Conflict in Kargil
by Dr. Timothy D. Hoyt
The good news is that the current crisis in Kargil suggests that the worst fears of the non-proliferation community regarding Indo-Pakistani tensions are exaggerated. Despite a very significant military threat to India's strategic position in northern Kashmir, India has reacted with relative restraint. A serious situation has not escalated into a nuclear confrontation, and in India at least it appears that civilian authorities remain firmly in control of both the military and strategic forces. The withdrawal of the Pakistani forces, regular and irregular, to the Pakistani side of the Line of Control (LoC) has begun, and Indian Air Force attacks in the region have slowed if not ceased.
The bad news is that the Kargil crisis strongly indicates that the creation of overt nuclear capabilities by both sides did not provide corresponding political or military stability. Proliferation optimists and some strategic analysts placed too much faith in the existential threat of nuclear retaliation as a means of artificially limiting or ending the long-standing political rivalry and tensions between the two countries. It also suggests that Pakistan remains willing to take serious military and political risks in an effort to internationalize the conflict in Kashmir. This analysis may seem counterintuitive, given Prime Minister Sharif's recent declaration that he negotiated a withdrawal in order to prevent a nuclear war. But PM Sharif's announcement came after a series of failed diplomatic initiatives - China did not offer strong support for the Pakistani position, the US called for a rapid withdrawal to the Line of Control, and international support for a linkage between the Kargil adventure and the continuing insurgency in Kashmir was not forthcoming. No information in the public domain suggests that India has threatened nuclear escalation, and indeed India's signals about conventional escalation have been measured and responsible. In short, an argument can be made that PM Sharif's announcement is either a gesture intended to help appease domestic political opponents and the Kashmiri insurgents - both groups are furious with the withdrawal - or another effort to spur heightened international concern and interest in an early resolution to the Kashmir problem.
The infiltration of insurgents from Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir is nothing new - even during the 1990 crisis, both sides and the United States were aware of Pakistan's role in training, supporting, and infiltrating insurgents in Kashmir. Conflict over the Line of Control is not surprising, either, given the unresolved final disposition of the Kashmir problem and the continuing "little war" over the Siachen Glacier. Several new developments, however, should raise serious concern on both sides, and for analysts of security on the subcontinent. First, the fact that Pakistan initiated this operation despite India's unambiguous nuclear capability demonstrates that even on the subcontinent, deterrence will not function at some levels of conflict - particularly low-intensity conflict. The US "learned" this in the Kennedy Administration, moving from the "New Look" strategy (which relied extensively on nuclear threats) to "Flexible Response" (which recognized that nuclear threats are not considered credible at the lower ends of the conflict spectrum).
Second, Pakistan clearly began this operation after India's nuclear tests, suggesting that some elements of the Pakistani leadership are willing to continue to push for advantage in the current conflict in Kashmir despite Indian's conventional and nuclear predominance. Seizing strategic heights in Kargil presents India with a series of difficult military dilemmas - the supply line to Siachen is vulnerable to more accurately directed artillery fire from Pakistan's side of the LoC, Indian civilians in the region are endangered, and the costs in time and casualties of clearing out entrenched and widely dispersed infiltrators are substantial. The existence of a nuclear balance does not appear to have dissuaded Pakistan from pursuing risky policies. On the contrary, it may have emboldened elements of the Pakistani military and/or political elites to try to expand the Low-Intensity Conflict in Kashmir in an effort to gain a strategic advantage, at a time when India's conventional escalation options are constrained by the nuclear dilemma and international opinion.
Third, there is considerable uncertainty about the role of Pakistan's political leadership in the Kargil operation. According to some reports from the subcontinent, this operation appears to have been designed and authorized by the military without civilian oversight. This does not bode well for short- term Indo-Pakistani relations. If the civilian government of Pakistan cannot control (or stay informed regarding) opportunist elements of its military, the meaningfulness and durability of political commitments made by the government must also be a matter of some doubt, at least to the Indian side. Lack of knowledge and/or control of conventional military operations also has important implications for nuclear command and control, and the stability of nuclear deterrence in a more severe crisis.
Fourth, the Indian security forces and armed forces were, without a doubt, surprised by the Kargil operation. If the Indian intelligence services could not anticipate or detect such a substantial operation, undertaken at great risk and with considerable build-up of resources on the Pakistani side of the LoC, their reliability in other types of crisis must be considered suspect. Indian officials will be justified in thinking that any intelligence they may receive about Pakistan's intentions in a crisis situation could be untrustworthy or simply wrong. This does not bode well for crisis stability, or for the likelihood of a stable deterrence environment in the near term.
Fifth, India has responded by an escalation of its own - utilizing the Indian Air Force for the first time in 28 years. This decision was prompted, in part, by the anticipated difficulties in rooting out the infiltrators - who were heavily fortified and entrenched in extremely rugged and difficult terrain. As a military decision, it is clearly justifiable, and India appears to have been scrupulous in keeping its air operations confined to the Indian side of the LoC. Nevertheless, resorting to the use of air strikes and sophisticated helicopter gunships is a considerable escalation over previous Indian operations in the region, which has symbolic and political ramifications that only complicate any resolution of the Kashmir issue. The proximity of the insurgent positions to the LoC has already resulted in the crashing of at least one Indian Air Force jet on the Pakistani side of the LoC, in addition to the death of one Indian pilot and the capture (and safe return) of another. The continued use of aircraft raises the possibility of deliberate or accidental escalation of the conflict across the LoC. Now that the withdrawal appears to be largely accomplished, accidental escalation is a much lower risk. But in the next round of conflict in the region, India has established a precedent for air operations near the border.
Sixth, according to Indian press reports and official statements, high-ranking officers of the Pakistani army engaged in monitoring and directing the operations of the insurgents on a regular basis at the tactical level. Indian sources also report that the insurgents included Pakistani regular army troops. These reports have been confirmed by official U.S. sources, and by India's capture of members of Pakistan's Northern Light Infantry (NLI) unit. Pakistan's army chief Gen. Pervez Musharraf has now admitted that Pakistani regulars were engaged in operations on the Indian side of the LoC. The direct participation of the Pakistani Army in the Kargil operation raises legitimate concerns about the possibility of more direct participation by Pakistani regulars further south in the Vale of Kashmir sometime in the future.
Seventh, Indian and Pakistani artillery have dueled for years across the LoC. The installation of insurgents and regular troops on heights overlooking a strategic highway, however, allowed Pakistani artillery (at least in theory) to substantially increase its effectiveness, and to put indirect logistical pressure on Indian troops on the Siachen Glacier battlefield. Use of insurgent combatants to provide direct support to cross-border conventional strikes threatens to change the tacit rules of engagement between Indian and Pakistani conventional forces (primarily in Siachen, as well as in cross-border artillery duels in Kashmir), and between Indian forces and insurgents (on the Indian side of the LoC in Kashmir). If India were to begin using air strikes in the valley of Jammu and Kashmir, for instance, it could justify this action based on its operations in Kargil, but it would clearly be a significant escalation of Indian counterinsurgency tactics in the region.
Eighth, there are reports of deliberate torture, mutilation, and execution of captured Indian soldiers. These have raised extremely high emotions in portions of the Indian public (a glance at the headlines of the major Indian newspapers confirms this). Again, in combination with the reported increase in Pakistani regular army involvement and the increase in Pakistani conventional threat to Indian operations elsewhere, this raised considerable opportunity for an escalation on the Indian side in retaliation.
While cooler heads prevailed in this case, inhuman treatment of prisoners by either side hardly sets the stage for an easing of tensions in crisis. What are the early lessons of the Kargil crisis? For non-proliferation specialists, it is clear that the presence of nuclear weapons has not had a major impact on Indo-Pakistani tensions, or on Pakistan's willingness to take risks (at relatively low levels of conflict) to keep the Kashmir conflict boiling and to attract or compel international involvement in the Kashmir dispute. The presence of nuclear weapons, therefore, does little if anything to resolve, dilute, or mediate the longstanding political tensions and territorial disputes in the subcontinent.
For military analysts, the current Kargil operation changes the nature of low-intensity conflict on the subcontinent. Reports of Pakistanis in an operating or coordinating role in this operation only blur the line between low- intensity conflict, "legitimate" insurgency, and conventional (or special forces) operations - again, raising the potential for escalation to a higher level of intensity and conventional conflict in a future crisis. India did not choose to physically cross the LoC at Kargil, although there were valid military reasons for doing so (primarily to cut supply lines to the entrenched invaders), but it did utilize the Indian Air Force. Next time, the conditions which helped moderate India's response, including a weakened governing coalition and concern over international opinion, may not be present, and India may choose to respond in a more militarily effective and aggressive manner.
For political analysts, the confused role of Pakistan's civilian leadership in the crisis should be a very serious warning sign. Musings from the mid-1990s that somehow the subcontinent would be pacified through opaque nuclear deterrence, non-weaponized deterrence, operationalized nuclear forces, or through the development of legitimate democracy in Pakistan and the "democratic peace" all appear to be deeply flawed, viewed in the light of the Kargil crisis. Additionally, Pakistan's use of conventional troops to invade Indian territory as a means of internationalizing the Kashmir conflict, while ultimately unsuccessful in this case, should be viewed with the most serious concern. The international community should make it absolutely clear that such tactics will not succeed in the future. The conflict in South Asia, and particularly Kashmir, remains active and dangerous. Possession of nuclear weapons has not, and will not, change that by itself.
About the Author
Dr Timothy D. Hoyt, Ph.D is currently Director of Special Programs and Adjunct Professor for the National Security Studies Program of Georgetown University, in Washington, DC. He has taught graduate-level courses in national security, strategy, and international relations and coordinated political-military simulations for the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of the Johns Hopkins University, Georgetown University, the U.S. Department of Defense, and the Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research (ECSSR) in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Dr. Hoyt received a Ph.D. in International Relations and Strategic Studies from Johns Hopkins University in 1997. His dissertation examined the relationship between national security policy and military-industrial development in India, Iraq, and Israel from 1945-1995. He has worked for the U.S. Department of State's Center for the Study of Foreign Affairs, the U.S. Army Security Assistance Command, and the Congressional Research Service's Foreign Affairs and National Defense Division, as well as the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. Dr. Hoyt has written articles and papers on a variety of subjects, including the global diffusion of military technologies and practices, proliferation of strategic weapons in the developing world, the effectiveness of sanctions as a substitute for force in the international system, and regional security in the Middle East and South Asia. Dr Hoyt was a participant in the February 1999 Washington Dialogue by the Melbourne Group. An earlier version of this paper was published by the Henry L Stimson Centre , Dialogue Question IX, Part 5 - Conflict in Kargil on June 12, 1999.