Time to remember Patton

The writer is a retired air-vice marshal, former ambassador and a security and political analyst.
“War is not meant to be you dying for your country – it is by making the other bastard die for his”. So said George S Patton, the audacious US general who led his forces at breakneck speed and entered Germany in that final blow to the Third Reich. He was a fiery character with a language that is unrepeatable in decent company. He was never popular with his peers, nor with his officers, but his men loved him. Patton and his men gave the Allies their victory.
As Pakistan reels from another Fazlullah carnage, a host of issues open up. What did we learn from the APS attack? What did we do in the interregnum before the act was repeated to the tee at Badaber? I know what had, and has, gotten hold of the military mind but this nation of ours has only reinforced the deviance in dutiful compliance.
There aren’t any better sedatives than repeated sagas of valour, retold in popularised fables. We spent our entire first week of September lauding what was immaterial, and in the past. There was a time, when it almost became revolting to see faces being paraded from one channel to the other, singing praises of what had been. And even there only telling half-truths. Most of our stories of unparalleled courage are in ‘defence’. In ‘offence’ we have either been stemmed, or simply blundered. We exude offence as a trait but hardly think it to its fullest as a system. So is our natural rhythm.
General Raheel Shareef did well to finally strike at the North Waziristan hub of the TTP, but surely as he sees his bust being paraded on the election posters and in other adornments along roads, there must have been a moment when he may have said to himself, ‘What do they intend to make of me?’
Legacy is a kosher concern but only if you have it in your rear-view mirror; to have it upfront can be a terrible distraction. And our history is full of courtiers who never missed an opportunity to raise the king to the heavens in deceptive overstatements. Beware, general. You still have a task at hand. You are esteemed by the people not for who you are, but for what you are doing.
You know what was, and thankfully still is, good about Operation Zarb-e-Azb? It is not that the spate of terrorism is forever eliminated; or that an APS-like attack will not be repeated again – Badaber tells us that; it is that the space on many fronts that had been squeezed away from this nation has begun to be recovered.
I talk of not the physical space alone, which is important in itself, but the notional space that helps nations and states interact with others. There began an element of seriousness when Pakistan was spoken of; the Indians got bothered with Pakistan not only doing things right within, but without too as it moved to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table.
Pakistan, having lost its relevance within the neighbourhood, had found eminence again. It went about using the space fast, diplomatically. Space is like additional capacity that you can use to your advantage. But we get carried away far too easily, swept by our own formulations of victory and valour. That is when the breaking-the-back syndrome takes over.
War, as generals ought to know, is only a measure of relative gains. Relative gains with some finesse can be converted to perceptions that become yet another trigger for another push; and in this sinusoidal convulsion, along the timeline, objectives are reached. Operation Zarb-e-Azb has given us relative gains which turned to perceptive gains that created the space for politics and diplomacy to establish its foothold. There never is and there never will be the felling of the last terrorist in this war. It will remain a war of perceptions suitably interposed with political eminence that should further the good space, and squeeze the bad away from the terrorists.
As soon as the tables turned for us, we flipped. Getting the first meeting going in Murree was when bugles were sounded far too early. The celebrations began, we touched our zenith and lost our focus. It took a minor spokesman at the NDS in Kabul to burst our tenuous balloon.
Lavishing praise is a tricky business. Contriving fables is even more dangerous, while pursuing legacies can instil unnecessary caution. The period from now till November, 2016 is the trickiest when all these emotions will be in play. Already the debate has begun – dangerously at that, and without regard to the enormity of another lurking APS or Badaber – on whether the chief will get an extension? This can damage Operation Zarb-e-Azb perennially.
To help there is this most damaging debate that has begun in the media – of a civil-military imbalance and why and how to counter General Raheel’s growing popularity. We are known masters at raising people to the heavens and then quietly slipping the ladder away from under them. Playing games with people in such trying circumstances as those we face us is always at the cost of playing with the nation. Maybe we should first help this nation win the war against terror.
Plenty went wrong at Badaber. We should have the courage to admit it. Losing people is a loss; losing extraordinary people is an irrecoverable loss. We can’t cover that up with devising eulogies. Why and how did the terrorists make to the Camp’s Guard Room? I will not take issue with the defence tactics employed at Badaber since the attack was pre-informed in vivid detail, yet there is so much that needs to be internally debated on the detail of defending vulnerable points. My point of concern has always been the larger conception of it.
APS and Badaber, and countless more in and around Peshawar, were attacks on Peshawar, which is both an ‘area’ as well as a ‘point’ and thus must include, in defence, all attributes of an ‘area and point defence’. I don’t see that in place. Instead vulnerable places within Peshawar are treated typically as separate points without a larger strategic defence framework for the city. If one exists, it isn’t functioning.
On a larger scale, the war is now spread to four tiers. The first perimeter lies in Fata and the other border regions with Afghanistan where the Pakistani military is fighting the insurgency; the intermediate tier is based on intelligence-based operations conducted with reasonable success through the length and breadth of the country. The war’s third tier is the defensive battle we are forced to fight every now and then as in Badaber. This is where a serious rehash is needed to make it foolproof. Till every such attempt is beaten back, then only the futility of it will begin to seep into its perpetrators. This is also where Patton must be invoked and eulogies replaced with sound tactics and unmatched firepower.
The final tier lies in Afghanistan, a country that has practically spun out of control, again. Pakistan’s renegades sit there and plan such operations. This has to be stopped. The deal involves taking the issue to the Afghan government and in the absence of any cooperation, on account of either lack of capacity or unwillingness, taking them out through a limited operation. How such an operation is enacted is a matter of detail but political space for it needs to be created in earnest.
The two states have a rough road ahead in their relationship; that much is clear. Dealing with it sanely will remain a priority. But a firmer hand at the wheel is who will deliver.
Email: shhzdchdhry@yahoo.com