Surgical strike and diplomatic challenges

A top Army commander said the surgical strikes carried out last year at terror camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) were intended to convey the message that the Line of Control (LoC) can be breached whenever the need arises.

Lt Gen General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of Northern Command, also ruled out any Dokalam type stand-off between the armies of India and China in Ladakh sector of the Line of Actual Control (LAC), saying a multi- tier mechanism is in place to resolve any issue that may arise due to differences in perception of the border.

“The surgical strike was a point we wanted to drive home, that the Line of Control is not a line that cannot be breached. When we want to, we will be able to breach it, go across and strike when we need. This was the message we wanted to convey and we did,” he said.

It has been one year since the special forces of the Indian Army carried out surgical strikes to destroy terror Launchpad in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir on September 29, 2016.

It is important to take stock at this point on how India-Pakistan bilateral relations and the regional security situation have evolved over the past year since the strikes.

Surgical strike
A surgical strike is a military attack intended to inflict damage on a specific target, with minimal or no collateral damage to surrounding areas.

After running through a variety of non-military responses to the September 18 terrorist strike at an Army camp in Uri, the Centre announced that Indian forces had carried out “surgical strikes” across the Line of Control.

With this, India’s next steps, post-Uri, are in uncharted terrain, with New Delhi abandoning the self-proclaimed policy of “strategic restraint” adopted in the face of earlier provocations by terrorists believed to be backed by Pakistan.

The operation, that began and concluded in the early hours of Thursday, was claimed to be a military success, with no injuries to the Indian para-commandos who went across the LoC into Pakistan-occupied Kashmir to attack several locations.

The decision to strike in this manner was evidently taken after specific intelligence that terrorist groups were planning attacks in India.

This may not be the first time India has undertaken quick cross-LoC operations, but it has never before chosen to share information so publicly.

The terms “surgical strike” and “pre-emptive strike” used by the Centre were intended to convey that this was not an attack on Pakistan’s defence forces, but a targeted action against terrorists poised to wreak damage in India.

Pakistan of course has played down the Indian operation, characterising it as an act of habitual cross-border shelling. It is welcome that New Delhi declared the strikes complete shortly after the operation, with the DGMO calling his Pakistani counterpart to convey that India would not escalate the conflict beyond this.

This, along with the briefings held in New Delhi for envoys of various countries, indicates that the Centre wants to end hostilities with Pakistan for the moment.

This strengthens the view that the operation was the result of pressure on the Modi government to manufacture a strong response to Uri. Over the past few days there has been a cascade of moves to underline that such provocations cannot be followed with business as usual.

The government reviewed the working of the Indus Waters Treaty, declared it is flirting with the idea of reviewing Pakistan’s Most Favoured Nation status, and pulled out of the SAARC heads’ meet to be held in Islamabad.

29 September 2016 marks a turning point, with India sending out an unambiguous message: it can no longer be business as usual. There are four reasons for that:

Surgical strike by India is a paradigm shift in India’s approach to external threats. It is exactly how an advanced, modern nation would respond to such challenges. The singular message is that it can no longer be business as usual; the message is that India is willing to give and take in its international relations and that it can no longer be taken for granted.

Second, the Modi government has demonstrated that nothing is off the table in a negotiation or dialogue. In the build-up to the surgical strikes last night, it unambiguously signalled as much: including its review of a seven-decade-old Indus Water Treaty.

Third, India has demonstrated its willingness to undertake risky manoeuvres, albeit calculated ones. This is a dramatic shift from the past, when India’s response was often defensive; countries like Pakistan and China often interpreted this pacifism for the lack of a stomach for a fight.

Fourth, like it did in Myanmar—when it chased down an outlawed Naga terrorist outfit—it has signalled that India has the right nous for measured but effective retribution.

While war as an option is extremely difficult to exercise and entails huge economic and social costs, surgical strikes, though risky, are relatively easier to undertake swiftly.

In the final analysis, it is clear that the Modi government has signalled a change in tack. It will be very difficult to retrace the steps from here. Presumably, it has worked this out in its calculations.

Pakistan reaction on surgical strike is somewhat surprising as it has not endorsed that India has conducted any Surgical Strike in Pak Occupied Kashmir.

World powers including Britain and China are trying to reduce tensions between India and Pakistan and asked both countries to exercise restraint in the wake of surgical strikes by Indian troops across the Line of Control.

Pak media ridiculed and denied surgical strike by Indian troops across the Line of Control.Chinese media has shown expressions of hope and said that all the issues between the two countries can be resolved through meaningful dialogue.

British as well as US media do not play down the surgical strike and deem it to be paradigm shift in India’s approach to deal with external threats.

If International Relations Experts are to be believed, surgical strike by India will definitely curb Pakistan sponsored terrorism.

How is it carried out?
These attacks can be carried out via air raids, airdropping special ops teams or a ground operation.

All three Indian armed forces have their separate special ops teams.

The details of the surgical strikes have understandably not been revealed by the Indian authorities.

External intelligence is vital to carrying out these attacks and these special operation teams work closely with the service intelligence departments, Intelligence Bureau and R&AW hawks.

Going by covert tactics and the terrain around the LoC studied in light of military deployments on both sides, the most favoured option would have been to lead a special ops team through the ground route after being airdropped across the border via helicopters.

The special ops teams would then make their way to the terror sanctuaries and act with clinical precision to inflict maximum damage to the terrorists and their supporters.

The Special Operations are complex and need to be diligently planned and coordinated on various levels. It also needs an effective C4ISR support from the operational command.

The C4ISR support requires-command, control, communication, computers, intelligence, surveillance & reconnaissance.

India Army’s Parachute Regiments have highly trained para-commandos that are specially drilled to carry out such operations.

The Indian Navy boasts of its feared marine commandos or MARCOS and the Indian Air Force has Garudas for asset protection and containment.

These attacks can also be carried out by precision bombing using precision guided munitions.

These tactics are especially useful in densely populated areas where raiding ground forces have a higher risk of sustaining casualties and in this case would not be the logical choice.

As Pakistan upped its Air Force exercises and air surveillance near the LoC recently, India acted the same and issued high-alerts on the border and mobilised Indian fighters.

Unprovoked firing that occurred from Pakistan’s side on the LoC on Wednesday is one of the many ceasefire violations clashed with the attacks.

Pakistan has historically used unprovoked firing on the LoC to divert the attention of Indian deployments to facilitate infiltration of terrorists.

However, India’s counter infiltration grid which remains on the lookout of such operations alerted the Army.

Indian Special Ops teams work closely with these counter infiltration teams to ensure immediate neutralisation and remove threats of repeated waves of infiltration bids at different locations on the LoC.

Surgical strikes gain importance in India’s case as Pakistan has repeatedly shown its intention to use tactical nuclear weapons on Indian Forces, even risking the collateral damage to its own troops, to stop Indian military operations.

Therefore, the covert surgical strikes are a powerful weapon for the Indian armed forces to carry out the necessary dirty work while ensuring the status-quo between the opposing armies on the LoC

Success of Surgical Strikes
The challenge for New Delhi has been to develop a military response that does not cross Pakistan’s nuclear threshold, owing to the latter’s credible nuclear deterrence.

It was the reason why the Indian army started planning a doctrine of waging a low-scale and swift conventional attack, known as the Cold Start doctrine, as early as 2004.

Then the Primary objective for having conducted the surgical strikes in September 2016 – eliminate and destroy terror launch-pads in PoK across the Line of Control (LoC).

A large number of terrorist amps and launch pads exist across south and north of Pir Panjal, they have not decreased, so this kind of action is needed.

Surgical strikes must be seen as the Indian military response to Pakistan that does not cross the latter’s nuclear threshold.

It can be seen as India’s attempt to make India’s response to Pakistan’s sub-conventional war. The Central government argues that surgical strikes have been a spectacular success.

Shift in India-Pakistan Relations after Surgical Strikes
Post-Surgical strikes, showing no appetite for a bilateral rapprochement; the two unfriendly neighbours have limited their interactions to firing across the borders in Jammu and Kashmir and calling each other names in global forums.

In his first speech after the attack, PM gave a firm but measured response and made a point to distinguish between Pakistan’s people and its leadership.

India’s foreign minister followed up with a sharp speech at the United Nations, which framed Pakistan-based terrorism as a global challenge and stepped up Indian rhetoric on Pakistani human rights abuses in Balochistan.

India’s diplomatic efforts over the years and in recent days seem to have increased pressure on Pakistan.
The U.S. response to the earlier Uri attack has been far more supportive of India than in the past.

Also stressed the need for Pakistan to take effective action against UN-designated terrorist individuals and entities, including Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, Jaish-e-Muhammad and their affiliates.

Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab states broke from past precedence and unequivocally condemned the Uri attacks.
Bhutan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh joined India in boycotting the summit of the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC).

Now the future direction of the foremost regional forum, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), remains unclear after India dropped out of the 2016 Islamabad summit in the wake of the Uri terror attack.

At the United Nations General Assembly a few days ago, for instance, External Affairs Minister termed Pakistan a “pre-eminent exporter of terror” — to which Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the UN, responded: “India is the mother of terrorism” in South Asia.

On the other hand, China has continued to back Pakistan while Russia staged military exercises (Friendship/Druzhba) in Pakistan, much to the disappointment of its close defence partner India.

In addition to it, the regional security situation remains embattled, thanks to confused American policies in South Asia, continuing turmoil in Afghanistan, heightening India-China rivalry, and the India-Pakistan hostility.

Regional stability
From a regional stability point of view, the surgical strikes do not seem to have had much of an adverse impact.
The fact that Pakistan neither acknowledged the attacks nor responded in kind shows that the general deterrence between the South Asian nuclear rivals remains intact.

It is easy to talk about nuclear use and threaten nuclear retaliation but not easy to translate such talk into action.
In that sense, the surgical strikes have called Pakistan’s nuclear bluff. And that certainly is good news for regional stability.

But such higher-level stability seems to have come with heightened lower-level instability.

There are several sets of challenges that are more apparent today, one year after the surgical strikes.

One, the India-Pakistan escalation ladder has become far more dangerous today it has ever been in the past one and a half decades, i.e. since the ceasefire was agreed to in 2003.

The border stand-offs often lead to military, political and diplomatic escalation.

It contributes to escalating an on-going crisis.
Ever since the surgical strikes, Pakistan has been retaliating by increasing the pressure on the frontlines.

The surgical strikes have reduced the critical distance between ceasefire violations and conventional escalation.

The other challenge is more practical than theoretical. The risks of preventive strikes are unpredictable. Preventive strikes may have immense potential to lead up to a ‘competition in risk-taking’, a tendency already prevalent on the frontlines of the India-Pakistan border in J&K.

Pakistan’s Denial
The Pakistani military spokesperson consequently released an announcement denying there had been any Indian cross-border raids and that the Indians were claiming cross-LoC fire as “surgical strikes”.

The Pakistani reaction claiming no surgical strikes have taken place may, paradoxically, allows Islamabad to keep the political and armed temperature down, which would also go well with India.

To that level the Indian unwillingness to go public with fine points of the strikes may assist prevent the building up of public stress in Pakistan for some sort of vengeance.

The more data the Indian side gets into in public, the more difficult it might be for Pakistan to be dismissive.

The strikes are being observed as the foremost major military act taken by India after terrorists from Pakistan crossed into a military camp in Uri in Kashmir past this month. 18 soldiers were killed in that attack, one which Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said would “not go unpunished.”

Surgical strikes achieve significance in India’s case as Pakistan has constantly shown its intention to use strategic nuclear weapons on Indian Forces, even risking the collateral harm to its own troops, to prevent Indian military operations.

Therefore, the hidden surgical strikes are a great weapon for the Indian armed forces to carry out the essential dirty work while ensuring the status-quo among the conflicting armies on the LoC.

Change in attitude
Uri is not the first cross border attack on India. Earlier there was Kargil war, 2001 parliament attacks, 26/11 and Pathankot. But India never crossed LOC as it respected the limits. But this time, India showed the world India has taken some action instead of its earlier attitude of only complaining.

This is not the end of 2003 ceasefire agreement as it had more or less ended after 2008 attack. Since then, there has been an escalation in incidents of exchange of fire across the line of control compared to 2003-08 period.

In the past too, army might have crossed the LOC and undertook operation, but it was never talked about. But this time, there was domestic compulsion on government after Gurdaspur, Pathankot and Uri.

There was an expectation that this government has to react and there should be some punitive action. However at the same time, the government is not wanting to escalate the matters further and DGMO statement also mentioned that it was one-shot exercise and it is not going to be repeated.

India briefed envoys from different countries that India crossed the LOC because there was an imminent threat of terrorist assembling there to infiltrate into India.

So India invoked self-defence under article 51 of UN charter which is permitted, where India took an action to neutralise an imminent threat coming across LOC. It was not an offensive action but a counter- terrorism operation.

Reaction of USA
The US reaction is subdued as the utility of Pakistan for US is now much reduced. In US congress, there was special session was Pakistan was attacked. The strategic utility of Pakistan regarding US presence in Afghanistan is going down drastically. On the other hand, counter terrorism concern regarding Pakistan is growing.

So, US is fine with India’s calculated attack against Pakistan in a manner that prevents further escalation.

With USA, India should convey to Pakistan that the irresponsible talk of nuclear action is rubbish and world will not tolerate it.

Neighbour support
India has got support of its neighbours- Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan. When this happens, the rest of the world also sees that it is not just India but a general problem. Its result was thus that the SAARC summit had to be postponed.

India has also given an indirect hint at China at UNGA that countries that are not with India in fighting war against terrorism should be isolated. China’s position on Azhar is an indirect support to Pakistan.

Losing moral high ground?
The people in the west are of the opinion that India lost its moral high ground with the strikes. Many talk about the virtues of India’s strategic restraint. But, this operation has been craftily choreographed where diplomatic community was informed about it with the background that India is suffering from cross border terrorism for more than two decades and now it has to take the action to prevent further such infiltration.

The significance of this strike is the symbolism of crossing the LOC to defend the nation from infiltration rather than focusing on number of casualty. Thus, India has not lost the moral high ground by taking action against terrorists.

Expected Questions
Recent surgical strikes conducted by Indian forces highlights abandoning the self proclaimed policy of ‘strategic restraint’ adopted earlier in the face of provocations by terrorist groups.

Discuss. Do you think these operations violate the sovereignty of the nation on whose territory these strikes are conducted?

India plans to diplomatically isolate Pakistan. How is it expected to be helpful to India? Critically analyse.