It needs no more than 4 bad decisions for India and Pakistan to go to war; and 5 for that war to go nuclear. So how did the Pulwama crisis measure up against this approximate yard-stick?
The 15-day crisis began with a suicide attack on an Indian paramilitary police convoy in Kashmir on February 14 and ended with the release of the Indian MiG-21 pilot on March 1.
The first bad decision is baked into the current regional fabric; the Kashmir dispute itself and Pakistan’s tolerance of terrorist groups on its territory. Putting to one side the question of any Pakistani complicity with groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) the fact remains that the groups are so well-established in the cities of Pakistan’s Punjab province that it is probably no longer possible for the Pakistan army to dislodge them. The last time Pakistan tried to crack down on JeM in 2003, the organization mounted two assassination attempts against then-President Pervez Musharraf.
It is not obvious whether the second decision was a bad one or not. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi took his time to calculate the best response. He announced some trade measures and waited for the departure of the Saudi Crown Prince from Indian soil before launching a nocturnal bombing raid on a JeM site near Balakot. In deciding on this course of action, he was stymied by the lack of worthwhile militant targets inside Pakistan Held Kashmir (PHK). The so-called terrorist “launching pads” are ephemeral and an attack would neither cause much damage nor convey a sufficiently serious message.
Modi’s planners may have briefly considered an attack against JeM’s facilities in Bahawalpur, but the danger of civilian deaths would have been too great and an attack inside a major Pakistani city, too provocative. They may have also pondered an attack against a Pakistan army site in PHK, but may have discounted it as being a step too far up the escalatory ladder.
So, the air-strike against a mountain-top madrassa and supposed training camp above the small town of Balakot can be interpreted as reasonable and proportionate. In fact, there are Pakistani military men who would privately agree that an attack which killed over 40 Indian paramilitary police deserved a response of this measured kind against the terrorist group responsible. However, the fact that Balakot is in Pakistan and not in PHK meant that it was escalatory. So, the second decision was not unreasonable, but it was dangerous.
Thus, the focus turned to Islamabad (or more realistically to Rawalpindi where the army’s GHQ is located). Would the third decision also be escalatory? The first signs were reassuring. Pakistan’s highly-effective Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) sprung into action and put out a version of events which portrayed the Indian attack as a fiasco; with pictures of bomb-craters in open woodland. For a few hours it seemed possible that Pakistan would not respond but, instead, take the moral high-ground. But then the National Command Authority (NCA) was convened. This is the body that can approve a nuclear strike. Fortunately, its purpose on this occasion was merely to send a crude warning to India.
Pakistan also had very few good options to consider. It has long accused India of training Balochi insurgents, but it is unlikely that any such camps would be in Kashmir or close to the Pakistan border. An attack against the Indian air-force base from which the Balakot attack was mounted or against Indian targets in Indian Held Kashmir (IHK) would also be too escalatory. Instead, Pakistan launched an air-raid into IHK against an unspecified (probably notional) target but with the apparent intention of luring Indian aircraft across the Line of Control in hot-pursuit.
It would have been better if Pakistan had resisted the temptation to mount this operation and it was a pity that the Indian Air Force took the bait. But this third decision was not as bad as it could have been.
The shooting-down of the MiG-21 Bison then became the prime focus of the whole Pulwama crisis. Again, ISPR was quick to post pictures of a downed MiG (in fact photos from a previous incident) and to delete shots of the pilot wearing a blindfold which were replaced with video of him sipping from a mug of tea. The fact that Pakistan lost an F-16 barely entered the public consciousness.
The release of the Indian pilot became the ladder down which both sides could climb. Pakistan made good use of Imran Khan, its telegenic leader, to talk the language of peace; something which doubtlessly infuriated Modi and his national security team. The capture of the pilot had reduced India’s options for further retaliation and Modi was fortunate that the Indian press and public portrayed Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman as a hero and the bombing of Balakot as a success.
Thus, the Pulwama episode came to a peaceful close. Had it not done so, we would all have been watching New Delhi for the fourth decision. Yet again, the options would have been few; but anything involving another attack on Pakistani territory or (as suggested at one point) measures taken in breach of the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty could have moved the dispute towards a much more serious outcome.
An audit of the Pulwama crisis would confirm that Pakistan’s hosting of terrorist groups is the most immediate problem on the Subcontinent (slightly ahead of the Kashmir dispute and the possession by both parties of nuclear weapons). It would point to the paucity of good military choices and the fact that reasonably restrained but nonetheless hazardous decisions were taken by both sides. It would identify India’s serious weakness in the public relations domain where ISPR dominated and Pakistan’s clever adoption of peaceful rhetoric. For Pakistan, there are worrying signs (again) of the inadequacy of its air defence alert systems. The bellicose press and social media in both countries were a notable feature of this episode.
So, war was averted, partly because deterrence worked. Both sides were wary of crossing the other’s imagined red lines. However, part of the reason was the fortunate ending whereby both sides could claim the pilot’s release as a victory. Future crises will undoubtedly happen, and the outcomes may not be so benign.
Read more from Tim Willasey-Wilsey in The Cipher Brief
