NEW DELHI:History of sorts will be made in September when the militaries of India and Pakistan will hold their first-ever anti-terror exercise with other members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Russia’s Ural Mountains.
Though soldiers of the two nations work together under the umbrella of United Nations Peacekeeping Forces, this will be the first time they will be coming together for a counter-terrorism exercise. This comes at a time when New Delhi has radically ramped up its military diplomacy, holding joint and multilateral exercises not just with neighbours but with countries across the globe.Diplomatically, military exercises are seen as key confidence building measures, aimed at building trust and confidence among the participating nations, promoting brotherhood and camaraderie between their soldiers and armed forces.
By exposing and experiencing each other’s language, culture, customs, beliefs, food habits and lifestyle, such exercises also help promote and project soft power.
Operationally, they allow and enable militaries to observe and understand each other’s drills, procedures and equipment capabilities, including new technologies and techniques being used by either side.Apart from highlighting gaps in training and strategic planning on both sides, this also allows familiarisation with equipment that one nation might eventually decide to buy from the other.
This training also comes in handy for non-war operations like humanitarian aid, disaster relief, anti-piracy and search and rescue. The way countries banded together to launch a massive land, air and sea rescue and assistance effort during the tsunami in Southeast Asia in 2004 is an example of such an effort.
But the most significant aspect of joint military exercises is ‘Strategic Signalling’. This is when the objective of the joint/multilateral exercise is to send a ‘signal’ to a third country about the capabilities, influence and power that the joint team can wield against it.
For example, China felt threatened when talks about a quadrilateral naval alliance between the US, Japan, Australia and India were revived recently.“As for India and Pakistan joining the SCO anti-terror military exercise in Russia, does it mean eventually we will see Indian and Pakistan armies jointly fighting terrorists in Kashmir and Afghanistan?” mused a senior Indian military official.“Most unlikely, but who knows... stranger things have been known to happen in this increasingly unpredictable world.”
