Meanwhile, for some in the Pakistani military it was bias confirmation of ‘Hindu cowardice.’ With the Balakot strikes in February, India demonstrated the national intent, military capability and political resolve to take the war deep into enemy territory when and if it must. India’s default military response matrix has been reset. The folly of ‘strategic restraint’ has been jettisoned decisively: domestic Indian politics will no longer tolerate it. Modi skillfully exploited the clashes to ride into power for a second term on the back of his image of muscular nationalism. A new, much sharper red line has been drawn for the use of Indian military force. Now, the new normal is that Pakistan-based terrorist attacks on Indian targets will have military consequences. And this will change the calculus in Islamabad on the use of jihadists and insurgents to wage hybrid war in India. Still, to be credible and successful, such a policy requires the capacity to inflict increasingly heavy punitive costs at every rung of the escalation ladder. After decades of neglect and underfunding of the military, India does not presently possess such ‘escalation dominance.’ The best model for India in developing such capacity is Israel. Indeed, the strikes on Balakot used Israeli-made Rafael Spice-2000 GPSguided ‘smart bombs,’ and Indian and Israeli special forces already conduct combined exercises in the Negev desert. India will likely take other lessons from Israel in the future.
The Changed US Approach
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Reassuring India’s Muslims
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or its part, the nature of the Indian state is itself changing as the religious nationalist base of the ruling BJP threatens to turn India into a Hindu Pakistan. In his towering self-regard, promise to make India great again, and self-congratulatory boasts of achievements regardless of objective reality, Modi bears a striking resemblance to Donald Trump. His government has aggressively delegitimized any criticism of its Pakistan policy as unpatriotic and used this to shield itself against tough questions about the intelligence failures that enabled the Pulwama massacre, the reasons behind the radicalization of the home-grown suicide bomber, and the results of the airstrikes on Balakot. Muslims suspected of consuming or selling beef have been lynched. Those expressing disquiet over rising Hindu intolerance have been advised to move to Pakistan – and in myriad other ways, have been made to feel like second-class citizens. The hardline Hindutva agenda that has been permitted by the Modi government to take root and increasingly monopolize the public space has palpably increased the anxiety level of Muslims, risking their alienation from the Indian political mainstream. Of course, were India’s 180 million Muslims, dispersed across the length and breadth of the country, to be fully alienated, no government could contain the resulting fire and fury. Bref, the country would be consumed by the ensuing conflagration.
After decades of neglect and underfunding of the military, India does not presently possess such ‘escalation dominance.’ The best model for India in developing such capacity is Israel.
Calming Kashmir
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ndependently of – and bigger than – its Pakistan problem, India has a Kashmir problem. Escalation dominance by military means may buy India insurance against cross-border terrorism, but it does not resolve the underlying Kashmir dispute.
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or external powers, New Delhi’s traditional posture of strategic restraint meant that the line between international respect, eyeglazing indifference and quiet contempt for India’s inability to solve its own problems was very fine indeed. However, the new normal of unilateral strikes across the international border shows that India has given up on the UN Security Council, where China, as a veto-wielding permanent member, has acted as Pakistan’s enabler and protector. Today, countries worried about a nuclear war would be well-advised that the best way to avoid one is to make sure that Pakistan dismantles the infrastructure of terrorism-for-export to Afghanistan and India. On that logic, Washington has abandoned its traditional neutrality and openly reinforced the Indian narrative on the key aspects of the February clash. US National Security Adviser John Bolton has publicly backed India’s right to self-defence. After the Indian strikes on Balakot, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo described them as “counter-terrorism actions.” Hussain Haqqani, Pakistan’s former ambassador to the US, correctly concluded that the US approach was less sympathetic to Pakistan in this crisis because Pakistan had allowed terrorist groups to operate from its soil.
Of course, in the end, there is no alternative to bilateral dialogue with Pakistan to establish normal relations between the nuclear-armed neighbours. The problem for India remains: to whom should it talk? Pakistan’s military determines the key elements of its India, Kashmir and nuclear policies, and the civilian government can be overthrown if it crosses the military’s red lines. There therefore has to be a change in the nature of the Pakistani state, with civilian dominance over the military firmly established as a precondition for meaningful talks to begin.
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