Daily Times

Musharraf recently disclosed that during the Kargil crisis, he considered using nuclear weapons against India; only the fear of Indian retaliation kept him from using them. What was supposed to be a campaign focused on Kashmir had indeed brought Pakistan and India to the brink of a nuclear war

A dramatic event took place in 1999 along the ‘Line of Control’ (LoC) that separates Pakistani-controlled territory from Indian-controlled territory in Kashmir. In the dead of winter, when temperatures plunge to 50 below zero, some 2,000 mujahideen and regulars of the Pakistani army crossed the Himalayan Mountains of Northern Kashmir on snowmobiles. In the words of one observer, they made themselves “comfortable in bunkers abandoned by their enemy [the Indians] to the elements … When the spring thaw arrived [in May], and a slumbering Indian army slowly realized the extent of the infiltration, Pakistani gunners had their artillery and rockets trained on the town of Kargil, and on India’s sole road route through the region.” The incursion threatened India’s only road between the towns of Srinagar and Leh; the Indian supply route to the Siachen Glacier, where Indian and Pakistani forces had been locked into a standoff for 15 years by then.

India counter-attacked with thousands of infantry and artillery troops, and ultimately deployed its air force. In three days, the Indian Air Force (IAF) had lost three aircraft to Pakistani surface-to-air missiles: two supersonic MiG ground attack fighters and one assault helicopter. During the next two months, the IAF would lose an additional six fighter jets (four MiG 21s, one MiG 27 and one SEPECAT Jaguar) as well as two helicopters.

The Indian army suffered heavy casualties as it attempted to retake the peaks that soar up to 14,800 feet. It was becoming apparent that India would initiate overt hostilities on the international border with Pakistan to relieve pressure in Kargil. Military analysts expected that India would blockade the sea port of Karachi and, if that failed to relieve pressure in Kashmir, launch its Strike Force from Rajasthan into Pakistan, thus cutting the latter’s main north-south communication links.

Instead, India exercised restraint, and sought support from the international community. Bodies of Indian soldiers returned by Pakistan were shown to have been mutilated and tortured. Squadron Leader Ajay Ahuja, an IAF pilot who bailed out when his MiG-21 was shot down, was alleged to have been alive when he landed. The Indian military said he had been captured, tortured and killed — shot at point blank range twice — by Pakistani troops and/or irregulars.

India released the transcript of a cell-phone call between Pakistan’s then-Chief of Army Staff, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, and the then-Chief of General, Staff Lt. Gen. Mohammed Aziz. This transcript provided prima facie evidence that Pakistan was supporting the mujahideen. It included a statement by Aziz that the Pakistani Army was holding the mujahideen “by the scruff of their neck,” and they could be withdrawn whenever Musharraf wanted.

Pakistan’s response to this transcript, if it existed, never made its way into the international media. The astute Maleeha Lodhi commented that Pakistan used “with an international audience the same propaganda techniques and tools, even idiom, that the government believes serves it so well in the domestic sphere. This proved utterly and predictably counterproductive.”

India got a favorable hearing at the G-8 meeting in Europe. Pakistan was unable to generate any support for its position: neither at the G-8 meetings, nor with its traditional allies, the Organisation of Islamic Conference, and not even with China, its “all-weather friend.” Messages coming out from Pakistan were often confusing and apparently uncoordinated. At various times, the Ministers of Information, Foreign Affairs, and Labour issued disparate commentary, as did the Director General of the Inter Services Press Relations (ISPR). By contrast, the Indian defense minister, George Fernandes, projected a unified, coherent, and consistent position.

Pakistan had seriously miscalculated the risks while adventuring into Kargil. The coup de grace was administered by the United States, a country with which Pakistan had a “special relationship” going back to the early fifties. In an unprecedented move, on July 4, the US President met with the Prime Minister of Pakistan at Blair House in Washington, DC. The Indian Prime Minister chose not to attend, to underscore the point that India regarded Kashmir as a bilateral issue.

At this meeting, Pakistan was forced to withdraw its forces from the LoC. This withdrawal negated Pakistan’s assertions that it was not controlling the mujahideen, and also exposed the direct involvement of the Pakistani Army in the clandestine operation. The only concession made to Pakistan was that Bill Clinton would take a “personal interest” in the Kashmir problem: but this obviously amounted to naught, since the US refused to mediate the conflict.

Kargil provided India an opportunity to call Pakistan’s bluff that it would “not hesitate to use any weapon in our arsenal to defend our territorial integrity,” a veiled threat to use nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. When Pakistan chose to withdraw under American pressure — without using any strategic weapons, or even its air force — India felt emboldened. This newfound boldness was to find expression in the weeks to come when a Pakistani Atlantique, a reconnaissance plane, was shot down in the Rann of Kutch.

In Pavlovian fashion, Pakistan claimed a moral victory. It asserted that the Kashmir issue had been successfully internationalized. Pakistani losses included more than a thousand killed and several thousand wounded. Numerous civilians perished, and economic activity in the region was disrupted.

On the international scene, the Pakistanis were viewed as the aggressors, and the decades-long turmoil in Kashmir — in which more than 50,000 lives have been lost — was forgotten. After initially denying that Pakistani forces were involved in Kargil, General Musharraf later conceded that Pakistani forces had crossed over the LoC for “aggressive patrolling.” The Pakistan Army later conferred medals on several officers and soldiers involved in the Kargil campaign, removing any doubt about its involvement in the war. Contrary to Pakistan’s desires, Kashmir was no closer to a plebiscite than it had been in 1949. The whole affair had been contrary to the historian Liddell Hart’s dictum: “Victory in the true sense implies that the state of peace, and of one’s people, is better after the war than before.”

Retired Air Marshal Asghar Khan ridiculed the Pakistani assertion that Kargil was a military triumph. He asserted that efforts to internationalize the issue had indeed succeeded, but the outcome was diametrically opposed to the campaign’s objective: “all major powers, including our old ally China, told us to get back to the Line of Control.” The high moral ground on which the struggle in occupied Kashmir stood was sullied.

Losing both the military and the political battles, Pakistan’s position became unsustainable. Under pressure from Washington, Sharif declared in July that he was no more willing to play “this game of blood and fire.”He ordered the generals to withdraw from Kargil.

No benefit came to Pakistan from what was initially advertised an act of military brilliance. Sharif, despite claiming that he had saved the country from catastrophic destruction, lost his job. Pakistan fell once again under the military’s boot. Relations with India tanked. In 2002, the prospect of a major war loomed again over the subcontinent as a million soldiers faced each other across the international border.

Musharraf has recently disclosed that during the crisis he considered using nuclear weapons against India; only the fear of Indian retaliation kept him from using them. What was supposed to be a campaign focused on Kashmir had brought Pakistan and India to the brink of a nuclear war.

The writer has authored Rethinking the National Security of Pakistan

Published in Daily Times, September 19^th 2017.