For the first time Pakistan sponsored terror saw a pre-emptive strike from India that imposed costs on the Pakistani Deep State inside its territory to send a loud and clear message across the globe that its pursuit of Jihad under the nuclear shield was no longer tenable.
This shifting of the Overton Window on geopolitics of the neighbourhood follows decades of Indian strategic restraint that only saw terror nurseries continue to thrive within Pakistan and that also saw Jihad under the nuclear shield as an instrument of State Policy continued to be employed by the Pakistan establishment. India’s doctrine of strategic restraint historically has meant the exercise of an array of diplomatic and economic instruments in response to terror attacks while ruling out overt action. This has yielded limited returns over the years while imposing little to no costs on the Pakistani deep state.
In stark contrast to the strategic restraint of the past, are recent events starting with the Indian non-military action over Balakot and culminating with the Pakistani plea for de-escalation. The sequence of events saw a predictable parade of navel gazing pacifists on this side of the border and propagandists on the other side cheerleading the deep state. Adding colour to this propaganda parade was an excessive splash of fake news, false imagery and doctored videos doing the rounds in social media. Little wonder that much of the commentary in global media played to a script out of Rawalpindi beholding dead crows and lamenting felled trees.
One has to move away from the miasma of propaganda and cheerleading to accurately map the contours of an emerging new Indian doctrine where nothing is ruled out overtly or covertly. For the first time in recent memory, the Indian State has demonstrated that not only does it reserve the right to act pre-emptively in self-defence, but that it also has the capability and capacity to exercise that right to impose costs inside the territory of Pakistan wherever the terror nurseries exist. This emerging new doctrine has eluded most strategic analysts perched as they are on the ladder of conventional thinking with a uni-dimensional perspective of nuclear power escalation/de-escalation. One also has to step off of this ladder to see that the new doctrine has ensured for the first time that Pakistan can no longer take cover under the veneer of deniability.
As a consequence of the new Indian doctrine, you have for the first time, Pakistan forced to tie itself in knots in its communications to both internal and external audiences on what was struck or not struck, where it was struck or not struck and on who was struck or not struck. The many contradictions apart the new Indian doctrine has ensured Pakistan ownership of the Jihadist nurseries inside of its territory unlike the deniability of the past.
Two defining features of this new doctrine are noteworthy for the behaviour they have forced of the Pakistan State. Firstly, our pre-emptive non-military action has elicited a military response exposing both its sponsorship of terror and also exposing its conventional limitations. Secondly, by silently imposing costs on the Pakistan State even as the Indian leadership went about the business of the nation, it has shown that new India has the capacity to silently act on multiple fronts. In stark contrast the Pakistan State buckled under pressure with the unseemly spectacle of its political leadership frequently appealing for de-escalation, thus underlining the limited capacity of the Pakistan State to absorb costs.
The impact of the Balakot Strike is not to be assessed in grainy satellite imagery or photographic collages of debris. Its impact is most evident from the imagery of a State that had to contradict itself several times in 48 hours while being less than honest to its own citizenry on its downed assets and its silence on the fate of its fallen personnel. The impact of the non-military action and subsequent military measures has put the spotlight on Pakistan’s myth of its conventional invincibility which lay shattered as several questions are posed to its military leadership on the holes in its air defences and its lack of ownership of its pilots who had to bail out from relatively modern jets.
The steep costs imposed by the new Indian doctrine on the Pakistani Deep State become evident from desperation with propaganda videos of Wing Commander Abhinandan in captivity were circulated by it in violation of international norms and conventions. The new Indian doctrine has sent a strong message that every future attempt to pursue Jihad under the nuclear shield will further weaken the Pakistani state and its leadership, further exposing it in the eyes of its own citizenry on the stark gap between its inflated claims and its vastly diminished reality.
By
Shashi Shekhar Vempati CEO of Prasar Bharati (India’s autonomous Public Service Broadcaster). Views expressed in the column are personal.
(This article was first published in Business Standard)
