WASHINGTON — An Indian military strike into Pakistani-held Kashmir is being planned in New Delhi in the spirit of the new global ethos of "hot pre-emption." It will target terrorists and the training camps that form and house them. But old grudges and ambitions in South Asia will shape and perhaps expand the impending conflict.
India’s military commanders harbor intense resentment over their troops having been "cheated" out of total victory over Pakistan three times in the past half-century. They hold their civilian leadership responsible for that failure. As they sift through four or five obvious scenarios for a new war, they will keep an eye out for a chance to deal Pakistan’s army a devastating blow.
Osama bin Laden’s actions and George W. Bush’s reactions have ushered the world into a new era in which nations and their armies try to fight the irregular forces of terrorism where they are spawned. This is war "not just of hot pursuit, but of hot pre-emption," said former Secretary of State George Shultz in a valiant, sounding-the-charge address to the U.S. Foreign Service here last week.
Shultz denies that it is impossible to distinguish "terrorists" from "freedom fighters." Terrorists practice "random violence on as large a scale as possible against civilian populations to make their points or get their way," he said. The battle must be taken to such forces before they strike, he added.
In two years — the time it has taken to go from Bill Clinton, Israel’s Ehud Barak and Colombia’s Andreas Pastrana to Bush, Ariel Sharon and President-elect Alvaro Uribe Velez — key governments have shifted to fighting instead of trying to co-opt and legitimize "the hard men" who organize bombers, shooters and arsonists to force political change through bloodshed.
The U.S. Air Force and Israel’s Defense Forces have already written out Shultz’s suggested strategy in steel and fire in Afghanistan and on the West Bank. Uribe suggests he will do the same against Colombia’s narco-terrorists. And Pakistan, which professes to support America against the "terrorists" of al-Qaida while silently giving tangible support to the "freedom fighters" of Kashmir, has provided India with a golden opportunity to join the club of hot pre-emptors.
India’s politicians suggest that war can still be averted by a clear and verified Pakistani cutoff of support for terrorist infiltrators. But diplomatic and press reports from New Delhi describe military planning as having crossed a threshold of near-inevitability. Not even the presence of U.S. forces in the region deters Pakistan from risking war by supporting infiltration. Nor will that presence deter India from hitting back in Kashmir.
The most modest (and ineffective) option for the Indians would be a day or two of long-range artillery barrages against guerrilla camps within range of present positions. The next step up the ladder involves air strikes and commando raids against as many of the 50 to 60 camps as could be reached and cleaned out in a few days. Each option would seek to avoid bringing Pakistan’s army into the fighting, at the cost of letting terrorists get away.
A hot pre-emption option, along the lines of Afghanistan or the West Bank, would require an army corps with airborne support to wipe out a substantial number of the 3,000-strong terrorist force. But many of their camps are on the outskirts of towns and Pakistani military bases. Surgical strikes that avoid Pakistani troops will be difficult to impossible.
That is why some Indian commanders will argue for a frontal assault to "straighten out" the cease-fire line of control in Kashmir. India would seize and hold new territory indefinitely. The broadest option would be an all-out attempt, including conventional missile strikes, to dismantle the Pakistani army — as many Indian officers believe they could have in 1948, 1965 and 1971 had they not been restrained by their civilian leaders.
That assessment is more than legend. But today both sides have nuclear weapons. Predictions of victory of any kind in a new Indo-Pak war reek of deadly hubris. And the chance of miscalculation is enormous: India’s civilian leadership keeps its military out of managing and planning for the nation’s nuclear arsenal; in Pakistan, the armed forces call all the shots on this and every other subject, civilian as well as military. These two adversaries are alpha and omega.
Hot pre-emption has been a necessary corrective in Afghanistan and the West Bank. It could lead to global disaster in the Asian subcontinent. American, British and other international intervention to shut off infiltration by Pakistani-controlled forces — now — and to get India to demobilize along that frontier is a small price to pay for avoiding that outcome. But time for diplomacy is melting away.
Jim Hoagland can be reached at The Washington Post Writers Group, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, DC 20071-9200 or hoaglandj@washpost.com.
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