Pakistan’s Talibanization Is No Strategic Threat To India

PAKISTAN’S TALIBANIZATION IS NO STRATEGIC THREAT TO INDIA

By Dr. Subhash Kapila

Introductory Observations

Pakistan’s Talibanization is inevitable and should not have come as a strategic surprise to discerning strategic analysts. Pakistan’s Talibanization has been inevitable due to acts of complicity and commission by the Pakistan Army military hierarchy and the permissive toleration by the United States of Pakistan Army’s strategic delinquencies in this direction for over a decade now.

The Pakistan Army created, nurtured and continues to sustain the Taliban along with Al Qaeda as a “strategic asset” to be used both against the United States and Afghanistan on its Western flanks and against India on its Eastern flanks with more specific reference to Kashmir. These entities were the instruments of proxy war in the Pakistan Army’s armory against India along with other Jehadist organizations like the Laskar-e-Toiba created by the Pakistan Army.

India more specifically has from 1989 till today has been incessantly battling Pakistan Army’s instruments of proxy war to begin with in the Kashmir Valley and now extending to the whole expanse of India in terms of terrorism, suicide bombings and sabotage.

India over such a long period of time successfully contained Pakistani proxy war laced with Islamic Jehadi contours and did not succumb to this Pakistani menace. This despite the regrettable strategic meekness and timidity of successive Indian governments of different political dispensations in India’s counter-terrorism responses. This also despite the susceptibility of each Indian Government to succumb to external pressures advising restraint against Pakistan.

The Indian Armed Forces have stood their ground all along against Pakistan’s state-sponsored proxy wars and there is no reason to doubt that the Indian Armed Forces would be inadequate in dealing with any renewed or reinvigorated military threats from a “Talibanized Pakistan” in the form of nuclear, conventional or asymmetric warfare.

A Talibanized Pakistan should be considered of no more “strategic concern” than an adversarial Pakistan which in the last sixty two years initiated four major wars against India and incessant irregular warfare without any results.

The Indian media has gone beserk in sensationalizing and raising the bogey of Pakistan’s Talibanization as some sort of insurmountable military threat to India. Some project it as “Barbarians at the Gates” and while others project the “Unstoppable Taliban” as being only an hours drive or so from Indian borders.

At times one gets a sneaking feeling that this Indian media hysteria on the Talibanization of Pakistan is externally inspired to induce in the Indian policy establishment and in Indian public opinion, pressures for an Indian policy orientation that would incorporate a fixation that India at any cost must contribute to stemming the tide of Pakistan’s Talibanization.

The point already stands made that the creation of Taliban was fathered by the Pakistan Army and its delivery midwifed by the United States. If the Taliban in its contemporary manifestations today poses a strategic threat to Pakistan and the United States, then the Taliban threat has to be met strategically and militarily by Pakistan and the United States.

India never ever figured anywhere in the process of the emergence of the Taliban and nor has India assisted in the Talibanization of Pakistan India therefore has no moral or strategic compulsions to stem the Taliban tide.

Having made the statement of the case, this Paper now attempts to marshal facts and perspectives as follows to dispel the hysterical proportions imparted by the Indian media and some policy analysts on the creeping Talibanization of Pakistan under way:

Pakistan and the Taliban: A Brief Reality Check
Pakistan’s Talibanization Facilitated by Pakistan Army Ceding Strategic Space by its Withdrawals from Frontier Regions
Impeding Talibanization of Pakistan: Factors That Can Come Into Play
Talibanized Pakistan: Strategic and Military Contours
Talibanized Pakistan: A Strategic Window of Opportunity for India

Pakistan and the Taliban: A Brief Reality Check

Innumerable books and analyses by Western and noted Pakistani analysts exist on the Taliban and their disruptive roles in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This Paper sets out a reality check incorporating salient facets which reinforce the statement of case made in this Paper and those which assist in the understanding of the perspectives offered.

Essentially therefore, this reality check would incorporate the following:

The Taliban was a Pakistan Army creation executed under the orders of Benazir Bhutto Prime Minister of Pakistan in mid 1990s.
Pakistan Army used the Taliban as an instrument of military subjugation of Afghanistan. Pakistan Army Officers, ISI officers and Pakistan Army regulars were used to stiffen Taliban cadres for operational purposes.
Talibanized Afghanistan was used by the Pakistan Army and ISI to set up “Islamic Jehadi factories” to tram cadres for global Islamic Jehad. Both the Taliban and the Al Qaeda were co-opted and exploited for this purpose. The horrific 9/11 assaults on USA homeland were the end results.
Post 9/11 the United States launched its military intervention to displace the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and destroy terrorist infrastructure. Pakistan Army played no part to assist the United States.
Pakistan Army regime undo General Musharraf overnight switched sides and agreed to assist US global war on terrorism.
Surprisingly and regrettably for reasons undefined the United States assisted the Pakistan Army to withdraw nearly 12,000 Pakistan Army personnel and Taliban cadres from Konduz in Afghanistan by a US airlift.
Following the establishment of the US sponsored democratic regime in Kabul, Pakistan Army has “double-timed” the United States by continued de-stabilization of Southern Afghanistan through a revived Taliban enjoyed safe havens in Pakistan’s border regions.

Notably, the United States and NATO Forces have not been able to neutralize the revived Taliban threat due to Pakistan’s Army’s complicity with the Taliban in providing safe havens for them in Pakistan.

Since the Pakistan Army is a “blind spot” of United States policy establishment and strategic community, the United States has even under the new US Administration, unable to come to grips with the simple strategic reality that for stabilization of both Afghanistan and Pakistan the United States needs to “discipline” Pakistan Army’s strategic delinquencies and its continuing dancing in cohorts with the Taliban in direct detriment of US national security interests.

Pakistan’s Talibanization Facilitated by Pakistan Army Ceding Strategic Space by its Withdrawals, from Frontier Regions

Pakistan’s creeping Talibanization raises one very significant question and that is as to how the Taliban have made headway in Pakistan when the Pakistan Army has had no strategic distractions on its Eastern borders for the last four to five years. In 2004 under US pressure the Pakistan Army had a ceasefire agreement in operation with India along the LOC. This ceasefire was unilaterally broken in mid-2008 by the Pakistan Army under its present Chief of Army Staff.,General Kayani. This after firing strategic broadsides at the United States that he would neither train nor regroup the Pakistan Army for operations on the Pak-Afghan frontier and that the Pakistan Army would concentrate on its primary mission against its main threat i.e. India. Vacating the western frontiers by the Pakistan Army on the plea of an Indian threat was only a fig-leaf cover for Pakistan Army’s real design of allowing the resulting vacuum to be filled in by various Taliban militias to the detriment of US national security interests.

Pakistan’s creeping Talibanization has occurred as the Pakistan Army started withdrawing from the frontier regions of South Waziristan, North Waziristan and now lately from the Swat Valley. The military vacuum so caused by the Pakistan Army in these areas were speedily put under the effective control of the various Taliban warlords. Pakistan’s state sovereignty ceased in those areas consequently.

Pakistan Army’s military withdrawal from these critical areas bordering on Afghanistan raises two questions (1) Pakistan Army withdrew from these regions after their military failures in regaining control of the Taliban ensconced in these regions, or/and (2) Pakistan Army withdrew from these regions as part of a well calculated plan to cede these regions to Taliban control so that the Pakistan Army could plead a plausible deniability exit that the heightened Taliban operations against the US and NATO Forces in Afghanistan were being launched from areas not under control of the Pakistan Army.

On both counts the United States should realize the strategic dilemma and dead-end that it has been forced into in Afghanistan by the Pakistan Army. If it is militarily ineffective against the Taliban, then the Pakistan Army cannot be expected to control and prevail the creeping Talibanization of Pakistan.

The second count seems more likely and that the Pakistan Army is complicit in the creeping Taliban spread over Pakistan’s heartland, secure in the belief that ultimately the end game of such a process would be the forcing of the United States exit from Afghanistan, thereby leaving Afghanistan once again to be retrieved under Pak control through the Taliban.

The last contention above gets reinforced in that the Pakistan Army is alternately and selectively preventing Taliban reclaiming Pakistan territory, as it did last week in Bajaur.

It also defeats the argument that the Taliban is unstoppable by the Pakistan Army. It also follows that the current bogey of Talibanization of Pakistan is a myth and bogey deliberately cultivated by the Pakistan Army to pressurize the United States on the following counts (1) United States would pressurize India to yield and compromise on the Kashmir issue to accommodate US strategic sensitivities (2) Make the United States to increase military aid to Pakistan Army (3) Force the United States for massive developmental aid to Pakistan’s Taliban prone areas but actually would once again be diverted to the Pak Army.

Impeding Talibanization of Pakistan: Factors That Can Come Into Play

Pakistan’s creeping Talibanization is a product of the Pakistan Army’s well crafted blueprint. It seems to be a well calibrated process with the Pakistan Army secure in the belief that it can control the calibrated Taliban escalation.

Should for whatever reason, if the Taliban breaks out from the Pakistan Army calibrated blueprint, then three main actors come into play to impede and stop Pakistan’s Talibanization.

The three main actors that can impede Pakistan’s Talibanization are (1) The Pakistan Army (2) The United States (3) The Pakistani Public especially in Punjab.

The Pakistan Army can be forced to impede Pakistan’s Talibanization by strong coercive pressure by the United States or by the self-preservation instincts of the Pakistan Army to refurbish its strong domestic image.

The United States has two options to impede Pakistan’s Talibanization. The first has already been stated above. Should the Pakistan Army be not inclined to submit to United States demands for impeding the Talibanization of Pakistan, then the United States needs to be strategically prepared for a United States military intervention in Pakistan with the following aims (1) Elimination of Taliban and Al Qaeda from the Pakistani firmament (2) Gain control over Pakistan Army’s nuclear arsenal and (3) Pakistan Army be disciplined and purged of its Islamist ideology.

The third actor to impede Pakistan’s Talibanization, and the most significant of all is the Pakistani public and more especially the Punjabis of Pakistan’s heartland and the core of the Pakistan Army. Lately in the Op-Eds and features in the Pakistani English newspapers there is evidence that the Pakistani Punjabis are not going to willingly accept the Talibanization of Punjab.

There are also indications that should the Pakistan Army be unwilling to rein- in the Taliban, then the peoples power would came into play both against the Pakistan Army and the Taliban and Al Qaeda

This could spell civil war in Pakistan and its possible disintegration.

It would be interesting to watch how China and Saudi Arabia react to a civil war ensuing in Pakistan enmeshed as they are in Pakistan both by bolstering the Pakistan Army and moreso, the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Colossal amounts of Saudi money has gone into financing the Taliban and China has been involved significantly in the arming of the Taliban.

Talibanized Pakistan: Strategic and Military Contours

Remotely probable, but not a distinct possibility currently, should an entire Pakistan fully. Talibanized emerges, then its strategic and military contours need to be examined and the nature of threat that it poses to India, more specifically.

It is ones strong belief that a fully Talibanized Pakistan cannot emerge without a fully Talibanized Pakistan Army. The most notable casualties in the emergence of a fully Talibanized Pakistan Army would be the disintegration of its military hierarchy, command and control structures, professional integration and professional military competence.

In terms of strategic and military contours, a fully Talibanized Pakistan could hardly pose an integrated military threat to any of its neighbors except for irregular warfare.

The major deduction here that one would like to offer is that a Talibanized Pakistan would be dominated by warring Taliban warlords more engrossed in infighting amongst themselves and possibly embroiled in a civil war or battling the major actors intent on impeding Pakistan’s Talibanization.

Surely, a Talibanized Pakistan is likely to give a spurt to terrorism and proxy war against India. An India fully expectant and prepared for such an eventually can certainly defeat such military adventurism as it has been done in the last 62 years against Pakistan Army adventurism.

In terms of sustaining a Talibanized Pakistan militarily, only China and Saudi-Arabia can come into play. China had a propensity of sustaining “rogue regimes” the world over.

China would however in sustaining a Talibanized Pakistan militarily would have to contend with US and Western sanctions, displeasure and development of counter- strategic pressure points against China in Tibet and Xinjiang.

Talibanized Pakistan: A Strategic Window of Opportunity for India

Realistically, but not perversely, it can be asserted that a Talibanized Pakistan offers a strategic window of opportunity for India as a regional power to re-order the South Asia security environment.

Pakistan with direct and active strategic and tactical support by China has for far too long played the role of a “regional spoiler state” with a wink and condonation at times by the United States.

India’s efforts to effectively reorder the South Asia strategic landscape towards peace and stability were hamstrung all along by the United States and China who perceived Pakistan as a “rental state” to be strategically used for their national ends and not a wayward state requiring reining-in in the interests of peace and stability in South Asia and contiguous regions.

A Talibanized Pakistan would cease to be of strategic utility to the United States and of uncertain use for China. A Talibanized Pakistan would emerge with marked Pan-Islamic linkages as a major security threat to the United States, Central Asia (and Russia by extension), Afghanistan, Iran and India. All of them would share a strategic convergence with India that a Talibanized Pakistan would not be in order for global and regional security interests.

India’s policies on Pakistan and its political timidity towards dealings with Pakistan so far have been stymied by false hopes in the minds of Indian political leaders that somewhere on the horizon there hovered chances of peace with Pakistan.

Contemporary Pakistan has never delivered on these vain Indian hopes and a Talibanized Pakistan would be that much more farther on peace with India.

In India’s threat perceptions and India’s military planning the ambiguities on Pakistan imposed by Indian political leaders shall disappear. A Talibanized Pakistan therefore would emerge as a more predictable and firm threat to India’s national security and therefore not place India in apologetic postures of not using hard power against a Talibanized Pakistan.

The Indian Armed Forces are bound to militarily prevail over a Talibanized Pakistan despite any advantages arising to them from asymmetric warfare, irregular warfare or even terrorism and suicide bombings.

Strong possibilities may exist that sections of the Pakistani population may seek Indian military support to rid their beloved Pakistan of the oppressive Taliban dispensation.

A Talibanized Pakistan therefore offers unprecedented windows of strategic opportunities to India to reorder South Asia towards stability and peace.

However, it goes beyond saying that to exploit this window of strategic opportunity, India’s leaders need to get out if their political stupor and chicanery and ensure that the war preparedness of the Indian Armed Forces is constantly maintained in a high state of readiness. to meet the threats of a possible Talibanized Pakistan.

Concluding Observations

Pakistan Talibanized would be the last manifestation of Pakistan as a “failed state” and as a prelude to its eventual disintegration.

The Indian policy establishment and nor the vast majority of the Indian people have ever sought the disintegration of Pakistan. Pakistan’s Talibanization therefore cannot be blamed in India.

Pakistan’s Talibanization would be brought to full culmination by the Pakistani peoples apathy to the Pakistan Army’s complicity in rearing the Taliban and sustaining its disruptive activities. The people of Pakistan themselves will ultimately have to save Pakistan from the impending disaster of their nation's Talibanization.

The United States too has to answer a lot on the events leading to Pakistan’s Talibanization.

India admittedly should be “strategically concerned” on the emergence of a Talibanized Pakistan. India as an emerging power does not have to got into a state of hysteria over Pakistan’s Talibanization as sought to being sensationalized by the Indian media.

India has successfully battled contemporary Pakistan Army’s wars and destabilizing operations against India for the last 62 years. The Indian Armed Forces can be expected to prevail over a Talibanized Pakistan and once again outlive it. All that India needs is resolute and determined political leadership willing to use the tremendous power leverages at its command.

(The author is an International Relations and Strategic Affairs analyst. He is the Consultant, Strategic Affairs with South Asia Analysis Group. Email:drsubhashkapila.007@gmail.com)