Pakistan Will Retaliate at a Time and Place of Their Choosing

Pakistan’s denial of surgical strikes is a tactical move aimed at making India complacent, writes Rajeev Sharma

Pakistan’s denial of the Indian Amy’s surgical strikes in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir is a tactical move. It is their Trojan Horse aimed at misleading India and lulling the Indians into complacency.

The Pakistani retaliation will surely come. Make no mistake about it. Just as India has taken 11 days to respond to the 18 September Uri terror attack at the time and place of India's own choosing, Pakistan too will pick its own time, place and scale of its retaliation.

Pakistan’s Objective behind Denying Military Operation

The biggest USP of a military operation is the surprise element, wherein you take the enemy completely unawares. The Indian Army has done this precisely.

To keep the surprise element intact, it is an ideal ploy for Pakistan to deny the Indian surgical strikes in the first place. Pakistan has instead maintained that it was a cross border firing by the Indians, in which two Pakistani soldiers were killed. The Pakistani statement characterises the Indian strikes as a routine operation, in which only bullets crossed the Line of Control (LoC), not Indian Army personnel.

There is a method behind this ostensible madness. By denying the Indian cross border strikes, Pakistan is trying to achieve two objectives:

1. Buying time to prepare for a military response at a time and place of its own choosing, and;
2. Thwart public pressure domestically.

Contingency Measures

The Indian Army cannot be, and isn’t, unaware of this Pakistani ploy. That’s why the war preparations are in full swing and routine measures like cancellation of leaves for soldiers, doctors and paramedical staff; getting border villages evacuated; stockpiling of life-saving drugs in hospitals close to the borders; putting all Army and force units – especially in border areas – on highest alert; and tactical deployment of war machinery have been put in place.

It Was a Prestige Issue for Modi

The current flare-up in India-Pakistan relations must be seen in terms of personal image of two main players, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Pakistan army. Both are in many ways the prisoners of their public image. Other players do not matter in the two countries. Needless to say, that Army Chief General Raheel Sharif dictates Pakistan’s India policy, not the other Sharif: PM Nawaz.

Modi had spewed so much fire against Pakistan as the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate that he would have committed a political hara-kiri of sorts if he were to choose to do nothing after the Uri terror attack. He contributed to his talking tough image by vowing a few days back at a public meeting in Kozhikode, that the Uri
attack won’t go unpunished.

Chances of Escalation by Pakistan

Similarly, the Pakistan Army too has thrived on anti-India mindset and policies. Just as Modi was under pressure to keep his public image intact by coming up with an effective and quick retaliation, the Pakistan Army too is now left with no choice but to respond to India’s unprecedented cross-border surgical strikes at terror camps in PoK. The assertion of Indian DGMO to his Pakistani counterpart that the Indian military action was not aimed at Pakistan Army but terror elements on Pakistani soil, won’t cut any ice with Rawalpindi, the seat of military power in Pakistan.

What PM Modi and his powerful National Security Advisor Ajit Doval were expected to do in early 2019 (just before the 2019 General Elections), Pakistan-centric chain of events has forced them to do it in September 2016.

Expect a serious military escalation in days to come. War clouds are hanging low on the Indian sub-continent.

(Rajeev Sharma is an independent journalist and a strategic affairs analyst, who tweets @kishkindha. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)

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