In the long list of terrorist actions launched by the state of Pakistan against India since 1947, the dastardly massacre of civilian tourists at Pahalgam, is by far the most heinous and barbaric. It must be responded to in a befitting manner.

It is sad that in the past India has talked a lot, but has hardly taken any retaliatory action of substance. Instead, our governments have listened to world leaders and institutions, mostly from the Western powers, and adopted the so-called policy of ‘restraint’, instead of suitable offensive action. This has resulted in Pakistan increasing the tempo and brutality of subsequent terror actions, most becoming more and more barbaric.

In this list, so-called Tribal Lashkars, commanded and equipped by regular troops, albeit after shedding their uniforms, in 1947 and subsequent actions in many parts of the country stand out, including the bomb blasts all over Bombay; the Mumbai Mayhem of 11/26, and the attack on Pathankot Air Base.

I include the Mumbai Mayhem, where the casualties were much more, but the terrorists neither asked for the religion of their victims, nor shot their victims brazenly and inhumanly at point blank range and made their victims’ kin to watch!

While it reminds one of how the US sponsored and supported terrorists of ISIS had massacred innocent civilians in Iraq and Syria (Kurds, Gypsies et al’). It was obvious that an aim much higher than spreading only panic and terror was planned and certainly at a very high level of the GHQ Pakistan,

Consequently, we must not consider this as just another terrorist action but one planned and designed not only to send a signal to India, but also further widen the hate incidents amongst communities in our country.

Hence, while the usual ‘search and destroy’ operations at the tactical level and other counter-insurgency actions to nab the culprits should continue, our focus should now be on considering this action akin to Pakistan launching the initial phase of a major increase of violent actions in both quality and quantity.

In the same vein, I want to clarify that when the Indian Army is deployed for counter-insurgency operations, it is very careful not to call its opponents ‘enemy’, but label them in accordance with their actions. Thus, when the Army was initially tasked for operations in J&K, they were referred to as ‘misguided’ and thereafter as the situation started deteriorating and based on their activities, they were named as insurgents, terrorists, suicide bombers and so on.

This is the creed of the Indian Army when it operates in a sub-conventional environment in our own country. We also act and react under the rubric of two cardinal principles – ‘Minimum Force’ and ‘Good Faith’.

On the other hand, Pakistan treats agitators as enemies and employs full force, including air assaults against them. They have done so in the past in FATA and NWFP and are doing so in Baluchistan and along the Afghan border today. The same concept has been used in both POK and the Northern Territories. This is a sure way of alienating the populace.

I am convinced that the time has come to stop calling our operations in J&K and elsewhere as counter insurgency operations and refer to them as Proxy War, so that the focus of our operations shifts to waging war, albeit limited. Our military structures should change accordingly. A related point is that local and central armed police forces should be referred to by their names and not called collectively as ‘security forces’, as each has well known and specific tasks.

The Government has already initiated many political and diplomatic actions, which need not be repeated here. Some more need to follow, especially in the economic field, but the decision makers, planners and executors responsible for the security of the nation need to do so, in a manner where advertently or inadvertently secrecy that is essential must not be lost or inadvertently given away.

We need to shortlist all available options, consider their pros and cons, work out how best the desired results will be achieved, decide on the safeguards and finally let everyone in the loop be clear about the desired end state to be achieved. This would not be a simple exercise, but it is essential, not only for victory, but also it must contribute to lasting peace and an end to the continued belligerence and hate-mongering.

Unlike India, the prevailing situation is that in Pakistan, it is the religious factor that is all encompassing; it appears to supersede even rational thought! In our case, our strength comes from diversity, although the present government and their idealogues are mistakenly pushing for the supremacy of Hindus. In addition, in all situations, it is the Pakistani Army that makes all major policies and conducts them and hence must be the ultimate target of offensive actions.

Despite losing all wars fought by Pakistan with India, it refuses to acknowledge that the best policy for Pakistan is to make friends with India. Yet, the Pakistani Army’s hold on the nation is so pervasive that the elected representatives of the people are there only as rubber stamps, merely to show to the world that Pakistan is a democracy. This is further reinforced by the army’s propaganda that it is only the Pakistani Army that is essential for the defence of Pakistan, otherwise India will secure it!

The Western Powers, led by the USA, need Pakistan on account of its geographical location, for controlling Central Asia and the Islamic World, besides the new super power in the making, China, which has its own reasons to use or rather misuse Pakistan as their counter to India..

Two other aspects are of importance. Firstly, despite deposing and then incarcerating Imran Khan, he continues to be a favourite of the masses, with a big following.

Secondly, recent intelligence reports seem to indicate that all is not well with the internal health of the Pakistani Army, as both senior and middle-piece officers are unhappy with how the Army is being run. This has not happened at this scale in the past.

While planning however, we need to remember that the Pakistani Army and the other services, especially the Pakistan Air Force (PAF), are a professional Military and has allies for decades. We must also not forget that Pakistan is a nuclear state and more importantly the only Islamic country that possesses nuclear weapons.

As an aside, let me also highlight the ridiculously sensational role being played by our media, especially the electronic one. For the last 12 years or so, with the advent of the present government assuming power, the bulk of our very large media has forgotten that it is meant to provide true pictures of all types of news and well analyzed views. That is the reason it is called the fourth estate.

However, progressively it has turned into a mouthpiece of the government and it churns out only news that the government wants to be published. This defeats the very purpose of independent media, which is an essential part of democracy and freedom of speech, which is enshrined in our Constitution.

Now, since the massacre at Pahalgam, it seems that our electronic media has gone berserk completely. A few TV Channels, the dregs of the television world, televise such unpalatable fare that not only defies logic but makes us look like a banana republic, which we are not. They produce such low-grade fare that one feels ashamed to even watch them.

Now, so-called war rooms have been prepared in TV Studio’s, which have reached the pits of stupidity. Unfortunately, persons with a military background like your writer are also aghast to see many senior and middle - piece veterans participating in such ventures. This must cease. We belong to a proud and professionally capable military, but such acts only sully our reputation!

India has launched a series of diplomatic and strategic countermeasures against Pakistan, which it holds responsible for the Pahalgam Massacre, including closure of the check post at Attari; SAARC visa exemption cancellation for Pakistan, and suspending the Indus Water Treaty. These are good preliminary actions, which fall in the political and diplomatic arenas. But are they enough? Not according to a large number of our citizens.

The population wants revenge and that too involving blood and gore. The Indian Armed Forces are quite competent to deliver, but there are many factors that need to be considered, including world opinion, regional pluses and minuses, effects on trade and commerce, reaction of friendly powers and allies and so on.

The fact that both India and Pakistan are nuclear powers is also a major aspect to be considered. The Government of India has now announced that it has given a free hand to the armed forces to plan suitable retaliation.

Have the politico-bureaucratic policy makers abandoned their responsibility or is it a case of ignorance? Whatever be the thinking, everyone needs to understand that war is a political act and is fought not just by the armed forces but the entire country

Peace with Pakistan is a mirage. The Balakot operation, following the Pulwama killings by Pakistan was the first time a nuclear power had carried out an airstrike inside another nuclear-armed state, albeit with conventional armament and with great caution and safeguards. However, that was not really counted in the nuclear realm.

The current conventional military face-off, however, will perhaps bust Western academic theories about the inevitability of tit-for-tat actions, rapidly triggering a serious nuclear crisis. Pakistan’s delusions of security behind a supposed nuclear shield are therefore negated to a large extent, especially if no other nuclear power interferes. However, we do need to take time out to look at Pakistan’s nuclear policy.

There are historical reasons dating back to the partition in 1947 and of subsequent conflicts between India and Pakistan that are psychological barriers of deep mistrust, anger and in some cases outright hatred of others.

These are major obstacles in the relations between the two countries and most difficult to overcome. This is despite India extending its hands on numerous occasions for dialogues and understanding of each other’s concerns, but it is the Pakistani Army that has spurned all such gestures, because they know that if successful, it will spell the death knell of the Pakistani Army.

One must therefore be realistic about the possibilities and have modest expectations about any efforts of reproachment between India and Pakistan. However, we must understand what the nuclear policy of Pakistan is.

The Pakistani government’s approach to employing nuclear weapons rests on a calculation of its vulnerability to India’s conventional and nuclear forces, and even to India’s possible use of nonmilitary instruments to threaten Pakistan’s territorial integrity, political stability, and economic viability. Armed with few viable defence options, notwithstanding its expanding nuclear arsenal, Pakistan is likely to continue to embrace a flexible and non-specified doctrine for using nuclear weapons.

Pakistani civilian and military policy makers recognize that their government and perhaps even their country are not likely to survive a nuclear exchange with India. But operational military plans must include all contingencies.

Pakistan’s targeting policy probably includes a mix of countervalue and counterforce targets. At present, Pakistan has nuclear-capable aircraft, which have limited range and penetration capability. Pakistani ballistic missiles, both liquid and solid fuel, can reach key strategic points in India. Cruise missiles also have been tested and gradually will be integrated into operational plans.

Pakistan’s strategic development strategy includes continuous research experiments and flight-tests to improve the accuracy and penetrability of existing nuclear delivery systems. Pakistan’s nuclear use doctrine probably calls for holding multiple Indian industrial centres, military-industrial complexes, defence facilities, and military bases. Should India push Pakistan to the brink, whether by attacking, occupying, or destroying, Pakistan’s National Command Authority could very well force it to use nuclear weapons.

The U.S. strategic relationship with Pakistan continues to be of vital importance to U.S. security interests, Pakistan’s concern about becoming strategically isolated, as it was in the late 1970s and

throughout the 1990s, is likely to intensify as the U.S.- India strategic relationship continues to grow. How this plays out in Islamabad’s general foreign policy orientation and in its strategic policies remains to be

seen

Does the Indian Government have a counter-terrorist strategy beyond hopping from one incident to another -- Gurdaspur, Pathankot, Uri, Pulwama (the list is endless) and now Pahalgam? More importantly, why is no spine visible?

Since 2014, the government has undertaken two cross-border actions against Pakistan: the 'surgical strike' in response to 19 killed in terrorist attack at Uri, and the Balakot standoff air strike after suffering 40 killed in a terrorist car bombing at Pulwama. Both these were reactive actions. Pakistani terrorists have also inflicted multiple raids and beheadings through border actions along the LoC and inside J&K.

NSA Ajit Doval and other senior policy makers of India have been going around announcing that India will take the battle to where the threat originates. Is this what we are planning to do? Your guess is as good as mine.

The saving grace is the military chiefs are highly experienced professionals and not like the Jumla-narrating political masters! I have full faith in their abilities to come back to the policy-makers with workable plans, who can then decide and task the military to implement them.

Before I conclude, I need to highlight that despite such a major incident having taken place and the barbaric nature of the incident, why have no heads rolled? At the time of the Mumbai Mayhem (26/11), accountability had not been forgotten. If I recall correctly, the Home Minister had been sacked, as was the Chief Minister of Maharashtra; the head of the NSG and sundry police officers had also been brought to book.

However, in a typical methodology of the present government, come hail or thunderstorm’ killings and maiming, or any other committal of heinous crimes, accountability is not even mentioned. The same has happened now. An incident wherein 26 precious lives of innocent civilians have been lost, no one is blameworthy. Neither the Governor nor the police head of J&K or anyone in the huge Home Ministry, nor anyone else is to blame. Is it that such niceties are not applicable for loyalists, or the powers that be are too busy to notice such activities.

In the meantime, the populace should prepare themselves and be ready to play their parts. I would also request our arm-chair analysts not to give away classified information and advise our TV experts to cease and desist and let the editors and owners worry about their TRP’s. Thank you.

Lt General Vijay Oberoi is a Former Vice Chief of Army Staff (VCOAS) and Former Founding Director of the Think Tank of the Army, Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS), of which he is now Director General Emeritus. The views expressed here are the writer’s own.

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Lt General VIJAY OBEROI