Pakistan finds itself in an extremely volatile, hostile region. Apart from China, its relations with its other three neighbors always seem to totter on the verge of hostilities, of one type or the other. In the East-North East it has the most likely nuclear flash point in the world as three formidable nuclear-missile-military forces sit eyeball to eyeball in the larger Kashmir region. India keeps the pot boiling through unnecessary cross LAC/LOC skirmishes with both China and Pakistan. Iran, in the West, continues to fight off international isolation. Its relations with its neighbors especially Pakistan remain frosty and on edge, more often than not. In the West-North West, it has Afghanistan whose Tehrik-e-Taliban Afghanistan (TTA) government plays host to a plethora of terrorist groups which remain busy carrying out cross-border terrorist attacks, (un)surprisingly, only into Pakistan!
Pakistan has been subjected to aggression by all three of its neighbors. India and Iran carried out sneak albeit planned attacks through their Armed Forces while Afghanistan has callously let many terrorist groups launch vicious trans-national attacks into Pakistan. All these epitomize a major paradigm shift in the region’s strategic environment.
India carried out a false flag operation in Pulwama, killed forty of its own soldiers and blamed Pakistan for that “terrorist attack”. Thereafter, it committed a classic strategic faux pas when it launched a sneak air-missile attack on Balakot. Nervous and panicky IAF pilots hit nothing. Pakistan responded the next morning with a well-planned, professionally executed kinetic operation. In Operation SWIFT RETORT, the PAF shot an IAF Su30MkI and a Mig-21 Bison out of the skies capturing Wing Commander Abhinandan in the process. A flabbergasted IAF thereafter shot down one of its own helicopters killing all on board. In what appeared to be an act of undisguised haughtiness, a blatant strategic miscalculation or both Iran violated Pakistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity by carrying out an unwarranted missile-rocket attack against presumed safe havens of Jaish-e-Adl in Balochistan. Pakistan retaliated. In Operation Marg bar Sarmachar, the PAF imperiously knocked out terrorist group BRAS’ safe havens/hideouts in Iran’s Sistan-Balochistan. Pakistan’s unambiguous, distinct and meaningful message to the entire region and beyond stood reiterated, reinforced! The proclivity to gain the more advantageous position vis-à-vis one’s neighbor(s) is now pervasive in this rather trigger-happy region. The Indo-China brawl in the freezing environs of the Ladakh Valley, India’s futile, foolhardy, abortive aerial foray into Balaokot, Pakistan’s response through Op SWIFT RETORT, Iran’s missile-rocket attack in Balochistan, Pakistan’s retaliation in Iran’s Sistan-Balochistan and Afghanistan’s export of terrorism into Pakistan now define the contours of the region’s current strategic environment. Its paradigms have evidently shifted to Pakistan’s detriment. Cross border surgical strikes/sneak attacks against suspected terrorist bases/hideouts have explicitly emerged as the unsaid albeit well-practiced new normal! Negotiations and talks come in as an after-thought, if at all; mediation never!
Pakistan has demonstrated remarkable political will while its Armed Forces have exhibited outstanding military competencies, capacities and capabilities in safeguarding their national interests. Pakistan’s responses to Indian and Iranian hostilities have been prompt, decisive, effective, in equal measure and more. Why then is it not happening against Afghanistan? Can the TTP, IS and others of their ilk carry out cross border terrorist attacks into Pakistan without the connivance of the TTA? The TTA is directly complicit. Period. Pakistan should have absolutely no doubts in coming to this conclusion and taking steps to counter this threat. Pakistan needs to make a basic paradigm shift in its policy towards Afghanistan. Appeasement, essentially a policy of the weaker antagonist, has never and will never work. Pakistan needs to come up with a new, multidimensional, multi-pronged Afghan policy, primarily aimed at neutralizing all existential and terrorist threats emanating from Afghanistan.
At the diplomatic level, Pakistan must help Afghanistan gain international acceptability albeit as a quid pro quo only. Concurrently, it must expose to the international community the nefarious links between the Indian intelligence agency RAW and the TTP, ISK IMU among others. At the economic level, cross border trade and movement of people must continue to be defined by proper legal documentations, passports and visas as this reiterates the legal status of the Pak-Afghan border too. CPEC should be expanded to Afghanistan and the CARs to enhance regional connectivity and economic interdependence. This could be a win-win position for the entire region. Afghanistan is a landlocked country and ought to be wary of the vulnerabilities of its transit trade, especially with India.
If efforts at the diplomatic and economic levels do not bear fruit readily and terrorist attacks continue to emanate from Afghanistan, then Pakistan must re-demand from the TTA to enforce measures to stop/block them completely. If they fail to do so, then Pakistan must offer to help them do it through intelligence sharing, joint training and operations etc. If they still do not concur then Pakistan must consider other options. It has strangely been reactive to all the aggressions meted out to it by its neighbors thus far. It is high time for it to now restore strategic balance; become emphatically proactive, wrest the initiative, launch definitive kinetic operations and start dominating the strategic environment. That will be in line with the new normal in the region. It must have no qualms in launching decisive, punitive, kinetic operations/surgical strikes astride the Pak-Afghan border to snuff out this scourge of terrorism at its base! Period.
Imran Malik
The writer is a retired brigadier of the Pakistan Army. He can be reached at im.k846@gmail.com and tweets @K846Im.
