Strategy Minus the Optics

Having seen the Kargil fighting up close and written books on the '62 and '65 conflicts with China and Pakistan, I know the horrors of war.

- SHIV KUNAL VERMA

I have also seen what low intensity conflicts can do, having covered terror attacks both in Punjab and Kashmir, and also the Northeast where I did a book on the Assam Rifles. Last thing we need is to send our young men and women into combat if we can avoid it, but when all else fails, we then have to fight and then fight to win. Uri and Balakot were watershed events in independent India's history, and if the hydra-headed monster of terror strikes are not addressed, especially when they are state-sponsored, then we will forever be at the mercy of our enemies who can and usually choose the when and where of their attacks.

Pahalgam was fundamentally different because the Pakistan army chief, virtually green-flagged the heinous attack on a public platform. The identity of the killers and those who helped them is relatively irrelevant; what is more important is that their handlers are known to be across the border. The irony is, for the last 78 years, India has known who they are but invariably those at the helm chose to look the other way. The tribal lashkars unleashed by Pakistan in October 1947 were terrorists (denied but supported by the Pakistan Army), the raiders that made up Op Gibraltar in 1965 were terrorists (denied but supported by the Pakistan Army), as were the supposed "Mujahideen" in Kargil in 1999 (denied but were the Pakistan Army). It is no secret that General Zia's Op Tupac was based on employing terror tactics, but the Pakistani state always adopted a policy of denial.