Last week was all about the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meeting of Defence Ministers, and the current week will no doubt be taken up by the SCO Foreign Ministers meeting at Goa. Although Pakistan is a member of the SCO, the emphasis in India has been primarily on China, the moving force behind SCO. Notably, last week the 18th round of Corps Commander-level talks with China took place in Ladakh without making much headway. The Poonch terrorist attack a couple of days ago had drawn some focus towards the impending visit of Pakistan Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari to Goa and the impact of the terrorist attack on this event. Beyond that, there wasn’t much attention towards our western neighbour, currently in harakiri mode. Rightly the Indian security establishment’s emphasis is on the Line of Actual Control (LAC), considered potentially explosive, and China’s recent gestures and utterances have been none too friendly. On the other hand, the Line of Control (LoC) in J&K seems quiet with the Feb 2021 ceasefire holding.
The Indian public and security establishment appear convinced that Pakistan being in the throes of political instability, a dire economic status, and virtually awaiting a trigger for implosion, can do no major harm to India. An odd, sponsored terrorist attack is more for retaining relevance and keeping the J&K issue alive rather than a real threat that can cause serious strategic damage. Fortunately, for my own thinking not being influenced by such a thought process, I recently had the privilege of anchoring a short panel discussion of some hard-core Pakistan watchers. The consensus opinion that emerged was that Pakistan might currently not have the capability to hurt Indian interests, but the Afghanistan-Pakistan (Af- Pak) region as a continuum was undergoing a churn that we can ignore only at our peril. In conjunction with the Chinese, Pakistan can join hands to impact us unpredictably and not just at the borders. The common refrain for us when viewing India’s security should be to move beyond borders and look at hybrid threats. That is the flavour the world is indulging in and will probably continue for long since conventional conflict seems to be heading nowhere in Ukraine.
What is going on in Af-Pak that should concern us? Chief among my observations is that the Afghan Taliban is no longer under Pakistan’s control. Till now, it has made no unfriendly gestures towards India, perhaps to keep us temporarily lulled while it works on extending its influence into Pakistan. The grounds for extending the Taliban-style ideology already exist aplenty in Pakistan. Political instability and the virtual deterioration of Pakistan’s political system, threatening confrontation between the executive, the judiciary, and potentially the Army, is creating mayhem. I, too, am misled sometimes to imagine that Pakistan is a nation which has undergone this many times and is a champion survivor, so it will once again survive. However, in earlier times, the level of radicalism within Pakistan and on its western borders was never so intense.
Also, Pakistan has run through all its options of having various political parties form its national government. Democratically if the process has to take place, as it should, Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) is likely to romp home. However, it has no strategy for restoring balance in the political and governance domains and will probably be hugely manipulated by the radical elements. The Army is reluctant to step in as it does not wish to bear the burden of a collapsing nation. While we are witnessing the tail end of a global cycle of terror worldwide, there are conditions already in the making within Pakistan for a revival earlier than many would contemplate. As mentioned in some of my earlier analyses, the Taliban is not in a position to control the ungovernable spaces in Afghanistan and is hell-bent on creating these in Pakistan too. A swathe of these spaces across the Af-Pak region will greatly assist those looking for a revival of regional and global terror.
The Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP), the protégé of the Afghan Taliban, is exploiting what was once the advantage of the Pakistan state; strategic depth in Afghanistan. With safe havens there and the activated Durand Line back to disputed status, the TTP perhaps represents the early forces that the Afghan Taliban may sponsor. It need not sponsor any others; these elements will progressively step up their activities in the direction of Central Asia as also Pakistan. Towards the North, the Russians may not be able to pay as much attention to what they have perceived as threats in being for long.
With the troops of Russia’s 201st Motorised Division located in Tajikistan under threat of being sucked into Ukraine, too, a security void will be created in this crucial region. Other elements are on the lookout for opportunities. The Islamic State (Khorasan) has also been making short forays into Pakistan. The Afghan Taliban may initially consider most of the terror groups unfriendly but probably perceive their activities as contributing to the cause of the intended caliphate. It’s a smart strategy to allow loose, disparate groups the liberty to pursue their agenda, only to exploit the resultant chaos much later when ideological convergence becomes the essential unifying factor of all the groups.
In India, we could sometimes be confounded by the events in Pakistan, as will be the rest of the world. Being in the immediate neighbourhood, the effects of this churn could travel on us in unpredictable ways. Our being a part of SCO will, therefore, be helpful and let no one question the wisdom of continuing there because the Central Asian Republics, Russia and India will have common threats which must be fully understood. Two issues will perhaps be essential in our approach.
First, the necessity of instituting many studies, academic and functional, on the likely scenarios that could emanate in the Af-Pak region; some of these could be joint ventures with friendly foreign entities. It is deep knowledge which will give us the wisdom and patience to handle these threats and counter them. Secondly, it is tempting to respond to hybrid threats with one-off kinetic strikes. Whatever the adopted mode of our response at any given time, it must be unpredictable, and its effect must be strategic and deterrent to stave off the New Great Game away from our borders for as long as possible. (atahasnain@gmail.com)
Former Commander, Srinagar-based 15 Corps. Now Chancellor, Central University