India’s External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee bluntly stated soon after the terror attacks in Mumbai that all options were on the table to deal with Pakistan for failing to prevent acts of terrorism on Indian soil. The Pakistan army lost no time to exploit the opportunity to its advantage. It threatened to withdraw its forces engaged in fighting the war on terror on its western front in conjunction with the US, its NATO allies and ISAF so as to redeploy them on the border with India. The Pakistan army knows very well that the Americans would not allow them to exercise such an option and would be forced to lean on India to hold back any plans for military action. Eventually, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice came calling and this is exactly what appears to have happened.

While the Indian army has stepped up its vigil on the Line of Control (LoC), the Pakistan army has been seen to have enhanced its reconnaissance on the border with India. However, reconnaissance and limited military movements close to the international boundary at this time of the year are part of routine military exercises that are undertaken by border guarding battalions as part of annual ‘operational alerts’ and not much else should be read into them. It is, of course, quite likely that both the air forces have moved their fighter squadrons to a higher level of alert though neither side has claimed to have done so.
 
India had issued a demarche to Pakistan in early-December 2008 to hand over the perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attacks and Secretary Rice had put the US Administration’s weight behind the Indian demand during her visit to Islamabad. Pakistan has responded by arresting Zakiur Rehman Lakhwi, the military commander of the Lashkar-e-Tayebba (LeT) and the mastermind of the Mumbai attacks. Masood Azhar, the founder of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) has been placed under house arrest. Other leaders like the LeT chief Hafiz Mohammed Sayeed have been allowed to go quietly underground. Pakistan has also offered to cooperate with India in the ongoing investigations – a move that the Indian Government has described as absolutely meaningless and of no consequence.  

How then will India respond now that the Pakistan Government has failed to provide a satisfactory reply to its demarche? Should India exercise available military options to inflict punishment, as the people have demanded in spontaneous rallies all over the country? Does India even have viable military options that will not eventually escalate to a larger war with the risk of nuclear exchanges? Will military strikes succeed in hurting the actual perpetrators and achieve lasting results? What will be the international ramifications? The answers to these questions are critical to decision making for choosing the right course of action.

A large number of military options are available to the Government of India to strike at the terrorists and their known handlers now that Pakistan has failed to respond in a tangible manner to India’s demands. The military strategy likely to be adopted by the government will be to target only terrorist organisations, the Pakistan army and the ISI and carefully avoid civilian targets. The aim will be to send a clear message that India has no enmity towards to the Pakistani people.

The LeT had established many camps in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) in the wake of the 2005 earthquake in Kashmir. Some of these are being utilised to train its cadres to infiltrate across the LoC into Kashmir. These should be the first to be targeted as their destruction will have a direct and lasting impact on those responsible for the carnage in Mumbai. Camps which are at distances of 15 to 25 km from the Line of Control (LoC) can be attacked by long-range artillery guns. Those which are close to the LoC can be attacked by the army’s Special Forces commandos who are capable of infiltrating across the LoC by stealth and extricating themselves after performing their task.

Pakistan army posts on the LoC that are known to have supported recent bids at infiltration but were not attacked as a mutually observed cease-fire has been in place since November 25, 2003, can now be punished with both direct firing weapons and heavy doses of the potent firepower of artillery guns, howitzers, mortars and, in some cases, multi-barrel rocket launchers. Sustained attacks will result in telling punitive action against the Pakistan army that has for so long driven Pakistan’s strategy to “bleed India through a thousand cuts”. Inevitably there will be some collateral damage but care can be taken to minimise it.

The Pakistan army’s logistics installations and infrastructure like bridges along major rivers would also be suitable targets, but these could be attacked in a later phase if necessary. Similarly, fighter-ground attack aircraft of the IAF and helicopters gunships can also be employed should Pakistan choose to escalate the situation to a higher level. At that stage, an air-to-ground strike on the LeT’s HQ at Muridke across the Punjab border will also be justified. As long as large-scale ground attacks are not launched, escalation to an all-out war can be avoided.

Trans-LoC military strikes need to be combined with covert operations inside Pakistan on a sustained basis. Only then will the impact be long lasting. However, India’s covert operations capabilities in Pakistan were wound down on the orders of the Prime Minister in 1997. It will take at least three to five years to revive these as R&AW operatives will have to start from scratch to penetrate the terrorist organisations. Hence, military strikes will have to be continued on a sustained basis at least for the time being to force Pakistan to clamp down on terrorist organisations and prevent further attacks inside India.
 
Punitive military measures will certainly meet with criticism from the international community, particularly the US, but it is likely to be muted and will eventually die out. The Pakistan army and the ISI will soon realise the futility of fighting a proxy war against India and that will be a major gain as they will then be forced to withdraw their sponsorship of terrorist organisations. Whether the government will exercise its military options or continue to rely on diplomacy, only time will tell. However, there is seething anger in the public over frequent acts of terrorism emanating from Pakistan and mere diplomacy is unlikely to calm inflamed passions.