IT IS BEYOND belief that the Indian military can contemplate, let alone want, war with Pakistan within two weeks. But they are apparently working to that timetable — and have been busy briefing the international press about it. The plan, as divulged, is to launch lightning strikes against Kashmiri militants’ bases on the Pakistani side of the Line of Control. Delhi’s high command compares the proposed operation with that by the US and its allies in Afghanistan.
This is insanity. First, with a million men deployed on both sides of the Line of Control there is no way that this would be the quick walkover that happened in Afghanistan. Secondly, Pakistan would regard any Indian action in its part of Kashmir as a declaration of war. It will not be a war limited to Kashmir, as India’s generals imagine. Pakistan will fight to the bitter end. Gen. Musharraf and the military cannot allow themselves to be defeated. Given that plus the two countries’ nuclear capacity and the fact that Musharraf has reserved the right of first strike, the possibility of nuclear war, however remote, cannot be ruled out.
That makes the dispute between the two a global issue. Even if the fallout from nuclear strikes could be contained within the sub-continent (doubtful), the resulting social, economic and political chaos in both places would result in the rapid collapse, not just of the two governments but almost certainly of the countries themselves. The international community would be left to pick up the pieces.
It is totally unacceptable for India to even contemplate, let alone embark upon a war that could go nuclear. The assumption by its generals, supposedly to be among the best in the world, that a conflict can be limited in scale and area is dangerously shortsighted. Of course, the revelation of a two-week countdown to war was primarily intended to intimidate the Pakistanis; there was probably the hope too that it would frighten the international community into adding to the pressure on Islamabad. But this cannot been seen as a hollow threat. India would not have made it if it did not mean it.
New Delhi is not so foolish or so deaf that it does not know that the world will not tolerate the use of nuclear weapons and that it will punish any who use them, whether defensively or offensively. But it refuses to understand that any type of war with Pakistan could open the door to such devastating use and that the world is therefore opposed to any conflict between the two neighbors.
Gen. Musharraf at least seems to understand the international community’s demands. He has told visiting US envoy Richard Armitage that he will do everything to avoid war. But will US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld be given the same assurances by Prime Minister Vajpayee in Delhi today? Possibly, and ordinary Indians and Pakistanis still believe that there is not going to be a war. But the Indian military’s two-week timetable point to a country now determined to fight on the Kashmir issue unless Pakistan concedes.
Moreover, with Vajpayee’s suggestion of joint patrols along the Line of Control seemingly dead, the official rhetoric is more warlike than ever — despite reports in the Indian press that Delhi is inclined to accept Pakistani claims that it is trying to control Kashmiri militants, .
The two countries have to be pulled back from the brink. That is the immediate priority.
Secondly, the Kashmir issue has to be resolved, regardless of India’s objections that it is a matter for it and Pakistan alone. This may be a bilateral dispute but it has profound international implications. If it is not resolved, then it will simply be war delayed — a nuclear war at that!
