Pakistani vulnerability and Indian strategy

The writer is an analyst and commentator.

What makes a country vulnerable? There is of course the easy and correct answer: its people. A country with people that feel deprived, that suffer the indignity of poverty, that lack the imagination that comes from good schooling, and meaningful self-confidence – this is what makes a country vulnerable.

The problem with this definition is that it applies in varying degrees to every country on the planet. Watching Americans gravitate toward Donald Trump, a ridiculous, late night infomercial of a man, is an ongoing lesson in how even the wealthiest and most powerful country on the planet is vulnerable – when its people suffer, either real, or perceived hardship.

In the rise of Trump, there is also a different kind of vulnerability that is manifesting itself. Among some of the more sober voices in the US, there has been a growing darkness and gravity of tone about the role of Russia in the US election. This fear or vulnerability is not a generic policy fear about what might happen if Trump becomes president. It is a very specific worry. And it is not the work of loony leftists or radical right wingers. It is the assessment of the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the US Department of Homeland Security, who declared in a joint statement on October 7, that the hacking of a number of e-mails and lists is “consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts. These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process”.

Patriotic, serious Americans are worried about what it means for a foreign power to be able to insert itself into its domestic politics with as much ease as Vladimir Putin has inserted himself smack into the middle of a US presidential election. Russia has had thousands of nuclear warheads for decades, but rarely has it caused as much front-page consternation in the US as it has during this election cycle. The reason could not be simpler. In the information age, real power isn’t necessarily what lies latent in the loins of a country’s weapons. Real power also lies in the ability to shape the others’ imagination. Russia has inserted itself into the US election conversation. Whether it is actually capable of manipulating anything meaningful is moot. By getting people to talk about it, it has already won an important victory. It has demonstrated its ability to shape the imagination of a substantial number of important Americans at this critical juncture.

And this brings us to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘surgical strikes’, India’s ‘strategic restraint’, and the new normal in Pakistan-India relations.

Instead of trying to parse the Uri attack, and its various fallouts – diplomatically at the UN General Assembly, and kinetically, allegedly on and beyond the Line of Control, let us start from closer to home.

Last week,     Dawn  published an exclusive report on the tense and complicated conversation between the elected leadership and our top soldiers. The report was rejected by the PM Office as being unrepresentative of the meeting. Yet large swathes of people both at home and abroad believe that it is true. The reason is not too complicated.

Pakistan has a long history of civil military disequilibrium. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has a long history of trying to achieve equilibrium. There is a change of guard imminent in Rawalpindi and there has been a remarkable flurry of political activity here at home that seems extraordinary given the otherwise limited public appetite for street agitation. Put all this together and we have the makings of a complicated and difficult conversation between civilian leaders and the military top brass. Add to this the India factor – a country with whom PM Sharif has quite rightly, badly wanted to improve relations, and a country that the military, quite rightly, does not trust – and the report rings even truer.

But let us forget one report, by one journalist, in one newspaper. Let us instead, step back and examine the larger vista. Standing where we are today – discussing Pakistan’s civil military disequilibrium, and the role of non-state actors like the HQN, LeT and JeM in weakening Pakistan’s standing in the world, let us ask three questions of ourselves, here in Pakistan.

One, does it matter whether India actually conducted the so-called surgical strikes over the LoC and into Pakistani territory?

Two, does it matter how many foreign trips Pakistani influentials make to talk about Kashmir, when the hosts that afford them their time are busy counting the cash from current and future deals to sell goods and services to India’s burgeoning, consumption-happy, pro-Hindutva middle class?

Three, if we take India’s ill-intentions for Pakistan as a given, does India benefit more from a course-correction in Pakistan, or more from Pakistan continuing to do the same things over, and over, and over again?

The answers to these questions will not leave you feeling very good. If you came looking for optimism, I am afraid the next little bit is not for you.

First, we must accept now that that Pakistan is an exceptionally vulnerable country because our national conversation can be managed with great dexterity by decisions made not here in Islamabad, or Rawalpindi, but in New Delhi. This is what is at the heart of India’s surgical strikes mantra. It doesn’t matter even a little bit, whether the said strikes were actually conducted or not. India has used the claim of those strikes to establish and sustain a narrative about itself, about Pakistan, and about the place of each in global affairs.

This narrative describes India as the patient and responsible power, Pakistan as the provocateur, and the international community needing to thank India, and chide Pakistan. This play will receive little genuine and sincere credibility in some places, but it is also already an established truth in others. Can every BPS 20 civil servant in the Foreign Office tell the difference? Can any? Does PM Sharif know why BPS 20 at the FO is a critical stage in a diplomatic career? Don’t seek answers to those questions. You will be left feeling worse.

Second, morality may well be on Pakistan’s side, and God on the side of the Kashmiris, but both Pakistan and Kashmir have been left high and dry by a Pakistani policy elite, whose incompetence and laziness is both disgusting and predictable. MNAs and senators have travelled long distances to be sat in front of audiences already most amendable to Pakistan’s message on Kashmir. Some ambassadors have been stupid enough to publicly promote images of themselves and visiting Kashmir emissaries discussing Kashmir with the Pakistani disaspora. It would be funny if this were another country, and what was at stake was not the lives of innocent Kashmiris.

The country is Pakistan, and real lives are at stake in Kashmir. But no one other than Pakistan cares. A more capable, and self-respecting country would be more successful in advocating this cause. But capable and self-respecting countries do not have leadership narratives in both the civilian and military spaces that are focused exclusively on individuals, their tenures, and their family members. Alas, two down.

Finally, we must all celebrate the presence of doves on both sides of the border, none so courageous and adorable as Karan Johar or Om Puri – but when the most serious advocates of rational engagement between two nuclear powers are film actors and directors, then Houston: you have a problem. The brutal truth is that the lunatics have taken over the asylum in India, and a non-aligned, Gandhian state is now captive to two strains of modern Indian identity that realists must call out for what they are.

The first is hardcore Hindu supremacism, the second, an emboldened and more brazen strategic swagger. In short, this is not just Ram Madhav’s India, or K Subrahmanyam’s India. It is a much more sophisticated hybrid. It fancies itself as being able to beat Pakistan seven ways from Sunday. One of the most important ways it will seek to beat Pakistan is by letting Pakistan continue being Pakistan, or as I framed it last week, by helping Pakistan keep on doing what it has been doing, over and over and over again.

Look carefully at the Pakistani landscape and the conclusion is inescapable: we seem ecstatic at the opportunity to keep on keeping on. With friends like ourselves, who needs India?