The Prophecy is much more than seeing into the future. For the Prophecy sees without the element of time. For the Prophecy sees what is, what was, and what always shall be. 11:11 LLC
By WILLIAM K. STEVENSPublished: October 24, 1989 AN EARTHQUAKE as powerful as the one that struck northern California last week could occur almost anywhere along the East Coast, experts say. And if it did, it would probably cause far more destruction than the West Coast quake. The chances of such an occurrence are much less in the East than on the West Coast. Geologic stresses in the East build up only a hundredth to a thousandth as fast as in California, and this means that big Eastern quakes are far less frequent. Scientists do not really know what the interval between them might be, nor are the deeper-lying geologic faults that cause them as accessible to study. So seismologists are at a loss to predict when or where they will strike. But they do know that a temblor with a magnitude estimated at 7 on the Richter scale – about the same magnitude as last week’s California quake – devastated Charleston, S.C., in 1886. And after more than a decade of study, they also know that geologic structures similar to those that caused the Charleston quake exist all along the Eastern Seaboard. For this reason, ”we can’t preclude that a Charleston-sized earthquake might occur anywhere along the East Coast,” said David Russ, the assistant chief geologist of the United States Geological Survey in Reston, Va. ”It could occur in Washington. It could occur in New York.” If that happens, many experts agree, the impact will probably be much greater than in California.Easterners, unlike Californians, have paid very little attention to making buildings and other structures earthquake-proof or earthquake-resistant. ”We don’t have that mentality here on the East Coast,” said Robert Silman, a New York structural engineer whose firm has worked on 3,800 buildings in the metropolitan area. Moreover, buildings, highways, bridges, water and sewer systems and communications networks in the East are all older than in the West and consequently more vulnerable to damage. Even under normal conditions, for instance, water mains routinely rupture in New York City. The result, said Dr. John Ebel, a geophysicist who is the assistant director of Boston College’s Weston Observatory, is that damage in the East would probably be more widespread, more people could be hurt and killed, depending on circumstances like time of day, and ”it would probably take a lot longer to get these cities back to useful operating levels.” On top of this, scientists say, an earthquake in the East can shake an area 100 times larger than a quake of the same magnitude in California. This is because the earth’s crust is older, colder and more brittle in the East and tends to transmit seismic energy more efficiently. ”If you had a magnitude 7 earthquake and you put it halfway between New York City and Boston,” Dr. Ebel said, ”you would have the potential of doing damage in both places,” not to mention cities like Hartford and Providence. Few studies have been done of Eastern cities’ vulnerability to earthquakes. But one, published last June in The Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, calculated the effects on New York City of a magnitude 6 earthquake. That is one-tenth the magnitude of last week’s California quake, but about the same as the Whittier, Calif., quake two years ago. The study found that such an earthquake centered 17 miles southeast of City Hall, off Rockaway Beach, would cause $11 billion in damage to buildings and start 130 fires. By comparison, preliminary estimates place the damage in last week’s California disaster at $4 billion to $10 billion. If the quake’s epicenter were 11 miles southeast of City Hall, the study found, there would be about $18 billion in damage; if 5 miles, about $25 billion. No estimates on injuries or loss of life were made. But a magnitude 6 earthquake ”would probably be a disaster unparalleled in New York history,” wrote the authors of the study, Charles Scawthorn and Stephen K. Harris of EQE Engineering in San Francisco. The study was financed by the National Center for Earthquake Engineering Research at the State University of New York at Buffalo. The research and education center, supported by the National Science Foundation and New York State, was established in 1986 to help reduce damage and loss of life from earthquakes. The study’s postulated epicenter of 17 miles southeast of City Hall was the location of the strongest quake to strike New York since it has been settled, a magnitude 5 temblor on Aug. 10, 1884. That 1884 quake rattled bottles and crockery in Manhattan and frightened New Yorkers, but caused little damage. Seismologists say a quake of that order is likely to occur within 50 miles of New York City every 300 years. Quakes of magnitude 5 are not rare in the East. The major earthquake zone in the eastern half of the country is the central Mississippi Valley, where a huge underground rift causes frequent geologic dislocations and small temblors. The most powerful quake ever known to strike the United States occurred at New Madrid, Mo., in 1812. It was later estimated at magnitude 8.7 and was one of three quakes to strike that area in 1811-12, all of them stronger than magnitude 8. They were felt as far away as Washington, where they rattled chandeliers, Boston and Quebec. Because the New Madrid rift is so active, it has been well studied, and scientists have been able to come up with predictions for the central Mississippi valley, which includes St. Louis and Memphis. According to Dr. Russ, there is a 40 to 63 percent chance that a quake of magnitude 6 will strike that area between now and the year 2000, and an 86 to 97 percent chance that it will do so by 2035. The Federal geologists say there is a 1 percent chance or less of a quake greater than magnitude 7 by 2000, and a 4 percent chance or less by 2035. Elsewhere in the East, scientists are limited in their knowledge of probabilities partly because faults that could cause big earthquakes are buried deeper in the earth’s crust. In contrast to California, where the boundary between two major tectonic plates creates the San Andreas and related faults, the eastern United States lies in the middle of a major tectonic plate. Its faults are far less obvious, their activity far more subtle, and their slippage far slower. Any large earthquake would be ”vastly more serious” in the older cities of the East than in California, said Dr. Tsu T. Soong, a professor of civil engineering at the State University of New York at Buffalo who is a researcher in earthquake-mitigation technology at the National Center for Earthquake Engineering Research. First, he said, many buildings are simply older, and therefore weaker and more vulnerable to collapse. Second, there is no seismic construction code in most of the East as there is in California, where such codes have been in place for decades. The vulnerability is evident in many ways. ”I’m sitting here looking out my window,” said Mr. Silman, the structural engineer in New York, ”and I see a bunch of water tanks all over the place” on rooftops. ”They are not anchored down at all, and it’s very possible they would fall in an earthquake.” Many brownstones, he said, constructed as they are of unreinforced masonry walls with wood joists between, ”would just go like a house of cards.” Unreinforced masonry, in fact, is the single most vulnerable structure, engineers say. Such buildings are abundant, even predominant, in many older cities. The Scawthorn-Harris study reviewed inventories of all buildings in Manhattan as of 1972 and found that 28,884, or more than half, were built of unreinforced masonry. Of those, 23,064 were three to five stories high. Buildings of reinforced masonry, reinforced concrete and steel would hold up much better, engineers say, and wooden structures are considered intrinsically tough in ordinary circumstances. The best performers, they say, would probably be skyscrapers built in the last 20 years. As Mr. Silman explained, they have been built to withstand high winds, and the same structural features that enable them to do so also help them resist an earthquake’s force. But even these new towers have not been provided with the seismic protections required in California and so are more vulnerable than similar structures on the West Coast. Buildings in New York are not generally constructed with such seismic protections as base-isolated structures, in which the building is allowed to shift with the ground movement; or with flexible frames that absorb and distribute energy through columns and beams so that floors can flex from side to side, or with reinforced frames that help resist distortion. ”If you’re trying to make a building ductile – able to absorb energy – we’re not geared to think that way,” said Mr. Silman. New York buildings also contain a lot of decorative stonework, which can be dislodged and turned into lethal missiles by an earthquake. In California, building codes strictly regulate such architectural details. Manhattan does, however, have at least one mitigating factor: ”We are blessed with this bedrock island,” said Mr. Silman. ”That should work to our benefit; we don’t have shifting soils. But there are plenty of places that are problem areas, particularly the shoreline areas,” where landfills make the ground soft and unstable. As scientists have learned more about geologic faults in the Northeast, the nation’s uniform building code – the basic, minimum code followed throughout the country – has been revised accordingly. Until recently, the code required newly constructed buildings in New York City to withstand at least 19 percent of the side-to-side seismic force that a comparable building in the seismically active areas of California must handle. Now the threshold has been raised to 25 percent. New York City, for the first time, is moving to adopt seismic standards as part of its own building code. Local and state building codes can and do go beyond the national code. Charles M. Smith Jr., the city Building Commissioner, last spring formed a committee of scientists, engineers, architects and government officials to recommend the changes. ”They all agree that New York City should anticipate an earthquake,” Mr. Smith said. As to how big an earthquake, ”I don’t think anybody would bet on a magnitude greater than 6.5,” he said. ”I don’t know,” he added, ”that our committee will go so far as to acknowledge” the damage levels in the Scawthorn-Harris study, characterizing it as ”not without controversy.” For the most part, neither New York nor any other Eastern city has done a detailed survey of just how individual buildings and other structures would be affected, and how or whether to modify them. ”The thing I think is needed in the East is a program to investigate all the bridges” to see how they would stand up to various magnitudes of earthquake,” said Bill Geyer, the executive vice president of the New York engineering firm of Steinman, Boynton, Gronquist and Birdsall, which is rehabilitating the cable on the Williamsburg Bridge. ”No one has gone through and done any analysis of the existing bridges.” In general, he said, the large suspension bridges, by their nature, ”are not susceptible to the magnitude of earthquake you’d expect in the East.” But the approaches and side spans of some of them might be, he said, and only a bridge-by-bridge analysis would tell. Nor, experts say, are some elevated highways in New York designed with the flexibility and ability to accommodate motion that would enable them to withstand a big temblor. Tunnels Vulnerable The underground tunnels that carry travelers under the rivers into Manhattan, those that contain the subways and those that carry water, sewers and natural gas would all be vulnerable to rupture, engineers say. The Lincoln, Holland, PATH and Amtrak tunnels, for instance, go from bedrock in Manhattan to soft soil under the Hudson River to bedrock again in New Jersey, said Mark Carter, a partner in Raamot Associates, geotechnical engineers specializing in soils and foundations. Likewise, he said, subway tunnels between Manhattan and Queens go from hard rock to soft soil to hard rock on Roosevelt Island, to soft soil again and back to rock. The boundaries between soft soil and rock are points of weakness, he said. ”These structures are old,” he said, ”and as far as I know they have not been designed for earthquake loadings.” Even if it is possible to survey all major buildings and facilities to determine what corrections can be made, cities like New York would then face a major decision: Is it worth spending the money to modify buildings and other structures to cope with a quake that might or might not come in 100, or 200 300 years or more? ”That is a classical problem” in risk-benefit analysis, said Dr. George Lee, the acting director of the Earthquake Engineering Research Center in Buffalo. As more is learned about Eastern earthquakes, he said, it should become ”possible to talk about decision-making.” But for now, he said, ”I think it’s premature for us to consider that question.”
Since August 2021 when the US withdrew from Afghanistan, ceasefire violations at the India-Pakistan Line of Control (LoC) and killings of minorities in J&K have been reported. Indeed, the fall of Kabul to the Taliban has bolstered the anti-India establishment and the terrorist groups in Pakistan—putting the February 2021 ceasefire agreement between India and Pakistan under stress. India’s conventional military response of the type of the ‘Surgical Strike’ or the ‘Balakot Air Strike’ to Pakistan’s policy of employing non-state actors and other asymmetries may lead to escalation in military situation. This brief analyses the elements of escalation and escalation management in India-Pakistan conflicts and explores how thresholds can be moderated.Attribution:
Rajneesh Singh, “Risk Assessment and Escalation Management in India-Pakistan Conflicts,” ORF Issue Brief No. 511, December 2021, Observer Research Foundation.
Introduction
Many Indian security analysts and diplomats have long asserted a preference for a rules-based global order and following interstate diplomacy and established patterns of functioning of state institutions (including security establishment), indicating India’s position as a status quo power. Pakistan, on the other hand, has often displayed a revisionist agenda, repeatedly creating situations that, in its assessment, are likely to help it balkanise India and annex the Union Territory (UT) of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K). Consequently, the two nations have engaged in four wars of varying intensity, and numerous smaller conflicts, since their independence in 1947. However, in recent years, India’s actions vis-à-vis Pakistan have changed to reflect its increasing risk-taking ability—in particular, the much-publicised “Surgical Strike” launched in the wake of the Uri terror attack and the air strike on the terrorist training camp at Balakot after the Pulwama attack of 2019, both of which were escalatory in nature.
Some progress towards reconciliation was made between India and Pakistan in February 2021, when the two agreed to a ceasefire on the Line of Control (LoC).[1] However, the withdrawal of the United States (US) from Afghanistan has once again caused a strain in the fragile security situation in the region. There have been cases of ceasefire violations (CFVs) in the Sambha[2] and the Tithwal Sector of J&K,[3] and a spate of killings of members of minority communities in the first two weeks of October 2021.[4] Thus, the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan is likely to continue bolstering terrorist groups as well as anti-India sentiments within the Pakistani establishment, posing a real possibility of a breakdown of the ceasefire agreement and a return to the “live LoC” situation.
While India is now at a juncture where economic development and social cohesion are central to its existence, and the Pakistan-sponsored proxy war does not pose an “over-arching threat,”[5] it will nonetheless be in India’s interest to deter Pakistan from initiating terrorist activities to ensure a conducive domestic environment for sustained development. This will, in turn, require a comprehensive understanding of the subject of escalation and escalation management to safeguard against an all-out war.
The Balakot Air Strike and the Uri Surgical Strike can be classified as potential game-changers, due to their scope and magnitude and because they were owned by the incumbent government. The two operations are also escalatory compared to other military operations, including the cross-LoC raids in recent years. This brief attempts to analyse the elements of escalation and escalation management by examining the two operations and the frequent CFVs at the LoC. It focuses on escalation mechanisms and how thresholds can be moderated, as well as the correlation between risk assessment and escalation. As parties to the conflict, both India and Pakistan have levers to manipulate levels of escalation, making it extremely difficult for any one party to control escalation. Thus, developing an understanding of risk assessment can help in escalation management.
India’s Increasing Risk-Taking
The (Uri) Surgical Strike
On 16 September 2016, a group of four heavily armed terrorists infiltrated from across the LoC and launched a suicide attack on an administrative base of the Indian Army (IA) located in the Uri Garrison. In approximately three hours, all four terrorists were eliminated by the IA’s Quick Reaction Team (QRT), but not before 19 Indian soldiers had lost their lives—most of them dying in their sleep inside highly inflammable tents. It was the biggest loss that the IA had suffered in a terror attack in 15 years, and set off a chain of events that culminated in a surgical strike on the morning of 29 September 2016.
The decision to launch the operation was taken at the highest level of the government.[6] Later, when the operation was terminated after successful exfiltration by the Special Forces (SF), the decision to go public with the news of the operation was again taken at the highest level. The operation “had to be calibrated so that the backlash doesn’t go out of hand … [Indian Army] had to hit … [Pakistan] humiliate them, but only to the extent that they kept looking over their shoulders, kept sweating, thinking what next, and not plan for a conventional escalation to an all-out war.”[a],[7] Accordingly, the Commanding Officers of the SF battalions were given two tasks—inducing fear, and exacting revenge—through the destruction of terrorist infrastructure opposite Uri, on both sides of the Pir Panjal Range. The two SF battalions succeeded, and approximately 75–80 Pakistan Army (PA) soldiers and terrorists were neutralised. While both the Pakistani government and the PA deny this, evidence suggests[8] that several soldiers and terrorists were killed in the operations and their bodies removed by PA soldiers (not villagers), as is normally the case.
The Balakot Air Strike
On 14 February 2019, India witnessed one of the worst Pakistan-sponsored terror attacks in the history of the three-decade-old militancy in J&K. A terrorist collided his SUV, laden with over 300 kilograms of explosives, with a convoy bus, killing 43 soldiers of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF).
India retaliated at multiple levels—financial, military, and diplomacy. On 26 February 2019, the Indian Air Force (IAF) conducted air strikes deep inside Pakistan, in Balakot, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, neutralising “a very large number” of Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) terrorists and their trainers.[9] In response, the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) launched an air strike on 27 February 2019 in the Rajouri Sector.[b]
Former General Officer Commanding-in-Chief (GOC-in-C), Northern Command, Lt Gen. H.S. Panag contends that India’s “immediate political aim was to set a new normal – to strike preemptively against terrorism-related targets anywhere in Pakistan … and shape the international opinion against its use of terrorism as a state policy. India’s military aim was to demonstrate its capability for the same, neutralise Pakistan’s response with heavy costs and be prepared for escalation.” Pakistan’s “immediate political strategy was to preserve its sovereignty, retain its international relevance and deter India from exploiting the new normal. Its military aim was to neutralise India’s preemptive strikes with heavy costs, demonstrate its capability for a quid pro quo response, and be prepared for escalation.”[10]India had struck the terrorist camp located in Pakistani heartland, beyond Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK), while Pakistan chose to strike in J&K, in uninhabited areas.
To be sure, the actions of both the countries were escalatory. India’s motive for employing air power to hit the terrorist camp at Balakot was to drive home the message that Pakistan would have to pay a price for any terrorist action traced back to it, and thereby deter it from repeating such attacks. Pakistan, on the other hand, employed air power to induce caution and fear in India’s decision-makers that costly escalation would follow if India chose to retaliate in the manner of the Balakot Air Strike.
Ceasefire Violations as a Tool for Messaging
Fire assaults and cross-LoC raids by both India and Pakistan are normally understood to constitute CFVs, often aimed at achieving local area dominance and as a tool of political and military messaging. CFVs have been initiated by both nations to ‘celebrate’ national days and days of religious significance to either side, cause casualties in the rival country, gauge the military prowess of the enemy, and sometimes too, for no apparent reason at all. Additionally, Pakistan has been known to initiate fire assaults to support the infiltration of terrorist groups. This changed in 2003, when the two countries agreed to a ceasefire on the LoC.[11] However, over time there was a return to business-as-usual conflicts on the LoC, until the two sides agreed to renew the ceasefire again in February 2021.
India’s security interest demands that Pakistan take demonstrable and verifiable actions to prevent terrorist attacks in India. Thus, the Indian strategy combines diplomacy, to isolate and exert pressure on Pakistan, with military preparedness, and action. CFVs on the LoC are key to this strategy; Pakistan uses CFVs for retribution to Indian action, area domination, and facilitation of terrorist infiltration across the LoC. In addition to military factors, domestic concerns are an important determinant in formulating CFV policy. According to Former Indian National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon, domestic drivers often trump strategic considerations: “Covert operations were not announced to the country … because the primary goal was to pacify the [Line of Control] and cut down infiltration and ceasefire violations, not to manage public opinion at home.”[12]
In February 2021, PA Chief General Qamar Bajwa offered a “hand of peace” during the graduation ceremony at the PAF Academy in Risalpur. This was followed by a ceasefire agreement between the two armies. General Bajwa chose the platform of the National Security Division’s Islamabad Security Dialogue to articulate his vision for Pakistan’s comprehensive national security with economics and cooperation at its core.
For nearly three decades before the 2021 agreement, both countries would initiate CFVs intermittently, more to impress upon the rival a message than to register any military or strategic gain. These operations are, therefore, tactical in nature: the two militaries have developed an “understanding” with regards to the conduct of the CVFs and have largely been successful in controlling them. Thus, it is safe to assume that CFVs, in their present form, are not escalatory in nature; nor can analysing them provide lessons in escalation management for decision-making at the strategic level.
Escalation Dynamics in the India-Pakistan Context
Before analysing the India-Pakistan escalation dynamics, it is prudent to have a common understanding of the terms “escalation” and “escalation dominance.” These terms have been variously defined, but the following should be considered for the purpose of this brief:
Escalation is increase in the intensity or scope of conflict that crosses threshold(s) considered significant by one or more of the participants while escalation dominance has been defined as a condition in which a combatant has the ability to escalate a conflict in ways that will be disadvantageous or costly to the adversary while the adversary cannot do the same in return, either because it has no escalation options or because the available options would not improve the adversary’s situation.[13]
Nature of Escalation and Thresholds
The academic construct of escalation is normally grouped under three heads: vertical escalation, which involves increasing intensity of conflict by employing weapons not used in the normal course, attacking new targets, or increasing the frequency of attacks; horizontal escalation, which involves expanding the geography of the conflict; and political escalation, which includes any other form of escalation that does not fit in either of the other two categories.
Both the Balakot Air Strike and the (Uri) Surgical Strike have elements of all three types of escalation. Yet, Pakistan chose to respond to the former but ignored the latter. Pakistan’s inaction in the face of the surgical strike relayed the message that it considers such action to be “acceptable,” since, in its assessment, there was no significant qualitative change in the conflict and such an escalation could be “managed” politically and militarily. Its response to the Balakot Air Strike, on the other hand, seems to convey that in that instance, the Pakistani “redline” had been breached and any such Indian action would merit retaliation, leading to conflict escalation. This is, however, an incomplete assessment of Pakistan’s course of action, since its decision was not dictated by the military situation alone.
For a comprehensive assessment, one must also consider India’s diplomatic actions to garner international support for its air strikes at Balakot, as well as Pakistan’s precarious economic situation and India’s efforts to have it “blacklisted” by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) for inadequate controls over curbing money-laundering and terror-financing. The Indian government’s actions at the diplomatic level and at the FATF can be considered political escalation, which Pakistan remains ill-equipped to counter. Here, the understanding of “threshold,” an important analytical concept, is important to determine the future course of action of the two countries.
India and Pakistan, as is the case with other hostile states, define their own thresholds, which must be respected by the opponent to prevent escalation. These thresholds are constantly reinforced through rhetorical, political and military means. Further, the countries attempt to assess each other’s thresholds and factor them into operational plans. At the same time, it has to be understood that all thresholds are socially constructed and exist in the minds of the actors; they do not reflect objective reality. Thresholds are conceptual rather than physical[14] and are thus variable factors, subject to changes based on the geopolitical, domestic and military environment.
India was able to identify and target Pakistan’s vulnerabilities using a holistic government approach, perhaps raising its military threshold. This situation offers two important lessons for policy formulation. First, the process of escalation is metaphorically described in terms of a ladder, with each rung representing different intensities of the conflict.[15] While the ladder provides a simplistic explanation of an extremely ambiguous and multifaceted conflict situation given that escalation takes place in multiple domains (military, diplomatic, political, economic), it is not a complete and inclusive representation of the state of affairs and is therefore inadequate input for policy formulation. Second, each domain of conflict has its own threshold, subject to change based on factors in other domains. Indian decision-makers must be mindful of the interactive nature of the effects of various actions in each domain and their respective thresholds. Efforts must be made to temper the domestic and international environment, to moderate the levels of Pakistani thresholds before initiating any military action. Moreover, before formulating a policy, policymakers must analyse all possible inputs, including the motives for escalation and escalation mechanisms (i.e. the manner in which escalation manifests).
Escalation Mechanisms and Escalation Management
Escalation Mechanisms
The Balakot Air Strike was a case of planned, deliberate escalation.[16] While India enjoys conventional military superiority over Pakistan, it is unable to enforce its will on the latter, since both nations are nuclear powers. Since the 1980s, Pakistan, in situations that could lead to military confrontation, has routinely threatened the use of nuclear weapons to deter India from launching conventional strikes. The risk of nuclear conflict in the subcontinent has, in turn, forced the US and other powers to intervene and diffuse the situation, much to the detriment of India’s position. The protection afforded by the nuclear umbrella has allowed Pakistan to pursue the policy of proxy war against India. Despite the 1999 Kargil War underscoring the fact that limited war, below the nuclear threshold, was possible, India’s response to the 2001 Parliament attack, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, and other terrorist-initiated violence did not include punitive retaliation. This emboldened Pakistan to calibrate the proxy war at will.
In the wake of the Mumbai attacks, Indian decision-makers ruled out general mobilisation of the type that followed the 2001 Parliament attack. The IAF had suggested air strikes against the terrorist infrastructure in POK; however, the plan was shelved because of a lack of accurate intelligence.[17] In the decade since then, India’s intelligence agencies have developed the capability to gather actionable intelligence of terrorists and their infrastructure in Pakistan, and the IAF has enhanced its capabilities to hit selected targets with reasonable surety. India’s decision-making has also evolved to undertake a more aggressive approach to any infringements on India’s security.
The first sign of this was apparent in the June 2015 cross-border raid in Myanmar.[18] The implications of this operation were manifold. It signalled the change in mindset at the highest level in terms of responding to provocative acts such as the ambush on the IA that killed 18 soldiers on 4 June 2015. At the same time, it was a message to India’s adversaries that there is a cost to pay if the country’s interests are harmed.[19] However, the decision-makers in Pakistan did not comprehend the gravity of this message. Consequently, when the terrorists carried out suicide attacks in the Uri garrison in 2016, India retaliated by undertaking a surgical strike, and when terrorists struck at Pulwama in 2019, India responded by targeting the terrorist camp at Balakot. In both cases, India announced to the world that Pakistan-supported proxy war will not go unpunished. These were cases of deliberate escalation.
It is important to understand India’s motivation for escalating the conflict. Pakistan has been pursuing the policy of proxy war ever since Independence, and with renewed vigour after the withdrawal of the Soviet Union from Afghanistan. In the face of Pakistan’s blatant support to terrorists, India’s policy of strategic restraint has not been effective, leading the Indian government to decide on escalating the conflict situation: first, it was assessed that conflict escalation will improve India’s bargaining position vis-à-vis Pakistan; second, the government was under pressure from its domestic constituency for a verifiable, strong military action to Pakistan’s provocations. The government’s decision was also backed by the lessons from the Kargil War—that in the Indo-Pak context, there is space for military actions below the nuclear threshold. While the Balakot Air Strike might seem revolutionary when seen in isolation, in the context of the India–Pakistan strategic dynamic over the last two decades, it is more of an evolutionary process.[20]
At the international level, it is likely that Pakistan will continue to garner support for its J&K policy. In the words of India’s former Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Syed Akbaruddin, “Stoking diplomatic deadwood in the hope that the embers may catch fire is a parlour game at the United Nations. One of our neighbours—Pakistan—has indulged in this for years. ‘The India-Pakistan Question,’ inscribed on the United Nations Security Council (SC)’s agenda on January 6, 1948, was last considered by SC on November 5, 1965. Yet, on the annual requests of Pakistan, the item has remained an inert part of the Council’s formal agenda.”[21]
Pakistan’s attempts to raise the J&K issue at the UN and other international forums will constitute political escalation and will be undertaken in conjunction with other military and non-military initiatives. Since it is not in India’s interest to get involved in an all-out war with Pakistan, it will need to respond using political and diplomatic methods. Thus, in the short to medium term, should there be another Pakistan-supported terror incident, India will benefit from containing and managing the situation instead of initiating a military response, which may be construed as escalatory.
Escalation Management
Escalation management is a function of politico-military decision-making. It requires sound policy and good strategy. The Ministry of Defence and the Indian military can support the government’s escalation-management cause by building capacities of the three services and strategising their appropriate employment. This, however, is not a panacea for the proxy war being pursued by Pakistan. The greatest challenge for the policymakers is to come up with a more potent escalatory response for the asymmetric capability developed by Pakistan—that of employing non-state actors to pursue proxy wars. To be sure, there is another challenge that the decision-makers have to contend with: the situation of ‘no war no peace’, or limited war, between India and Pakistan. For India’s strategy of deterrence to be effective, it is imperative that Pakistan be convinced that India will follow through on its declaratory policy of punitive retaliation in case Pakistan continues to sponsor terror activities against India. India’s responses should induce a fear of increased intensity and a widening of the scope of conflict.
It must be noted that the strategy of punishment-based deterrence has certain limitations. Historically, this strategy has been effective in achieving its stated objectives and managing escalatory responses only under specific situations. In the case of Indo-Pak conflicts, India’s attempts to deter Pakistan and moderate its India policy,[c] to ensure that no terrorist act is executed in India have not been effective. India had set the stage by asking Pakistan to ensure that no terrorist group operating from its soil executes a terrorist act and had issued threats of punitive actions should Pakistan fail to conform. Thus, India’s strategy of deterrence was indefinite in time and static, and Pakistan was forever expected to do India’s bidding. This policy failed, since India’s conventional response did not match up to Pakistan’s asymmetric capabilities.
In the ongoing proxy war, a more prudent approach for India would be to militarily strengthen India’s trouble spots, such as J&K, and reinforce the policy of punishment-based deterrence, but with measures to convince Pakistan that balkanising India and merging with J&K will remain beyond Pakistan’s capability. The government initiative to ensure greater integration of J&K is a step in the right direction, but much more needs to be done to win over the locals and integrate them. Thus, punishment-based deterrence policy reinforced with capability denial to Pakistan is the way forward to manage this cycle of deliberate escalation between the two nations.
Escalation Management and Domestic Politics
The scope of this brief is limited to analysing escalation dynamics in the military domain, exclusively by examining the cross-LoC raids and air strikes similar to the Balakot Air Strike. The war between two belligerents is often a result of the escalatory dynamics of military, diplomatic and economic factors. The trajectory of conflict leading to the outbreak of war is complex, multidimensional, and a result of the intricate interplay of factors. Thus, if the factors responsible for leading to war between the hostile nations are projected in an escalatory trajectory due to the domestic policies of the governments, the two countries may later find it difficult to retrace their steps. Governments around the world have been known to employ armed forces as political instruments to secure domestic political objectives, and such employments have often resulted in inadvertent or accidental escalation.
In the 70 years since Independence, India’s governance system has evolved and matured. There are systems in place, as well as checks and balances; however, the political party in power must facilitate the defence establishment in providing uncorrupted advice on the employment of the armed forces, pursuant to national security objectives. Any distraction from this, due to domestic political compulsions, may result in a situation from where extrication will be difficult, risky and costly.
Escalation Management: A Function of Political Aim and Risk Assessment
The (Uri) Surgical Strike, the Balakot Air Strike, and Pakistan’s retaliatory air strike on 27 February 2019 showcase that the political aims of the two countries for launching the strikes and the risk assessment of the conflict situation were important determinants in preventing the escalating situation from spiralling out of control.
Winning a war is a political condition and is defined in political terms. In any conflict situation, the government articulates the political aim for its actions and employs the available resources to achieve the stated objective. The articulation of the aim in the conflict and the employment of resources by the government are dependent on a number of factors. For example, Pakistan-sponsored proxy wars are not an existential threat to India, but a failure to transform India’s economy may become one in the future, since economic prosperity is a political imperative for the country. Therefore, at India’s current stage of development, an all-out war with Pakistan to resolve the issue of cross-border terrorism is ill-advised and not feasible. India must accept that the issue with Pakistan is complicated and unlikely to be resolved any time soon, and that a more achievable objective would be to temporarily silence the terrorists.[22] In view of the above, the Indian government had modest political and military aims for the (Uri) Surgical Strike and the Balakot Air Strike. Pakistan’s retaliation on 27 February 2019 stopped short of hitting any Indian target (military or civilian), which makes the attack a suggestive escalation rather than a deliberate one, indicative of the Pakistani government’s reluctance to escalate the situation since it does not serve its national interest.
The two Indian strikes were successful in driving home the message of the Indian government’s resolve to hit Pakistan where it hurts. Pakistan, too, was able to convey its determination with its retaliatory strike. The three strikes have successfully introduced the escalation dimension in conflicts between India and Pakistan. More importantly, the Indian strikes have introduced an element of decision dilemma in Pakistani decision-makers. In the future, this element is likely to become an important factor in managing conflict situations, which may otherwise spiral out of control.
For all three strikes discussed here, both India and Pakistan are likely to have concluded that any further escalation would trigger a series of escalatory events, the outcome of which was not appealing or worthwhile to either party. Further, escalatory response in these situations did not hold any promise of substantial gains in the military and terrorist situation in J&K for India or Pakistan. Thus, the risks associated with the escalatory dynamics of the strikes, as well as the lack of any tangible gains, became powerful incentives for the two countries to prevent further escalation.
Conventional Military Superiority, Economic Prosperity, and Escalation Dominance
In terms of soldiers and weapon platforms, India enjoys a conventional military superiority over Pakistan, which is likely to increase further with the acquisition of sophisticated and advanced military equipment and the modernisation of the Indian armed forces that are under way. However, the case of the US military intervention in West Asia and Afghanistan illustrates that disproportionate conventional military superiority and economic/political might is no guarantee for escalation dominance against a committed enemy with relatively inferior capabilities. Terror groups in Iraq and Afghanistan have successfully identified US asymmetric vulnerabilities and have exploited them to deny the US not only an outright victory but also the semblance of dignified withdrawal.
Currently, India is vulnerable to any impediments to economic and social development. So far, Pakistan-sponsored proxy war has been restricted to J&K, and geographic expansion of this conflict, as well as any increase in intensity, will have an adverse and a restrictive impact on India’s economic activities, which India must avoid for its long-term gains. This asymmetric vulnerability negates India’s conventional deterrence capability and any advantage that may accrue from the modernisation of its armed forces. To address this disadvantage, India must develop capabilities in other domains, such as a more effective voice in international forums, cyber warfare and covert operations capabilities, to dominate all possible rungs of the escalatory ladder.
Conclusion
The Surgical Strike and the Balakot Air Strike are noteworthy military operations that mark a departure from the manner in which India has been conducting operations against Pakistan—from counterterrorism operations within its territory to counter-proxy wars inside Pakistan.[23] The operations are significant, since they indicate a change from a defensive to a more offensive approach. Furthermore, they are portentous of how India may retaliate against future Pakistani aggressions. Yet, while the two operations were escalatory compared to the Indian response to Pakistani provocations in the past, the two countries were able to manage the escalation from spiralling into an all-out war.
Escalation management of a conflict situation cannot be guaranteed for multiple reasons. First, conflict is an interactive phenomenon and the parties to conflict base their actions on their respective perception of the developing situation. Thus, the assessment of a situation by a party to the conflict may not always conform to the understanding of the adversary. Second, escalation management is a function of national capabilities, some of which may be covert. For instance, Pakistan is involved in asymmetric warfare, and India’s conventional military response options to Pakistan’s challenge are limited. In such a situation, where one of the parties has asymmetric capabilities, escalation management is difficult since the strategy of punishment-based deterrence has limited value. The situation as it exists between India and Pakistan allows the latter to calibrate its offensive proxy war actions, while India’s conventional military responses are construed as escalatory. Therefore, India’s policy option to maintain escalation dominance will require it to cultivate and possess asymmetries that Pakistan will find difficult to counter, in military and in other domains. This will help India increase Pakistan’s thresholds for military punishment, enabling India to raise the bar for punitive retaliation in response to any Pakistani provocation and diminish the cycle of escalation dominance.
India must be mindful of the fact that when it comes to escalation, Pakistan can enlarge the conflict vertically and horizontally, due to its policy of proxy wars. Pakistan can calibrate terrorist actions in consonance with its objectives and geopolitical situation and also has recourse to political escalation. The current situation threatens India’s long-term national objectives of nation-building and economic growth. It will be in India’s interest to set a modest military objective, for the short to medium term, of controlling Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. In the long term, it is imperative that India develop the capability to escalate conflicts at will and that decision-makers develop an understanding of the subject of escalation and escalation management to preclude conflicts from spiralling into all-out war.
Col (Dr) Rajneesh Singh is a former Infantry officer with extensive operational experience.
Endnotes
[a] As documented by Nitin Gokhale in his book, Securing India the Modi Way: Pathankot, Surgical Strikes and More. Attributed to Lt Gens Satish Dua and R.R. Nimborhkar, then heading the Srinagar-based Chinar and Nagrota-based White Knight Corps, respectively.
Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Mohammad Eslami. Photo Credit: Tasnim News Agency
Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Mohammad Eslami dismissed media reports that Tehran is preparing to enrich uranium to 90% purity.
In an interview with IRIB on Tuesday, Eslami dismissed the story about the enrichment of uranium to 90% purity level in Iran as an attempt to tarnish the country’s peaceful nuclear activities.
“Such story is false and these are threadbare allegations made against our country, specifically by the enemies and the Zionist current,” he noted.
Eslami underlined that Iran works in accordance with the International Atomic Energy Agency’s regulations.
“The International Atomic Energy Agency monitors all of our (nuclear) processes according to the rules and regulations. We have not taken and will not take any measure outside the framework (of the IAEA) at all,” he stated.
His comments came after Axios claiming that the Zionist regime has shared intelligence with the American and several European allies suggesting that Iran is taking technical steps to prepare to enrich uranium to 90% purity.
The Islamic Republic has repeatedly underlined that it has never sought and will never seek nuclear arms based on a fatwa (religious decree) issued by Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei. The fatwa bans the production, possession and stockpiling of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction.
FEARS of World War 3 erupting between Russia and the US are at an all-time high as tensions between the two nuclear powers erupt over Ukraine.
In an extraordinary uptick in aggression, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Sergei Ryabkov, said Moscow would deploy intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) in Europe if NATO failed to rule out using them itself. Missiles of this nature have a top range of 3,100 miles (5,000km) and could hit numerous European capitals if deployed from Russia.
Russian military expert Colonel Konstantin Sivkov spoke of various situations around the world where tensions are high and could lead to a nuclear war on a global scale.
Speaking on Russia Today TV, the Deputy President of the Russian Academy of Rocket and Artillery Sciences (RARAN) claimed that America recently gave Germany’s air force permission to equip its planes with American nuclear weapons, and has provided Germany with America’s nuclear battle plans.
Because of this, the US has been pushed to the brink of nuclear war over Ukraine.
According to US intelligence, Russia has stationed some 70,000 troops near the border of Ukraine and has begun planning for a possible invasion as early as next year.
Moscow has denied it is preparing for an invasion and has accused the government in Kyiv of stoking tensions in the region by deploying new weapons.
Colonel Sivkov also warned that if a nuclear conflict erupts, Russia has the capacity to turn a country like Germany into a nuclear wasteland using some of its 160 submarine-launched nuclear missiles.
He said: “The United States gave the German air force permission to equip its planes with nuclear bombs.
“By doing this, it gave the German air force the plans to use nuclear munitions in battle.
“Thus, the US has pushed the situation in Ukraine to the brink of nuclear war.
“The US needs to understand that Russia’s nuclear counterstrike would not be limited to German territory, but would also reach the soil of the country that owns these nuclear weapons – the US.
“160 [submarine-launched Russian] missiles with nuclear warheads would turn a country like Germany into a nuclear wasteland. They need to fully understand this.”
The Colonel also spoke about the conflict between Iran and Israel, and how tensions there could escalate into a nuclear war that pulls in different countries of the world.
He believed that Israel would not use nuclear weapons against Iran, because of fears that this might lead to retaliation by Russia or China.
“An Iranian attack on Israel’s nuclear plants and reactors would make life on the small land of Israel impossible.
“Iran’s [nuclear] installations are in mountainous regions and are well fortified.
“These mountainous areas can only be penetrated with nuclear bombs, and I do not think that Israel would use nuclear weapons against Iran because this might lead to retaliation by Russia or China, who would deem this measure unacceptable.”
In late October, B’Tselem published the testimonies of dozens of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip whose loved ones were killed in the most recent round of fighting last May. In that round, Israel killed 232 Palestinians, including 54 minors and 38 women. At least 137 of those whose lives were lost did not take part in the fighting. Thousands were injured and thousands more lost their homes and possessions. According to the Ministry of Labor and Housing in Gaza, about 2,200 housing units sustained heavy damage as a result of Israeli attacks and have been deemed uninhabitable. Roughly 50,000 additional units sustained partial damage.
During the fighting, Israel bombed four high-rise towers, three of them in the a-Rimal neighborhood in central Gaza City and a fourth west of the city. Three of the towers collapsed, and the fourth became uninhabitable and unusable. The bombings also damaged nearby buildings and businesses. The total damage is estimated at millions of dollars: dozens of family homes and dozens of offices and businesses destroyed, including the offices of international and Palestinian media outlets.
These are the four high-rise towers Israel attacked:
In the evening hours of 11 May 2021, the owner of Hanadi Tower received a phone call from a man who introduced himself as an Israel Security Agency agent and instructed him to have the building evacuated. At around 7:00 P.M., aircrafts fired missiles at the building, reducing it to rubble. The 14-story high-rise housed government offices and businesses.
About two hours later, at around 9:00 P.M., Israeli Air Force aircrafts bombed al-Jawharah Tower. The missile assault continued for several hours, and while the building remained standing, its interior was completely destroyed and its foundations sustained heavy damage. The 11-story high-rise had six residential units that housed 30 people, including 17 minors; 58 offices occupied by media outlets (including television stations); medical, legal and engineering offices; and stores located on the ground floor.
The next day, on 12 May 2021, at around 6:00 P.M., aircrafts fired missiles at a-Shorouq Tower. The 14-story high-rise contained press offices, advertising agencies, a restaurant, a coffee shop, a clothing store, a jewelry store and offices of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and of Islamic Jihad.
On Saturday, 15 May 2021, at around 3:00 P.M., Israeli aircrafts fired missiles at al-Jalaa Tower. The 13-story high-rise contained 30 residential units, of which 25 were occupied, housing 116 people, including 62 minors. The tower also housed international media outlet offices, including the Associated Press and Al-Jazeera, as well as law offices, advertising agencies and others.
As in many other cases, Israel has attempted to justify the assault on the four towers – which constitutes a war crime – by citing various security pretexts and making claims it does not even try to prove. However, there is no justification for leaving scores of people homeless and others jobless. Israel’s excuses hinge on an extreme, unfounded interpretation of international law which defies the objectives of this body of law and has been repeatedly rejected by legal scholars.
Bombarding buildings, sometimes while the occupants are still inside, is not a new policy: Israel has used it before. This was, in fact, one of the more horrifying hallmarks of the fighting during Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014, and it resulted in hundreds of deaths. Israel has refused to back down from this policy despite the lethal outcome, and applied it again in the last round of fighting. Reality, however, has changed since 2014. The International Criminal Court in The Hague is conducting an investigation against Israel and is looking, among other things, into the policy of bombing residential towers. The investigation is expected to result in steps taken against the persons responsible for this policy.
B’Tselem’s field researchers in Gaza collected testimonies from several people who lived in two of these towers, who lost their homes, possessions and livelihoods.
On 11 May 2021, at around 9:00 P.M., the military notified the owners of al-Jawharah Tower on the corner of al-Wihada and al-Jalaa Streets that it was going to bomb the building and instructed them to evacuate immediately. The tower’s 11 stories housed 30 people in six residential units, including 17 minors. They also housed 58 businesses including offices, media outlets, medical clinics and stores, among them an optician’s, a bridal gown store, two restaurants, a web company, a real estate office and two print shops.
About an hour later, at around 10:00 P.M., after all residential and commercial tenants had vacated the building but were given no time to take anything with them, Israeli Air Force drones fired several warning missiles at the roof of the building and nearby. About four hours later, at around 2:00 A.M., Israeli warplanes fired several missiles at the building, causing severe damage. While the tower remained standing, it is no longer inhabitable. The businesses located on the first floor were completely destroyed.
B’Tselem’s field researchers collected testimonies from people who lived or owned businesses in the tower:
Ex-Shin Bet officer says terror group increasing activity in West Bank with limited options in Gaza
Hamas is increasingly pushing for conflict in the West Bank with limited options for attacking Israel from the Gaza Strip, a former Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) officer told i24NEWS.
“I believe that Israel is doing everything to deal with this issue. Hamas is in terrible shape in Gaza. They are blocked by a very effective underground border barrier so the only action they can take against Israel is firing rockets, which could lead to conflict with Israel,” said Adi Karmi.
“Part of their preparations for such a scenario is raising tensions in the West Bank — recruiting people, funding and maximizing their options to extend future conflicts into the West Bank and Jerusalem.”
The veteran who has spent decades dealing with internal security issues in relation to the Palestinians sat down recently with “Strictly Security” host Yoav Limor to offer his insights into the situation.
Palestinian prisoners from the West Bank who were released in the Gilad Shalit deal with Israel are now living in the Gaza Strip and are using their personal connections in the West Bank to send money to help organize local Hamas terrorist cells, Karmi explained.
The Shin Bet says that the domestic security and intelligence service prevents about 500 terrorist attacks against Israel every year.
Hamas is also active in other countries, including Turkey and Lebanon, in efforts to recruit terrorists, Karmi emphasized.
“If Hamas were to take over the West Bank then people who enjoy relative freedom in Ramallah and Nablus” will be subject to fundamentalist Islamic rule, Karmi said.
Israel needs to build up the PA for when Abbas is gone by investing in the region’s economy and increasing security cooperation, he stressed.
* Minister says Russia has complete lack of trust in NATO
* Redeployment could unwind 35 years of arms control
* ‘It will be a confrontation, this will be the next round’ (Adds reaction, significance)Adverts on/off? You choose.
By Alexander Marrow and Mark Trevelyan
The warning from Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov raised the risk of a new arms build-up on the continent, with East-West tensions at their worst since the Cold War ended three decades ago.
Ryabkov said Russia would be forced to act if the West declined to join it in a moratorium on intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) in Europe – part of a package of security guarantees it is seeking as the price for defusing the crisis over Ukraine.
Lack of progress towards a political and diplomatic solution would lead Russia to respond in a military way, with military technology, Ryabkov told Russia’s RIA news agency.
“That is, it will be a confrontation, this will be the next round,” he said, referring to the potential deployment of the missiles by Russia.
Intermediate-range nuclear weapons – those with a range of 500 to 5,500 km (310 to 3,400 miles) – were banned in Europe under a 1987 treaty between then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and U.S. President Ronald Reagan in what was hailed at the time as a major easing of Cold War tensions. By 1991, the two sides had destroyed nearly 2,700 of them.
Washington withdrew from the pact in 2019 after complaining for years of alleged violations revolving around Russia’s development of a ground-launched cruise missile that Moscow calls the 9M729 and NATO refers to as the “Screwdriver”.
If NATO is right that Russia has already deployed this system in the European part of the country, west of the Ural Mountains, then Ryabkov’s threat is an empty one, according to Gerhard Mangott, an expert on Russian foreign policy and arms control at the University of Innsbruck in Austria.
But if Russia’s denials are true, he said, then Moscow’s warning is “the final signal to NATO that it should enter into talks with Russia about a freeze-freeze agreement.”
He added: “If NATO sticks with the position not to negotiate about a deal, then we will certainly see Russia deploy the Screwdriver missile at its very western border.”
POINT MAN
Ryabkov has emerged in recent days as one of Moscow’s key messengers as President Vladimir Putin presses for Western security guarantees while facing warnings from the United States and its allies to back away from a possible invasion of Ukraine – something the minister again denied was Russia’s intention.
He repeated a comparison he made last week between the current tensions and the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, which brought the United States and Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war.
Ryabkov said there were “indirect indications” that NATO was moving closer to re-deploying intermediate-range missiles, including its restoration last month of the 56th Artillery Command which operated nuclear-capable Pershing missiles during the Cold War.
NATO says there will be no new U.S. missiles in Europe and it is ready to deter new Russian missiles with a “measured” response that would only involve conventional weapons.
But Ryabkov said Russia had a “complete lack of trust” in the alliance.
“They don’t permit themselves to do anything that could somehow increase our security – they believe they can act as they need, to their advantage, and we simply have to swallow all this and deal with it. This is not going to continue.”
(Alexander Marrow reported from Moscow and Mark Trevelyan from London Editing by Andrew Osborn and Mark Heinrich)
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