RETALIATION AND RESTRAINT: TIGHTROPE AFTER PAHALGAM

The US intervention came, if at all, perhaps because it sensed that Pakistan was going to be hugely decimated, especially when its Nur Khan airbase was effectively hit

- LT GEN SYED ATA HASNAIN (RETD)

The thrill of analysing military situations lies in the speed of change and how badly one can get surprised by the sheer dynamism of situations. The racy narrative of the developments over the last four or five days, ending with the ceasefire and also the breaches, made for much scope for analysis. Yet, prudence demands that any assessment of the current Indo-Pakistan scenario commence with the trigger that started it all: Pahalgam.

It was India's collective conscience which demanded from the government retribution of a proportion that would hurt the masters of the proxies that have waged war on India for the last 36 years. It was a demand also to convey India's political will and full strategic intent to avenge every misadventure they would undertake. Although immediacy of response was the emotive demand, the government sensibly gave itself a window sufficient to plan, wargame, gain confirmatory intelligence and build a credible deception.

The decisions of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) were in the non-military domain, correctly so, allowing the Armed Forces the space they needed. It also transpired that a credible but low-key deception plan was also progressively adopted. Even the last man on the streets of India knew that an Indian response was imminent. Yet, significantly, no one could predict when this could happen. Analysts like me gave a time window of even two to three months to keep Pakistan on tenterhooks about the deployment of its reserve formations on the ground, thus incurring a heavy economic penalty.

In a nation that is yet seeking the 24th loan from the IMF to service its previous loans from other sources, such expenditure is debilitating, as are no doubt the various military actions it is involved in. The 'wait and starve' strategy, although executed for just a fortnight, gained much credibility and helped achieve some surprise.