Strange but true, Pakistan saw the Indian strike on a Jaish-e-Mohammad camp in Balakot, very differently from India. While Delhi saw it as proof of there being space for such military action despite the nuclear overhang, Pakistan saw it otherwise.
In fact, Pakistan’s response, says Brig Arun Sahgal (Retd), Director of the Forum for Strategic Initiatives, a Delhi-based think tank, which saw the downing of an Indian MiG-21 fighter, has given it the perception that it can manage any limited escalation by India and they don’t have to go to the nuclear level.
“We have two basic issues to resolve,” he said on The Gist, “should our response be counter-terror or counter-force, should terror infra be attacked or the Pakistani military. This is the dilemma.”
He pointed to Pakistan’s decision to move two divisions from the western border with Afghanistan to the eastern one with India. It does suggest some element of planning went into the Pahalgam strike.
But Sahgal says this maybe India’s perception.
“Pakistan’s interior lines of communication is about 500-km in width, so if they to move two divisions, it takes one night to move them unlike India where, if I have to move formations from eastern border of central India, it takes days.”
Since it is the army that runs Pakistan, it tends to react preemptively, on its own with little or no reference to the political authority.
The other point to note is how this Pahalgam scenario has played out so many times in the past. What planners in India must understand is that for Islamabad, India is the traditional enemy who has to be checkmated at every level.
“If conventional deterrence fails, he has the back-up of nuclear deterrence, which we call as part of his full spectrum deterrence strategy. So India has to be prepared for a minimum two or three rounds of escalation. If you want to teach him a lesson or cause credible damage, you have to go two or three rungs.”
Sahgal says Pakistan will threaten the use of nuclear weapons but “this is sham, it’s a joke. He does not have the gumption to use nuclear weapons against us.”
Tune in for more in this conversation with Brig Arun Sahgal, Director of Forum for Strategic Initiatives.
