Risat SAR

Posted on May 2, 2012 by Bharat Karnad

The important thing about the Risat-1 sent up a few days back is that the synthetic aperture radar in it is of Israeli origin. However, the SAR on board Risat-2 will be the entirely indigeneous, tho’ a little bulkier than the Israeli item, but not any less effective. But it’ll be adequately miniaturised by the time Risat-3 is up. A five-Risat constellation will provide India, in a couple of years from now, with 24/7 surveillance and other sensor coverage vis a vis China and of the Indian Ocean region, and substantively change the geostrategics, especially with regard to India not being surprised by any Chinese military moves and by way of affording security to South East Asian nations.

Posted in Asian geopolitics, Defence Industry, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's China Policy, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Ocean, indian policy -- Israel, Iran and West Asia, Military Acquisitions, Missiles, Nuclear Policy & Strategy, satellites, Strategic Relations with South East Asia & Far East, Technology transfer | 11 Comments

Agni-V — guidance on chip

Posted on April 26, 2012 by Bharat Karnad
Responding to my earlier blog on the advanced chip-embedded guidance system successfuly tested on Agni-V, an expert at the cutting edge of these technologies emailed me the following. It will flesh out the understanding of interested readers so I’m copying it here:
“With regards to your latest article, the “fly-by-wire” concept in the A-5 comes from  digitally connected multi-channel communications within its body for the control system, thereby reducing a lot of the cabling that would have otherwise gone into these missiles. This serves to reduce the risk of failure in the missile system and increases dependability.
“With regards to the embedding of the guidance system on chip (SOC), which enables the A-5 to possess superior accuracy, there is indeed an on-board computer on the A-5, which is more powerful than any used in previous vehicles.  However, previous computers had severe weight, space, and cooling constraints.  The guidance SOC based computers that weigh just 200 grams and possess around 7-10 times greater processing power than their predecessors. The embedded guidance SOC concept requires very little power, imposes much less space constraints, requires far less cooling, and, also very importantly, is not only more reliable and efficient, but also allows for far greater flexibility when choosing the  warhead configuration.”
Posted in Defence Industry, Military Acquisitions, Missiles | 18 Comments

India’s missile bamboozle

Posted on April 26, 2012 by Bharat Karnad

bharat karnad2.JPG

There has been needless confusion and obfuscation about the Agni-V missile test-fired on April 19. First was the delay in the launch by some 11 hours. For a missile touted as “all weather”, a bit of lightning shouldn’t have frightened off the DRDO brass. More likely, the reason was last minute jitters about a missile whose launch had been turned into a media circus.

What is less comprehensible was the persistent description in the media, no doubt at the DRDO’s prompting, of the Agni-V as an “Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile” (ICBM) when, given its stated range of around 5,000 kms, Dr V. Saraswat, DRDO boss and scientific adviser to the defence minister, identified it correctly for television cameras as an Inter-mediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM). The first hint of Agni-V’s ICBM status was dropped by the minister of state for science, Ashwini Kumar, when he referred to the missile re-entering the atmosphere at “24.4 times the speed of sound”. Depending on the altitude, this works out to roughly 7.2 to 7.7 kms per second as terminal velocity, making it unquestionably an ICBM, compared to 6.2 to 6.5 kms per second re-entry speed of Agni-IV, which is IRBM performance. Obviously, Agni-V was fired in a high-parabolic trajectory to depress the distance it travelled, which may be why Chinese military sources have claimed that Agni-V’s 8,000-km range is being covered up.

The Agni has to have a minimum range of 10,000 kms to be considered an ICBM. But why did the DRDO not publicise the missile’s full capability? The reason was to mollify the Manmohan Singh government that has always been fearful of spooking the US. Washington has insisted that India restrict its missile capacity to cover China without tripping into the ICBM range lest that leads to India being perceived as a threat, resulting in American counter-measures.

While the Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA government’s minister for external affairs (MEA), Jaswant Singh, denies he had cut any deal during his 19 rounds of “strategic dialogue” with Strobe Talbott, former US President Bill Clinton’s deputy secretary of state, in early 2000 to cap Indian missile capability at the IRBM level, the Congress coalition government has adhered to this restriction, which is reflected in the DRDO’s programmatic thrust. Indeed, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s reluctance to offend Washington was stretched to a point where he reportedly kept delaying the approval of the first test of Agni-V until defence minister A.K. Antony put his foot down around mid-2011, and compelled Dr Singh to approve the launch. The government tried to soften any negative reaction by scheduling foreign secretary Ranjan Mathai’s speech extolling India’s spotless nuclear and missile technology non-proliferation record at an MEA-sponsored seminar on the same day as the missile test.

The DRDO’s fear of the government disallowing sustained testing of critical strategic technologies, backed by an equally nagging apprehension about reduction of funds for strategic technology development, is why the DRDO resorted to over-the-top publicity. The DRDO’s strategy was to thwart moves by the government to curtail activity in the missile field by creating huge public support for Agni-V and follow-on ICBM. It resembles the decision by nuclear scientists to simultaneously trigger three devices (which produced mixed, suboptimal results) on May 11, 1998, because of the fear that under foreign pressure the government would terminate testing after the very first explosion if a series of separate single underground tests had been resorted to. The hullabaloo over the untested MIRV (Multiple Independently Re-targetable Vehicles) technology, enabling one missile to engage three to eight different targets that Agni-V is configured to carry, was also for the same reason. So much public hype about the MIRV technology, awaiting government permission to test for the last eight-odd years, means that Dr Singh cannot now stop its testing in the second launch of Agni-V. The other stellar attributes of the Indian IRBM not talked about, but worth mentioning, are the chip-embedded guidance system and the servo-mechanisms for thrust control to permit mid-flight manoeuvring.

Were the Indian government strategic-minded, which it is not, it would push through an accelerated programme of testing and induction into service of Agni-V and, in parallel, quickly develop and test-fire over Antarctica a genuine ICBM by replacing the first stage made of steel on the IRBM with lightweight composites to accommodate more fuel. What an ICBM does is allow Chinese targets to be hit from virtually anywhere, thereby immeasurably enlarging the space for manoeuvre by Indian firing platforms outside Chinese satellite coverage. Further, the production rate of Agni-IVs and Agni-Vs needs rapid ramping up to keep pace with even a minor adversary — Pakistan.

The success of Agni-V, however, highlights the danger that I have been warning about for many years, namely, very advanced and accurate long-range missiles married to untested and unproven thermonuclear warheads that, without further physical testing of fusion and boosted-fission weapons designs, could prove to be duds. That will be a devastating denouement for the Indian strategic deterrent — accurate delivery but fizzled impact.

Even so, with a proven IRBM, India has reached deterrence parity with China in the sense of being able to reach the most distant Chinese targets. The MEA should capitalise on the interest generated by Agni-V to explore an Indian role as the “net security provider” that countries in Southeast Asia would welcome and Washington has been urging Delhi to play. Our dilly-dallying on the sale of the Brahmos supersonic cruise missile led Indonesia to buy a variant directly from Russia. Vietnam, which also seeks Brahmos, is unlikely to wait around either. Unless India treats Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia and other Asean members as the first tier of India’s defence and missile-arms them on a priority basis, national security will remain grievously impaired. New Delhi emphasising non-proliferation norms at the expense of the country’s geopolitical interests is tragically short-sighted, given that the brownie points it wins cannot compensate for China transferring nuclear missile technology to Pakistan, or insinuating itself into the military affairs of Burma, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and the Maldives, to disadvantage India. The MEA should not squander the chance to pursue substantive cooperative security measures with the United States and countries on China’s periphery beyond anti-piracy patrols and joint military exercises by, for a start, discussing and preparing for contingency scenarios.

[Published April 26, 2012 in the ‘Asian Age’ at  www.asianage.com/columnists/india-s-missile-bamboozle-287  and in the ‘Deccan Chronicle’ at http://www.deccanchronicle.com/columnists/bharat-karnad/india%E280%99s-missile-bamboozle ]

Posted in Asian geopolitics, Defence Industry, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's China Policy, India's Pakistan Policy, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Army, Indian Ocean, Military Acquisitions, Missiles, Nuclear Policy & Strategy, Nuclear Weapons, Strategic Relations with South East Asia & Far East, Strategic Relations with the US & West, Technology transfer | 7 Comments

Agni-5 tid-bits

Posted on April 23, 2012 by Bharat Karnad

The Agni-5 performance has proved the quality of many new and advanced technologies on board. Most important among these is the chip-embedded guidance system that, besides rendering the missile so-called “fly by wire”, immunizes it against the effect of re-entry heat that previously melted the on-board mission control computer in earlier missiles and making them inaccurate. That problem is solved.

All the public hullabaloo attending on the missile launch with  TV cameras showing project group leaders and leading scientists being feted and celebrated,  may have had the deleterious effect of making them known to the wider world. Because India is now entering the realm of sensitive long range accurate missiles and geostrategics, many fear that those responsible for designing and engineering such armaments become targets of adversary states and even ostensibly of friendly foreign countries who would rather India not secure this level of technology. It is imperative, therefore, that leading figures in the IGMDP be accorded Z category personal security.

Posted in Asian geopolitics, Defence Industry, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, Military Acquisitions, Missiles | 4 Comments

Entitlement syndrome

Posted on April 20, 2012 by Bharat Karnad

Pratibha Devi Singh Patil (excuse me, but shouldn’t that be Pratibha Patil Devi Singh, unless Mr. Devi Singh has accepted his wife’s surname?) until elevated to the presidency of the country five years ago by reason of the ruling Congress Party’s internal calculations of interests, was a small time Maharashtra politician. For her retirement, however, she desires a manor she was not born to, that too in the quiet of the military zone in Khadki  near Pune. No law has been left unviolated by an indulgent Manmohan Singh government to accommodate her, including the one expressly stipulating the residential covered square-footage (not acreage) a pensioner president can be allotted legally. Once the story made headlines, minions of the President scrambled for a justification, coming up lamely with the view that such an allotment was entirely Patil’s due, by what stretch of the imagination, they didn’t say.

Besides the spectacular imperial capital erected in Delhi, the departing British in 1947 bequeathed us a colonial system of “entitlement” so insidious, injurious, and expensive, it may well have ensured that India will remain perennially poor.

What was the entitlement system about? After the shock of 1857 and the British Crown assuming responsibility for governing India, Britons wishing to do an honest day of Queen’s work were selected for Indian service. Their job of running the empire was based on the tripartite principle that they were engaged in a mission to civilize the brown man, inculcate liberal values in an alien society, that as rulers they needed to maintain their distance from those they ruled, and that to maintain that distance and generally for  their troubles, they were housed and looked after by the State in a manner that deliberately exaggerated the gap between them and the natives. So all those involved in up-keeping the British dispensation in India – from the Crown-appointed Viceroys, “competition-wallahs” of the Indian Civil Service (ICS), to engineers running the railways, to personnel manning the telegraph and postal services, and the military-men in barracks down to the hordes of clerks, were coddled, housed in government-owned quarters whose grandeur (or lack of it) matched the official grade of the occupant.

These residences were located in clearly demarcated government colonies and military cantonments, which were a thing apart from the jumble of the “native quarters”. The system of strictly stratified perquisites as per rank – with emoluments, residential accommodation, and slate of perquisites to match in the imperial capital, first in Calcutta and later New Delhi, had exact parallels operating in the other cities and districts towns, and was at the heart of the entitlement system.

At independence, the incoming government of free India had the option of doing away with this system but didn’t. Jawaharlal Nehru was contemptuous of the Indian members of the ICS, considering them collaborators of the foreign power and was all for disbanding that cadre and starting anew. The conservative instincts of Sardar Vallabhai Patel, however, prevailed and the service and the colonial administrative structure was retained, with the IAS succeeding the ICS and the new rulers – the politicians — taking the place in the highest echelon once filled by colonial bigwigs. Appropriately, Nehru moved into the palatial residence of the Commander-in-Chief, India. And the system of gross separation of rulers from the masses continued. It has resulted in a republic divided between two Indias – one of the stately lines and ample greens of Lutyens’ Delhi and the other of dirt, disorder, and decay. This divided order, as per colonial design, is replicated, as earlier mentioned, in smaller sets and subsets across this vast country.

Had Nehru succeeded in ridding the country of the wretched colonial caboodle, refused to index salaries and pensions of ICS members to the British Sterling, and replaced the sahibgiri with an indigenous, less parasitic, administrative system and ethos, India would not be in the awful state it is today. Political leaders and government officers alike, shorn of official quarters in posh surroundings, would have been compelled to live where, and as, the average citizen does.

A provision in the Representation of the People Act, requiring all elected politicians to live within their constituencies, and carry out their legislative tasks in Delhi or state capitals with only a per diem stipend to meet the living costs, would have put a damper on their excesses. Further, ministers in the central and state cabinets, including the Prime Minister and the Chief Ministers, would have had to scramble for living quarters in Delhi, with official premises, such as Hyderabad House in Delhi, being provided strictly for official entertaining.  This is the norm everywhere in the developed world. Political leaders residing in the inner city and outlier colonies will ensure that they daily experienced the aggravations and the grind of life in high-density population milieus, complete with water and power shortages, and the inherent dangers of negotiating decrepit public spaces – the result of a non-functioning government apparatus they preside over. It will incentivise these pooh-bahs to take matters into their hands, shake up the system, and begin delivering on development and good infrastructure. The politicians and administrators, thus motivated to improve the surroundings and the quality of life of the aam admi they routinely swear by, will seek innovative administrative, technological, and political solutions for the miseries faced by the people, if only to ease the quotidian difficulties in their own lives.

In no other country are politicians and bureaucrats pampered with houses, retinue of servants, cars, and other benefits at the taxpayer’s expense and, therefore, no other major country is as badly off as India in terms of rude bureaucrats and insensitive government. Consider this, were the real estate on which the political class and government servants at all levels of town, city, state and central governments, the railway staff, and military personnel are housed – usually in the most desirable parts of cities and towns, to be monetised it would wipe out trillions of rupees of national debt. India will be a nicer place to live in. Surely, it is not too late to do away with the entitlement system.

[Published in the ‘New Indian Express’, Friday, April 20, 2012 at http://expressbuzz.com/opinion/op-ed/entitlement-syndrome/383826.html ]

 

Posted in civil-military relations, Indian Politics, Internal Security | 10 Comments

MIRVing tech not tested

Posted on April 19, 2012 by Bharat Karnad

The barrage of media reports (no doubt prompted by DRDO sources) about MIRVs on the Agni, was mystifying. Just got off an early evening television program (Headlines Today TV) with Dr Selvamurthy, one of the senior most DRDO brass, who clarified matters, but only after I had publicly raised doubts about the MIRV aspect. Being quite certain there were no MIRVs on-board, I wondered if the MIRVing technology had actually been tested, when in fact  the initial  test of such eqpt is a couple of years away.   Dr Selvamurthy, in response, confirmed  that such tech had not been “demonstrated” in this first test, but added it was MIRV-capable, design-wise, which is what I wrote in my 2008 book – ‘Índia’s Nuclear Policy’.

The question that really bothers me is the DRDO tendency to overstate (the less polite word is, exaggerate) its achievements. The Agni-5 is a superlative capability, but it isn’t MIRV-ed yet. Why make such a claim then? Similarly, Agni-5 is an IRBM, why call it an ICBM? It fools nobody, least of all our adversaries, who have a good fix on our strategic programs and are sufficiently nonplussed by its progress to assist our strategic cause. These missiles don’t need official embellishment. But then that’s a carryover from the nuclear realm where despite not having tested, proven, and reliable thermonuclear and boosted fission designs in our inventory, the Govt claims they have an entirely serviceable weapon with fusion warheads. How can such a claim be sustained on the basis of only simulation, component and sub-system testing, escapes me. As far as I’m concerned, it erodes the credibility of the nuclear (business) end, of the country’s deterrent.

Posted in Defence Industry, India's strategic thinking and policy, Missiles, Nuclear Policy & Strategy, Nuclear Weapons | 10 Comments

Squandering Agni opportunity? Hope not

Posted on April 19, 2012 by Bharat Karnad

It is over an hour since Agni-5’s successful launch. Tremendous stuff, in a series of successes the Integrated Guided Missile Development Program has notched up since its founding in 1983. Awaiting reports on the telemetry data that is now being furiously processed by ground stations and by scientsists with monitoring equipment on board Indian navy ships arrayed in the missile’s path downwind of the launch site on Wheeler Island, Odisha coast. But initial accounts suggest that the most critical technologies related to end-phase maneuvering and terminal guidance, in particular, were up to scratch. This is, in fact, the best part of the news and the missile test constitutes a geopolitical and geostrategic moment of import for India. Besides a beneficial political and diplomatic fallout, it has pulled India up into a strategic  deterrence parity situation vis a vis China, and affords the Indian government a giant opportunity to very quickly ride on the Agni-5’s coat-tails and initiate a proactive diplomatic effort with all states on China’s periphery. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Philippines, the ASEAN states and especially Vietnam, in the east and the Indian Ocean littoral states in the west, should be worked with to see how best India can proceed quickly with fleshing out the role that great many nations, the United States included, have been urging India to play, namely, as security provider in the extended region, landward as north as Central Asian Republics, as well, to ring-fence China and Chinese ambitions.  MEA cannot lose time, the Manmohan Singh regime cannot afford to waste the opportunity of capitalising on the Asian and international visibility the successful Agni-5 test has provided the country. But if past is prelude and the hallmark pusillanimity of the Manmohan Singh government prevails, that is exactly what will obtain — the squandering of an absolutely fabulous opportunity with endless debate and discussion within government, between specifically the NSA and MEA, etc., but no consequential action, leave alone policies.

Posted in Asian geopolitics, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's China Policy, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Navy, Indian Ocean, indian policy -- Israel, Iran and West Asia, Missiles, Nuclear Policy & Strategy, Strategic Relations with South East Asia & Far East, Strategic Relations with the US & West | 2 Comments

Missile nervousness?

Posted on April 19, 2012 by Bharat Karnad

It is about an hour to Agni-5’s first launch. What was the reason for the delay of some 11 hours? Last minute glitches in the launch preparations are a possibility. As likely a reason is the sheer nervousness of the DRDO launch authority about the media circus the much publicized launch has become and the imperative, therefore, to ensure that the launch happens without incident, and the missile maintains its designated trajectory — the test of the advanced guidance technologies on-board. The need to alert international shipping and otherwise clear the sea zone for the Agni splash down in the Indian Ocean required adequate notice to be given, of course. So the launch could not be done on the silent, like the underground nuclear weapons tests, with success or failure becoming apparent only after the event. Even so, why did Dr V Saraswat, DRDO boss, have to make such a media occasion of it, raise expectations, and set itself and the country up for possible failure? Though, in all likelihood, success is what awaits Agni-5.

Posted in Defence Industry, Indian Ocean, Missiles, Nuclear Weapons | Leave a comment

Exaggerating capabilities

Posted on April 18, 2012 by Bharat Karnad

The day of the first Agni-5 test launch from the Odisha range is also the occasion when a Ministry of External Affairs-sponsored seminar with international participation on Strategic Export Controls was inaugurated in IDSA, by Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai, who spoke earnestly about India adhering to nonproliferation norms and seeking membership of the four technology denial regimes — NSG, MTCR, Australia Group, Wassenar Arrangement. This, as a Joint Secretary, said to me with a wink was not a  coincidence, Nice touch! We are finally beginning to play the game as the big boys do — saying something but doing our own thing.

That said, why is the Agni-5 being touted as an ICBM when, at 5000 km range, it is only an IRBM? It is true that this missile has all the technologies such as, the vernier rocket motors in the nose-cone for maneuvering in the terminal phase for exact guidance to target, and only requires the Manmohan Singh government to gird up its loins and give the green signal for the ICBM presently at an advanced design-development stage at the Advanced Research Laboratory, Hyderabad, to start becoming a reality. But that will be Agni-6, or whatever it may becalled. For the ICBM, moreover, a more powerful solid fuel propellant — with slower, but more intense, burn, will be required, because to add another stage to the 3-stage missile would be impracticable to enable payload delivery to in excess of 10,000 kms — the true mark of an ICBM.

Mislabelling Agni-5 as an ICBM is par for the course with the Indian atomic establishment claiming a thermonuclear weapons status for the country when, in fact, the fusion and boosted fusion weapons designs remain unproven, because the design correctives incorporated into the thermonuclear and boosted fission designs that fizzled in 1998, are still  untested and, therefore, unreliable.

Can there be a cost to hyperbolicizing our strategic capabilities. Yes, because some risk-acceptant adversary, such as China, could call our bluff. Where would that leave India? Up a creek.

Posted in Asian geopolitics, Defence Industry, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's China Policy, India's strategic thinking and policy, Missiles, Nuclear Policy & Strategy, Nuclear Weapons | 15 Comments

Cosmetic Diplomacy

Posted on April 15, 2012 by Bharat Karnad

How many times have we seen Indian and Pakistani leaders meet, say nice things, pledge their efforts to peace, and witness little change on the ground? There is cricket diplomacy initiated by Gen. Zia-ul-Haq in the mid-1980s when he invited himself to an India-Pakistan Test match in Jaipur and during the lunch period had a chat with Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Last year Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani watched the World Cup India-Pakistan semi-finals in Chandigarh and had an hour with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Now President Asif Ali Zardari and son Bilawal conducted “dargah diplomacy” — a pilgrimage to Ajmer Sharif with a lunch break in Delhi with the Indian Prime Minister. Despite all the good intentions, these informal meetings have produced little and the Delhi detour on April 8 by the Zardaris will go down as another instance of cosmetic diplomacy that looked good, achieved little. The supposedly new wrinkle of allowing bilateral trade and economic cooperation to take off even as the more contentious issues, such as Kashmir, are dealt with at a more deliberate pace in negotiations by diplomats trained to work at snail speed, is not new. This is the path India and China have taken, and Delhi has been trying to push Islamabad towards it for over a decade, finally with some success. It is fortuitous that Beijing, worried about the ring-fencing of China by many Asian states in cooperation with the United States, is eager to distance Delhi from Washington by incentivising non-involvement in such a containment scheme. And for this purpose is encouraging Islamabad to establish an economic nexus with India. Whatever the motivations, Pakistan has decided to confer the Most Favoured Nation status on India, a privilege Delhi had accorded Pakistan in 1996, which the latter did not have the wit to exploit. The question is if Kashmir — a core issue for Pakistan — is sought to be set aside, is Delhi’s main concern — Pakistan-based terrorist gangs operating without any official hindrance — also to receive the same treatment? A sometime press adviser to the Prime Minister, Sanjaya Baru, has written about how Dr Singh got many things right in terms of symbolism and friendly gestures in his attempts to rev up the rapprochement process with Gen. Pervez Musharraf-led Pakistan during 2004-07. But he stopped short of revealing just why Dr Singh, on the cusp of ushering in enduring peace in the subcontinent on the basis of a Kashmir accord he had negotiated with Gen. Musharraf in 2006, got cold feet, refused to sign the deal and squandered a great opportunity that may never come again. Gen. Musharraf was desperate for that agreement, as it would have strengthened his hold on the Pakistani state, bolstered his political standing at home, kept at bay those asking him to surrender his position as Pakistan’s Army chief and impressed the Pakistani people with his achievement of getting India, for the first time, to concede a slight role to Pakistan in overseeing the affairs of Jammu and Kashmir. Gen. Musharraf was satisfied because he craved some such role, however hollow. A unique mix of tactical finesse, strategic blindness and political opportunism, Gen. Musharraf, as head of state, Army Chief and virtual dictator of the country, would have committed Pakistan to a treaty the Pakistani military could not have easily wriggled out of. Dealing with a one-point source of power is always easier. But as a Musharraf-type of phenomenon is unlikely to recur in Pakistan any time soon, India will be compelled to deal with an elected government in Islamabad, which will always act with the inevitable veto by the Pakistan Army in mind. In the event, the dispute will continue to simmer, and occasionally come to a boil. The Indian government’s concern with Pakistan’s “internal political dynamic” and the desire to settle outstanding disputes only with an elected government in Islamabad is, as I have repeatedly argued over the last 20-odd years, the cross this country has had to bear at a progressively higher strategic cost. Whether Pakistan is a democracy or not is the Pakistani people’s business. But the sooner Delhi gives up the idea that a democratically-elected government in Islamabad is somehow better, more amenable, from the point of view of shutting down terrorist activity than a military regime, the better it will be in terms of acknowledging the basic reality in Pakistan, and adjusting to it. An unpacified neighbour who has discovered the joys of brandishing the terrorist stick against India, moreover, is like a child playing with fire — fascinated by its heat and light rather than thinking about how it could burn down his own home. Retaliation against Pakistan in response to terrorist acts, according to national security adviser (NSA) Shivshankar Menon, is unnecessary because, as he stated at an event sometime back, “Why kill a man who is committing suicide?” The trouble is there’s no certainty that Pakistan, an ostensibly failed state, will actually implode as a very large part of the Indian establishment believes will happen, for purely self-serving reasons. It helps the Indian government stay with status quo-ist policies that everybody’s got used to. In any case, whatever the nature of the dispensation in Islamabad, India will have to think up some imaginative ways to get the Pakistan Army off its terrorism hobby horse. All that the official and unofficial Indian squawking and bellyaching about Hafeez Saeed does is raise the nuisance value of the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba for the Pakistani generals. This is elementary stuff but it is something the Indian government, led by the ministries of external affairs and defence, finds hard to wrap its head around. So Delhi keeps missing opportunities and Indian diplomats and the military brass keep huffing and puffing about the threat ostensibly posed by Pakistan. But, to turn the NSA’s logic around, how’s a man bent on suicide a danger to you?

[Published in the Asian Age and the Deccan Chronicle April 12, 2012, at www.asianage.com/columnists/cosmetic-diplomacy-198]

Posted in India's China Policy, India's Pakistan Policy, Indian Politics, Terrorism | Tagged , | 6 Comments