Issue 1 • 2009
SP’s
Vo l . 6 N o . 1
LandForces AN SP GUIDE
P U B L I C AT I O N
ROUNDUP
WWW.SPSLANDFORCES.NET
T h e O N LY j o u r n a l i n A s i a d e d i c a t e d t o L a n d F o r c e s
In This Issue
The Indian Army’s modernisation plans have created a $20 billion (Rs 1,00,800 crore) opportunity, propelling the country to the centre stage of all big arms manufacturing establishments.
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LT GENERAL (RETD) V.K. KAPOOR ?
EEdi orial d ittorial
LT GENERAL (RETD) PRAN PAHWA Lt General (Retd) V.K. Kapoor EDITOR
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LT GENERAL (RETD) NARESH CHAND ?
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AMIT?KUMAR SINGH
Nei g h b o u r h o o d Wa t c h
PA K I S TA N
Collapse of a Nation
Illustration: Mamta
Security threats and challenges constitute the major impediments to a nation’s endeavours at development and prosperity. If such dangers arise from the neighbourhood, they become more complicated and burdensome because of the proximity that affords greater impact. The heightened sense of insecurity tends to keep security forces on the edge, thereby escalating violence. India’s immediate neighbourhood seems to be falling apart. Pakistan is on the verge of collapse. The reasons could be one or more of the following: political instability, Talibanisation of the provinces, sectarian strife generated by ethnically or religiously motivated violence; Kashmir-based extremists or economic bankruptcy. President Asif Ali Zardari has said that he fears a Taliban takeover and that Pakistan is fighting for its survival. The latest move to further arm the population in Peshawar and Quetta to withstand the onslaught of the Taliban spells the recipe for a civil war, ingredients for which exist in Pakistan. On February 26, Bangladesh experienced a brutal mutiny by the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), their border guarding troops. Many of those killed were stripped, mutilated, bayoneted and shot. The Director General of the BDR, Major General Shakil Ahmed, was killed in cold blood and even his wife was not spared. The whole nation has been numbed by the sheer scale of brutality. The mutiny has come at a time when the newly elected government, enjoying overwhelming majority in the Parliament, was getting ready for the task of governance, hence pointing to a larger and deeper conspiracy. The matter is being investigated by national and foreign agencies. Sri Lanka, after a prolonged struggle has managed to subdue and defang the LTTE but the remnants are unlikely to give in easily as evidenced by the suicide attack during Muslim religious festival, Milad-un-Nabi. The explosion on March 10 rocked the southern town of Matara, killing 14 people and injuring more than 30, including Post and Telecommunication Minister Mahinda Wijesekara. India’s neighbourhood on the sub-continent is seething with militancy and terrorism. This aspect analysed together with the existing economic slow down and the Parliamentary elections in April and May 2009, suggests that India needs to remain calm, plug weaknesses, and prepare its security apparatus for acquiring timely information and rapid reaction to preempt any attack from snowballing into a crisis.
Left wing extremism is perceived as a one of the biggest threat to internal security. The PLGA of the CPI (Maoists) is no longer a poorly trained militia but a highly equipped force trained on the lines of a regular army.
Use of airpower in the battlefield has made the task of ground forces somewhat easier. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the US has demonstrated how airpower can become the ‘silver bullet’ in achieving victory in the immediate battle.
Pakistan is paying a steep price for destabilising the entire region and indiscriminately employing non-state actors to spread the virus of chaos MAJOR GENERAL (RETD) G.D. BAKSHI
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n March 3, 12 heavily armed terrorists attacked the Sri Lankan cricket team in an up market commercial area in Lahore. At the end of the 27minute gun battle, eight persons including six policemen were dead and 10 wounded. Among those injured were seven Sri Lankan cricketers.
The incident shocked the world, highlighting the systemic chaos that the State of Pakistan is rapidly descending into. Pakistan presents a strange paradox. As a systemic entity, it suffers from serious fault lines and ethnic cleavages that are threatening to tear it apart. The State has eroded the very basis of its corporate exis-
tence by heavily weaponising society. There are over 250,000 armed jihadis in Pakistan and over three million motivated madrasa students fed on a diet of hate and victimhood. The main line of the educational system was thoroughly Islamised by General Zia-ulHaq and transformed into what Dr Pervez 1/2009 SP’S LAND FORCES
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