Atul Mishra's comments on Pakistan and Syria

Atul Mishra, who teaches at Central University of Gujarat, (blogs here) responded by email to a couple of my essays in Economic Times which I had posted here.  [Full disclosure: We are academic collaborators and currently have a jointly-authored book manuscript under review].  With his permission, I am posting both his comments/questions and my responses.

Atul:

About Pakistan. Don't our guys do the same thing across the LoC? They must be fools to not do it. And if they do, does it really matter whether our deterrence works or not? After all, we get our revenge. We can be seen to be doing more, having a strategy, but largely for domestic eyes; no? What is the point of going into PoK if not to recover it and cause Pakistan deep damage (read, break up)?