'Every decision India makes along the LoC, it must also consider implications along the LAC.'
"India's punitive strikes against the sponsors of anti-Indian terrorism will, in themselves, be insufficient to removing the threat of Pakistan-based/supported terrorists," Daniel S Markey, senior advisor on South Asia at the United States Institute of Peace, the Washington, DC-based think-tank, tells Nikhil Lakshman/Rediff.
Dr Markey is also a senior fellow at the Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies Foreign Policy Institute.
From 2007 to 2015, Dr Markey was a senior fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations. From 2003 to 2007, Dr Markey was a member of the US State Department's Policy Planning Staff, focusing on US strategy in South Asia, especially Pakistan and India.
The concluding part of a two-part interview.
Do you believe India achieved its objective -- of punishing the terrorists and their sponsors -- this time more than it did in 2016 (the surgical strikes) and in 2019 (the Balakot air strikes)?
In a narrow sense, I believe India achieved its objective of demonstrating the will and capacity to launch punishing strikes on specific targets inside Pakistan. This was questioned after 2016 and 2019, but is now far less in doubt.
Will such forceful military action get the terrorists and their sponsors in the ISI and Pakistan army to end their campaign of murder and mayhem?
Or is that unlikely given that using terror to hurt India is a long established Pakistan military doctrine and not one the ISI/army will renege from no matter what India's actions?
In its fight against terrorism since 9/11, the United States has found that conventional warfare -- even against hosts of terrorism like the Afghan Taliban -- can only be one piece of a comprehensive counter-terror strategy.
Unfortunately, it is often a very costly piece. Worse, it tends to represent a step taken when other counter-terror tools have failed.
India's punitive strikes against the sponsors of anti-Indian terrorism will, in themselves, be insufficient to removing the threat of Pakistan-based/supported terrorists.
To the contrary, depending on how this conflict is perceived in Pakistan, it may come to look like a victory for the military and will only reinforce anti-Indian views that motivate and popularise at least some of the violence in the first place.
India has declared that future terrorist attacks will be dealt with militarily, like the one we saw last week. This seems like a directive from the Mossad stylesheet.
Is this new 'doctrine unrealistic with the possibility of continued and sustained actual military confrontation like we have not seen and the possibility of going off message in an extremely dangerous way?
I agree that India's leaders may be trying to emulate some of Israel's strategies, and I also agree that India needs to be careful about overstating its threats because eventually they will either lead to frequent, costly military escalations or could come to look like a toothless bluff.
Neither outcome is favourable to India, which would ideally seek minimally-distracting security solutions that protect its people and isolate Pakistan so that India can focus on its national ambition of achieving great power status.
Since the ISI and the Pakistan army won't call off their beasts, what option does India have to prevent horrific acts of terror like Pahalgam 22/4?
India has a mix of other diplomatic and security tools that it can use against Pakistan, either as coercive tools or as means to divert or reduce the incentives for terrorist violence.
It can, for instance, work to mobilise international pressure on Pakistan in multilateral settings like the Financial Action Task Force.
It can invest in additional border security and intelligence capabilities to thwart cross-border infiltration.
It can pursue quiet diplomatic initiatives as it did after 2019 to achieve a cease-fire.
Unfortunately, none of these efforts (or many, many others) has yet delivered comprehensive security to date, and the prospects for 100% solutions are limited.
What about the Chinese presence in this 72-hour war? Beyond the anodyne statements asking India and Pakistan to observe restraint, was China a not visible participant in this conflict by transmitting satellite-conveyed observational intelligence to GHQ Rawalpindi and, of course, by pitting Pakistan's Chinese weapons against India's Western origin armaments.
China was the single most important external factor in this conflict, partly for the reasons you identify, and partly because in every decision India makes along the Line of Control, it must also consider implications along the Line of Actual Control.
After 2020, India shifted forces away from the Pakistan front to bolster its defences against China. Most of China's communication with Pakistan is not public, especially in the most sensitive areas of their cooperation, such as nuclear and missile technologies.
We lack a sophisticated understanding of precisely how China was counseling its Pakistani counterparts prior to and during this conflict, and based on past history, we will probably never have an accurate accounting of that dialogue.
It does appear that China's public statements shifted over the course of the conflict, starting with a firmer backing of Pakistan in a bid to deter India from launching punitive strikes, then shifting to an emphasis on restraint once it was clear that deterrence had failed.
60 years ago, Britain negotiated a ceasefire between India and Pakistan after repeated skirmishes in the Kutch. A couple of months later, India and Pakistan fought a brutal war.
Could we see a replay this year, especially with an ambitious and unpredictable general at the helm of Pakistan's army?
Will Pakistan use this pause in battle to rebuild its arsenal with Chinese help and perhaps some part of the billion dollar loans that the IMF had just given Islamabad (who is to know, right?)?
No one can predict these things. Perhaps a better way to approach these questions is to ask what might realistically create incentives for India and Pakistan to avoid another conflict.
President Trump has suggested that both sides will benefit from trade opportunities with the United States if they can avoid conflict. Unfortunately, I do not believe this would be sufficient incentive, especially for Pakistan's leaders who are not primarily motivated by economic development opportunities.
By the same token, I don't believe that Pakistan's IMF relief is a major motivator to avoid or seek conflict with India. However, when it comes to to rebuilding its arsenal, there will be no higher priority for Pakistan's military than that, which means it will be the highest priority for all of Pakistan.
Flipping the question around, what would make India more or less likely to again strike Pakistan with an air campaign of the sort we just saw? Would it be less likely to do so if faced with a more menacing China?
If so, what lessons might Beijing draw from this episode? Learning is taking place on all sides, but it is never certain that adversaries are learning the lessons you would hope.
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