The overwhelming belief in most India drawing rooms and minds seems to be "India cannot afford a war". Probe a little deeper, and you realise that Indians are petrified of war because of the inconvenience it will cause them. Most Indians also believe that we cannot go to war against a 'nuclear' Pakistan.
All arguments are likely false -- Pakistan
wants us to believe that India cannot afford a conflict. I believe that India
can afford a conflict -- and a well thought through conflict can actually significantly handicap pakistan.
India's strengths come from a number of drivers:
The economy is one -- despite a slowdown, India's economy is orders of magnitude larger than the pakistani economy and also significantly more robust. Recent commodity price drops -- especially oil -- are also working in our favour.
Second, despite gaps in Indian military firepower, the scales are tipped in our favour. Certainly in conventional terms and perhaps nuclear (despite Manmohan's best efforts at emasculating Indias forces).
Third, is geography -- Pakistan is far more vulnerable to being totally wiped out vis-a-vis india.
So prima facie, India is much better off and use of force must be strategically calibrated to build on these advantages. As a direct result, India should probably not go for a conventional attack doctrine, instead, it should launch
surgical strikes against terror camps and perhaps some nuclear installations.
Pakistan would
like us to believe that they'd retaliate with nukes; for fear of escalating the conflict, they likely wont because while a Pakistani offensive could wipe out a few cities, an Indian response could take out the entire state. It is this asymmetry (driven also be geography) that India is ignoring. As an aside, forgetting our strengths and going abegging, Manmohan style, are natural for India. I still, for example, do not know why we've not turned off the sluices on our Baglihar dam?
Back to the topic, the worst outcome of a Pakistani retaliation is the wipeout of a city or two -- perhaps Mumbai and Ahmedabad (the ISI has too many friends in Delhi, they wont target the capital). The loss, though horrific, is frankly something India can easily absorb (I live in Mumbai, in case readers assume i am being flippant) and easily mount a counter offensive that takes out all major Pak centers.
It is this possibility -- and this possibility alone -- that will dissuade even the most psychotic of paki army guys to think twice. In other words,
India needs to start bulking up her nuclear arsenal -- and do so visibly to give her a very strong deterrent.
As the cold war has shown, the risk of total annihilation tends to keep people sane.
As further signals, India should also make highly visible efforts to 'nuclear protect' her cities -- such as purchasing Patriot systems etc.
In the face of strong preparedness, any pakistan's response is likely to be totally conventional.
Neutered of a nuclear response, pakistan can do precious little.
Whatever the direction of the conflict -- India must also ensure one more thing: that by the end of this conflict, India
claims back territory from pakistan -- perhaps even large chunks of PoK. This is critical to inflict a psychological blow to the pak ISI-military-jihadi complex.
India needs to keep this in mind. That we wont is our tragedy.
Of course, all these scenarios make significant assumptions:
1. That blue turban and his jokers can think
2. That they have guts
3. that the 'death by a thousand cuts' they have launched against our armed forces has not dhimmified them and neutered our nuclear response.
4. That India will work with good guys like the israelis; all they need is a place for their kFir's to refuel and fly with out boys to Kahuta.
All in all, India is in a strong position to deliver a significant, crushing blow to Pakistan.
Given blue turban's -- and his government's -- multiple anatomic deficiencies (absence of a mind, spine and guts), however, these assumptions are not likely to hold. It is unclear whether even a BJP-led government will have what it takes to make such chanakya-like decisions.
Thoughts and comments welcome.
