Daily Times

The 21 years old Sajid ali climbed K-2 in July 2019, he is the celebrated son of a very distinguished world famous, Pakistani mountaineer, Ali Sadpara who is the only one in the world to have winter climbed the Nanga Parbat (that too, the record five times). An unbelievable feat. As per Ali Sadpara every problem has four peaks to surmount and reach summit. At first peak, you listen everyone and act, second peak you listen none and act, third peak, as the clime become deadly, you listen everyone but act on your own judgement, fourth peak, which is the deadliest, you listen everyone and plot journey backward from future to present and then inch forward. Diplomacy and conflict resolution like mountaineering is also to surmount the four peaks to reach the summit. For all four peaks you have different strategy to adopt. Climbing Escalation ladder without any visible strategy is almost always suicidal. Unfortunately India is doing the same. Herman kahn’s Hudson institute and the experts like Hussein haqqani and Aparna pande will surely be trying to fix something for India.

Till December USA’s support to India will be more in rhetoric and less in concrete terms. That’s for the soybeans wars of the jack and the beanstalk

The conflict at LAC has reached the ninth week of its initiation. Foreign ministers of both the countries have talked to each other along with three rounds of corps commander level engagements, but the fourth peak is still not visible. There is a now massive built up from Indian side of men, machine and material. Indian air force with everything on its inventory is also reaching for the climes. The area is fast becoming a powder keg of all combustibles. Carnegie Endowment in 2012 published a paper, “nonalignment 2.0”; this became very popular in the policy circle of India and become the road map to align economically with the west. The strategic elite in the exuberance also started aligning politically as one cannot separate the geo-economics from that of geo-politics. The same journey has brought India at a place where now the battle lines are being drawn between India and China. India is considering four options in the Himalayan theatre, one, go for a riposte and take some territory across LAC(as it did in 2013 at chumer), a dangerous option and might result into un controlled escalation. Second, hold the line physically and deal china diplomatically and by other means. The south block thinks that by this way they will eventually isolate the China. Third, go for a limited war with China as that of 1962 conflict. This is most dangerous option, as today’s China is a different ball game as compared to that of 1962. India is also mulling amongst its allies that Pakistan is concentrating troops at its north. A thing far from the truth. The only option left with India is to launch an economic offensive against China. It did initiate the same but the loss in economic terms will be to India itself. China has a trade of around 4 trillion dollars; out of this it has a trade of 70 billion with India .India imports electronics, machinery, fertilizers, semi-conductors, salts for antibiotics etc, garments, fibre and host of other things. Alibaba and ten cent group is the biggest finance provider to the Indian youth for technical start-ups. Banning 59 Apps will hardly affect China but it will not bore well on any of the negotiation table or the peak which they together have to climb. As for isolating the China or moving of three air craft carrier groups, USA has already clarified that this is not a political move, this is pacific commands effort to increase security and stability in the region.USA will never confront China directly, China is one of the biggest trade partner to USA. Due to economic down turn in USA, owing to covid-19, it is desperate to sell billions of dollars of soybeans crop to China along vehicles, microchips and the commercial aeroplanes. Trump cannot lose these trade deals especially in the back drop of coming elections. Till December USA’s support to India will be more in rhetoric and less in concrete terms. That’s for the soybeans wars of the jack and the beanstalk. There is a fine line which Indian leadership is not ready to understand, rather they boast that India is the strategic ally of USA, in strategic jargon and diplomacy, there is nothing accounted for as a strategic ally, it is always the treaty ally around which the USA is bound to rally and unfortunately India is not the treaty ally. Like that of India’s non- alignment 2.0, USA is a super power borne out of Monroe doctrine. Making treaty allies and then standing by them is an exception not a rule for the USA. With this backdrop as the fourth peak is not visible to the strategic elite of India, therefore for all the wrong reasons and face savings they are likely to plan a limited mis-adventure along LOC. A Kargil Redux. This will absolve them from the hype which they have created about some two front war and also help the ultra- nationalist to have a vent on Pakistan, on whose behest, they think that China is doing this all. If nothing settled on LAC for another month then LOC can be made to simmer with rising temperatures. Pakistan’s options are clear, visible and defined; every inch will be defended like that of a leaf from the military history book, which states that on the western front of India, Pakistan has never lost a war. East Pakistan was not a war, it was the fourth peak with first three already made invisible with the diabolic atmospherics.

The writer is a freelance contributor on security related issues. He is also a Ph.D Scholar who can be reached at sindhulatif@gmail.com Twitter: @Abid_Latif55