Cut through all the rhetoric and posturing of war, terrorism, and nuclear holocaust and one thing stands above everything else in the looming confrontation between India and Pakistan. India, badly shaken by last December's suicide attack on its parliament (which came within seconds of wiping out the entire political leadership of the world's largest democracy) is not bluffing. It is prepared to go to war to put a stop to the terrorist incursions that have ravaged Kashmir for 18 years.
Yet India's "war policy" is flexible, because it does not demand a classical victory over Pakistan. It wants, instead, to end cross-border terrorism by changing Pakistan's long-held belief that it could "bleed India with a thousand cuts" at low cost to itself and thus bring about a change in the status of Kashmir as part of India. In its "war against terror," India will thus apply force in small doses spread over time with a cumulative impact, possibly extending beyond next year -- a war, so to say, in slow motion.
What would such a war look like? A look at the structure of the opposing forces will help here. India enjoys a substantial quantitative and qualitative superiority over Pakistan in conventional forces. This superiority is why Pakistan acquired nuclear weapons. It could not match India in any conventional battle, and like the West in its confrontation with the USSR during the Cold War, sought the security of nuclear stalemate.
India's "war aim" -- that is, if war comes -- is to raise the costs to Pakistan of its policy of encouraging and inciting cross-border terrorism. At present levels of deployment along the 2,900km long border, Pakistan's annual military bill will jump from 35 percent to 42 percent of its GDP, a hideous amount in a decaying economy. India, meanwhile, will see its military budget increase two percent, to nine percent of its GDP.
Of course, India will seek to keep the war conventional, and so will try to pose its threat to Pakistan at well below the nuclear threshold -- as Islamabad defines it. But such military planning requires pinpoint judgments on both sides.
India would seek to keep the war confined to the state of Jammu and Kashmir, the locus of mujahidin terrorist attacks. India's main forces, especially its armored forces, even now at the height of mobilization, remain deployed in a strategically defensive posture across the region outside Kashmir. India's offensive operations are likely to be conducted in small doses, with infantry attacks by small units layered between artillery barrages.
Pakistan would likely respond in kind, and so a continuing battle of attrition would ensue without territorial advances, something akin to the Israeli-Egyptian battles between 1971-73. (It should be remembered, however, that those battles led to the Yom Kippur War of 1973, a struggle that at one moment almost nearly lured the US and USSR into the most serious nuclear confrontation since the Cuban Missile Crisis.)
India believes that static warfare and a battle of attrition would substantially interfere with terrorist infiltrations across the Line of Control that separates Indian Kashmir from that controlled by Pakistan.
Real escalation would come with the use of combat aircraft. With a 750 to 350 numerical advantage in combat aircraft, India's Air Force is far superior. More importantly, India has a decisive edge with 390 high-performance modern (acquired in the 1980s and 1990s) all-weather combat aircraft (40 Sukhoi-30 and 50 Mirage-2000 multi-role combat aircraft, 70 MiG-29s, 110 Jaguars and 120 MiG-27 strike aircraft) compared to Pakistan's 30-odd F-16 multi-role combat aircraft.
But India is likely to limit the use of its air power to strikes against terrorist training camps and selected infrastructure in Pakistani-occupied Kashmir. Pakistan would likely respond either by engaging Indian fighters in aerial dogfights or by attacking Indian air bases. Should air combat take place, India's Navy, with a superior force of 27 major surface warships (including 3 guided-missile cruisers) and 16 submarines (against Pakistan's 7 warships and 9 submarines) would seek to dominate the northern Arabian Sea, cutting Pakistan off from trade and supplies.
Of course, in the face of India's vast advantages in conventional forces, and the flexible nature of India's strategy, there is a grave risk that Pakistan will escalate its response hastily, even to the point of approaching its own ultimate "Samson Option" -- the use of nuclear weapons.
India's nuclear doctrine and strategy, poorly understood abroad, is not to use nuclear weapons first. Pakistan, however, does not subscribe to such a "no first use" doctrine. Still, it may be expected to resort to nuclear weapons only if its survival or extremely vital interests are at stake.
India will do everything it can not to push Pakistan into such a corner, especially since the war it seeks to wage is one against terrorism and not Pakistan itself (although that distinction often gets blurred.) In the event of a doomsday scenario, where Pakistan uses its nuclear weapons first, the bulk of India's nuclear arsenal would survive to deliver, in terms of Indian doctrine, "assured retaliation" leading to "unacceptable levels of punishment." The result? Grievous damage to India, but the almost total destruction of Pakistan's state and society. "War in slow motion," it seems, does run the risk of becoming a war of annihilation.
Air Commodore Jasjit Singh is director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies at New Delhi.
Copyright: Project Sydicate
For Taipei, last year was a particularly dangerous period, with China stepping up coercive pressures on Taiwan amid signs of US President Joe Biden’s cognitive decline, which eventually led his Democratic Party to force him to abandon his re-election campaign. The political drift in the US bred uncertainty in Taiwan and elsewhere in the Indo-Pacific region about American strategic commitment and resolve. With America deeply involved in the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, the last thing Washington wanted was a Taiwan Strait contingency, which is why Biden invested in personal diplomacy with China’s dictator Xi Jinping (習近平). The return of
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has long been a cornerstone of US foreign policy, advancing not only humanitarian aid but also the US’ strategic interests worldwide. The abrupt dismantling of USAID under US President Donald Trump ‘s administration represents a profound miscalculation with dire consequences for global influence, particularly in the Indo-Pacific. By withdrawing USAID’s presence, Washington is creating a vacuum that China is eager to fill, a shift that will directly weaken Taiwan’s international position while emboldening Beijing’s efforts to isolate Taipei. USAID has been a crucial player in countering China’s global expansion, particularly in regions where
Looking at the state of China’s economy this year, many experts have said that weak domestic demand and insufficient internal consumption might be its Achilles’ heel, with the latter being related to culture and demographics. Since Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) took office in 2013, he has been combating extravagance and corruption as well as rectifying a bad atmosphere. China expert Stephen Roach said the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) regulatory crackdown has been targeting Chinese tycoons, such as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd founder Jack Ma (馬雲), and opposing what the CCP defines as “excessively extravagant lifestyles,” such as playing too
With the manipulations of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), it is no surprise that this year’s budget plan would make government operations difficult. The KMT and the TPP passing malicious legislation in the past year has caused public ire to accumulate, with the pressure about to erupt like a volcano. Civic groups have successively backed recall petition drives and public consensus has reached a fever-pitch, with no let up during the long Lunar New Year holiday. The ire has even breached the mindsets of former staunch KMT and TPP supporters. Most Taiwanese have vowed to use