How to Deal with the Next Uri -- or Mumbai

The latest Pakistani terrorist outrage in Uri has led to a predictable debate about why and how India should react.  I am a bit tired of this debate because it has been clear for quite a while that India's "strategic restraint" is neither effective nor logical.  But the usual excuse of lack of preparedness, a nice football that the military and politicians keep kicking to each other endlessly, is also frustrating.  So here are a few thoughts, not so much on how to respond to the current crisis, but the next one.  I suspect we will be as unprepared the next time as we were this time, and that's enormously frustrating.  But this is all that academics can do: at the least, no one (politician, bureaucrat or military officer) will be able to say later that they didn't receive any advice! This was published by ORFOnline two days back. 

How to deal with the next Uri -- or Mumbai

These are early days yet, but it is still difficult to overcome the impression that the Indian

system was not fully prepared to meet the Uri contingency. This is unfortunate and

surprising. Considering that Prime Minister Modi has been a strong critic of India’s lack of firm

response to Pakistan’s attacks on previous occasion, one would have thought that the Indian

system would have deliberated and decided on India’s options under various contingencies,

including such a predictable terrorist outrage. But even if India is unable to respond to the Uri

attack, there is still time for the Modi government to recover. Pakistan, after all, is not about

to stop terror attacks against India. Immediate preparation will allow the government to be

ready to respond to a future attack. 

Lessons from the Dolkun Isa Visa Fiasco

I wrote a brief essay that was published by Observer Research Foundation on the Indian government first granting and then withdrawing visa for Mr. Dolkun Isa, an Uyghur activist.  Posted below in full:

Lessons from the Dolkun Isa Visa Fiasco

The Indian government has rightly come in for a significant amount of criticism for backtracking and withdrawing the visa it had granted to Mr. Dolkun Isa, a Uyghur activist, after the Chinese government complained.  While there is almost universal condemnation of the incompetence of the Indian state in efficiently managing something as simple as granting a visa, opinions about the strategic consequences of the Indian government’s actions are more divided.  Much of the commentary has been highly partisan.  Still, this episode also raises important questions about how Indian foreign policy and security policies are managed.
 

We do not yet know, of course, the real story behind why an Indian visa was granted to Mr. Isa or why it was later withdrawn, or why many other Chinese dissidents were also refused visas to attend a conference that presumably relevant government agencies had already approved.  Early press stories suggested that New Delhi granted the visa to Mr. Isa apparently in retaliation for China blocking India’s efforts to place Masood Azhar, head of the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) terrorist group, on a UN terrorist list established by the UN Security Council’s (UNSC) Al-Qaeda Sanctions Committee.  (China had claimed that India’s application did not “meet the requirements”).  The consistency in these stories suggest that the story was based on briefing by senior government officials.  Indeed, some reports quoted “top sources” as saying that this decision was taken at the “highest level” in the government.  This is useful to keep in mind because once the government decided to withdraw the visa, the story became one of an inter-departmental snafu between the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).  It is also possible that the visa was granted by mistake because Indian officials did not realise Mr. Isa’s name was on an Interpol red corner notice.  Still, the government took no steps to deny these stories in the first two days, before the visa was retracted, suggesting that something more than an interdepartmental issue was at play.  Some reports have even suggested that India and China had worked out a quid-pro-quo on the Masood Azhar issue, but this appears highly doubtful.

Change Pak army terror calculus by supporting domestic rebels in Pakistan

The terrorist attack on the Pathankot Indian Air Force base once again highlights the problematic nature of India's 'talk-no talk' strategy vis-à-vis Pakistan.  I had written about this earlier too, in 2008 in the aftermath of the Mumbai terror attack, and in August 2015, in the aftermath of the Gurdsapur attack and pressure on the Indian government to cancel NSA (National Security Advisor)-level talks. My views on the subject have remained fairly consistent: to respond to Pakistan's transgressions, India needs alternatives to simply calling off talks.  Calling off talks is usually a foolish gesture.  India needs to develop military and covert measures to deter and punish the Pakistan army's use of terror against India. 

Though I argue that India should not discontinue talks, I also argue that continuing talks without responding to terrorist attacks and other outrages by the Pakistan army is equally foolish -- and unsustainable.  Since this essay was published a few days back, other analysts, who are far more knowledgeable about Pakistan, have pointed out that much of the supposed 'action' that Pakistan is taking against the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terrorists is the usual drama they have engaged in many times before, without any real effort at curbing these terrorist organizations, in essence a farce to placate foreign leaders.  This is eminently understandable because the Pakistan army feels no pressure to take any real action, and as I point out in the essay, it is a high-benefit, low-cost and low-risk strategy.  If, as seems likely, the talks were to continue, we should expect more attacks, unless India can develop options to change the Pakistan army's calculus.  My essay, published by the Observer Research Foundation, is reproduced below.


Suspending talks is surrendering to Pak Army strategy

In the aftermath of the terror attack in Pathankot, the pressure on Prime Minister Narendra Modi to suspend dialogue with Pakistan is mounting.  Even if he resists the pressure this time, the India-Pakistan dialogue will constantly be at risk because the Pakistan Army and its Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) can sponsor more terror attacks until it becomes politically impossible for the Modi government to continue the dialogue.  As long as India’s only response to terror attacks is to suspend talks, the Pakistan Army will hold the upper hand.  Suspension of talks does not impose any cost on the Pakistan army; indeed, it is what they seek.  India needs to develop alternate counter-measures so that it has options other than suspension of talks.  Indian decision-makers need to understand the Pakistan army’s support for terrorism as a rational and usually effective strategy if India is to develop such counter-measures that increase the costs and reduce the benefits to the Pakistan army in using terror as a strategy.

More on the NSA's Snooping

India's Minister for External Affairs (EAM) Salman Khurshid has set off a small domestic storm with his comments that the US surveillance program run by the National Security Agency (NSA), much in the news after Edward Snowden's exposure, is not really snooping.  It is difficult to make out what the Indian government is up to in this whole episode because, as usual, different ministers are speaking in different voices.  But the Indian government has refused Snowden's request for asylum.  Rightly so, because there is little reason why India should antagonize other powers when there is little that New Delhi stands to gain.  Not surprisingly, the communist parties are livid.  I had earlier written in the Economic Times about this whole ludicrous story and how all governments spy.  Now, here are a couple of nice (and humorous) essays from the Foreign Policy blog that make more or less the same point.  One, by Denis MacShane, is on European spying activities.  Another, by Gareth Harding, asks what is one of the most pertinent question in these stories: why, oh why, would anyone bother snooping on the EU offices?

NTRO's troubles

In my essay in The Economic Times on the Snowden affair, I had mentioned briefly, off-tangent really, about the disputes between the National Technical Resources Organization and other Indian intelligence agencies over control of various technical assets and equipment.  Now comes an Op-Ed in the Indian Express about the politics and other troubles in the NTRO told from the perspective of an insider to the Indian intelligence world.  Interesting stuff, especially because politics in Indian intelligence bureaucracy seems not very different from politics in other Indian bureaucracies.

Snowden's Run

Edward Snowden continues to run from US authorities, and is now presumably cooling his heels at the transit lounge of Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow.  His flight path, according to news reports, takes him from China-controlled Hong Kong to Moscow and then towards Cuba and finally either Ecuador or Venezuela.  I am not sure why North Korea was off this list since it seems to match all of the key requirement that Snowden and his Wikileaks supporters seem to want: unlimited personal freedom, fast internet and limited government.

My take on the Snowden affair was published by Economic Times last week.  Took me some time to put it up . . . .