A key reason why outside powers like China and Russia are impressed with the Pakistan Army is the latter’s successful management of the eastern front against India. New Delhi, and its Army, erroneously maintain that the Pakistan Army is nothing more than an irritant
The Pakistan Army, which has not held a military parade on Pakistan Day (March 23) since 2008, citing security reasons, has decided to do it this year, with Chinese President Xi Jinping expected as the chief guest. Given the recent spurt in terrorism within Pakistan, what message is being given out by the Pakistan ArmyIJ
Has the security situation in Pakistan improvedIJ Is it imitating India, which recently had US President Barack Obama as the chief guest for its Republic Day celebrationsIJ Has the bonding between Pakistan and China become strongerIJ Is the Pakistan Army celebrating its wooing by powers like the US, China and even RussiaIJ Is it showcasing its military might to signal control on both fronts — Afghanistan, where President Ashraf Ghani has sought its support over India, and the line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir, where it no longer assesses Indian Army as grave threat.
The Pakistan Army is unique in many ways. It has shown an uncanny ability to stand steadily on two uneven stools — the US and China — through the rough and tumble of global transformation. It has adopted itself brilliantly to hybrid war —the competence to fight a conventional and sub-conventional war (terrorism) concurrently. It has undermined international non-proliferation regimes by amassing fastest growing nuclear arsenal in the world. like Arjun inMahabharat, who was focussed on the moving fish’s eye, the Pakistan Army unflinchingly views India as the existential threat, despite commentaries to the contrary.
Despite the Pakistan Army’s duplicitous proclivity and determination to not accommodate US concerns on terrorism and non-proliferation, President Obama recently cleared an annual one billion dollar grant for Pakistan. Analysts believe this is for operations in North Waziristan; bringing the Taliban to talks with the Afghan Government; intelligence cooperation with Kabul; and supporting regional and inclusive stability in Afghanistan. While all this may be true, what worries the US most is the Pakistan Army’s treacherous track record of selling bomb material whenever cash-strapped. This is how Rawalpindi will continue to blackmail Washington.
Pakistan’s bonding with China has become more intense. The People’s liberation Army, which bought the communist regime to power in China but was instructed by Deng Xiaoping to take a backseat since 1979 to allow planned modernisations (economic, industrial, military and science and technology) to succeed, has now assumed centre-stage with the anointment of President Xi Jinping.
Unlike his predecessors, Mr Jinping became the Chairman of the Central Military Commission, the highest body in-charge of the PlA, the day he was elevated to the topmost posts of President and general secretary of the communist party. With the recent purges in the PlA higher leadership by Mr Xi, China has brought the PlA to the vanguard of its foreign policy.
This explains China’s unprecedented decision to hold the first-ever military parade in September 2015 to commemorate the end of World War II and invite global leaders to the event. Until now, China used to have once-a-decade military parade (a closed door domestic affair) to mark the coming of communist regime in China; the last one was on October 1, 2009.
Considering that military leaders connect easily with one other, the PlA and the Pakistan Army share more capabilities against India. The presence of PlA soldiers across Pakistan-occupied Kashmir; the laying of fibre optics secure communications between Xinjiang and Rawalpindi; the development of the economic corridor across the Karakoram Highway which can be used for war sustenance in crisis; the sale of six new nuclear reactors from China to Pakistan without clearance of the Nuclear Suppliers Group; the recent test-firing of Pakistani Ra’ad cruise missile with turbofan technology; Pakistan becoming the first country to share the Chinese-secure Beidou satellite system for military tracking, navigation and targeting; and tactical nukes with the Pakistan Army, are a few examples of recent strategic and military proximity.
Another issue which has bought China and Pakistan Army closer is Afghanistan, where India, having spent over $2.5 billion in the war-torn country during the decade-long Karzai regime, faces uncertainty. New Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, after assuming office in September 2014, paid his first overseas visit to China, followed by Pakistan where he met the Army chief, General Raheel Sharif, before calling on the Prime Minister.
In an unusual development, China in 2014, a year before the drawdown of US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organisation forces from Afghanistan, appointed a special envoy for Afghanistan. His job: To assess how China could back the Pakistan Army, including the Inter-Services Intelligence, for greater clout in Afghanistan where it has growing commercial stakes, and to help Pakistan Army with ‘strategic depth’ not against India, but for a safe land route to Central Asian Republics markets.
This is not all. India’s longest-serving friend, Russia, which has been secretively romancing the Pakistan Army since the 2008 visit of then President Pervez Musharraf, finally showed its hand with the November 2014 visit of Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu to meet the Pakistan Army leadership in Rawalpindi. Under the garb of counter-terrorism, Russia signed a military cooperation agreement with Pakistan (Army) with the implicit intention to keep India under pressure (because of its dalliance with the US) and hopefully sell lethal arms.
A key reason why outside powers are impressed with the Pakistan Army (despite Pakistan’s domestic uncertainties) is its successful management of the eastern front against India, a nation with double the size of the Army. Ironically, the Indian Army has itself to blame for its unending human losses fighting insurgency since the ceasefire on November 26, 2003. The latter was a historic turning point.
The Indian Army had the choice to review its strategy, capabilities, training and mindset, to prepare itself better for conventional war after the failed military coercion during the 2001-2002 Operation Parakram, the 10-month military stand-off against Pakistan. This would have kept the Pakistan Army under constant pressure with little time, energy and resources for international image-building and grandstanding.
The Indian Army, instead, did the unthinkable. It cocooned itself behind a fence, declared its job was to combat no-war-no-peace situation rather than a hot conventional war, and started magnanimously dishing out a new category of gallantry awards meant for ‘hostilities other than war’, called the Yudh Seva medals for bravery in counter-insurgency operations. Instituted during Operation Pawan for the Indian Peace-Keeping Force in Sri lanka in the late 1980s, these medals were meant for distinguished war service in hostilities outside.
In 2004, the India Army under General NC Vij changed the very role of the Army to fighting no-war-no-peace. He was probably the first officer to get the Uttam Yudh Seva medal for being the Director General Military Operations during the 1999 Kargil conflict, when the Indian Army fought to regain lost ground in Kashmir.
Since then, a reverse trend started where senior Army officers would seek postings to Jammu & Kashmir for perks, pelf and status. This led to a lack of war preparedness, which has been reported extensively in the media. Further, Pakistan Army’s successful proxy war against an adversary much bigger in size, did not go unnoticed by outside powers. Given Pakistan’s geography and military capabilities, it appears the right ally to most non-status quo nations.
Amidst all this, India, and especially its Army, maintains that the Pakistan Army is nothing more than an irritant; an assessment frozen in the 1970s. This is India’s misfortune.
(The writer, who is editor FORCE newsmagazine, can be reached at pravin@forceindia.net)