By Lieutenant General P.R. Shankar & Brigadier Arun Sahgal, introduced by John Helmer
@bears_with
On April 22, an Islamic terrorist group, backed by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), attacked Indian civilians in Pahalgam, Kashmir, killing 26 and wounding 20.
“Although the civilian government in Islamabad has denied involvement,” reports Chatham House, the semi-official British think tank, “there is precedent for attacks on India taking place during periods when the Pakistani military feels it is being marginalized. In 1999, an attempt at rapprochement between the civilian governments in Islamabad and New Delhi – referred to the Lahore bus diplomacy – was derailed after Pakistani military-backed militants launched attacks in the Kargil area of Kashmir, leading both countries to war for the fourth time.”
“The attack comes at a time when the Pakistani military is on the back foot following a string of terrorist attacks inside Pakistan and eroding public support for the army following the arrest and imprisonment of former prime minister Imran Khan and the persecution of his supporters. Pakistani army chief Asim Munir has sought to reaffirm the importance of the military to the preservation of the Pakistani state.”
The semi-official New York think tank, Council on Foreign Relations, noted “this terrorist attack is the worst in the state since the car bombing in 2019 in which a bus of Indian paramilitary soldiers was targeted in Pulwama, killing forty people. Furthermore, this attack was one of the worst targeting of civilians—ordinary tourists—in more than two decades.”
“India-Pakistan relations have been relatively restrained for the last few years, and the border has been stable. This attack could change that situation,” the Council warned. “India holds Pakistan squarely responsible for the continued ability of LeT [Lashkar-e-Taiba] to carry out attacks. The civilian government in Pakistan, however, has denied responsibility. But despite the government’s denial, there has been a pattern of terrorist attacks occurring on Indian soil when the Pakistan military feels excluded from the geopolitical conversations. Current events could have given such an impetus: U.S. President Donald Trump has been in office for less than a hundred days, and in that short period, not only has Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Washington, but U.S. Vice President JD Vance was in New Delhi at the time of the attack.”
“President Trump made a strong statement of ‘full support’ for India on the social media platform Truth Social, stating the United States ‘stands strong with India against terrorism.’ But when it comes to Kashmir, India prefers to assert its sovereignty unilaterally…the Indian government is under pressure from the Indian public and media to have a robust response, which could also include military action. Modi has portrayed himself and his government as tough on security, and his government has been showcasing Kashmir as a stable region, safe for its residents and tourists. Exacerbating the tensions, the Pakistani government has declared that if India does block the [Indus] river waters, it would consider it an ‘act of war.’”
An Australian think tank, tilting against India, has reported the “strategic objectives” for Pakistan in the Pahalgam operation. “Modi knows that not responding to the attack will embolden a newly-resurgent parliamentary opposition, which has already sought to portray the development as a failure of his Kashmir policy. But more importantly, he knows – especially given the pan-India casualties of the attack – that anything short of a visibly strong reaction will fail to assuage the Indian public. At the same time, if Delhi does opt for a muscular response, it risks inadvertently raising the international profile of the Kashmir dispute, something the Modi government has desperately sought to avoid over the past decade.”
The Australian government is an active participant in the Quad, an anti-China alliance with the Japanese, US and Indian governments. Japan’s Foreign Ministry took India’s side during the 2019 Kashmir incident. It has changed its tune this time.
China has responded in three steps. At first, on April 23 the Foreign Ministry spokesman in Beijing said: “We strongly condemn the attack. China firmly opposes all forms of terrorism.” On April 27, after Foreign Minister Wang Yi spoke by telephone with Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Muhammad Ishaq Dar, Wang announced: “As an ironclad friend and an all-weather strategic cooperative partner, China fully understands Pakistan’s legitimate security concerns and supports Pakistan in safeguarding its sovereignty and security interests.” He went on to say: “China advocates for a swift and fair investigation and believes that conflict does not serve the fundamental interests of either India or Pakistan, nor does it benefit regional peace and stability. China hopes both sides will remain restrained, move toward each other, and work together to de-escalate the situation.”
On May 1, China’s Ambassador to Islamabad Jiang Zaidong went to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to emphasize the priority of an investigation of the attack over military retaliation and escalation. “China understands Pakistan’s legitimate security concerns,” Jiang said, “and expressed China’s support for a prompt and impartial investigation into the incident and called on both India and Pakistan to exercise restraint, meet each other halfway, properly manage differences, and jointly safeguard regional peace and stability.”
The Russian Government response to the Indo-Pakistan conflict has been muted; also slow to become public. There were meetings on April 28 at the Foreign Ministry in Moscow at the level of the Indian and Pakistani ambassadors. The communiqués were slightly different. In the note on his meeting with Indian Ambassador Vinay Kumar, Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko said he had held a discussion, gave no advice, but hinted that Russia is on India’s side – “following the terrorist attack near Pahalgam in Kashmir Russia’s readiness to counter the global terrorist threat together with India was reaffirmed.”
Following Rudenko’s meeting with Pakistan’s Ambassador, Muhammad Khalid Jamali, “the Russian side called on both parties to exercise restraint and engage in constructive dialogue aimed at peacefully resolving their discrepancies.” Jamali later told Tass, the state news agency, that Pakistan is asking for Russian mediation in the conflict.
After several days of discussion behind the scenes, on May 3 Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke by telephone with his Indian counterpart, Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar. “The foreign ministers discussed topical issues of Russian-Indian interaction as well as the exasperation of Indian-Pakistani relations following the terrorist act in Pahalgam. Sergey Lavrov called to settle the differences between New Delhi and Islamabad by political and diplomatic means on a bilateral basis in conformity with the 1972 Simla Agreement and the 1999 Lahore Declaration. The ministers also discussed the timetable of the upcoming contacts at the top and high levels.”
The last sentence is a reference to the plan for President Vladimir Putin to visit India this month; the timing has yet to be confirmed. Prime Minister Modi had been invited to attend the Victory Day celebration this week in Moscow, but he had declined, nominating in his place Defense Minister Rajnath Singh. Singh has now been substituted by a deputy, Sanjay Seth, the minister of state for defense.
The next day, May 4, Lavrov announced he had received a telephone call from Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister Dar, also Foreign Minister, Mohammad Ishaq Dar. The Russian communiqué says they discussed the Kashmir conflict, but added a telltale disclaimer in the last line. “The Russian side stressed its readiness to contribute to a political settlement of the situation triggered by the April 22 terrorist attack in the Pahalgam area, should both Islamabad and New Delhi be interested.”
This is the Russian hint that India has not requested Russian mediation, and that for this reason, as Lavrov told Jaishankar the day before, it will not get between the two sides who should the “settle the differences between New Delhi and Islamabad…on a bilateral basis.”
This leaves Modi in escalation control; that’s to say, escalation dominance.
Escalation to nuclear war is now a rising risk, as India implements its strategy of “certitude of response”, and weighs its options.
Source: https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump
May 1: China’s Ambassador to Pakistan Jiang Zaidong meets Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in Islamabad.
Source: https://mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/2013111/
Source: https://mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/2013187/
To understand Indian strategy right now, how Pakistan’s intentions and capabilities are assessed, and what the Indian options for response will be, watch the hour-long Gunners Shot podcast, aired on Saturday from Chennai and New Delhi.
“Pakistan does not want to allow India, despite the conventional asymmetry, to dictate or control the escalation,” Brigadier Arun Saghal explains. “This is where the situation lies…India has multiple options to respond. India will respond. And when it does, it will be a credible response. But the Pakistanis have started believing that they can manage a response and retaliate with counter-response of the same calibre or a higher calibre. We have to be prepared for a second or third-round escalation…Pakistan has for a long time leveraged this strategic escalation to its advantage…The problem now coming to us is how we manage escalation…Bottom line: Pakistan has to understand that the nuclear card is not a card they can play.”
Indian Army Brigadier (retired) Saghal is one of the leading intelligence analysts in India. With a PhD from Allahabad University, he was the founding Director of the Office of Net Assessment, a unit of the Indian Integrated Defence Staff for preparing long-term strategic analyses and forecasts. He has also served as a consultant to the National Security Council, the principal advisor to the Prime Ministry on military and security policy. Dr Saghal has also played leading roles in the Indian Centre for Strategic Studies and Simulation (Cs3) and the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses.
Lieutenant General P.R. (Ravi) Shankar retired from the Indian Army as Director General of Artillery in October 2016.
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