Husain Haqqani, who was Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States from 2008 to 2011, in his latest book is “Reimagining Pakistan“, reiterates the need for reigning in on Pak terror groups operating in their soil. In a hard hitting dictum, he opines, “Pakistan can no longer link its tolerance or support for terrorist groups with the grievances of the people of Kashmir in hope of securing international attention to Kashmiri human rights concerns”.
Since 1999, crises between India and Pakistan have tended to evolve in four stages. First, eager to get international attention for the dispute over Kashmir, a Pakistan-based militant group launches an attack in India. Then India threatens retaliation, which in the past involved mobilisation of troops along the Pakistan border. Faced with Indian threats, Pakistan raises the specter of nuclear confrontation and asks the United States and other major powers to help defuse the situation. Finally, American diplomacy provides Pakistan a face-saver, and the threat of war subsides. The same story repeats in every episode of terror bleeding the nation with the undercurrent theme “Nuclear threat“.
Pakistan’s intelligence establishment counts on India’s fear of conflict escalating to the nuclear level while planning terrorist attacks. Instead of nuclear weapons being a deterrent to war, this approach allows for low-cost, low-intensity war, which can be carried on endlessly under a nuclear umbrella. But now India feels it has found a soft spot where it can strike — whether on ground using special forces, as in 2016, or using air strikes as they have in the current crisis — without crossing the threshold for all-out war between the nuclear powers.
At last, Pakistan’s nuclear bluff has been busted, there will be pressure on every future Prime Minister to respond in a kinetic rather than a cosmetic manner to mass terror attacks sponsored from Pakistan. Very little was done after Pathankot (besides giving ISI operatives a guided tour of the facility). There was a stronger response after Uri, although the surgical strike was conducted through “keyhole surgery” and therefore did not leave much of a mark. Pulwama has resulted—for the first time since 1998—in a relatively robust armed response, followed up by the shooting down of an F-16 when the PAF sought to do what the IAF had done a day after the latter crossed over the International Border to attack terror sites.
In fact, world leaders seem to have changed their tack and ignored the well-worn four stages of previous India-Pakistan crises. For example, US Secretary of State Pompeo, emphasised “the urgency of Pakistan taking meaningful action against terrorist groups operating on its soil” along with leaders of France and Germany, instead of focusing on finding a face-saver for Pakistan.
Pakistan’s nuclear bluff busted at last. Is it the dividend for Modi’s ‘globe trotting’ and ‘hugging’ diplomacy?
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