National Security Management And Pakistan

What are the threats to India's national security in the short, medium and long-terms? How has the Government of India been meeting them?  Have there been any conceptual and qualitativechanges in the National Security Management (NSM) since the present Government came to power in New Delhi in1998? To what extent the changes have been beneficial to national interest and to what extent have they fallenshort of the expectations and requirements?

Before attempting answers to these questions, the following general observationsregarding the evolution of the concept of national security since the First World War need to be made: 

First, till the First World War, national security was viewed largely in military andpolitical terms.  The commonly held perception was that threats to national security would mainly arisefrom the armed forces of State adversaries and their attempts to cause political destabilisation.  

Afterthe triumph of communism in the USSR and other countries and the increasingly active role of InternationalCommunism in promoting ideological subversion and extra-territorial loyalty in the name of ideologicalsolidarity, there was increasing realisation  that the threats need not necessarily be only of an overtmilitary nature, but could also be covert and para-military operating through surrogates and that such covertthreats could come from State as well as non-State adversaries.

Second, the attempts of International Communism to promote economic disruption innon-Communist States/societies through strikes etc and of the allied powers during the Second World War tocause a collapse of the economy of Nazi Germany through covert methods such as printing and circulation ofGerman currency notes in large numbers led to greater attention being given to likely threats to the economicsecurity and well-being of a nation, which could undermine its capability to ward off military threats andprevent political destabilisation and ideological subversion. 

In recent years, the globalisation and thenetworking of the world through information infrastructure have multiplied and magnified likely threats to theeconomic security and well-being of a nation.  Globalisation, networking and easy and affordable accessto modern information technologies have placed in the hands of non-State actors awesome powers of economicdisruption and destruction.

Third, the encouragement of Islamic fanaticism by the USA's Central Intelligence Agency(CIA) in the 1980s to use it in its covert war against the Soviet troops in Afghanistan and againstInternational Communism in the Islamic World did set in motion the beginning of the collapse of Communism asan ideological force, but it replaced International Communism with an even more pernicious subversive anddestructive force called International Islamism, which like International Communism, encouragesextra-territorial loyalty -- not in the name of ideological , but  religious solidarity -- and justifiesthe use of suicide terrorism in the name of jehad against non-Muslims.  

International Islamism recognisesno national frontiers and justifies the right of Muslims to acquire and use weapons of mass destruction toprotect their religion.  Whereas in the past, nuclear weapons were seen by States merely as a weapon ofdeterrence to deter the use of similar weapons by their adversaries against them, the mushrooming non-Stateactors inspired and brain-washed by International Islamism view them as weapons of intimidation to weaken thewill of non-Islamic States/societies to resist the advance of Islamic fundamentalism.

Fourth, non-State actors posing threats to national security have arisen not only fromInternational Communism and International Islamism, but also from democratic societies such as those of theUSA and the European Union countries.  The mushrooming non-Governmental organisations (NGOs) and thinktanks, liberally funded from abroad, mainly from the USA, play as active a role in promoting US/Westernnational interests and in undermining nations which are not subservient to the USA as the front organisationsof International Communism did before the collapse of the USSR in 1991 to promote the national interests ofthe USSR and the ideological interests of communism.  

The USA, which rightly prides itself as the mosthealthy democracy in the world, does not hesitate to back the most undemocratic States and rulers forpromoting its national interests. Its backing for the Shah of Iran before 1979, its  role in keepingformer President Suharto of Indonesia sustained in power for nearly three decades and its current backing forPervez Musharraf, Pakistan's military dictator, are typical examples of such US actions. 

In India, anyperceptible observer would have noticed how since the Pokhran-II nuclear tests of 1998, the USA, while overtlyexpanding its co-operation with India in various fields, has been covertly funding and encouraging elementswhich are prepared to create doubts in public mind about the national security policies and objectives of thepresent Government.  Such covert actions were previously confined to malleable elements in the North,particularly in New Delhi, but  in recent months these have been extended to the South too.

Amongst the external factors endangering India's internal security, one could cite thefollowing: 

• Pakistan's post-1981 use of terrorism as a weapon to achieve its strategic objectives againstIndia and its  post-September 11, 2001, emergence as the new hub for the activities of religiousterrorists associated with Osama bin Laden.
  
  
• The failure of the Nepalese Government to deal effectively with the activities of the ISIfrom its territory and to counter the Maoist insurgency.
  
  
• The inability of the Bhutanese and Myanmarese Governments to stop the use of theirterritory by Indian insurgent groups.
  
  
• The suspected complicity of the military-intelligence establishment of Bangladesh with itsPakistani counterpart in assisting Indian insurgent and terrorist groups.
  
  
• T he future policies and tactics of the LTTE.
  
  
• The reported spread of pan-Islamic ideas by bin Laden's Al Qaeda and its associates to theSouth-East Asian countries as brought out by the recent arrests of Al Qaeda cadres/sympathisers in Singapore,Malaysia and Indonesia. Since South-East Asia has a large number of Muslim migrants of South Indian,essentially Tamil Nadu, origin, the emergence of pro-bin Laden networks in this region and their likelycontacts with and assistance to Islamic extremist elements in South India such as the Al Ummah of Tamil Naduand Kerala should receive close attention.

Musharraf, who is regarded by many as a good tactician, but a poor strategist,personifies the quintessence of the Pakistani military mindset characterized by an inbred hostility to India,partly due to a feeling of insecurity and partly due to a continuing rankling caused by memories of the 1971defeat at the hands of the Indian Army in the then East Pakistan.  Even the feeling of psychologicalparity with India consequent upon its acquiring a nuclear and missile capability has not enabled it to getover this hang-up.  This mindset sees in Kashmir a means of catharsis.

For it, Kashmir is important for four reasons -- religious, territorial, economic (thesource of the rivers irrigating Pakistan) and psychological ( to avenge the perceived humiliations of thepast).  In  the military's perception, through its sustained proxy war waged in Jammu & Kashmir(J&K) since 1989 through the surrogates of the pan-Islamic Pakistani jehadi organisations, it is, for thefirst time since 1947, nearing the position of being able to change the status quo in J&K in Pakistan'sfavour without having to wage a full-scale war and if it misses this opportunity by succumbing to outsidepressure to give up the use of terrorism as a weapon against India, another opportunity like this may not comeits way again.

Hence, Musharraf's present determination to continue supporting and using the jehadioutfits whatever be the external consequences. Like past Pakistani political leaders, he too is banking on thecontinued ambivalence of the West's counter-terrorism policies---- namely, if he continues his co-operationagainst terrorists posing a threat to the West in general and the US in particular, their pressure on him withregard to terrorism against India will not go beyond a certain point and his resisting or evading thatpressure will not entail punitive consequences for Pakistan from the rest of the world. There is, therefore,unlikely to be any qualitative change in the military's use of terrorism against India in the future unlessIndia itself imposes punitive consequences on Pakistan, either through overt or covert actions or a mix ofboth. 

Certain other aspects relating to the post September 11, 2001, situation in Pakistan have to be highlighted.  The first is the  increase in cash  flow due to the resumption ofmultilateral assistance by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Asian DevelopmentBank (ADB); generous bilateral assistance by the West and other countries; US cash payments for the logisticsupport extended to the US troops in Afghanistan (US $ 220 million so far); generous rescheduling of bilateraldebts (US $ 32.5 billion) with long grace periods and the increase in remittances by non-resident Pakistanis (NRP)through legal banking channels.  

Fears that the continued use of the hawala channel for remittances couldattract the suspicion of the counter-terrorism agencies of the West have contributed to a doubling of theremittances through the legal banking channels.  In addition, in order to maintain a comfortable level ofreserves, the State Bank of Pakistan continues to buy US dollars from the kerb market at the same high levelas before October 7, 2001.  As a result of this increased cash flow, the foreign exchange reserves havetripled to nearly US $ Six billion.  Thus, Pakistan has now the required hard cash  for freshmilitary purchases.

While the spectre of an economic collapse no longer haunts the country, despite thisincreased cash flow, the economic fundamentals have not changed for the better.  Tax collection continuesto be  below the target; foreign trade has been affected by lack of demand due to the recession in theWest, the imposition of a  war risk insurance by many shipping companies and the resistance in the USfrom the textile industry and its supporters in the Congress to any significant reduction in the duty onPakistani textiles; and foreign investors continue to shy away from Pakistan due to the nervousness caused bythe war in Afghanistan and the bad law and order situation in Pakistan itself.

10. The law and order situation in Pakistan continues to deteriorate despite the Army beingin power  due to the following factors: 

• Continuing incidents of anti-Shia and anti-Christian  violence in Sindh and Punjabdespite Musharraf's ban on the Sunni extremist Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ), the militant wing of theSipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), and the Shia extremist Sipah Mohammed (SM), the militant wing  of the Tehrik Jaffria Pakistan (TJP), on August 14,2001, and  on the SSP  and the TJP on January 15,2002.
  
  
• Sporadic incidents of violence in Balochistan by elements, which are unidentified, butsuspected to be the followers of Khair Bux Marri, the Balochi nationalist leader.
  
  
• The activities of the remnants of the Al Qaeda of Osama bin Laden, the Taliban and thevarious Pakistani jehadi organisations, which survived the war in Afghanistan and have taken sanctuary inPakistan.  They initially entered the tribal areas in Balochistan, the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP)and the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and are since reported to have spread out to Punjab, Sindhand Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK), including the Northern Areas (NA--Gilgit and Baltistan).  Theseremnants are suspected to have been responsible for the kidnapping  of Daniel Pearl, the US journalist,on January 23, 2002, and his subsequent murder, the grenade attack inside an Islamabad church on March 17,2002, which killed five worshippers, two of them US nationals, the suicide explosion outside a Karachi hotelon May 8, 2002, which killed 11 French experts working in the project for the assembly and eventualconstruction of the Agosta Class submarine, the suicide explosion outside the US Consulate in Karachi on June14, 2002, the grenade attack on a group of German and other tourists on the Karakoram Highway in July, 2002and the recent attacks on Christian establishments in Murree and Taxila.
  
  
• Unrest in the tribal belt, particularly in the FATA, due to the joint combing operationsfor the survivors of the Al Qaeda and the Taliban by Pakistani security forces, assisted by US communicationexperts and counter- terrorism professionals from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Despite signs of disquiet over Musharraf's hesitation to act against their terroristinfrastructure in Pakistani territory lest he thereby damage or even lose a valuable ( in his perception)asset in his proxy war on India, the USA and other Western powers continue to look upon Musharraf as theirbest bet in Pakistan for the time being. They do not as yet share India's perception that he is untrustworthy,despite his failure to carry out his commitments for determined action against the jehadis made by him in histelevised address of January 12,2002, and his evasive response to their repeated requests for co-operation insmoking out the remnants of the Al Qaeda, the Taliban and other anti-Western jehadi groups from theirsanctuaries in Pakistan.

In the USA's perception, Musharraf is modern in his outlook as indicated by hisoft-repeated, though not yet implemented, determination to control and modernise the curricula of the madrasas;his restoration of the joint electorate system; and his plans to give technocrats and women  a greaterrole in the governance of the country and to dilute the role of the feudal aristocracy in the electoralprocess by prescribing university graduation as a minimum qualification for contesting the elections.

They do not share India's perception of his proximity to the religious fundamentalistparties and look upon him as the only leader, political or military, capable of preventing Pakistan's nuclearand missile assets from falling into the hands of anti-Western terrorists.  His manipulation of thereferendum and doubts about the sincerity of his repeated promises to hold free and fair elections asscheduled in October, 2002, have caused unease in the European Union countries, but not, to the same extent, in the USA.

The USA's short-term objective in the region is to eliminate the terrorists who pose athreat to American lives and interests and to ensure the durability and stability in Afghanistan of a regimefriendly to the West and malleable by Washington DC.  Its medium and long-term objective is to developthe Afghanistan-Pakistan route as their favoured exit for the oil and gas resources of Turkmenistan and theother Central Asian Republics (CARs) in order to avoid the Russian and Iranian routes.  The importance ofPakistan, from this perspective, gets enhanced.  Already 30 per cent of the oil and gas industries inPakistan are estimated to be controlled by US companies and their interest in oil and gas pipelines from theCARs to the rest of the world through Afghanistan and Pakistan would have an important influence on thepolicies of the US Administration towards Pakistan.

The set-back suffered by Pakistan in Afghanistan due to Musharraf's volte face inabandoning the Taliban is unlikely to be permanent.  There is likely to be an erosion in the influence ofthe Tadjik and Uzbeck dominated Northern Alliance in the governance of the country in the months to come asthe USA and other Western countries show greater sensitivity to the demand for increased representation to thePashtuns in the governance.  This could also redound to the advantage of Pakistan, enabling it to recoverat least part of its lost influence in Kabul to the detriment of India.