Strategy Of Compellence

Compellence is a word derived from nuclear weapons theory. Today, along with other words like deterrence and surgical strikes, it is being used in the conventional context in relation to India and Pakistan. It also best describes the method New Delhi has adopted to persuade Pakistan to abandon the use of non-state actors against India.
Prior to the Modi government, the Indian policy towards Islamabad was a mix of forbearance and deterrence, despite the latter’s covert war against India going back to the 1960s. This involved support for separatist movements, organising jihadi proxy armies, supporting Indian terrorists and even flooding the country with fake currency and drugs.
In some instances, notably Kargil, India struck back, but India avoided support for terrorist actions in Pakistan and remained content to fund a variety of Pakistani separatists.
Governments in New Delhi have believed that problems with Pakistan need to be “managed” because they were unlikely to be resolved in the short to medium term. So, even as Islamabad has thrown terrorists and militants at us, we have, as a management strategy, sought to engage it with a view of moderating its behaviour over the longer term. This policy has been reasonably successful – it sharply reduced violence in Kashmir since the mid 2000s, and even brought the two nations close to a Kashmir settlement in 2007. It enabled India’s economic rise, even as Pakistan steadily descended into chaos.
Now we have arrived at a point of inflection. Conventional wisdom would suggest that the change came with the arrival of the Modi government. Actually, any government in New Delhi may have been forced to adopt a similar course for three reasons. First, the Mumbai attack of 2008 hardened public opinion against Pakistan. Second, the downfall of Musharraf put paid to a possible Kashmir settlement. Third, the Pakistan army disavowed the Musharraf detente and hardened its attitudes towards India.
Expectations that things would change when Nawaz Sharif became PM have been belied. Sharif was systematically cut to size by the army and all efforts by him to respond to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s overtures were undermined by actions like the Pathankot and Uri attacks. As a result, India has been forced to shift its policy towards what can be called “compellence”.
The Cold War era term “deterrence” described a situation where a country protected itself from military attack by maintaining a capacity to mount a devastating counterattack. But “compellence” is a more proactive concept, where military and diplomatic threats are used to compel the other side to behave in a certain way.
Whether or not Modi and his team have thought through the compellence strategy is not clear, but it appears to be the best word to describe the shift of policy that has taken place in the past year. It came after the January Pathankot attack which was seen as a direct rebuff to Modi’s surprise visit to Sharif in Raiwind on Christmas Day.
Since then, Modi has raised the issue of sanctioning and isolating Pakistan as a supporter of terrorism in nearly every world capital he has visited. In Saudi Arabia in March the Saudis came out in support of India’s proposal for a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT) in the UN. In June, the US Congress heard his remarks to delegitimise terrorism and its supporters. In Qatar, South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania and Kenya, the theme of action against terrorism was insistently pressed.
In early September in China, Modi told the Brics summit that there was need to intensify joint action against terrorism. He spoke of “one single nation” in South Asia that was spreading terror. A few days later in Laos for the Asean summit, he mocked a certain nation for having just one competitive advantage – in exporting terror. In his Independence Day speech he added another element to the equation by raising the issue of human rights in Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan. Accompanying this was the outreach to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE – Pakistan’s traditional friends.
Since the Uri attack on September 18, the compellence strategy has taken on a harder edge. It has combined diplomatic hardball which includes organising the boycott of the Saarc summit in Islamabad, a criticism of the UNSC for its inability to ban Masood Azhar. And, more important, it included a coordinated shallow attack across the LoC to take out a number of launching camps of jihadi militants. So far India has managed events so well that even countries like Germany and South Korea have supported the Indian posture, along with the UK and France.
The big question is now what? There are reports of rumbling within the Pakistani military and civilian elite in Islamabad, but the outcome could go either way. The Pakistan army is a tough nut as the US has realised to its cost. Getting it to desist from supporting jihadi proxies against Afghanistan and India will not happen overnight and is certainly not easy.
India is on the right track in aiming to isolate and sanction Pakistan, and has shown sophistication in using the military instrument. But more pressure will be needed in the coming period. With the “surgical strikes”, the Modi government is committed to retaliation against all cross-border attacks. They will have to be executed with the same panache, and that is a high bar because the chances of failure are ever-present, as are the dangers of escalation.
Economic Times October 10, 2016

Army should not be used for political gain

One of the more alarming outcomes of the so called “surgical strike” on Pakistani positions in Jammu & Kashmir is the attempt to drag the Indian Army into politics.

For this both the ruling and the opposition parties are to blame, as well as some retired army officers. The politicians’ motives are electoral, in view of the coming Uttar Pradesh elections. 

The Defence Minister instead of shielding the army from controversy, has been most assiduous in using it for his party’s publicity

 

The greater blame rests with the ruling party, where the Union Defence Minister who, instead of shielding the army from controversy, has been most assiduous in using it for his party’s publicity.

One of the sad facts of democracy are the base things done and said in election time, however, the army is too important an institution to be used for electioneering. 

Posturing

The basic facts were laid out on the very first day by the DGMO, Lt Gen Ranbir Singh. The army conducted strikes on targets along the Line of Control to preempt so-called non-state actors from launching attacks on India. 

This was a one-off action, but in acknowledging it, the government has signalled a posture of “surgical deterrence” which will hopefully deter future cross- LoC attacks. The Indian Army is a volunteer force which maintains an apolitical posture and emphasises professionalism. 

It has played a significant role in building the nation by its secular and non-sectarian approach. Recall, that before the arrival of the British, Indian armies were constantly battling each other on a regional or sectarian basis. 

For their own reasons, the British wanted a force which would not get involved in internal uprisings, and so, they carefully recruited and maintained the force in cantonments, separated from society and paid them through a central treasury. 

After independence, too, the government saw the value of this and encouraged the army to remain apolitical, separated from the society both psychologically and physically. 

But for the small mutiny of the Sikh soldiers in the wake of Operation Bluestar in 1984, this has worked well. 

Patriotism 

The problem today is of political movements that are trying to stoke ultra-nationalism, and in the process seeking to conflate the status of the army as ultra-patriotic deshbhakts. 

This goes against the grain of the army and its outlook. The average person who joins the army, as a jawan or officer, does not do it out of ultra-patriotism, or to “serve the nation”, but because it is a job that comes with social respect, a reasonable income and a life-time pension.

It raises the status of the family of the soldier or officer and is a means of upward social mobility. 

However, there is one critical difference; the military job requires you to put your life on the line, on occasion.

Fortunately, independent India has not been involved in any major war, so the risk of death has remained low. 

In any case, the soldier confronts the possibility of death as part and parcel of his professional commitment, not bravery and deshbhakti. 

All commanders take calculated risks and do not play with the lives of their men, there is no such thing as secular fidayeen. 

The Special Forces do undertake high risk missions, not just because they are brave, but that they are highly trained and have a sense of professionalism inculcated through their rigourous training and their special weapons and tactics.

Their trade-craft and strong esprit-de- corps makes them comfortable in conducting operations which would appear near-suicidal to others. 

Here there is also need to look into this use of “shaheed” for a soldier who dies in battle. 

This is a religious category used by countries like Pakistan as well. What we need is a distinct category, something like that of France where soldiers who died in war have the designation “Mort pour la France” (Died for France). 

This is a legal category that provides for special benefits for the families of those so designated. 

Professionalism 

All of us want a brave army, but bravery is never enough. The fearsomely brave Rajputs would order their women to commit jauhar (self-immolation) and go into battle knowing there was nothing to live for thereafter. 

But the Rajputs lost many wars. What the modern Indian republic needs is a military that wins every time. 

So it must be well equipped, not just with weapons systems, but highly trained, educated and motivated personnel. 

They should be well paid and professionally satisfied, but also distracted from the many storms that always buffet the country- the beef controversy, the water wars of Karnataka, the reservation riots in Haryana, the Maratha agitation, the Maoists and even the Kashmiri agitation. Their orientation must be relentlessly on their need to defeat external enemies.

Mail Today October 10, 2016

Uri Aftermath: Retaliation, With De-Escalation Built In

There is nothing new in shallow cross-border strikes conducted by Indian forces across the Line of Control; what is new is the public – and political – affirmation of such a strike. But Pakistan has conveniently side-stepped the military and diplomatic challenge this poses by simply denying such a strike took place.
As a result of the Indian claim and Pakistani denial, both domestic opinions have been taken care of. The government of India has satisfied the public demand for action against Pakistan for the Uri strike which took the lives of 18 soldiers on September 18. And by their subterfuge – of attributing their casualties to Indian shelling across the LoC – the Pakistanis have signalled to their public that they remain firm against India.
It was in 1993-1994 that in response to some Pakistani attacks, General Bipin Chandra Joshi permitted the Army to conduct cross-LOC strikes, “as long as you don’t leave behind any one, dead or wounded.” So over the years, a deadly game of strike and counter-strike was played out by the two sides, most recently in 2013 and 2014.
However, this time around the government of India has changed the rules of the game when the DGMO declared that “based on very credible and specific information which we received yesterday that some terrorist teams had positioned themselves at launch pads along the Line of Control with an aim to carry out infiltration and terrorist strikes in Jammu & Kashmir and in various other metros in our country, the Indian army conducted surgical strikes last night at these launch pads.”
Having said this, Lt General Ranbir Singh took the precaution of adding that this was a one-time affair for the present. “We do not have any plans for continuation of further operations.” So clearly New Delhi has built de-escalation into its retaliatory action.
The Pakistani reaction is interesting: Since the action, by their official account, didn’t take place, there is no pressure on them to further escalate the situation. Over the past two seeks, many analysts have pointed out that Indian retaliation along the LoC or in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir would not have the same trigger for Islamabad as would a strike in its heartland of Punjab. Both the Sharifs – Prime Minister Nawaz and army chief Raheel – have important constituencies there which they cannot afford to ignore.
Significantly, the DGMO also reminded Pakistan of the commitment it made in January 2004 during Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s visit to Islamabad on the occasion of the SAARC summit to not allow its territory or territory under its control (read: POK) to “be used to support terrorism in any manner.”
Despite the dramatic rhetoric of the past few months, both sides have signalled that they understand the rules of the game on the LoC and will continue to play by it. No doubt, the Pakistanis will be planning a counter-strike using one of their so-called Border Action Teams at a time of their choosing. Unlike India, which has just cause, the Pakistanis will be out for revenge as well as to signal to the bruised jihadis that the Pakistan army remains firmly behind them.
While individual strikes on the LoC are fine, an escalation of tension and a breakdown of the 2003 ceasefire will be a serious development and rebound negatively for India. Because prior to the ceasefire, the Pakistani use of the artillery and mortar barrages to infiltrate militants into India was a serious issue.
Equally important, the ceasefire enabled India to construct a border fence which, though porous, has dramatically reduced the infiltration of the militants. A breakdown of the ceasefire will enable Pakistan to target the fence and destroy important sections of it.
In this context, the telephone conversation between national security adviser Ajit Doval and his US counterpart Susan Rice is significant. Even if the the Indian cross-LoC raid was not discussed – according to Indian officials – the measured reaction from the White House and State Department once the Indian side went public suggests top administration officials are likely to have a “serious” conversation with senior Pakistani officials as well.
The Wire September 29, 2016

The dilemma? To compel or deter

Every now and then, a book appears so well timed that you wonder how the authors managed it. George Perkovich and Toby Dalton’s Not War, Not Peace: Motivating Pakistan to Prevent Cross-Border Terrorism is one of them. The book, which was released in Delhi last night, takes up the theme that has roiled the country for the past ten days — how do we persuade Pakistan to abandon its support to terrorism?
The central theme of the book is that the existence of “survivable” nuclear arsenals by India and Pakistan make any conventional war “suicidal as a means resolve the disputes that bedevil their bilateral relations.”
The authors are associated with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and Perkovich is the author of a seminal study on India’s nu­clear weapons capability. The book is a classic US think tank project, a product of rigorous scholarship and analysis, based on scores of interviews co­nducted by the authors in both countries. Its arguments are laid out quite bluntly and the authors say they are not recommending any specific course of action, only laying out a menu which can help India to work out its response. For that reason it must be taken seriously — very, very seriously.
The book has systematically examined the policy and decision-making background and then studied the options individually. So they look at army-centric responses associated with the proactive or “Cold Start” doctrine; the option of air power, which many today claim would be the least escalatory, covert action, and the manner in which nuclear weapons are factored into the equation. Finally, they examine the issue of “non-violent compellence”.
“Compellence” is a peculiar nuclear-era concept which goes beyond deterrence, because deterrence is preventing the adversary from doing something, whereas compellence is a mix of policies, postures and capabilities which seek to push the adversary towards a desired direction, such as, say, abandoning support for terrorists. What the authors do is look at its elements like sanctions, diplomatic isolation, financial punishment and even naval blockades as a means to pushing Pakistan to do the needful. The authors argue that India’s growing clout in world affairs can enable it to undertake a strategy of “non violent compellence”.
We are perhaps detecting eleme­nts of the last strategy in Modi gover­nment’s dealings with Pakistan. The Modi strategy — cornering Pakistan across the world, his addresses to the US Congress, BRICS leaders meeting in Guangzhou, the G20 summit and, indeed, wherever he has gone in the last six months. His refrain has been constant — Pakistan is a rogue state which needs to be isolated.
Modi’s reference to Baloch, Gilgit-Baltistan and Pakhtunistan indicate that playing around with Pakistani faultlines may be part of the strategy.
Parallel to this have been the revival of Indian diplomatic efforts to promote a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT) and to push with the need to colar people designated by the Al Qaeda-Taliban sanctions committee.
Perkovich and Dalton have refer­red to the UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1373, a Chapter VII resolution banning funding of terrorism and calling on states not to support terrorism. But there are a clutch of other resolutions like 1566 of 2004, also under Chapter VII, calling on states to “find, deny safe haven and bring to justice” all people involved in financing planning or commissioning terrorist acts.
There has been talk of things like naval blockades and scrapping the Indus Waters Treaty. It does not take too much to say that these are not easy options. A blockade minus war goes against international law, and in addition, not workable unless China and the US are on board. As for IWT, denying water is not a feasible option. It also opens up India to similar action by Nepal or China.
Non-violent compellence is hazily understood and applied by Indian policy makers for the past 30 years with indifferent results. The reason for this is the lack of analytical rigour in working out and applying policies in general in the country. India tends towards ad hoc and instinctive approaches. As spelt out by the authors, and as hinted by Modi, a more systematic application could come up with different results. It could involve an offensive on multiple fronts aimed at isolating and punishing Pakistan thr­o­ugh sanctions. People say that sanctions don’t work, but in the case of Iran recently, they certainly did. The issue is the manner in which they are brought about. The world is currently in a funk over the rise of Islamist radicalism; this could be a good opportunity to revisit the issue.
In this context, one of our greatest failings has been in our inability to break what we call the ‘Sino-Pak nexus’. This has been around since the mid-1960s, yet New Delhi has not worked out a strategy through which we could break or at least moderate this nexus. It is not as though the lines of policy to do this are not visible, as have been the opportunities.
September 27, 2016

Why Things Will Likely Be All Quiet on the Western Front

When speaking of the fallout of the Uri attack, many analysts tend to say the military option should be avoided because it may spiral into a nuclear war. But what would have happened if there were no nuclear weapons?
A military confrontation would have been much more likely, but, to go by the experiences of  1965 and 1971, the last set of wars before the arrival of the nuclear era, not much would have been achieved.
People often judge the 1971 war by the outcome of the Bangladesh campaign. Sure, this was a great victory, but let us be clear, it was a battle that you could not have lost considering that the Pakistani army in East Pakistan was surrounded by Indian forces, cut off from its western half, blockaded by the sea and air and, most importantly, operating amidst a hostile population.
In the west, however, the story was different and the outcome of operations there give us a picture which has some relevance today.
Strategically, Indian forces in the west were told to maintain an “offensive-defensive” posture which meant that while they were essentially in a defensive mode, they were free to launch offensives to prevent Pakistani ingresses into Indian territory. So, some offensives were, indeed,  undertaken.
Just how tough cross-LoC operations can be is evident from how the 19 Infantry Division fared in the Tangdhar and Uri sectors, the major sources of infiltration today. Of the three operations launched, only one succeeded – which was the capture of Ghasala top and Ring Contour, adjacent to the LoC, largely due to the element of surprise, since the operation was launched on the night the war began on December 3. Two other operations in the Uri sector Op Hasti and Shikar failed.
How difficult the operations were is evident from Pakistan’s daring effort  to capture Poonch in the same war. Despite a well formulated and supported plan, Pakistani forces were able to make only limited headway into Indian territory and were eventually thrown out. And in turn, a strong Indian effort to capture Daruchhian, across the Poonch river, also failed.
It is significant to note that in all these operations, the action was just about kilometres – anywhere between 0 and 5 – beyond the ceasefire line. Deeper thrusts would have involved even more time and casualties. In the effort to capture Daruchhian, for example, India lost five officers, two JCOs and 18 jawans, with another two officers, two JCOs and 71 ORs missing, with many being presumed dead in just two days of fighting.
Professional competence naturally plays its own role in war. Sadly, it was not very evident in the western sector. We lost Chamb because of the commander’s obsession with launching an offensive which came undone.
India’s grand offensive in Shakargarh faltered because of an indifferent leadership’s “overcautious approach”; it was not the best place to launch an operation because it was strongly defended and the Indians knew it. Needless say, the attacks themselves were carried out with enormous grit and bravery and the performance of some individual battalions was outstanding.
In the Punjab sector both sides made minor gains, mainly in enclaves that jutted into the other’s borders. In Rajasthan, a disaster was averted when the Pakistani armoured force blundered into Longewala and was destroyed by the Indian Air Force.  Had this not happened, a Pakistan force would have caught a planned Indian offensive to Rahim Yar Khan napping.  Thereafter, despite prodding, the divisional commander could not take advantage of the Pakistani disaster in Longewala and destroy his forces.
In 1965, the then western army commander had termed the Indian performance as  “a sickening repetition of command failures leading the sacrifice of a series of cheap victories.” The performance in 1971, in the west, was perhaps no different. It was, however, made up by the spectacular victory in the east in a battle which, given the advantages India had, it could not possibly have lost.
The point is not to retail military history, but to ask whether the situation is any different today. Yes, of course it is: India and Pakistan have larger armies and India has a greater edge in airpower and the navy. But barring the existence of nuclear weapons, nothing much has changed.
The India-Pakistan border is, perhaps, the most heavily defended one in the world. Anticipating attacks, Pakistan has created a vast network of bunkers along the LoC and ditches, canals and earthworks in the Punjab border. The Rajasthan border may offer some area of ingress, but till you reach the Indus, there is little or nothing of value.
India and Pakistan have what can be termed as “effective parity” in what is our western front, if you take into account the fact that Pakistani forces would be on the defence and operate on interior lines.
India simply lacks the numbers and equipment to breach Pakistani defences in short order. Over time, it could be done, but that is what is not available in the subcontinental dynamics. Now that we are nuclear, you can be sure that the world community, i.e. the P-5 of the UN, will jump in even faster to insist on a ceasefire.
No change in military balance
As  Pervez Musharraf put it with a touch of bluster to the Christian Science Monitor in September 2002 after the threat of war had passed “… my military judgment was that they [Indians] would not attack us… It was based on the deterrence of our conventional forces. The force levels that we maintain, in the army, navy, air force is of a level which deters aggression. Militarily… there is a certain ratio required for an offensive force to succeed. The ratios that we maintain are far above that — far above what a defensive force requires to defend itself….”
There is no reason to believe that position has changed. Indeed, to go by reports of ammunition shortage, lack of artillery modernisation, or adequacy of air defence systems, things may have got worse since the time of Operation Parakram. New Delhi cannot blame anyone else but itself for its predicament. Despite advice to the contrary from blue ribbon panels and even the parliamentary standing committee on defence, India’s military management has been poor. Far from modernising rapidly, adding capacities like air assault divisions or marines which can alter the conventional military balance in its favour, it dithers and simply adds numbers to its already bloated army.
As to professional competence, it is difficult to measure in situations short of war. But if the past is a guide you can be sure that while the performance of battalions will be superb and you will have great feats of bravery, generalship will be indifferent. As patriots, we can say that Indian generals will be  more competent than Pakistani ones but that may not be saying much. Good generalship rests on quality military education,  good staff work, well war-gamed plans, a regular cycle of exercises and  drilled forces, contemporary equipment and of course, to go by Napoleon, a dash of luck. The system of promotion by seniority and the rapidity with which officers move from the rank of brigadier/ major general to divisional commander, corps commander and army commander ensures that they do not stick around long enough in a job to hone their skills.
Beyond generalship today, you would need the ability to integrate your air, land and sea operations, as well as fuse the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance data with precision long-range weaponry. Both India and Pakistan are roughly equal here. They have unintegrated forces, but since the chief of the Pakistan army is also the boss of Pakistan, the army has no problem in enforcing its pre-eminence in their system.
So we are in the uncomfortable position of facing effective conventional parity with Pakistan. This imposed its own logic in the case of the US and the erstwhile Soviet Union, encouraging them towards détente. Unfortunately for us, our predicament is more complicated because we face what it called a revisionist power, which dangerously uses  its nuclear capability as a shield behind which to fight what it calls a “sub-conventional” war against India based on the fallacious belief that it was perfidiously denied Jammu & Kashmir during the partition.
The Wire September 26, 2016

Modi and the tale of two terror speeches

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has finally revealed his response to the Uri attack.Over-the-top coverage in the Indian media wanted to push Modi for a military strike on Pakistan, and his own party-men were cheering on the process.

Yet, when the Prime Minister spoke at a meeting of the BJP’s national council in Kozhikode in Kerala it was in calculated, if tough tones, but clearly shelving military options and instead challenging Pakistan to a duel on removing poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, maternal deaths and infant mortality.

Over-the-top coverage in the Indian media urged Modi to push for a military strike on Pakistan, however Modi must concentrate on India's economic transformation

Restraint

The Modi line emphasises strategic restraint on the military sphere, while stepping up the diplomatic pressure, and possibly covert operations, to isolate and sanction Pakistan.

Clearly, the Prime Minister insists on maintaining focus on India’s economic transformation, a project that would be derailed were India to get involved in any military adventure.

More importantly, Modi appears to recognise the point being made by several analysts, that it is strategic restraint that has brought India to the front rank of economic powers, where Pakistan has been brought to its knees by the blow-back from its long support for terrorism.

On the other hand, Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s speech to the UN General Assembly in New York last Wednesday, was clearly a wasted opportunity.

It was the usual tirade criticising India on Kashmir, and a grab bag of other issues -claiming victimhood on the issue of terrorism, demanding equal rights with India on the issue of membership to the Nuclear Suppliers Group and so on.

On Friday, in a stop-over at London on his way back, Sharif took another tack, arguing that the Uri attack was the consequence of the Indian “atrocities” in Kashmir, implying that the attackers were local residents, rather than Pakistani nationals.

Modi’ speech was a skillful mix of verbal aggression and restraint.

He spoke after a publicised meeting with the three Service chiefs, and in a significant gesture, made it a point to separate the people of Pakistan from its government, saying that the people of the country would themselves turn against their government to fight terrorism.

He pointedly referred to Pakistan’s inability to hold on to its eastern wing, and the dissidence it faces in POK, Gilgit, Balochistan, Pakhtunistan and Sindh, and said that Kashmir was being used to distract them from their real problems.

Promises

Those observing Sharif’s performance say that his heart was not in it; that he was reading from a prepared text is not unusual, but his body-language seemed to suggest that he was not quite in form.

When Sharif came to power in 2013, there were expectations that he would reach out to India as a means of fulfilling his election promises which were mainly on the need to promote economic growth. 

He was also expected to keep the Pakistan Army at length, considering his own experience at the hands of his erstwhile Army chief Pervez Musharraf in 1999. 

However, the army pre-empted him by getting Tahir ul Qadri and Imran Khan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf to launch agitations against him and paralyse the functioning of his government.

More recently, the issue of his illegal assets has come up through the Panama revelations.

As of now, it appears that the PML (N) is in no shape to take on anyone. As a result his ambitious economic agenda, including an opening up to India have stalled, though Pakistan’s economy is doing well and the China Pakistan Economic Corridor scheme have given the country hope.

Statesmanship

Attacks such as the ones in Pathankot and Uri have been specifically designed to ensure that he does not stray from the path the army has laid out for him.

This path has no room for an Indian outreach. The choices before Sharif are stark. He can quietly retire from the scene in 2018 when the general elections are due, or adjust his policies to align themselves to those of the Pakistan Army.

As for Modi, he has clearly indicated that he is in it for the long run.

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif addresses the 71st session of United Nations General Assembly at the UN headquarters in New York

By refusing to be provoked, either by Pakistan, or his own bhakts, he has displayed statesmanship.

No doubt, somewhere in the system, there will be plans to get back at the Pakistan Army’s role in the Uri incident.

But the bottom-line Indian response is that we will not be distracted by skirmishes- our aim is to win the war.

And that war is not to be fought with guns and bombs, but as Modi indicated, infrastructure and industry, employment and social change.

As for elections in 2019, Modi intends to win them.

Mail Today September 25, 2016