End of Pakistan
Will Pakistan's wish of self-destruction be granted?
The world recently came to reluctant realization that threads of all the major global terrorist activities originate in Pakistan. From jihad on US soil, grooming gangs in Britain, rapes in Greece, outfits in the US, Iran, Canada, Afghanistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, to Pakistan’s state-backed sponsorship of Osama bin Laden the evidence is overwhelming.
India and Afghanistan have suffered the most by Pak-sponsored terrorists. Both have started imposing high cost penalties on Pakistan to force them to abandon terrorism as state policy. In light of this background recent terror attack in Kashmir brings the threat of high-cost penalty on Pakistan to the forefront. So what will India do?
Options for India
India is not in an ideal situation to solve this crisis once and for all but it is in a very advantageous position never-the-less.
War is fought not only in the battlefields but also in factories and banks.
India has a stable economy, which has been set right after a prolonged period of mismanagement. Its armed forces are better equipped and getting better. Its factories and innovation engines are firing and are ready to match with the best in the world. India would like to impose asymmetric costs on Pakistan.
Pakistan, on the other hand, is economically weak, dependent on Chinese and US supplies and has no manufacturing capacity to speak of. Its military is more keen on money laundering rather than conventional warfare. It is politically unstable, with the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) and Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) hunting the Pak army in various coordinated attacks. Pakistan is also diplomatically isolated, with more Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) members supporting India than Pakistan. Nevertheless, Pakistan has a high nuisance value.
In this context, the following options are viable for India:
One-off deep strike: After the Uri Operation by the Indian Army and Balakot deep-strike operations by the Indian Air Force, India can undertake a similar operation as a response. The critical part of such an operation will be the choice of targets.
The Uri operation was focused on the actual masterminds of the Pathankot terror attack on the Indian Air Force base.
The Balakot Operation was focused on the terrorist training infrastructure used to house and prepare terrorists for infiltration into India. It was conducted in response to the Pulwama attack on an Indian army convoy.
It is said that unknown gunmen are eliminating India's most wanted terrorists hiding in Pakistan.
In this context, experts believe the retaliation should be on the Pakistani Army itself or the Pakistan spy agency ISI.
Entire Border on Slow-burn: It involves activating the entire border by moving troops and armaments close to the border. India has a 3500km border with Pakistan. It is a resource drain, particularly for Pakistan. For India, it is like a mock test. In this,
India will deploy a large number of troops and artillery weapons.
There will be events where Indian artillery guns will bomb the Pakistani posts. It has advantages for India - old artillery shells can be live-tested, your manpower gets battle-trained, and then you can activate your factories and test supply chains for manufacturing ammunition. You will have fresh ammunition for any further conflicts.
The deployment on the Indian side requires high alertness and equal deployment on the Pakistani side. It has high costs to maintain this level of activity over a longer time.
Cyber-attack: This will surely happen as it ties in with India's capability, stand-off delivery, high impact and deniability. It includes
Disrupt key installations in Pakistan through, say, power-grid failure. (most likely)
Disrupt airports, ports and other locations because of software glitches, etc.
Some cyber-attacks on Pakistani banks and financial markets (less likely)
Economic blockade:
Air-space blockade: India has already imposed a No-fly zone for Pakistani airlines. It
A shipping blockade can follow. It can be a soft blockade (checking, inspection and imposing delays) on ships going to Pakistan or a hard blockage where ships are denied entry to Pakistan ports. A hard blockade is imposed only when war is declared.
Road Blockage will require help from BLA and TTP. It will also require the disruption of the northernmost part of CPEC, which is an essential link between China and Pak. The Chinese may be able to send supplies into Pak by road through Afghanistan by paying off the TTP.
Regular anti-terror operations: This is a version of active border policy but with slight modifications. It involves:
Deep infiltrations at regular, randomized intervals targeting terror ecosystems, including that of the Pak Army.
It can use air, naval assets or even boots on the ground. There should be parallels to attacks used and justified by the Americans in Sudan, Somalia, Libya and Syria.
The attacks are surprise attacks with deep intel through electronic surveillance or on-the-ground informers.
Degrading Pak military and economic capacity: Debt kills more slowly and deliberately than bullets.
Pakistan is in debt, and if India can tighten the screws on economic capability, it will implode by itself because of high inflation and high cost on the quality of life.
Pak Army operates a substantial part of the Pakistani economy through its Fauji Foundation. These economic interests should be hit and destroyed.
Pakistan Sandwich: I had another term in mind, but I like this term used by Major Gaurav Arya.
The intensity and activity along the India-Pak border will open opportunities for TTP and BLA to attack and break Pakistan from the other side.
Intel-sharing and operational coordination between BLA, TTP and India will increase the effectiveness and favourable outcomes for all parties.
Special Operations inside Pak: These will be a certainty. There will be two types of operations inside Pak by India - those with clear Indian stamp and others using unknown men or unclaimed resources.
Drone-attacks: Attacks similar to those on Saudi Oil refinery where kamikaze drones attack critical economic and military resources.
Unknown men: Unknown men have eliminated at least 20 most wanted terrorists hiding in Pakistan.
Special Operations against Pak outside Pak: The terror attack compels India to escalate its response. I believe this requires special operations against Pakistanis outside Pakistan. Such operations come under the purview of RAW (India's spy agency) and, it will be horses for courses.
Political uprising: Pakistan is politically unstable, with its most popular leader, Imran Khan, in jail. To be clear, Imran Khan's presence in Pakistani politics is not favourable to India. It is, however, morale-crippling for the Pakistani Army as it will have to tackle a civil war in addition to separatist movements (BLA, TTP) and border tensions. The US President Trump may be helpful in freeing Imran Khan from jail and allowing him to be politically active.
Diplomatic Isolation: These initiatives are to be pursued concurrently and consistently.
Pakistan is already in the FATF grey list. Let us explore ways to get it to the blacklist.
India should get Fauji Foundation and all other Pakistan Army enterprises classified as Terror financing entities. This will freeze their assets.
Get the assets of Pak generals frozen under money laundering and other activities. Most Pakistani officers are dual citizens and, hence, will hide under UK or US laws. Many are sponsored and financed by the CIA and European agencies, so this won't be easy.
Background
While we focus on the actions of Pakistan, it is also important to understand its background and the foundational flaws in the conception of Pakistan.
Pakistan - a flawed creation
The European colonizers landed in India during a critical period when Indians were very close to eliminating the threat of Islam.
These Europeans were the early ancestors of today’s woke liberals who had forgotten what Islam brought to their doorstep. They forgot what drove the European fighters from England to Poland to leave their countries and travel to Israel to liberate Jerusalem from the Islamic yoke.
Islam entered modern west-Europe with invasion of Spain and Portugal in 700s. The Umayyads having consolidated their Spanish territory mounted attack into Gaul. The decisive Battle of Tours turned the conquest in favor of Europeans.
By 1400s, the crusades had failed and Europeans had whitewashed their history by calling them the dark ages. This is terrible disservice to Charles Martel whose victory in battle of Tours in 732 CE prevented the Islamisation of Europe and allowed for enlightenment, resulting industrial revolution and colonial supremacy.
When the European colonialist entered India in 1500s, Indians, still fighting the war with Islam, had just emerged victorious. Instead of eliminating the threat of Islam once and for all, the Europeans tried to harness it to their advantage.
British had misguided geopolitical interests driving their Islamic dalliance in creation of Pakistan. The stupidity resulted in Pakistan!
The British thought it was good idea to carve out parts of India that were muslim dominated areas into one Islamic country. The Pakistan that was born in 1947 also included what is present day Bangladesh. After its independence, Pakistan sought to annex Kashmir (succeeded partly) and Balochistan (succeeded).
Pakistan - foundational fault-lines
What the British and the muslims did not realize that the act of foundation itself embedded some fault-lines into this country.
First fault-line lies in the idea of Pakistan itself. They conceived of Pakistan as a country of muslims, hence the name Pak (which means land of the pure people). While this sounded great in theory, it was against the Islamic principles itself. Islam believes that the world belongs to the Islamic leader i.e. the Caliph. So when ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared himself the Caliph, Pakistan, as per Islamic rules, should belong to him. But this was inconvenient.
Second fault-line lies within the identity of Pakistan. Pakistan was conceived as a outpost of Islam to loot, rape and plunder the Kaffir lands - i.e. India. Unfortunately, these ideas of loot, rape, pillage and plunder are at the very foundation of Islam itself, preached and practiced by the Prophet himself. Distancing from these ideas distances the followers from Islam. Honest Pakistanis will often quote the slogan “Lad ke liya Pakistan, hanske lenge Hindustan” (we won Pakistan by fighting, we will conquer Hindustan, India, while smiling). These ideas have nothing for self-aspiration. Their aspiration is the decline and conquest of India. This negative identity is the deepest fault-line.
Third, at its foundation, Pakistan aimed to subsume all the local, cultural, linguistic and tribal identities into one uniform Arabian identity as followers of Islam. They would have liked to adopt Arabic language and follow the Prophet, but none could speak it. So they chose a more Indianised Persian-Hindi amalgamation called Urdu as their state language.
Finally, the governance structure of Pakistan is the third fault-line. Pakistan is unlike any normal state. Experts say other nations have armies, Pakistani army has a nation. The Pakistani Army has a vice-like grip over all the economic engines of prosperity. This makes Pakistan a hostage area and its citizens as hostages (of Islam and the army). It is such an extreme case of Stockholm syndrome that I think Stockholm syndrome should be called Pakistan syndrome.
With these fundamental contradictions embedded in its very foundations, Pakistan is bound to fail. Rather, it desperately wants to fail and it invents various means and causes to hasten its own demise.
So India should help and encourage the demise of Pakistan.
While this sound harsh but over 10,000 years what we call Pakistan was actually part of India and it will find peace when it becomes part of India.
It is also been tried earlier. With the rape and murder of over 1 million of East Pakistanis by the Pakistani Army itself, it became clear that there was no unity in the “brotherhood of Islam”. Leftist in East Pakistan and also in India postulated that the differences were cultural and hence Bengali-speaking East Pakistanis were better off as a separate country. That resulted in creation of Bangladesh - a country hived off from Islamic country but did not align with its Islamic nature but with its Bengali culture. Over time Bangladesh has been as radicalized as ISIS itself but, at its foundational, it was more Bengali than muslim.
But apart from Bengali identity, there are other identities in search of roots within Pakistan. These include the Baloch, Sindhis, Pashtuns, and Indian occupants (Baltis and Ladakhis). All of them need to be liberated.
In Sum
Previously I had anticipated that Pakistan will not last till 2047 (i.e. 100 years of its creation). I believe, with its actions, Pakistan has hastened its demise.
Thus, the present Pakistan will split into Balochistan, Sindh, Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunwa (KPK), Pak occupied Kashmir and Pak Occupied Gilgit-Baltistan. Of these, Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan are Indian territories in control of Pakistan so they will be absorbed into India. KPK will become part of Afghanistan.
The end of Pakistan is near. I doubt it will last 5 years.
Very good piece!