Two retired service chiefs, General Jehangir Karamat, COAS, Pakistan, and Air Chief Marshal Shashi Tayagi of the Indian Air Force, in a jointly written paper, have suggested a number of steps to implement CBMs in South Asia. Written at the level of two retired service chiefs, the paper makes yet another subtext for peace and stability in the turbulent subcontinent. However, the fate of the two former four-star India-Pakistan chiefs’ peace initiative must depend on the intent and endorsement of the two governments.
The idea behind CBMs is well tested. Military establishments agree to avoid actions that are threatening to the other side to help avoid unintended conflicts. The covert Kargil operation launched by General Pervez Musharraf as army chief early in 1999, was one such to abort the budding Vajpayee-Nawaz peace initiative. Vajpayee’s Lahore Yatra by road, his unprecedented visit to Minar-e-Pakistan to underline India’s unquestioned acceptance of Pakistan and the signing of the Lahore Declaration and Memorandum of Understanding were sabotaged by Musharraf’s Kargil misadventure.
Of course, CBMs are not a panacea. If people want to have a conflict, CBMs will not prevent it. However, CBMs do provide a mechanism whereby states that want to avoid a conflict through accident or misperception, can develop ways to help do so. It is time to develop a framework of such measures, which can help and more systematically address some of the key issues the two sides face as follows:
Discussions should begin on new CBMs relevant in these circumstances. Beyond crisis management, it was agreed by consensus in Bangkok that a CBM should be agreed whereby both sides, including their respective military establishments, should regularly meet to discuss their respective concepts and doctrines with a view to elaborating measures to build confidence in the nuclear and conventional fields.
It is for the very purpose that the University of Ottawa and the Atlantic Council joined hands to initiate the process by inviting senior, mainly three and four star officers and service chiefs, to get together and evolve a framework for enduring peace in South Asia.
The invitees have met twice at Dubai and Bangkok to recommend:
1. That in times of crisis both sides should take no military actions that could be construed as preparations for an offensive, and adhere to existing CBMs. Diplomats and officials of the two sides would get together to resolve the crisis before it spins out of control. 2. A political commitment that the two sides’ diplomats and officials come together at the outset of the crisis for discussions on how to resolve it before it ‘spins out of control’. All too often in South Asia, India-Pakistan, when a crisis erupts, would respond by suspending diplomatic contacts when they should be doing exactly the reverse.
Finally, the question of ‘terror’ was also discussed and its impact on stability. Though terror is not a military issue per se, intelligence sharing is a key issue. The discussion had the following suggestions:
Revival of an effective Joint Anti-terror Mechanism at a higher level; hotlines between the interior ministries on terror issues; military personnel to meet periodically to discuss national experiences on matters relating to war and peace. An effort to revive the SAARC-mandated Integrated Regional Database (IRD) on terror. The IRD discussed at length and adopted in principle certain measures to cope with the crisis following 9/11, but remains practically dormant, yet to be formalised as doctrine.
No matter how wise and rational the CBMs, deeply embedded distrust and the aftershock of partition almost invariably continue to eclipse the enduring values of peace and amity. What might leave one wondering about the substantive value of the exercise is the conspicuous absence of the role of world powers, especially of the United States. Would they allow India-Pakistan to sort matters out between themselves? The US remains so deeply involved in the subcontinent geo-politically and militarily via Afghanistan that it simply cannot stay as a mute spectator to any India-Pakistan peace process on a bilateral basis. Any effort or cooperation between India and Pakistan, along with Afghanistan, without the US would have little or no chance of implementation. NATO’s ISAF may withdraw in 2014, but the US would still be there in Afghanistan, no matter how nominally. It would be entirely for the State Department and the Pentagon to quantify their residual forces in Afghanistan and define their final role and objectives.
How could the US even allow India, its strategic partner, and virtually an occupied Afghanistan, to go it alone with Pakistan? As for India, its corporate obligations and diplomatic compulsions as the US’s conventional and nuclear strategic ally in South Asia would hardly allow it to support any grand peace initiative with Pakistan — the US’s one bad boy in the region.
While taking advantage of the current relatively calm phase in India-Pakistan relations, the authors hope, this can help change quickly the “atmosphere to lock (the two) in beneficial patterns of behaviour”. India and Pakistan have deployed weapons to reduce dramatically the time “available for diplomacy in a crisis…” Evolving military doctrines like India’s Cold Start ‘compress’ the time available for reconciliatory diplomacy and media coverage. India’s experimenting with its missile-nuclear integrated development programme must act as a serious deterrent to an enduring India-Pakistan transparent and sustained peace. A bold approach towards arms acquisition and development must precede any meaningful and durable establishment of peace.
(To be continued)
The writer is a retired brigadier and can be reached at [email protected]