Pakistan's Direct Challenge And Involvement To Ferment War With India

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Playing With Fire: Pakistan’s Unintended Strategic Challenge
In India’s Homeland -- The Jamestown

09/11/2008 - By Michael Scheuer (from Terrorism Focus, September 10) - Having examined India’s Afghan policy as a challenge meant to undermine Pakistani security (see Terrorism Focus, August 12), this article examines Pakistan’s low-intensity war against India which, while long ongoing, has been effectively broadened since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan and India’s expanding presence there. Pakistani covert operations alone would never have posed a threat to Indian security and stability, but rising anti-Hindu sentiments among India’s 150-million-strong Muslim community have complemented Pakistani operations and enhanced the threat posed to India’s communal harmony and economy, a result that likewise increases the chances of an unintended India-Pakistan war. Since Pakistan’s independence in 1947, a central goal of Pakistani governments has been bringing an end to New Delhi’s political control of the Muslim-dominated Kashmir region of India’s Jammu and Kashmir state (J&K). Pakistani policy has tended to look toward eventually annexing the region to the Pakistani state, while the sentiments of India’s Kashmiri Muslims have shown no unanimity on the issue, with some supporting annexation and others preferring the formation of an independent Muslim state. Islamabad’s support of Kashmiri separatists has included political support, agitation at the UN, funding for separatist organizations, and – especially since General Zia’s tenure as Pakistan’s president – the training and arming of Kashmiri Islamist insurgents.

Pakistan’s Kashmir policy has never been framed as an effort to “defeat” India. The policy has rather been a combination of religious obligation – helping to free brother Muslims dominated by polytheist Hindus – and overall defense policy, with the latter probably being the dominant motivation. Islamabad’s support for the Kashmiris provided an outlet for the free-Kashmir ardor of the country’s Islamist political parties and served to tie down an inordinate number of India’s military forces in J&K. Faced with India’s overwhelming superiority in military manpower, Pakistan believed that its interests were favored by a military equation that saw the largest possible number of Indian troops diverted away from a possible Indian strike force aimed at Pakistan and toward internal security operations. Islamabad also believed that it could calibrate and control this policy, thereby avoiding a situation where Muslim dissident activities in Kashmir might lead to a conventional war between Pakistan and India.[1]

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My Comment: Another excellent report from the Jamestown Foundation. In this report, they examine Pakistan's change in policy and direction against India. Supporting political movements is one thing, but actively arming and training guerrilla groups to ferment conflict and war is a one way direction to an armed conflict.

If Pakistan continues with this policy, I believe that it will only be a matter of time before an attack will inflame tensions in India that will call for a reciprocal action against Pakistan. Both countries are on trigger alert with each other, having already fought a number of wars since independence. It will not take much to put them into a live fire exchange.

Pakistan is pursuing the same disastrous policy with India as it is pursuing with the U.S. and Afghanistan. Investors in Pakistan have been bailing out of the country for the past few months .... I guess they see the writing on the wall.