Post the Baisaran massacre on 22 April, the electronic media — often citing 'sources' — is replete with narratives about an impending military attack by India on Pakistan. Meanwhile, misinformation cells continue to amplify the war drums and troll the voices cautioning against hasty military action as well as religious polarisation.
For much of the visual media, projections of war are but an incestuous, revenue-earning venture that provide a vicarious, machismo-istic, diversionary entertainment to the masses, quite akin to a ridiculous form of Kabuki theatre.
The media plays up the gallantry, sacrifice, and raw courage of own soldiers; treachery, perfidy and cowardice of the 'enemy'; and the terrible vengeance awaiting the enemy. The inexperienced, naive public, which hasn’t seen the horrors and ravages of a full-scale war up-close, enjoys the spectacle and baying for blood—as long as the war is fought faraway.
Overall, it’s unlikely that India will prefer war — unless, of course, Pakistan starts one — or India can get the international community to pressurise Pakistan to “accept” a punitive strike and broadly leave it at that.
There are cogent reasons for this assessment.
1. Empire-Building in the Techno Era
In the past, great empires were created through wars.
William the Conqueror gained entire England in just one day with only a few thousand dead (Battle of Hastings, 1066)
The US invaded Mexico (1846-48), and for 13,000 dead soldiers, got California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and parts of Colorado, Kansas, Wyoming and Oklahoma
In the Spanish-American War (1898), the US captured Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Guam, and Cuba
Besides land, past victors invariably enriched themselves with bullion, grain, resources, mines, etc, while captured civilians were deployed as slaves. However, that era is clearly over.
This is because the techno-industrial nature of contemporary warfare, precision and autonomous weapons, and concept of ‘total war’ ensures that modern wars remain exceptionally destructive.
And unlike wars of earlier eras, there are no great treasures to be acquired from captured lands. In contrast, given the proliferation of modern small arms, and simple dual-use materials and technologies, the populations in captured lands can put up a determined resistance, tying down armies for years.
Thus, in most such wars, there’s no “gain” beyond the destruction of the other side and/or fulfillment of chimeric “national interests”. That the US gained nothing substantial from its numerous wars (Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan) provides context.
In fact, its intervention in Afghanistan after 9/11 proved debilitating. After the April 2001 downing of its EP-3 spy plane by China, the US had decided to downsize China—and then 9/11 happened, after which, especially the 2003 Iraq invasion, the entire might of this global power got confined to a small area between Central Asia and the Persian Gulf.
This limiting allowed Russia to capture parts of Georgia (2008), North Korea to progress its nuclear programme, and importantly, China to “rise peacefully” and become a peer competitor. The two decades of combat against insurgents (and not structured armed forces) in Afghanistan alone cost the US around $2.26 trillion. The 17 August 2021 report by the Pentagon’s Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction states that the US failed in every aspect of its strategy.
In sharp contrast, the greatest victory in modern history, i.e., of the US-led-North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) over the Soviet Union during the Cold War and the latter’s break-up in 1991, was achieved without a major military confrontation/kinetic war. That should hold a lesson for us.
2. No One Wins in a War
On account of the potential for mutual damage, there can be no real winners in a war between contiguous neighbours with near-symmetry in their conventional forces. Although India’s armed forces are much larger and far-better equipped, given the threats on the eastern side (China and Bangladesh), India may not be able to apply the full force of its military might against Pakistan and thereby control escalation dynamics. Even then, the Indo-Pak conventional forces asymmetry will allow India to prevail comprehensively over Pakistan.
However, that prevailing will happen after we have destroyed about 35-45 percent of Pakistan’s armed forces, much infrastructure, and penetrated into Pakistan’s heartland. And in that fighting, we too will suffer some damage—economic, infrastructural, to civilian property, and to the armed forces, particularly equipment.
Importantly, we will have to rebuild our armed forces immediately after such a war in view of the China threat.
That prohibitively expensive rebuild will be at the expense of every other challenge in India, at a time when the Indian and global economies are not doing well. In sum: a full-scale war could affect us as it did the USSR, only more.
Hence, instead of seeking a pyrrhic victory, focusing on improving things (CI grid, economy, etc) in Jammu & Kashmir and pursuing other options (diplomacy, economic sanctions, and building dams to retain water) at a fraction of what a war will cost, may yield better dividends.
3. Cards on the Table
Next is the element of surprise, one of the main principles of war. An attack, major or minor, which achieves surprise, has immense chances of succeeding. However, the incessant faux war-mongering on the media has led to Pakistan deploying some military assets to counter any attack (full-scale, punitive, “Uri-type surgical strike”, Balakot, etc).
Post-26/11, a similar thing had happened—the media, quoting 'sources', had warned of an impending attack, which prompted Pakistan to prepare analogously. Further, one reason behind the Cold Start Doctrine was the protracted mobilisation period during 'Operation Parakaram' (post-December 2001 attack on India’s Parliament).
This period allowed Pakistan to prepare to counter Indian forces.
5. Moral Presicion
Another element is the need for precise intelligence to avoid casualties to women and children.
If India has to punish Pakistan for killing of civilians, morally, we cannot be seen doing the same. And the problem is not that our intelligence agencies are not exceptionally capable—but that by now targets like the LeT HQ in Muridke (Lahore) and terrorist camps may have been converted into a school, with the terrorists having dispersed—as happened post-26/11.
6. The Nuclear Risk
Then there’s this risk of that conventional war escalating to nuclear levels.
All those expert talks about “space just below the nuclear overhang” notwithstanding, the fact remains that once serious operations start, there is no sure way of knowing in which direction the war is headed—no country can legislate the actions of the other side unless it has full control over the escalation dynamics.
Since wars are fought to subjugate the other side, both sides tend to deploy maximum combat power against each other in order to attain as much advantage (destruction, territory) as possible. And therein lies the conundrum.
Pakistan is a thin, linear country with sparse strategic depth—and the moment Indian forces advance beyond the line of Islamabad-Gujranwala-Lahore-Kasur-Dipalpur-PakPattan-Bahawalpur, they will be inside Pakistan’s core, its heartland, which Pakistani strategists leaders assert as one of their ‘nuclear thresholds’.
It’s well possible that Pakistan, internationally ignored and isolated, and in a political and economic free fall, may have triggered this massacre of civilians to deliberately provoke a military reaction from India.
Recall that one aim of the Kargil intrusions was to internationalise the “Kashmir issue”. Besides, a war may help unite Pakistan’s fractured polity and populace behind an army whose image stands badly belittled. And Pakistan will draw international attention once it starts its nuclear-sabre-rattling.
That perhaps is what Pakistan wants—international attention, and intervention on the so-called “Kashmir issue” (as General Asim Munir’s speech refers).
Incidentally, post-Balakot tensions, US President Donald Trump had repeatedly offered to mediate between India and Pakistan on the “J&K dispute”. His recent statement underscores his indifference to India on Kashmir.
To conclude, it seems the cathartic, aggressive beating of war drums on electronic media will be allowed to continue for a few more days in order to divert attention from the fact that the present government may not wage war for almost the same reasons that Dr Manmohan Singh’s government didn’t after 26/11.
Although the personalities per se have changed since 2008, the politico-bureaucracy is much the same—India hasn’t suddenly discovered some new alien race hiding in caves beyond Rishikesh with radically new answers to such vexing tribulations.
Hence, brutal, callous, insensitive and distasteful as it may sound, the screaming and trolling will go on for a few more days, after which a new “crisis” could likely push the Pahalgam massacre to the back-burner, only to be remembered if another tragedy strikes.
(Kuldip Singh is a retired Brigadier from the Indian Army. 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.)