Troop reducing in J&K - No cause for anxiety

By Dr Brahma Singh

The recent statement by the Prime Minister on troop reduction in J&K and the actual pull out of troops that has since taken place seems to have caused much panic among certain sections of the people of the State. It is feared that a reduction in the number of troops engaged in counter insurgency operations would amount to lowering of guard on the part of Security Forces that in turn would enable the militant (read terrorists) to step up their activities. The fact that the demand for reduction of troops in J&K originated from the militants and their sponsors within and outside the State has lent credence to this fear. The assurances being doled out by the Government and military authorities that even after the planned reduction there would still be enough troops in J&K to carry on the war against terrorism effectively and that troops would be re-inducted in case found necessary have so far failed to allay the people's fears. Evidently the faith of the people in their Government is lacking due, perhaps, to the fast record of bungling of Kashmir policy by the party in power at the Centre today. Prime Minister Manmohan singh's soft looks and speech that given an impression that he could be acting under international pressure has only added to the people's anxiety.

The situation may not, however, be as bad as it appears and the fears of the people not too well founded. For, while the Prime Minister may not be as soft as he appears, he could not have acted entirely on his own. He surely would have consulted his security advisors and the military authorities before taking such a decision. His emphatic refusal to agree to an internal cease-fire with the militants seems to have been the result of such consultations. Apparently the Army, which has ultimately to face the music, is backing the Prime Minister to the hilt and we have no option but to take its world on it. Even the Indian National Congress that now leads the UPA Government has come a long way from the pre 1962 era noted for idealism and appeasement in matters of national security, for the people to worry about it any more. The bungling of the Kashmir policy that it is being charged with also refers only to the petty politics for party gains that it indulged in during the pre-militancy period and not to any aspect of national security. The Congress need not, therefore, be mistrusted on this issue. In case with facts and figures pertaining to the total number of troops presently deployed in J&K, the number being withdrawn, and the strength that would still remain to deal with the militants, not available to them the people are hardly in a position to assess the implication of the Government's move. They cannot even know whether the reduction is for real or just a move to roll back the additional troops that had been inducted during the Kargil war and 'Operation Parakaram' and had continued to stay back. The demand for reduction of troops is also not of the militants and their sponsor's alone. It is also that of a large number of peace loving Kashmiris even if for a different reason. Many innocent Kashmiris are known to suffer in the factors fire between the militants and the Security Forces when the former target the latter in inhabited urban areas. The Prime Minister may have had such people in mind when he made the announcement. It could even be that the reduction of troops is India's own requirement also and the fanfare with which it is being carried out is a diplomatic move seeking to make a virtue of this necessity. The necessity for withdrawal of troops could have arisen due to a variety of circumstances as discussed in the succeeding paragraphs.

Technically speaking there are three stages of counter insurgency. Stage one is at the start of insurgency when the initiative rests with the militants and the Security Forces are on the defensive. During this stage the Security Forces are expected to build up their maximum strength in order to gain ascendancy over the insurgents. The second stage starts when the Security Forces have gained the required ascendancy to be able to go on the offensive and build maximum pressure on the militants. During this stage the Security Forces must maintain their force level to keep the militants on the run. The last stage is when, though the militancy continues to simmer, the back of the militants is generally broken. This is the stage when the bulk of the troops can be withdrawn and replaced by the civil police or para military forces, t he political process started and the "healing touch" extended to the effected people. In practical terms, however, the dividing lines between the three stages are not as clear as they appear in theory. When a particular stage ends and the other starts is purely a matter of assessment by those involved - the Government and the Security Forces. At what stage of counter insurgency was stand in Kashmir today can, therefore, form a subject of much controversy. Not many people seem to think that we are in the third stage that warrants a reduction in troops. They cite figures on infiltration and incidents of militancy related violence that still continue to occur, to support their view. The Government and the Security Forced probably think differently. If we were to compare the situation as it exists today with what it was a few years back we may tend to agree with the assessment that the militants are no longer the potent force that they used to be.

One of the principles of employment of the Army in counter insurgency is that the Army must not be employed in this role a day longer than is necessary. Continuous contact with the local population over prolonged periods, combined with chances of little or only remote command and control being exercised over him by his superiors, make the soldier vulnerable to temptations which could affect his discipline and moral character. Every effort has, therefore, to be made to protect these essential attributes of the soldier from getting eroded. The Army must not be used in counter insurgency any more than is absolutely necessary also because it must be provided adequate time for training in its primary role of defence against external aggression. Most of the Indian Army today is deployed for counter insurgency operations in the north, east, or the north-east and gets little or no time for training for war. This is not to talk of the fact that the calls ro Army units for service in insurgency infested areas, as part of the turn over programme, are so often that the officers and men get little time to spend with their families in peace stations.

All in all it would appear that the furor that is being created over the Government announcement on reduction of troops in J&K is not really necessary. The decision on what strength is required to meet a particular situation is the prerogative of the Army. Let us trust our Army and alow it this privilege.

US Pampering Pak military

By Vinod Vedi

A 3-Billion dollar military assistance package for Pakistan spread over President George Bush's second four-year term is intended to keep the jihadi military establishment from rocking Pervez Musharraf's designer-democracy. But the President-General has strategic designs and is bent on bolstering his nuclear capability by insisting that the US release F-16 fighter aircraft as part of the package.

It is not without significance that the day Musharraf set off on a tour of the Americas beginning with Brazil Pakistan began a series of testing of its long-range Shaheen and short-range Ghaznavi missiles. This was a bald-faced way of saying that though Pakistan's missile means of delivery of nuclear warheads is ready for deployment it needs nuclear - capable aircraft to give its nuclear weapons greater flexibility of employment and double surety. For that it needs the F-16 multirole fighter aircraft.

On 4 December, the day on which the Indian Navy blockaded and blew up Pakistani's only functional harbour in Karachi in 1971, is President-Chief of Army Staff Gen Pervez Musharraf would have met with US President George to get more weaponry to try and ensure that it will not happen again.

America, and France, have set the foundations for a restructured Pakistan Navy the sole aim of which is to prevent the Indian Navy from an encore in case the current "peace process" does not deliver a larger chunk of Jammu and Kashmir to Pakistan than it already controls.

The Bush administration has already informed Congress (as required by US law) that it intends to supply 1.2 million dollars worth of weaponry in the first instalment and the new excuse being given for this traditional relationship is that Pakistan needs it to deal with the global terrorists operating on the Pak-Afghan border.

At least two of the major weapons systems that the US will supply to Pakistan in the first tranche --- the P-2C Orion aircraft and the Phalanx anti-aircraft system - have no relevance in the War Against Terrorism. On the contrary the Orion, which is essentially a maritime reconnaissance and strike aircraft armed with long-range anti-ship and anti-submarine munitions, will be better employed in setting up a screen well offshore so as to prevent the kind of intrusion carried out by the Indian Navy on the night of 4 December, 1971, and destroyed Karachi harbour and sank several ships in its anchorage.

The upgraded versions of the Orions have munitions with beyond visual range (BVR) or stand-off capabilities that allow them to attack an enemy without getting within the range of its surface-to-air missiles and antiaircraft guns. And this it can do several hundred kilometers from its own shoreline and thereby reduce the risk of the kind of damage that the Indian Navy inflicted on oil storage facilities, harbour installations, and ships within the anchorage on the night of 4 December, 1971.

The reason why this aircraft is being given to Pakistan is that the French built Atlantiques (one of which was shot down by the Indian Air force when it entered Indian territory across the international border in Gujarat some years ago) are outdated. The other, of greater interest to India, is that they are intended to set up a screen well offshore to detect and attack ships and submarines approaching the Pakistani coastline.

Their role will be to defend the port of Karachi; the new naval dockyard at Ormara where the French are helping to build the new Agosta class of submarines with state-of-the-art air-independent propulsion (AIP) technology; Pasni and Gwadar ports further west of Karachi which are being developed by China and in which the US.

Central Command has special interest because of the deep water harbour and anchorage large enough to take several large warships. These new naval facilities have been created so as to put as much distance from India and try and prevent the kind of "qayyamat" wrecked by the Indian Navy on Karachi, the only lifeline to the sea at the time, on 4 December, 1971.

With the US-supplied Orions in tandem with the French-built Agosta submarines with their air-independent propulsion which gives them longer submerged duration Pakistan believes it has acquired security for its shore-based naval facilities along the Makran coast. In the shopping list of items which have little utility in the War Against Terror is the six Phalanx rapid-fire anti-aircraft batteries for the Pakistan Navy.

This weapons system has no relevance to the War Against Terror because of the unlikelihood of aircraft being in the arsenals of the terrorists. It is, therefore, clearly intended to deploy this system in and around Karachi harbour or some other high value target that could be reached by aircraft from the Indian aircraft Viraat or the land based deep-strike aircraft of the Indian Air Force. These two weapons platforts hence are India specific.

Similar will be the case with the F-16 multirole aircraft that Musharraf will demand of George Bush when they meet. There is a deep background to this. The F-16s were paid for by Pakistan before the nuclear tests in the Chaghai Hills of Balochistan in 1998 but the Clinton/administration had imposed sanctions on Pakistan after the tests and put the aircraft which were ready for delivery in mothballs at a US air base"

The fact that the US did not return the full amount that was paid by Pakistan for the aircraft has left a window of opportunity for Musharraf to exploit to secure the supply of the upgraded versions of the F-16s. With the figment of bomb-racks capable of carrying nuclear weapons in under wing stations these F-16s will add a new dimensions to its other conventional capabilities.

The effect of its presence in the Pakistan Air Force fleet will enhance the deterrence capability of Pakistan's nuclear weapons arsenal by adding another means of delivery apart from the missile it is currently testing.

Here too the F-16 is not a weapon it can use against the terrorists holed up along the border with Afghanistan. They can only be used against India. Reports that the US is also offering the F-16s to India is an indicator of the absolute dishonesty that pervades western postures on non-proliferation of nuclear war making capabilities both in the manufacture of nuclear warheads and in the means of their delivery either by missiles or by aircraft.

In mid-2003 this is what the US official representative, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State have to say on nuclear non-proliferation issues: "We simply allow NPT parties who are provided access to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes - benefits that are not afforded to countries outside the NPT - to exploit that technology to violate the Treaty by pursuing clandestine nuclear weapons programmes."

Pakistan is not a signatory to the NPT. It has been involved in proliferation inclusion with China, North Korea, Libya, and Iran both on an official Government-to-Government level as well as through a private network masterminded by the "father of the Pakistan Bomb" Dr A Q Khan.

There was a time when the US imposed sanctions on both Pakistan and China for the proliferation of missile technology from the latter to Islamabad using the Karakoram Highway as well as sea route to Karachi. These were later lifted when both countries began toeing the US line on certain international issues and the US found that it could not expand its commercial ties to Beijing with the sanctions in place. Thus an international conspiracy in proliferation was quietly put under wraps.

The above quoted remarks by the US officials were made in the context of Iran's attempts to acquire nuclear capability. Iran is a signatory to the NPT. Pakistan tried to use the fact that it is not a signatory to the NPT as an excuse to indulge in clandestine proliferation both as a means to acquire "strategic depth" beyond an already subjugated Afghanistan (which was then under the thrall of the Pak-created Taliban) as well as create client State of its own. However, after Libya confessed to acquiring nuclear weapons designs and technology through the A.Q. Khan network the Iranian link was also broken.

It is now an open secret that huge segments of the Pakistan armed forces (a former chief of its air force who died in an mysterious air crash was a conduit for weapons and finances from Saudi Arabia to the Al Qaeda) have jihadi instincts it is strange that the US is pumping in so much military equipments into Pakistan, particularly weapons systems that lend themselves to conversion to nuclear attack. (Syndicate Features)