India and Pakistan are rearranging the thresholds of conflict

These are indeed tricky times for the subcontinent in which excessive or incorrect claims can both be dangerous

The current India-Pakistan tension in the wake of  the Uri attack seems like another round of hostilities meant to re-define the military-strategic red lines of the two countries.

It was in the wake of the Kargil war that the current threshold was marked. What both sides learnt from that conflict, especially General Pervez Musharraf’s army, was that the military option could not be relied upon to solve the Kashmir dispute. But Kargil also changed the nature of bilateral conflict.
The primary lesson learnt by Pakistan was that a military victory was almost impossible – especially if India could expand the conflict not just through the use of firepower but also tactful diplomacy and media management. Since what followed eventually were peace overtures – with even Musharraf, the architect of Kargil, coming up with his ‘out of the box’ solution for Kashmir – it was generally assumed that this was a strategic shift and a new milestone in bilateral relations.
However, the Pakistani establishment still believed in the utility of using non-state militants willing to fight the war in Kashmir, and against India more generally. Avoiding conflict through the use of a nuclear deterrence umbrella while pushing conflict with the help of jihadis was the new formula used to bring attention to unresolved issues.
It was obvious from various incidents starting from 2002 through to 26/11, right up to the present, that the Lashkar-e Tayyaba/Jamaat-ud-Dawwa (LeT/JuD) network, Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) and certain elements of Sipha-e-Sahaba Pakistan and Lashkar-e-Jhangavi were being used to challenge India in a manner which would raise tension without a high risk of major retaliation.
Of course, in the aftermath of the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks, New Delhi played its diplomatic cards well. It also tried to silently put pressure on Pakistan by aiding insurgents in Balochistan. However, the threat was never comparable – mainly due to the Baloch insurgents lacking the capacity to take on the Pakistani state.
Except for claiming a terrorist attack in Islamabad in April 2014, there is nothing that the various Baluch insurgents ever managed to do to challenge Pakistan. Even today, they continue to lack that capacity despite the Pakistan military’s public relations machinery successfully depicting them as a force on par with anti-state religious militants like the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. Thanks to this hard sell, Pakistanis today, especially the younger generation, have more or less bought the idea that LeT/JuD and JeM are Islamabad’s response to the various Baloch groups that India is accused of supporting. But the reality is that these groups in Balochistan can never inflict the kind of damage that the jihadi groups can do in Kashmir and India.
It appears that post-Uri, New Delhi is trying to find a method to counterbalance the threat by targeting jihadi camps across the border. By increasing the stakes for Islamabad, India hopes to pressure it into reducing and abandoning its support for these groups. Behind the noise of the past few days, that is what is happening. The Indian announcement of ‘surgical strikes’ and the Pakistani response to that has set in motion a slow process of recalibrating the threshold between the two countries.  This process will continue until both sides understand their own limits.
A limited operation
Contrary to the impression created by India’s DGMO, the operation across the border was limited in scale and less gargantuan than claimed.
The writer is an independent social scientist based in Islamabad and author of Military Inc: Inside Pakistan’s Military.

India and Pakistan are rearranging the thresholds of conflict

These are indeed tricky times for the subcontinent in which excessive or incorrect claims can both be dangerous

The current India-Pakistan tension in the wake of the Uri attack seems like another round of hostilities meant to re-define the military-strategic red lines of the two countries. It was in the wake of the Kargil war that the current threshold was marked. What both sides learnt from that conflict, especially General Pervez Musharrafs army, was that the military option could not be relied upon to solve the Kashmir dispute. But Kargil also changed the nature of bilateral conflict. The primary lesson learnt by Pakistan was that a military victory was almost impossible especially if India could expand the conflict not just through the use of firepower but also tactful diplomacy and media management. Since what followed eventually were peace overtures with even Musharraf, the architect of Kargil, coming up with his out of the box solution for Kashmir it was generally assumed that this was a strategic shift and a new milestone in bilateral relations. However, the Pakistani establishment still believed in the utility of using non-state militants willing to fight the war in Kashmir, and against India more generally. Avoiding conflict through the use of a nuclear deterrence umbrella while pushing conflict with the help of jihadis was the new formula used to bring attention to unresolved issues. It was obvious from various incidents starting from 2002 through to 26/11, right up to the present, that the Lashkar-e Tayyaba/Jamaat-ud-Dawwa (LeT/JuD) network, Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) and certain elements of Sipha-e-Sahaba Pakistan and Lashkar-e-Jhangavi were being used to challenge India in a manner which would raise tension without a high risk of major retaliation. Of course, in the aftermath of the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks, New Delhi played its diplomatic cards well. It also tried to silently put pressure on Pakistan by aiding insurgents in Balochistan. However, the threat was never comparable mainly due to the Baloch insurgents lacking the capacity to take on the Pakistani state. Except for claiming a terrorist attack in Islamabad in April 2014, there is nothing that the various Baluch insurgents ever managed to do to challenge Pakistan. Even today, they continue to lack that capacity despite the Pakistan militarys public relations machinery successfully depicting them as a force on par with anti-state religious militants like the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. Thanks to this hard sell, Pakistanis today, especially the younger generation, have more or less bought the idea that LeT/JuD and JeM are Islamabads response to the various Baloch groups that India is accused of supporting. But the reality is that these groups in Balochistan can never inflict the kind of damage that the jihadi groups can do in Kashmir and India. It appears that post-Uri, New Delhi is trying to find a method to counterbalance the threat by targeting jihadi camps across the border. By increasing the stakes for Islamabad, India hopes to pressure it into reducing and abandoning its support for these groups. Behind the noise of the past few days, that is what is happening. The Indian announcement of surgical strikes and the Pakistani response to that has set in motion a slow process of recalibrating the threshold between the two countries. This process will continue until both sides understand their own limits. A limited operation Contrary to the impression created by Indias DGMO, the operation across the border was limited in scale and less gargantuan than claimed. The writer is an independent social scientist based in Islamabad and author of Military Inc: Inside Pakistans Military.