Posted on 12/28/2002 11:30:07 PM PST by swarthyguy
I wrote in these columns a few days back: "In my perception the Jaguar crash has an additional dimension. It is one of the incidents in the long chain of efforts by those inimical to us to sabotage, demoralise and devastate the Indian nation and its Armed forces." I felt that every sensitive, sensible and honest Indian knows that there is no dearth of such forces and factors both within and outside India.
This conviction led me to conclude that the enemy's grand strategy is to attack the Indian Armed forces in peace time, and on an unprecedented scale, to reduce their combat capability and effectiveness during war, and that the "best way to bring India to its knees is to sabotage its defence, first mentally, then physically - through the fifth columnists". I concluded: "It is my conviction that the same may be happening today."
Within two days of my written premonition, it did happen. A news report on November 21, 2002, read thus: 'Defence men apprehended'. Startling revelations followed: "Several defence personnel were arrested along with an ISI agent Ziauddin Ahmed Biswas's father-in-law Afazuddin Biswas by a team of civilian intelligence wings and those of the Army and the Air Force. Nine persons were detained including the defence personnel. They included Afazuddin, Bagbul Sheikh and Rezaul Karim, a pir of Tikarberia village in Jalangi (West Bengal)."
This was followed by another report: 'Bangla bound jawan held'. Army jawan Ziaul Haque was picked up by the Border Security Force (BSF) near Lalgola (West Bengal) on Sunday, December 8, 2002, when he was found trying to cross over into Bangladesh with a civilian. The jawan (Ziaul Haque) and a certain Mansoor Ali were arrested by the BSF from the zero-point on the India-Bangladesh border near Ashariadaha village in Lalgola. These are only a few samples and test cases. Could these be a tip of the iceberg? Why are the jawans and soldiers of the Indian Army and Air Force betraying their profession at the risk of being shot or court-martialled? Who is luring the Indian soldiers to speak about their regiments, comrades in arms, generals, troop deployment movement, planning, etc., to the ISI and its agents? Is it for money? Is it for the sake of their religious fraternity? Or is it a case of "command" failure! Why are senior and superior officers so nonchalant as to be totally indifferent to - and ignorant of - their own men who are under their command? Are these "acts of betrayal" a recent phenomenon? Innumerable unanswered questions can be asked perhaps. But one thing remains constant. The Indian Armed forces will, henceforth, have to be on the alert to fight war on two fronts, both external and internal. A point may well be raised by the sceptics: Is there a basis for such conjecture? The answer lies in my perception based on inferences which, in turn, are based on information gleaned from open sources like media - both print and electronic.
Today, do the Indians realise the impending grim reality of a well-planned long-drawn war of attrition? A war (which has already begun) in which "airworthy" aircraft fail to get airborne; "good" fliers are getting killed; tanks on trucks are inexplicably exploding; ammunition depots are being blown up one after another; men behind the machine are betraying; senior officers are being ambushed; shipyards are catching fire; and, above all, corruption in the border posts is ensuring steady flow of crossborder smuggling of both men and material.
Of all the attacks and sabotage, however, the attack on Army families will, potentially, constitute the worst scenario for the defence preparedness of the Indian garrison. This was amply demonstrated in the recent attack in Kashmir by Pakistan-sponsored Islamic terrorists. Recall the news report of November 24, 2002: "At least 12 people lost their lives in an explosion on the strategic Srinager-Jammu highway a day after a suicide squad stormed a security camp in the heart of the city and killed six CRPF jawans. The dead included eight soldiers, to women and two children." Can one visualise the future scenario? Can one analyse why and how this is happening? Let us try to get into the enemy's mind.
The enemy's aim is clear. Destroy India without fighting a war. Destroy the Indian Armed forces without confronting it on a battlefield. Why? Because any future war may well be a repeat of the 1971 defeat of Pakistan, when one nation of two Islamic Pakistans (East and West) became two independent states professing the same religion. Any future conventional confrontation with the Indian forces could, therefore, further reduce the size of present Pakistan, thereby increasing the number of independent states east of Suez by at least two, if not three - like Sind, Baluchistan and Pashtunistan. Can this be allowed to happen? Especially considering the dim economic prospects of a theocratic Pakistan coupled with a comparatively prosperous India in the neighbourhood? So what should the strategy be?
It is to attack India psychologically, through largescale and well-orchestrated clandestine operations wherein the ratio of casualty should be 1:10. One for the attacking Islamic terrorist of Pakistani origin and 10 for the defending non-Islamic (read Hindu) Army or its unarmed families in India. After all, a Pakistani Army officer, during the 1965 war, made the boast that one Pakistani was equal to five Indian soldiers. And did not Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto declare a 1000-year war against India?
The long and short of the Pakistani strategic goal, therefore, is the Indian Armed forces. The plan is to set fire to all possible and "impossible" garrison, assets, hardware (both movable and immovable). The plan is to create division, suspicion and chaos in the rank and file of India's fighting units. It is to plant spies and pump money to weaken the soldiers. The plan is also to set the house of the soldiers on fire, to demoralise them and make them succumb to fatigue and depression.
Pakistan gains if India is compelled to deploy its forces to quell internal chaos, which in turn will reduce the number of operational men to check crossborder terrorism. What then will be the outcome of all this? Islamic terrorists and fundamentalists along with their mentors do not need to fight to save their own country. All they need to do is to ensure that the Indian Army, Navy and Air Force keep losing their men, money and material through the strategy of slow poisoning. It needs to be, in military parlance, a "strategy-surreptitious approach", wherein there is minimum contact of the brawn and maximum use of the brain. Pakistan has prominently displayed the British military aphorism at the Frontier Regimentals Training Centre, Abbotabad.
Sweat saves blood.
Blood saves life.
Brain saves both.
(The writer is an alumnus of the National Defence College of India and the views are his own)
Different country, but the same enemy. Thus, the same tactics.
Rhetorical question ....no real need to aswer since the answer is yes. Instead of clamoring to Pakistani despots we should be establishing closer ties with India (it is nigh impossible to do both co-currently). And the ironical thing is that we thought that Pakistan would help us nab Al Queda baddies escaping Afghanistan to the tribal areas of Pakistan when we started bombing the crap out of the Taliban ....but what has become apparent is that was in vain because for one the core Pakistani govt had no real power of those areas, secondly their army did not seem particularly 'enthusiastic' in capturing the Al Queda/Taliban honchos, and even there were reports that they even let some high ranking baddies slip through).
It would have been more prudent to woo India, and for a whole variety of reasons. For one India does not aid terrorists (unlike Pakistan). Secondly India's ideo-political systems are more in touch with our own (it is the world's largest democracy). Thirdly its economy is several times more robust than Pakistan's could ever hope to be, and it would be a strong partner to the US (this already happens in the corporate scene ....actually to the extent that if your computer gets a problem and you call tech assistance you will be directed to a call center in India due to cost advantages). However it does not happen when it comes to military sales, and hence we have lost a major potential customer for US weapons ....and this ha given the Russians great opportunity since India is the largest customer for Russian products (which is not necessarily a bad thing if you look at the following link:Su-30MK Beats F-15C 'Every Time' , but still it would have been nice if that revenue was coming to the US).
Anyways we need to substitute our linkages with Pakistan with linkages with India.
Don't know what the answer is, other than a hot war to decapitate the source of the problem.
BTW, when I was a military dependent living in a ME country, I was aware of GIs with muslim parentage being enticed to provide info. That's the Islamic mindset: clan and religion are everything.
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