[PM with his war council]

It is as if the Indian government and its media/commentariat echo chamber, have only now — post-Operation Sindoor and, apparently, for the very first time, discovered that it is a cruel, unforgiving, harshly transactionalist world out there! Not a single friendly leader that Modi hugged and cultivated and, to please whom he bought billions of dollars worth of exorbitantly priced armaments from for the Indian armed forces and rescued their defence industries from insolvency at the expense of the indigenously designed and developed weapons systems and a funds-starved Indian defence industry, returned the favour by standing four-square behind him and India.

Or, offered to join in campaigning internationally to put Pakistan in the dock! The fact is MEA will be hard pressed to collect a political consensus to push Pakistan once again into the ‘Grey List’ of the Financial Action Task Force tracking the funding channels benefitting terrorist gangs. Just for context, at, no time, was Pakistan ever in danger of making the ‘Black List’ — not even at the height of the US-led “Global War on Terror” in the wake of 9/11. Because, that would have permanently damaged Pakistan economically, which the US and Western camp will, under no circumstances, permit.

In the event, other than lending a polite ear, it is unlikely the seven Parliamentary teams sallying forth to the various capitals of the world will be able to convince any country of note — but of what?? That Pakistan harbours/nurses Islamist terrorists? No one doubts that. That India was in the right to strike at Pakistan in retaliation? Who contests that? So, what’s this public relations exercise about, other than affording the selected MPs some time in more salubrious climes?

But let us define the setting.

From the moment the Indian missile attack went in and the Muridke and Bahawalpur targets were hit on May 7, and the latest round of India-Pakistan hostilities was on, the main thing that happened was that Pakistan’s nuclear bluff was called. It proved what I have maintained for over three decades in my books and writings — that Pakistan is in no position to trip into a nuclear exchange, and that there was a vast nuclear overhang for India to exploit conventionally. But the Indian government and military — listening to the nonsense of nuclear flashpoint and what not emanating from the US and the West, have stayed their hand and encouraged the Pakistan army to believe it is more powerful than it really is, and that it could freely indulge in costless needling of India.

Still, all any body heard from abroad once Indian missiles hit home, were calls for restraint by New Delhi, but there was zero international political support for the job India had undertaken to suppress Islamist terrorism originating in Pakistan. And this mind you, when New Delhi believed it had a cut and dry case — Pakistan-sponsored terrorists killed Indian tourists in Pahalgam after ascertaining their religious identity, and India retaliated with a view to imposing penalties on the Pakistan army for running the terrorist show.

Restraining India seemed to be the objective of almost all Western countries that Modi had hoped would hurrah him along on his mission to snuff out Islamist terrorism. Foreign minister S Jaishankar’s preparing the diplomatic ground in the interim period between Pahalgam and Sindoor for the Indian military reaction, met with no success, only borderline moralising! It goaded a plainly upset Jaishankar, who saw his diplomatic handiwork of several years of a policy of clever-talking unravel in Europe, to reject such official standoffishness on the Pahalgam issue. India wants “partners, not preachers” he harrumphed, missing out on the delicious irony that not too long ago, it was Modi sagely advising Presidents Vlodomyr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin, about this not being “an era for war” — a message fecklessly conveyed also to Israel with Gaza on its hands.

Far from securing any backing from Kyiv and Moscow for Modi and India, now it was New Delhi’s turn to get the mealy-mouthed treatment from everyone in sight! Should we be surprised? Such are the perils of being sanctimonious about war. Not appreciating that war is only another instrument of statecraft and that India, in fact, has used it in the past to advance its interests, can result, as in this instance, in its coming back to bite us in our collective arse! Every country that has had to put up with India’s “moral high ground” pronouncements, is enjoying this moment of India’s discomfiture. If this is not schadenfreude, I don’t know what is.

It raises the bigger question: Why did the Indian government act as if it was entitled to international support, to universal accolades, for attacking terrorist strongholds inside Pakistan? After all, everyone is aware that India always shies away from delivering a decisive blow as it did in Sindoor, that it does not really have what it takes to subdue even a minor foe, what to talk of terrorism. And that India and Modi are more talk than action. This being the case, is India worthy of respect from anybody? Manmohan Singh was far worse — he sat mumbling, and did nothing after 26/11 in 2008.

The lamentations in print and on television — boo hoo! — by the lot of high-strung TV hosts and media commentators about India’s abandonment by the big powers, and the world not really giving a damn about what India was doing or not doing vis a vis Pakistan as long as New Delhi did not escalate matters, mask an unpalatable truth. The international community has about had it with the periodic eruptions in the subcontinent, featuring the same tired cycle of terrorism, blood-curdling rhetoric followed by military actions and reactions with negligible effect that the jingoistic press and media on either side, hyperbolise with unbelievable claims and counter-claims, followed by an abrupt end to hostilities, and a return to the status quo ante, with the original problem remaining largely unaddressed!

How is any of this serious stuff? Because even as a pantomime a 3-day “war” amounts to silliness.

Having taken the offensive, India should have done something hefty as a follow-up to hitting Muridke and Bahawalpur. Like permanently wrenching the Haji Pir Salient and/or Skardu from Pakistan’s grasp, and promising more such territory-grabbing ventures in the future as response to terrorist incidents, until little is left of PoK with Pakistan. Because India did not opt for an intense land war and failed to cut off big slices of Pakistani territory, the Pakistan army gloried in India’s incapacity to do any such thing or even to impose huge costs. It has, in fact, incentivised General Asim Munir to persist with his policy of deploying terrorists in Kashmir — the next terrorist incident is not far round the corner, daring India to do its worst — which GHQ, Rawalpindi, believes it will be able easily to handle as it has done so many times in the past. On the other hand, India’s campaign of taking out the terrorist leaders residing in Pakistan one or two at a time, is obviously not a deterrent enough.

But given its institutional tendency to do everything by half-measures, the Indian government finds itself once again between and betwixt — and in something of a military and political jam. Why?

Firstly, because Trump — with whom, according to foreign minister Jaishankar, Modi has a “personal relationship”, turned rogue and the tables on India. Unbidden, he intervened as a “peace maker”, and decreed an end to the India-Pakistan clash. Such tactics ran into a wall on the Russia-Ukraine Front. With India, predictably, Trump had instant success. Modi buckled under immediately and, just like that, New Delhi accepted a 3rd party — US — role in the affairs of India. And, 30 years of Indian diplomatic effort — a good part of it managed by Jaishankar with the 2008 nuclear deal as its crowning achievement, to de-hyphenate India and Pakistan in the policy matrices of a whole bunch of Western countries New Delhi considers important, went down the drain.

The Modi government tried to wipe the egg off its face for succumbing so easily to the barest American pressure, by futilely challenging the Trump thesis that Modi and Sharif had approached him to mediate — a blatant lie, of course. The MEA pointed out, with chronological referencing, that it was the Pakistan army’s Director General, Military Operations, who called his Indian counterpart on May 9 about a ceasefire, which was not formally accepted until the next day. Even if Trump was irrelevant to the situation, the question is, why was the Pakistani offer of ceasefire accepted at all?

Because even then India could have restored some self-respect by insisting, that its military would stop when New Delhi decided Pakistan had been punished enough, that is after, say, Haji Pir was in Indian hands — however long it took to accomplish that, and that it was not for the US or any third party, without any locus standi in the matter, to dictate anything. The end-state of this to-ing and fro-ing suggests the ceasefire was accepted because of the firman from Trump, which incidentally fits in with the timeline!

The issue then is Trump’s firman to stop firing, which Shehbaz Sharif speedily accepted. Why was it issued when it was? Was it because by May 9, it became clear to Washington, as it did to Munir & Company, that with their amply depleted stock of missiles, if India continued with the pace of missile firings that peaked on May 10, Pakistan would have no option other than to wave the white flag? Indeed, according to Dr Moeen Pirzada, one of the better informed telejournalists, that point of surrender would have been reached by Pakistan by May 12 at the latest. (See https://youtu.be/gLt6MFzLdkQ). If Dr Pirzada had this information, how come RAW or Air Intel/Military Intel did not? And if they did, and had conveyed it to the Modi regime, then things turn darker. But the Indian military’s calling it a day just when the enemy is on the point of giving up, is also part of an old pattern. Recall that India announced a ceasefire in the 1965 War when Pakistan had run down their stocks of spares and stuff to one week’s supply and the Indian military still had 14 days worth still left (according to the Indian Official History of that war).

In this context, it is not clear what to make of Rajnath Singh’s statement that the stoppage of hostile actions is just a pause. If this means India suddenly igniting another round, hey, …. we’ll wait and see. For my money, it means nothing — just another emission of hot air.

By May 9, however, the international media line was established by the maddeningly impulsive Trump who, displayed the special brand of viciousness he reserves for his supposed friends. He not only repeated his claim that he had engineered the ceasefire by invitation, but embarrassed Modi some more by doubling down on his revelation that he had used trade as lever to get Modi in line, with nary a mention anywhere of the Pakistani terrorist incident that had sparked the Indian response in the first place, which would have laid the blame for Pahalgam at Islamabad’s door. So, this is the story our circumambulating MPs will try and squelch. Except, these trips are not worth the money being spent, because their arguments will sway no government.

All this is significant only because Modi, now in his 3rd term as PM, has put so much store by intimate relations with America as a means of displacing Pakistan in Washington’s affections and in the US’ security architecture in Asia — a ridiculous venture considering Pakistan, as I keep pointing out, is indispensable to America — its selling points being its comprehensive weakness and manipulability — qualities that Islamabad has, time and again, cashed in on. Until now when it is not the nuclear overhang that saves Pakistan from condign Indian punishment but Washington standing in the way. And India has lacked a strong leader to ward off American pressures.

Does Modi want to make India bend to Washington’s every whim, as Pakistan happily does? Not that the Indian government has not done so repeatedly in the last 30 years, but it will have to become more conspicuously subservient, in the manner Islamabad is. That is how Trump likes it. This is surely not what Modi desires for India.

In that case, Modi has, for starters, to reverse what Piyush Goel, the Commerce Minister, has done by agreeing to all sorts of provisions in the draft Free Trade Agreement with the US inimical to Indian national interest, that is replicating the disastrous FTA he has obtained with the UK, where British companies will be allowed to bid for all Government of India contracts amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars annually, and is a deathknell for Indian industry. Modi should simply junk the proposed FTAs with the US, and with its sidekick, UK. And take it from there.

And Modi has to begin straight talking with Trump and without the usual frills. This has so far not happened. May be the PM has to bear the late Henry Kissinger’s warning in mind when dealing with the US, and especially Trump, that to be America’s enemy is dangerous, to be America’s friend is fatal!

Then there’s the Indian military’s performance.

The “three day” war, besides its joining the annals of military absurdity, has brought into question the lead service in Op Sindoor, the Indian Air Force’s competence in air operations. IAF’s coordinated effort with the army to put up an air defence wall against Pakistani missiles, however, was a great success and immensely laudable. In contrast, the radars attached to the Chinese HQ-9 and HQ-16 surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) on Pakistan’s side proved a damp squib — they picked up no Indian incoming.  

However, in air ops, it was a different story. In the very first hours of the operation a number of IAF combat aircraft were shot down — the question is: Which aircraft and how many? Pakistan claims downing five Indian fighter planes — 3 Rafales, 1 Su-30 and 1 Mirage 2000. The IAF/GOI have been quiet on this subject, suggesting that the claims may not all be a figment of Fizaya’s imagination. The IAF’s operations in-charge, Air Marshal AK Bharti, cannot brush of such catastrophe as the usual “losses” in war. Rafales were shot down for sure, otherwise the Rafale squadrons would not have been grounded after that first awful day apparently for fear of losing more aircraft.

Much worse, the IAF is so fixated on manned aircraft, it did not foresee the exorbitantly priced French Rafale as a fading asset in the coming age of longrange missiles. And, much, much worse, it did not anticipate how the Pakistan Air Force would innovatively use its Chinese and Swedish assets — the J-10C medium multi-role fighter, its consequential longrange weapon — the Chinese P-15E air-to-air (A2A) missile, and the Saab Erieye AWACS. Why did no one in IAF focus on such use of Chinese assets by PAF? Isn’t it the Air Intelligence’s job — assuming it has any sources in Pakistan independent of other intel agencies, to intimate what the PAF was up to, and for the Ops directorate to factor in this intel for action with adequate countermeasures before sending up the Rafales to do Beyond Visual Range combat, or did everybody really expect that there would be the old style dogfights?

Moreover, high attrition rates seem by now to be an IAF standard — recall the first day of the Kargil conflict — 2 aircraft went down — a helicopter and a Mig-21. And we were told then that, that was because the IAF had not practised combat operations in the mountains! With one of the two live fronts entirely mountainous, what air war actually was the IAF preparing for?! What excuse will Air HQ come up this time around for losing however many high value aircraft in Sindoor. Will they at least show some slight humility, even professionalism, and conclude, albeit belatedly, that Rafale was redundant to need, and that the indigenous Tejas would have done just as well as a weapons carrier — and what matters is the A2A radar-guided Meteor missile. And that, this missile integrated with Tejas would form a more cost-effective combo than the Rafale-Meteor tandem. And if the French missile firm, MBDA, is reluctant to mesh the Meteor with Tejas, France can be told to take their 36 Rafales and shove it. And, in any case, one would expect the IAF to terminate importing this over-hyped plane to meet its so-called Medium Fighter Aircraft requirement, when Tejas is available.

Not sure why the IAF and the Indian government are so squeamish about cornering a supplier country-France/company- Dassault Avions, and demanding they — the sellers — do what we — the buyers, customer — want, and have us routinely take dictation from them, as is the case at present.

If the air chief ACM Amar Preet Singh doesn’t initiate such professionally necessary moves, one hopes there are enough sensible people in the Prime Minister’s Office to put an end to India buying more Rafale for any reason — the least of them to meet the IAF’s extremely questionable medium fighter aircraft requirement. Especially, with the home-made Tejas, also a 4.5 generation fighter aircraft, that will fare better as well in war and can be mass produced by parcelling out big Tejas production contracts, as I have been pleading for years, to private corporations to compel the defence public sector unit — HAL, known mainly for shoddily screwdrivered aircraft to, for the first time, face competition. In a fair competition, HAL will be beaten to a pulp by L&T and/or Tata. (I am not mentioning the Defence Ministry under Rajnath Singh because as defence minister he has revealed himself as too much in thrall to the babus to push anything genuinely strategic for the country.)

And, no, Lockheed’s salivating at replacing Rafale in the IAF fleet with the F-35 with Trump’s help, and the assistance of many serving IAF officers and a load of retired Air Marshals, will hopefully only remain an American dream. Because the F-35, an even more calamitously bad combat aircraft, will be the worst sort of nightmare in Indian service. The IAF’s reputation, already in a dive, will be impossible then to rescue — what to talk of the hit the Indian treasury will take. Modi should tell Trump — No, thankyou, keep the F-35 to yourself. The trouble lies in Modi’s inordinate desire to please America, to be in Trump’s good books, and that’s the joker in the pack.

There are many in the higher reaches of the government and the military, who disrespect Russian military hardware. The effective layered air defence provided by the S-400 must has rattled them a bit. Along with the locally-produced Akash surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), the air wall shut out the Pakistani missiles — reason why Indian airbases and military facilities were not hit in any big way, and not for want of Pakistani forces desperately firing off ordnance at them.

Not too long ago, an insufferable NRI type visiting India — Mukesh Aghi, “President” of some non-government entity called “US-India Strategic Partnership Forum”, declared that India should “play a pivotal role in rebuilding America” and to “Align yourself with what Trump is trying to achieve, which is America First”!!! One can but pray that Aghi’s agenda is NOT Modi’s agenda.

Perhaps, the PMO, MEA and every other agency of the Indian government should hang big boards in their offices saying “AMERICA IS NO ONE’S FRIEND, TRUMP IS NO ONE’S BUDDY” — a line from one of my posts after Trump’s election in November last year. And to craft India’s foreign and military policies accordingly.