Every now and then, a book appears so
well timed that you wonder how the authors managed it. George Perkovich
and Toby Dalton’s Not War, Not Peace: Motivating Pakistan to Prevent
Cross-Border Terrorism is one of them. The book, which was released in
Delhi last night, takes up the theme that has roiled the country for the
past ten days — how do we persuade Pakistan to abandon its support to
terrorism?
The central theme of the book is that the existence of “survivable”
nuclear arsenals by India and Pakistan make any conventional war
“suicidal as a means resolve the disputes that bedevil their bilateral
relations.”
The authors are associated with the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, and Perkovich is the author of a seminal study on
India’s nuclear weapons capability. The book is a classic US think tank
project, a product of rigorous scholarship and analysis, based on
scores of interviews conducted by the authors in both countries. Its
arguments are laid out quite bluntly and the authors say they are not
recommending any specific course of action, only laying out a menu which
can help India to work out its response. For that reason it must be
taken seriously — very, very seriously.
The book has systematically examined the policy and decision-making
background and then studied the options individually. So they look at
army-centric responses associated with the proactive or “Cold Start”
doctrine; the option of air power, which many today claim would be the
least escalatory, covert action, and the manner in which nuclear weapons
are factored into the equation. Finally, they examine the issue of
“non-violent compellence”.
“Compellence” is a peculiar nuclear-era concept which goes beyond
deterrence, because deterrence is preventing the adversary from doing
something, whereas compellence is a mix of policies, postures and
capabilities which seek to push the adversary towards a desired
direction, such as, say, abandoning support for terrorists. What the
authors do is look at its elements like sanctions, diplomatic isolation,
financial punishment and even naval blockades as a means to pushing
Pakistan to do the needful. The authors argue that India’s growing clout
in world affairs can enable it to undertake a strategy of “non violent
compellence”.
We are perhaps detecting elements of the last strategy in Modi
government’s dealings with Pakistan. The Modi strategy — cornering
Pakistan across the world, his addresses to the US Congress, BRICS
leaders meeting in Guangzhou, the G20 summit and, indeed, wherever he
has gone in the last six months. His refrain has been constant —
Pakistan is a rogue state which needs to be isolated.
Modi’s reference to Baloch, Gilgit-Baltistan and Pakhtunistan
indicate that playing around with Pakistani faultlines may be part of
the strategy.
Parallel to this have been the revival of Indian diplomatic efforts
to promote a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT)
and to push with the need to colar people designated by the Al
Qaeda-Taliban sanctions committee.
Perkovich and Dalton have referred to the UN Security Council
Resolution (UNSCR) 1373, a Chapter VII resolution banning funding of
terrorism and calling on states not to support terrorism. But there are a
clutch of other resolutions like 1566 of 2004, also under Chapter VII,
calling on states to “find, deny safe haven and bring to justice” all
people involved in financing planning or commissioning terrorist acts.
There has been talk of things like naval blockades and scrapping the
Indus Waters Treaty. It does not take too much to say that these are not
easy options. A blockade minus war goes against international law, and
in addition, not workable unless China and the US are on board. As for
IWT, denying water is not a feasible option. It also opens up India to
similar action by Nepal or China.
Non-violent compellence is hazily understood and applied by Indian
policy makers for the past 30 years with indifferent results. The reason
for this is the lack of analytical rigour in working out and applying
policies in general in the country. India tends towards ad hoc and
instinctive approaches. As spelt out by the authors, and as hinted by
Modi, a more systematic application could come up with different
results. It could involve an offensive on multiple fronts aimed at
isolating and punishing Pakistan through sanctions. People say that
sanctions don’t work, but in the case of Iran recently, they certainly
did. The issue is the manner in which they are brought about. The world
is currently in a funk over the rise of Islamist radicalism; this could
be a good opportunity to revisit the issue.
In this context, one of our greatest failings has been in our
inability to break what we call the ‘Sino-Pak nexus’. This has been
around since the mid-1960s, yet New Delhi has not worked out a strategy
through which we could break or at least moderate this nexus. It is not
as though the lines of policy to do this are not visible, as have been
the opportunities.
September 27, 2016
Sunday, November 13, 2016
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