Prime Minister Narendra Modi's promise to appropriately empower the Indian Armed Forces to respond to the Pulwama outrage, has come good. It is reported that 12 Indian Air Force (IAF) Mirage 2000 aircraft carried out a well-before-dawn strike against Pakistan-sponsored terror organisation Jaish-e-Mohammad's (JeM) training /holding facility at Balakot in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The fact that India chose to deploy the IAF to execute the promised retribution is important from two angles. One, quite unlike the September 2016 surgical strikes, the IAF has delivered against much deeper targets, and with much greater weight, making denial by Pakistan extremely difficult. The Pakistan Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) has admitted the strikes, but deflected their effectiveness by stating that the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) scrambled its resources and forced the IAF aircraft to drop their ordnance prematurely, without achieving their objectives. Such a stance was expected anyway.
The choice of a night strike was also appropriate, wherein surprise was almost total. Intelligence also appears to have been of a higher order, where specific information of the camp at Balakot was well known. The fact that all 12 aircraft returned safely to base is also a creditable achievement, considering that Pakistan's air defence systems were on high alert during the this period.
While carrying out an assessment of the strategic impact of the Indian response, Pakistan must commence with a reiteration of the proportionality aspect, and the choice of target. There was fairly good deception built into this, to the extent that Indian media remained focused on the JeM's Bahawalpur facility, while the IAF concentrated on Balakot.
Much traction has been achieved in this, and it would have been a self goal by India if this aspect did not get factored into the choice of target. It leaves India to continue the diplomatic campaign it has undertaken. The Pakistan ISPR claim regarding the ineffectiveness of the strike is unimportant, because it is the strategic message from the action which remains significant, and not the physical effect. Sooner than later international monitoring agencies will come out with a damage assessment.
With Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan promising that any Indian military action will be met by an assured military response, and his Cabinet members vigorously restating that, the public pressure is now on the Pakistani political and military leadership. If they do not respond, the moral victory will be India’s. However, if they choose to respond, they will have a major dilemma about choice of targets and nature of military action. There are no terrorist facilities in India to offer objectives.
To perceive that this is the end of the game starting from the Pulwama outrage, would be naive. A single air strike does not put an end to the comprehensive proxy war sponsored by Pakistan. This is but one facet in which India has gained an upper hand.
This is the time for the armed forces to do scenario-building and war-gaming to determine the best options for India, as we progress into a further stand-off with Pakistan. The necessity of ensuring no political exploitation of Indian military action and creation of political consensus, can hardly be over-emphasised.
This is also the right time to communicate to the Kashmiri people, India's resolve, which is both fair and proportionate, as against Pakistan's continued focus on terror in Kashmir.
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(The writer, a former GOC of the Army’s 15 Corps, is now associated with Vivekanand International Foundation and Institute of Peace & Conflict Studies. He can be reached at @atahasnain53. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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