreign policy and strategic goals now offers the best hope for his regime to crush Islamic militancy domestically as well as to achieve a viable and lasting peace with both India and Afghanistan.

Pakistan's capitulation to Indian demands to end the cross-border insurgency constitutes a triumph of India's strategy of compellance. Islamabad has tacitly acknowledged that India's threat to wage war was credible; that there probably existed a strategic space between a sub-conventional war and a full-fledged conventional war, where India might have been able to fight a limited conventional war in Kashmir effectively. Should this latter conclusion be borne out by subsequent evidence, it could mean that India has finally called Pakistan's nuclear bluff over Kashmir.

The international media's hype notwithstanding, it was probably never India's intentions to either inflict a major defeat on Pakistan's military or occupy a substantial part of Pakistani territory. Rather, New Delhi's goal all along was to raise the costs of the sub-conventional war in Kashmir for Pakistan to the extent where they would become unsustainable. India achieved this by first imposing the huge cost of war mobilization on Pakistan, which strained an already overburdened Pakistani economy. When this strategy began to yield diminishing returns, New Delhi threatened to attack militant camps and the Pakistani army's assets and infrastructure in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. In effect, India threatened to lock Pakistan's military into a limited war of attrition in which India could exploit its numerical superiority. India's national security managers also calculated that Pakistan's conventional military inferiority, financial bankruptcy, domestic political divisions, and international isolation would give it very little space for maneuver. The other side of that assessment was that U.S. stakes in Afghanistan and the stability of the Musharraf regime as well as fear of a potential nuclear conflict, would invite severe international pressure on Islamabad to retreat before India's threat of war. Indeed, the initial outcomes of this crisis have validated the accuracy of these calculations.

Although India has emerged from this latest standoff successfully, the Vajpayee government will now have to think through the various possible endgames in Kashmir. Until now, India's approach has focused disproportionately on ending the problem of Pakistani-sponsored insurgency operations in Kashmir; little attention has been paid to meeting the aspirations of the alienated Kashmiri populace. Now that Pakistan has decided to terminate support for the cross-border insurgency, international pressure will focus on India to restore the democratic process in Kashmir and negotiate a political solution to the dispute with Pakistan. Unless India can alleviate the alienated Kashmiri-Muslims' sense of grievance against Indian misgovernance and find some way to satisfy Pakistan's irredentism, the possibility of another Indo-Pakistani conflict will remain, and peace will elude South Asia.

Sources:

[1] Dharam Shourie, "Defiant Pakistan threatens to use nukes," Rediff on the Net, 30 May 2002, http://www.rediff.com
[2] "U.S. issues fact-file on Pakistan's assistance," Dawn, 28 May 2002, http://www.dawn.com
[3] The Associated Press, "Pakistan Shifts Troops From Border With Afghanistan," New York Times, 30 May 2002, http://www.nytimes.com
[4] William Safire, "Al Qaeda Provoking War," New York Times, 30 May 2002, http://www.nytimes.com
[5] "Plan to protect U.S. soldiers in Indo-Pak war," Daily Times, 8 June 2002, http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/
[6] "Kashmir is a bilateral issue: Armitage," Rediff on the Net, 4 June 2002, http://www.rediff.com
[7] Tom Shanker, "12 Million Could Die at Once in an Indo-Pakistan War," New York Times, 27 May 2002, http://www.nytimes.com
[8] Elisabeth BuMiller and Tom Shanker, "Bush Presses Pakistan and Orders Rumsfeld to Region," 31 May 2002, http://www.nytimes.com
[9] Saukat Piracha and Imtiaz Gul, "Freedom fighters are terrorists: Straw," Daily Times, 29 May 2002, http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/
[10] Sridhar Krishnaswami, "Make action evident, U.S. tells Musharraf," Hindu, 8 June 2002, http://www.hinduonnet.com
[11] C. Raja Mohan, "Musharraf vows to stop infiltration: Armitage," Hindu, 8 June 2002, http://www.hinduonnet.com
[12] "In Musharraf's Words: 'A Day of Reckoning'," New York Times, 12 January 2002, http://www.nytimes.com
[13] Ibid.
[14] Jim Hoagland, "Misreading Musharraf," Washington Post, 23 May 2002, http://www.washingtonpost.com
[15] "Change of regime can avert war, Benazir," Dawn, 26 May 2002, http://www.dawn.com; Irfan Husain, "Giving peace a chance," Dawn, 1 June 2002; Shafqat Mahmood, "Rethinking national priorities," The News International Pakistan, 7 June 2002, http://www.jang-group.com/thenews/
[16] Celia W. Dugger and Tom Shanker, "Indians See Hope as Pakistan Halts Kashmir Militants," New York Times, 8 June 2002, http://www.nytimes.com
[17] Munir Ahmad, "Kashmir Militants Say Camps Shut Down," Washington Post, 7 June 2002, http://www.washingtonpost.com
[18] Mohammad Imran, "32-top jihadi leaders put on govt. watch list," Daily Times, 7 June 2002, http://www.dailytimes.com.pk
[19] Karl Vick and Kamran Khan, "Al Qaeda Tied to Attack in Pakistani Cities: Militants Joining Forces Against Western Targets," Washington Post, 30 May 2002, http://www.washingtonpost.com
[20] Dexter Filkins, "Kashmiri Militants Angry At Being Blocked From India," New York Times, 9 June 2002, http://www.nytimes.com
[21] Ibid.
[22] C. Raja Mohan, "Musharraf's pledge a 'step forward,' says Jaswant," Hindu, 9 June 2002, http://www.hinduonnet.com
[23] Ibid.
[24] "War threat minimal, says Musharraf," Dawn, 9 June 2002, http://www.dawn.com
[25] The Associated Press, "India Proposes Joint Patrol of Disputed Kashmir Border," New York Times, 5 June 2002, http://www.nytimes.com
[26] "Proposal be formally conveyed, Pakistan," Dawn, 6 June 2002, http://www.dawn.com
[27] Vladimir Radyuhin, "India rejects foreign participation in foreign patrol," Hindu, 7 June 2002, http://www.hinduonnet.com
[28] "World 'cannot tolerate' Pak. stance on nukes: Straw," The News International Pakistan, 7 June 2002, http://www.jang-group.com/thenews/

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Author(s): Gaurav Kampani
Related Resources: South Asia, Nuclear, Weekly Story
Date Created: June 10, 2002
Date Updated: -NA-
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