Raju Korti
Look at the picture, photo-shopped or not, accompanying this piece below. It makes light of Pakistan's military capability against India should there be a war. To me, it is a telling commentary on the economy of Pakistan -- a country clueless and /or impassive about tackling its own burgeoning domestic problems but never losing an opportunity to throw on India's face its readiness to press the nuclear button at the slightest provocation.
So what is it that makes this rather failed State, where non-State actors have been calling the shots for over two decades now, rely so furiously on the nuclear threat? Why does even something as routine as cancellation of talks for normalisation of bilateral relationship, makes it step on the gas and indulge in fulminations of a nuclear war?
Each nation has a doctrine to deal with possible nuclear threats. For Pakistan, it is majorly India. For India it is Pakistan and China. For the US it is Russia, China, North Korea and many more where it often pitches in as world policeman. On the brink given the problems that surround its neighbourhood and helpless because of an intransigent and crazy military establishment, this doctrine stares India in the face with alarming regularity. The number of Indians who believe that it is time for India to call Pakistan's bluff and get into a fight-to-finish war increases each time Pakistan perpetrates an outrage against Indian civilians and army. The threat of a full scale military offensive was never as pronounced as it is now after the attacks in Pathankot and Uri but the Indian response continues to remain calibrated and somewhat frustrated. Pakistan has nothing to lose. India far too much. The dynamics of what accrues between the two countries in the wake of their tumultuous division and subsequent deep-rooted hatred has gone far beyond the realms of conventional diplomacy.
There is still a faint glimmer of hope to believe that the Pakistani military establishment realises it would be a blunder to provoke an attack that would spell end to its country's existence on the world map. But it will not need much for the country's army -- which has thrown all civilian and democratic norms to the wind -- to acerbate a war having lost three wars in 1965, 1971 and 1994. What began as a bluster from then President Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto about staging a "thousand-year war with India" has now assumed a grotesque obsession to acquire nuclear weapons on the perceived threat from India. It seems to have gone unnoticed that there seems to be a perceptible change in the way Pakistan is seeking to harm India. The strategy now seems to be attack military installations rather than civilians.
If, after another terrorist attack on India, Indian army penetrates into Pakistan, inflicts heavy damages and occupies its territory, there is a lurking chance that Pakistan's army would use the nuclear deterrent to stop it. That is what prompts the general belief in India that defeating Pakistan below the threshold would perhaps avoid an escalation. But with Pakistan there are no guarantees. There is also a school of thought that isolating Pakistan as state sponsor of terrorism, slapping sanctions, economic embargoes, abrogation of the water treaty and withdrawal of Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status would be the best option. On the face of it, that sounds sensible since it supposedly reduces the risks of a major conflict but it does little to stop the elements that Pakistan has been shrugging off as non-State players. Diplomacy and terrorism pose challenges poles apart.
I am sold out on the theory that Pakistan should be allowed to die under its own weight. A debilitated economy and the ferment in Baluchistan, Karachi, Punjab are proof enough of its dysfunctional politics. Pakistanis are themselves not very optimistic about the country's future as a secure, developing and modern country. There is a talk that Pakistan relies on the US but they know that this economic and military aid is not without its pound of flesh. The Americans have always been prompted by their Geo-political interests that seek to serve their expedient politics. Delhi and Rawalpindi know this very well. As far as China is concerned, it is obvious that there has been some buttressing of Pakistan at State level but on other fronts there is scope for lot of justified scepticism. There is little social or cultural or emotional attachment between the peoples of the two countries. The Chinese don't have to be intelligent to know that Pakistan is a convenient shoulder to fire at India. They are known to pursue single-minded their own narrow interests. They do not contribute funding for health, education and other forms of development in Pakistan. In past crises with India, China is not known to have done even much of what Pakistani leaders wished. My gut feeling is China will not do anything to underwrite or protect Pakistan if it comes to a full fledged war. They know that the best weapon against any enemy is another enemy.
Crippled with inherent problems of militancy, unemployment and low growth rate, Pakistan lags behind India on almost all parameters of national growth. Raising the nuclear war bogey frequently is an attempt to show that its power emerges from its weaknesses within.
Pakistan can administer to itself a lethal injection and does not need any external threat to use it.
Look at the picture, photo-shopped or not, accompanying this piece below. It makes light of Pakistan's military capability against India should there be a war. To me, it is a telling commentary on the economy of Pakistan -- a country clueless and /or impassive about tackling its own burgeoning domestic problems but never losing an opportunity to throw on India's face its readiness to press the nuclear button at the slightest provocation.
So what is it that makes this rather failed State, where non-State actors have been calling the shots for over two decades now, rely so furiously on the nuclear threat? Why does even something as routine as cancellation of talks for normalisation of bilateral relationship, makes it step on the gas and indulge in fulminations of a nuclear war?
Each nation has a doctrine to deal with possible nuclear threats. For Pakistan, it is majorly India. For India it is Pakistan and China. For the US it is Russia, China, North Korea and many more where it often pitches in as world policeman. On the brink given the problems that surround its neighbourhood and helpless because of an intransigent and crazy military establishment, this doctrine stares India in the face with alarming regularity. The number of Indians who believe that it is time for India to call Pakistan's bluff and get into a fight-to-finish war increases each time Pakistan perpetrates an outrage against Indian civilians and army. The threat of a full scale military offensive was never as pronounced as it is now after the attacks in Pathankot and Uri but the Indian response continues to remain calibrated and somewhat frustrated. Pakistan has nothing to lose. India far too much. The dynamics of what accrues between the two countries in the wake of their tumultuous division and subsequent deep-rooted hatred has gone far beyond the realms of conventional diplomacy.
There is still a faint glimmer of hope to believe that the Pakistani military establishment realises it would be a blunder to provoke an attack that would spell end to its country's existence on the world map. But it will not need much for the country's army -- which has thrown all civilian and democratic norms to the wind -- to acerbate a war having lost three wars in 1965, 1971 and 1994. What began as a bluster from then President Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto about staging a "thousand-year war with India" has now assumed a grotesque obsession to acquire nuclear weapons on the perceived threat from India. It seems to have gone unnoticed that there seems to be a perceptible change in the way Pakistan is seeking to harm India. The strategy now seems to be attack military installations rather than civilians.
If, after another terrorist attack on India, Indian army penetrates into Pakistan, inflicts heavy damages and occupies its territory, there is a lurking chance that Pakistan's army would use the nuclear deterrent to stop it. That is what prompts the general belief in India that defeating Pakistan below the threshold would perhaps avoid an escalation. But with Pakistan there are no guarantees. There is also a school of thought that isolating Pakistan as state sponsor of terrorism, slapping sanctions, economic embargoes, abrogation of the water treaty and withdrawal of Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status would be the best option. On the face of it, that sounds sensible since it supposedly reduces the risks of a major conflict but it does little to stop the elements that Pakistan has been shrugging off as non-State players. Diplomacy and terrorism pose challenges poles apart.
I am sold out on the theory that Pakistan should be allowed to die under its own weight. A debilitated economy and the ferment in Baluchistan, Karachi, Punjab are proof enough of its dysfunctional politics. Pakistanis are themselves not very optimistic about the country's future as a secure, developing and modern country. There is a talk that Pakistan relies on the US but they know that this economic and military aid is not without its pound of flesh. The Americans have always been prompted by their Geo-political interests that seek to serve their expedient politics. Delhi and Rawalpindi know this very well. As far as China is concerned, it is obvious that there has been some buttressing of Pakistan at State level but on other fronts there is scope for lot of justified scepticism. There is little social or cultural or emotional attachment between the peoples of the two countries. The Chinese don't have to be intelligent to know that Pakistan is a convenient shoulder to fire at India. They are known to pursue single-minded their own narrow interests. They do not contribute funding for health, education and other forms of development in Pakistan. In past crises with India, China is not known to have done even much of what Pakistani leaders wished. My gut feeling is China will not do anything to underwrite or protect Pakistan if it comes to a full fledged war. They know that the best weapon against any enemy is another enemy.
Crippled with inherent problems of militancy, unemployment and low growth rate, Pakistan lags behind India on almost all parameters of national growth. Raising the nuclear war bogey frequently is an attempt to show that its power emerges from its weaknesses within.
Pakistan can administer to itself a lethal injection and does not need any external threat to use it.
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| Dire Straits of Pakistan (From Facebook) |
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