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Can IAF strike end Pakistan’s ‘1000-cuts’ strategy to bleed India or does it risk a war?

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The Indian Air Force targeted terrorist training camps at three locations inside Pakistan early Tuesday, less than a fortnight after the Pulwama attack. Foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale called the ‘elimination’ of JeM camps in Balakot a “non-military preemptive strike” against Pakistan.

ThePrint asks: Can IAF strike end Pakistan’s ‘1000-cuts’ strategy to bleed India or does it risk a war?


Strikes won’t end Pakistan’s 1000-cuts strategy but will buy extended period of peace

Manmohan Bahadur
Air vice-marshal (retd)

The Indian strike on Pakistan was waiting to happen – whether via air or ground. No honourable government could have quietly accepted what happened in Pulwama. The IAF strike signifies two things. One, that India will not tolerate any more terror attacks from Pakistan. Second, the onus of escalation has now been transferred to Pakistan. The ball is now in their court.

The international community, which has been cautioning against a full-blown war between India and Pakistan will now implore Pakistan to not retaliate by calling for war.

The IAF has conducted air strikes against terrorist camps, as they rightfully should have. But what can Pakistan strike on? They can only conduct airstrikes on our army bases or air force stations, which belong to the Indian state.

The question is, therefore, whether Pakistan wants to escalate the tensions by waging a war against India. India clearly has a moral upper hand.

Knowing the Pakistan army, I don’t think this strike will be enough to put an end to Pakistan’s thousand-cuts strategy to bleed India. However, this will definitely buy us an extended period of peace.

The Indian government must be credited for these strikes. Any kinetic action against any adversary is always a government decision, never a military decision.


Pakistan downplaying strikes shows they want to control public opinion & not be pushed to retaliate

Kanwal Sibal
Executive council member, VIF, and former foreign secretary

The significance of Indian air strikes in PoK and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) should not be underestimated. During the Kargil war the Indian Air Force was under strict instructions not to cross the LoC in spite of Pakistani occupation of Indian posts. This time the Air Force has been given a free hand to strike deep into PoK and beyond. The surgical strikes in 2016 hit Pakistani posts across the LOC, but these were shallow strikes. The intention then was to convey to Pakistan that our earlier self-imposed curb on crossing the LoC had been lifted, giving Pakistan notice that more action of this nature could be taken if provocations continued.

Air strikes are a much more serious affair than limited ground action. With Balakot, the option of hitting terror targets at large within Pakistan has become available. We have also signalled that Pakistan’s nuclear capability will no longer deter us from defending ourselves through limited anti-terror strikes.

Pakistan should understand the political significance of the Indian action and think twice before escalation. The Pakistani military has downplayed the aerial strikes, which suggests that they want to control public opinion in the country and not be pushed to retaliate. It would be unwise for them to do so as they have no easy option.


Strikes will deliver political benefits but won’t eliminate threat of terror from Pakistan

Michael Kugelman
Deputy director and senior associate for South Asia, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Indian air strikes may achieve tactical success by eliminating terrorists, but they won’t succeed in compelling Islamabad to sever its ties to the terrorists that threaten India. If anything, these air operations, such as what we’ve seen in Balakot, will only embolden Pakistan and compel them to tighten their embrace of Jaish-e-Mohammed and its ilk.

At the end of the day, Pakistan values these groups because they can be used as asymmetric assets to push back against India in ways that Pakistani conventional military forces cannot because they are inferior to those of India. This has been the strategy of the Pakistani military for years. It’s a strategy that is deeply engrained within the Pakistani security establishment and will not be eliminated by Indian airstrikes. The Balakot strike won’t necessarily lead to escalation.

In fact, Pakistan’s decision to downplay, if not deny, the Indian strike suggests that Islamabad may not be willing or capable of staging a major retaliation. Indian air strikes can generate tactical victories and deliver major political benefits—and particularly in an election year. But at the end of the day, they won’t allow India to live with less fear about terror emanating from its western neighbour.


Also read: These are the 3 locations in Pakistan that were bombed by Indian Air Force


Use of airpower across the LoC a serious escalation, will intensify freedom struggle in Kashmir

Salman Bashir
Former foreign secretary of Pakistan, and former high commissioner of Pakistan to India

Indian airstrikes constitute a flagrant act of aggression and a serious breach of peace with incalculable consequences for regional security. Pakistan will take whatever measures are necessary in self-defence.

The strikes betray a sense of desperation by a politically encumbered Indian leadership resorting to Pakistan bashing to gather support for domestic reasons and for electoral gains. It demonstrates the immaturity and irresponsibility of India, which claims to be an emerging global power.

Pakistan has the wherewithal to respond to Indian aggression effectively at a time and place of its choice. Use of airpower across the LoC is a serious escalation and will do nothing to quell or dampen the Kashmiri freedom struggle, which has now reached a defining stage.

The Indian military action will lead to further intensification of the freedom struggle in Kashmir. A no holds barred scenario will gravely compromise regional peace and security.


Air strikes will not be a panacea for state-backed terrorism

Dhruva Jaishankar
Fellow, Foreign Policy, Brookings India

Based on official statements by both Pakistan and India, and preliminary reports, it seems clear that Indian Air Force jets entered Pakistani air space to retaliate against the Pulwama terrorist attack in Kashmir. If confirmed, this would represent a qualitative shift in India’s willingness to respond to Pakistani provocations under a nuclear threshold.

Like the surgical strikes of 2016, some will view this as having a potential deterrent effect. This would be short-sighted. The terrorist infrastructure developed by Pakistan runs so deep that it is unlikely that such an air strike would completely eliminate the prospect of future Pakistan-based terrorist attacks on India.

The strikes, depending on the damage, will, however, have served an important retributive effect. It would indicate to an Indian public that major attacks against Indian targets by Pakistan-based groups will not go unpunished.

It will also indicate to the Pakistani leadership – both civilian and military – that there will be higher costs. But air strikes will not be a panacea for state-backed terrorism. This will require exercising a wider array of levers with Pakistan, both bilaterally and internationally, and strengthening Indian security further so as to minimise the prospect of future devastating attacks.


Pakistan may try minor operations, but won’t climb the escalatory ladder

Saurav Jha
Chief Editor, Delhi Defence Review

I have always maintained that airstrikes on carefully chosen terrorist targets in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir or even beyond in Pakistani territory itself (as was the case in Tuesday’s IAF strikes) do not cross any identifiable Pakistani redlines.

Airpower is the most responsive tool of military power today and India has been in a position to use it for a while now.

India’s conventional superiority over Pakistan is not only in terms of overall force dispositions, but in technological terms as well, especially in the electronic realm. Which is precisely why the Indian Air Force combat jets were able to penetrate as far as Balakot in Mansehra district, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

Official Pakistani statements show that they want to keep the option of not doing anything about it on the table. However, the Pakistanis may attempt minor actions in the southern sector and would speak of them only if they succeed. Such actions, if undertaken, would obviously be designed to shore up the morale and prestige of the Pakistan Air Force, which has no doubt been dented by the Indian airstrikes.

Be that as it may, no general escalation is likely, because Pakistan’s strategy revolves around keeping things at a low-ebb rather than climbing the escalatory ladder.


By Fatima Khan, journalist at ThePrint.

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2 COMMENTS

  1. This needed to be done. 400 plump partridges in one nest was a bonus. Whatever Pakistan’s utility – transient for some, more enduring for others – no responsible state can support it openly in a global forum. The Chinese are probably expending too much diplomatic capital on Masood Azhar. Their reaction to the strikes has been mild. 2. Late for this term, but one way to deal with Pakistan’s sponsorship of terror in Valley is to start a serious dialogue with the Kashmiri people.

  2. In my view, the air attacks put Pakistan in a dilemma. If Pakistan responds, it can develop into a war Pakistan can not afford. The moral hazard of such a misadventure would be solely on Pakistan. Considering an extremely strained and precarious economic scenario for Pakistan , this can be a sure recipe for bankruptcy. Pakistan can become another Venezuela. However, if Pakistan doesn’t respond, this can be construed as a tacit consent to India’s right to self-defence against terrorist groups located in Pakistan. India can very well use this as a precedent for future attacks. Obviously, this may not end Pak-sponsored terrorism. However, Pakistan will have to observe restraint so that it doesn’t cross red-lines. This certainly has mitigating effect. Well done IAF and well done Modi !

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