The drone attack on a cargo ship, MV Chem Pluto, off the Indian coast illustrates a growing problem that the world’s democracies now face. These so-called ‘grey-zone’ attacks by states and non-state groups are difficult to respond to either because it’s complicated to do so or because the source of the attack is not easy to establish. And so, while Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has vowed to retaliate, India will face problems in carrying out any response.
The US has blamed Iran for the attack, but it could also be Iranian proxies such as the Houthi rebels in Yemen. If it was Iran or its proxies, then the purpose of the attack is somewhat unclear. Though the Houthis have been attacking oil shipping in the Red Sea, the MV Chem Pluto was attacked well away from the region, and close to India, a supposedly friendly country. This illustrates the ‘return address’ problem, finding out who was responsible for the attack. Even if forensics could pinpoint the type of missile used, it would not necessarily identify the attacker.
The technical capabilities are also an issue. Although Iran appears to have taken delivery of long-range (albeit land attack) cruise missiles recently, target acquisition at more than a thousand kilometres away suggests either enhanced Iranian capabilities or, more likely, support vessels in the neighbourhood that were able to guide the missile to its target.
Of course, even if India is able to identify the source of the attack, it is difficult to imagine New Delhi retaliating militarily against either Iran or its clients, the Houthis. Both military difficulties and political prudence would suggest that this is easier said than done. Indeed, these difficulties are why terror-supporting states such as Iran find these tactics so attractive.
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A tactic favoured by Iran, Russia, China
Employing such grey-zone and covert measures compensate for military weaknesses. Thus, Iran has armed terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas precisely because these clients could carry out attacks and deter more powerful states from attacking Iran. One of the reasons why Hezbollah has been holding its fire against Israel in the current Gaza war is that it is preserving its missiles to deter Israel from launching a direct attack on Iran or its nuclear facilities.
Similarly, Russia has used such tactics in its intervention in Ukraine since 2014. Russian-supported forces were responsible for the shooting down of the Malaysian airlines flight MH-17 over eastern Ukraine. Though this was probably done in error, Russia has been able to escape accountability because the forces using the Russian BUK system were irregular ones, and Moscow has obfuscated the issue with a variety of claims and counter-claims.
China uses a similar tactic, sending supposedly civilian fishermen to stake claim to supposedly disputed territories, with Chinese forces standing by over the horizon.
The problem for democracies
One aspect of the challenges faced by democracies in responding to such grey-zone attacks is timeliness. States cannot wait months or years to respond. Self-defence has a statute of fairly strict limitations in time. The MH-17 investigation took years to conclude. Any investigation into the MV Chem Pluto attack will similarly take a lot of time.
While autocratic regimes engage in such actions, democracies are unlikely to be able to do so. When democratic states respond, they generally do it openly, which has limitations. For example, over a decade of attacks by Iran-backed terrorists in Iraq led to the US attack on Soleimani. But this itself was rare, and made possible only because a particularly reckless leader like Donald Trump was at the helm of affairs in the US. It is difficult to imagine either former president Barack Obama or current president Joe Biden or even a conservative leader like George W Bush approving that attack.
When democracies do engage in such acts, there is always the risk of escalation, which their leaders must carefully weigh. For example, Israel has just killed a high-ranking Iranian General in Syria, leading to worries about the potential for escalation. It appears to matter little that the officer has been reportedly engaged in coordinating operations against Israel. Indeed, Iran has employed terrorism as a state policy for decades, attacking both Jewish and Israeli targets around the world. Iranian proxy Hezbollah even targeted former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri, as a thorough UN investigation proved. Nevertheless, neither Hezbollah nor Iran has suffered for it, emboldening them to continue such terrorist activities. And much of the world ignores such actions. Even India, which forces all countries to mouth the mantra about the indivisibility of terrorism, counts Iran as a strategic partner.
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Is it effective?
A key question is about the effectiveness of such strategies and its consequences, especially for escalation. Whether it is effective depends on how it is measured. Rogue states like Iran and North Korea can engage in such actions because they appear to have priced their isolation from polite company in any case. It is more difficult for democracies to do this. For example, Israel paid such a high cost for its campaign of retaliatory attacks in Europe—especially when such actions went awry—that they largely appear to have eschewed these methods on the continent. France faced similar pressures after the Rainbow Warrior incident. India’s current troubles are also an example. Thus, though democracies do not entirely disavow such tactics, they are usually much more sensitive to the costs that are attached to them, and these probably represent a bigger deterrent to such actions than operational difficulties.
A more serious question is about the potential for escalation. It may not be too mistaken to recall that World War 1 began with just such an attack, the killing of Archduke Ferdinand of the Austro-Hungarian empire. But this also illustrates the limitations of the example: first, this was not the result of covert state action even though Serbia was blamed for it by Vienna. Second, this happened on top of a tinderbox that European great power politics represented in 1914. Though war was not inevitable, it did appear highly likely given the circumstances.
This is what is worrying about Iranian, Russian, and Chinese actions. While these may represent minor, local troubles without wider implications most of the time, under the current condition of increasingly tense international relations, they may be sufficient to start a conflagration.Neither the Serb nationalists nor the Austrian high command expected their actions to have such consequences in August 1914, and yet it did. In an increasingly tense world, with great power relations riven by suspicions, such tactics could very well result in an unwanted conflagration.
The author is a professor of International Politics at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. He tweets @RRajagopalanJNU. Views are personal.
(Edited by Prashant)