Daily Times

Charles Fried in his book “Modern liberty and the limits of government” has provided an intellectual feast to all those interested to know the art, limits and extent of governance.

Physical liberty comes first or the liberty of ideas and minds, this question was addressed in the West centuries ago, courtesy Enlightenment and Reformation movement. In this part of the world, teeming millions are still trying to achieve physical liberty from the shackles of ignorance, intolerance, puritanical whim, rigidity and extremisms to the core. Three images are very popular in newsreels all over the globe, Mr Trump pouting and tweeting; Saudi women on the steering wheels; and the far horizons depicting climate change. As the news is the first draft of history and history comes in concentric circles, therefore all the three images are creating history.

Pakistan, India and Afghanistan are perpetually orbiting these circles, three prisoners of history enjoying the dungeon art of American galleria. World is moving towards strategic atrophy, the rational irrationality of US president is sending shock waves, challenging the world order.

This is the age of hybrid wars. Hybrid wars are the blurring of military, economic, diplomatic, cultural, and intelligence means to achieve a grand political goal. In fact now wars are not between armies, but between opposing operational systems. Military option is either not applied, or if it is applied, it is usually a side show.

Indian activity along LOC or working boundary under the guise of surgical strikes is one side show on the east, with Afghanistan’s army misadventure on the west being the other. The theater is the mainland Pakistan, where a hybrid war has been unleashed. Chanakya’s strategy of ‘enemy’s enemy is your friend’, is now changed to a more dangerous concept of ‘friend of enemy is your friend’. This is being demonstrated thoroughly by the southern block through befriending all the regional friends of Pakistan, be it Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia or the USA. India is applying the inverse Chanakya Philosophy. Who has taught this new state craft to Indians, the David or the Goliath? This century belongs to the DNA and the Data, whoever controls this will control the world island of Mackinder, that is why India’s policy of reflexive nonalignment has changed into the concept of strategic autonomy.

While Pakistan is time and again told to have the politics of pacification and normalisation with India, the Indians are applying the gunboat diplomacy. Track I, Track 1.5 or Track II are all frozen permafrost of some distant lakes, once it comes to Pak-India diplomacy. There is also a shift taking place at global strategic scenario, it is no more terrorism which is of concern to the US, it is strategic competition between the nations, precisely China and Russia which is causing goose bumps. As per the two new documents of intent, the US National Defence Strategy and the National Security Strategy, Both the revisionists and rogue regimes are competing across all dimensions of power. Putin has already called the breaking of USSR as the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the century (USSR being the first victim of hybrid wars). His new doctrine of ‘escalate-to-de-escalate’ is the revisionist mantra of a revisionist power in retreat.

There is already a talk of a Thucydides trap between USA and China. All these developments have a direct bearing on India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. A very strong phenomenon is taking place at global level along with the thermal streams from the Atlantic. It is the accentuation of veto free wars. Only a hybrid war can be veto free, as military option is not applied at all, the victim state is subjected to other means of war, i.e. political, economic, cultural etc. Therefore, the Security Council of UN is not invoked to address the situation. The damage is so subtle and aggression less that the veto is vetoed itself. The advantage to have friendship with China or Russia by any country subjected to hybrid war is gone forever.

India, Pakistan and Afghanistan have become an inverse strategic triangle in which both Afghanistan and India are acting like a antagonist to Pakistan, a Shakespearean or Greek tragedy in the making.

India has just increased its defence budget by 8% and cited border challenges as the reason for this increase.

India is trying to increase the strategic gap. The other day, Russian ambassador’s statement that “there is no drift in India-Russia ties” is carried by all leading newspapers of India. The talk of surgical strikes inside Pakistan on the lines of the American concept of conventional prompt global strike (CPGS) by India is not a mere newspeak; it is the decades-old desire to undermine the sanctity of Pakistani state. The balance of terror between India and Pakistan is the only factor by which a full blown war is avoided.

Corollary to this, India has already initiated a hybrid war against Pakistan. It is winning over Pakistan’s friends on the diplomatic front, supporting a terror campaign inside Pakistan, destabilising western front, strangulating Pakistani economy and the most diabolic is the water war against the agrarian economy of Pakistan. Pakistan’s water storage capacity is 30-days, well below 1,000 days for the countries in such climatic zone. India, on the other hand, by stealing Pakistan’s natural endowment of water has increased its storage capacity from around 100 days to 200 days of supply.

Mr Modi has already announced that Indus water treaty will be reviewed soon, that soon is actually too near to ignore.

India is helping Afghanistan to build a number of dams and hydro projects upon rivers which flow towards Pakistan: Kuner, Kabul, Kurram and Fomal flow from Afghanistan and irrigate 150,000 acres of land in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

When these hydro projects on the rivers are completed in near future, Afghanistan will definitely follow the suit and strangulate Pakistan, (as there is no water treaty between Afghanistan and Pakistan) to diminish the strategic value of Gwadar. India is helping in a big way to shift quantum of trade from Pakistan route to Zaranj-Delaram-Chabahar route. India and Afghanistan are circumventing Pakistan through Iran.

Pakistan’s wheat crop is not yet ripen and India has already transported 1.1 million tons of wheat to Afghanistan, it is almost the 30% of the total consumption of Afghanistan. India is perusing a full spectrum connectivity with Afghanistan, from culture to commerce, from tradition to technology, from investment to IT, from service to strategy and from people to politics. Although Indian deal with Iran to develop the Chabahar and the road network into Afghanistan violates the international sanctions against Iran, but no one from lofty councils and pinnacles with the domes has objected to it.

Pakistan is left with no option but to unhinge the concept of hybrid war by mobilising the Pakistani society through harmonising all segments and taking very seriously the agrarian economy by declaring that our threshold not only lies in territorial integrity, rather it is also a measurement in cusecs when the chimes on river bells halts from their rhythmic waltz.

The writer is a freelance journalist who contributes regularly on security related issues. He is also Ph.D. scholar who can be reached at sindhulatif@gmail.com

Published in Daily Times, February 11^th 2018.