There was a lion who wanted to marry a girl, parents did not want the poor girl to marry the beast, and they asked lion to remove his claws and teeth and then purpose. Lion, mad in love, did come after the compliance but only to encounter laughter and a rebuke. Sometimes the Aesop fables have lessons for the nations. Story of basmati war seems to be another leaf from ancient Aesop fables. It all started in 1997 when Ricetech obtained the patent for a rice strain under the name Basmati, a hybrid of sub-continental rice with American long grain. India called it an identity theft and invoked intellectual property right infringement. Pakistan supported India and the stance got validated. In September 2020 true to its grain, the beast to be of Aesop fable, India, applied for European geographical indication (GI) tag in a bid to claim exclusivity over basmati rice. Pakistan protested and has been given time till 10th December this year to prove its GI tagging, otherwise a country which produces over 50% percent of world basmati rice in its 27 different varieties will not be able to sell the same anywhere in the world. Loss of basmati will be a loss of history, territory, pride, aroma and the unique taste which binds the people of central Punjab of Pakistan together. India wants to take away the taste buds of a nation for a complete sense of loss of taste, aroma and the touch of the hands who grow this magic crop along riverRavi and Chenab. This is the hybrid war, where they are creating deep hybridity in every sphere of life of a common Pakistani. The target, this time is not Chawinda, Lahore gymkhana or khemkharan, it is the people of Pakistan. Welcome to the sixth generation war, silently waged by the enemies riding the wave of hybridity and the fifth wave. There is a famous saying of Hitler”if you win, you need not have to explain, if you lose, you should not be there to explain”. For the people of Pakistan therefore, loosing is not an option. The definition of this new concept of warfare has come very close to the Chinese concept in which they divide all wars in three main categories, public opinion warfare, psychological warfare and legal warfare. The political warfare comprising the components of propaganda and psychological operations, targeting the opponent’s political, social, societal will, economy, public diplomacy, and soft power is being comprehensively waged by India through fool hardies and useful idiots.
Two things are very important for the state to fight the 5th and 6th generation of war, the nostalgia narratives and the fake news
There is also the likely hood that the enemies of Pakistan, exploiting the fault lines will try to set the situation of law fare as part of a larger public opinion and media campaign against the state. Atmospherics of legal deterrence and impositions of sanctions internationally or through the watch dogs like that of FATF etc., is the indication that India is stoking the fire all around. This reminds the story of the magpies and cuckoos as explained by Jessica smith and how two cuckoos turned peaceful magpies into a mob by their six step formula of discontent, disinformation and discord. Step one, identify social, political and cultural rifts in the magpies, step two, create propaganda based on false story or stories, step three, anchor the propaganda in the element of truth, step four disguise the origin of propaganda, step five, find and exploit useful idiots, step six, deny everything. This all is achieved through the deep stories, fake news and the most deadly the ‘nostalgia narratives’. Two things are very important for the state to fight the 5th and 6th generation of war, the nostalgia narratives and the fake news. It has been proven time and again that the armies or people in uniforms cannot fight this war, this is to be fought by the common man and is a people’s war if one may say. People in uniform are the victims and the target of first instance followed by the complete nation. For addressing nostalgia narrative, create new narrativity based upon political correctness anchored upon truth. For fake news, train the nation to identify the fake by developing a critical mind, a national sense of history, the sources of information and the correction of national biases as fake news are designed to feed upon fears, hopes and biases. Leaders are meant to lead and great leaders are meant to correct the perception errors of the nations through their conduct, their language and the sagacity. Tackling the halo or the horn effect of opponent is the key to survival. With this background let us see what is happening across. India is trying to unhinge Pakistani society through a combination of cyber and information warfare. These two are at the vanguards of Indian sixth generation war against Pakistan. Other automated technologies, it is acquiring with a very fast speed to complete the spectrum of sixth generation. Eventually the same will blur the line on nuclear deterrence and through intimidation and coercion a new type of compellence will be imposed, which will be entirely a new concept for even Thomas schelling, who was the proponent of compellence theory in international relations. Spear heading this new kill chain are the spyware like Pegasus made by Israeli company NSO group. The cyber warriors sitting elsewhere are generating trends in Pakistan through twitter, face book and even instagram etc. Recently India is transforming its complete army education corps into DCA (defence cyber agency). 5000 cyber warriors are already pitched against Pakistan with over hundred teams of 30/40 persons each working in the domain of information warfare creating toxicity in the minds of common Pakistani through the nostalgia narratives. Few retired generals are hired again to assist this complete effort, especially those who fought conventional wars against Pakistan. These cyber enabled information operations are full of deceptive content and authentic attributions. Everything is being done by Indian cyber experts, media persons and the hackers, through systematic propaganda, chaos production and very calculative leaks with an element of deniability. Pakistani strategic elite has to take this seriously, first of all it has to win the first battle of Indian sixth generation war, the basmati war. Loosing basmati war will be the end of Pakistani agrarian economy. Secondly the resource with experience in information warfare, military journalism, cyber security expertise be pooled and be the part of cyber security and information war fare agency at national level, normal military qualifications does not apply here, though the military experience does apply up to an extent . Time is running out as the lion is again growing its teethes and claws, this time it will not take the parental advise.
The writer is a freelance contributor on security related issues. He is also a Ph.D Scholar who can be reached at [email protected] Twitter: @Abid_Latif55