The threat of terrorism in Indian context appears a complex covert war and a potent but deniable weapon of geopolitics. Direct and indirect, visible and invisible dimensions of this war are far too profound and strategic in nature.
India needs smarter strategies and robust capacities to protect not merely its people and their security, but also its aspirations and potentials as a nation.
It must transform its systems and psyche to bolster its capacities to: a) optimise quality of its internal governance; as well as b) shape external geopolitical equations.
This is critical for its sheer survival and progressive evolution as a state and civilisation.
As a former practitioner and teacher of security and geopolitics, I have consistently maintained that organized terrorism is a complex low-cost war and not a crime of rage or
passion. Terrorists
kill unarmed civilians by stealth and deception. They abuse wider trust among
communities. They seek to degrade identity of victims and destroy faith of people
in the ability of their state to protect them. Terrorism seeks to paralyse and
cripple all-round potentials and capacities of a state and society. But a
deeper examination of various dimensions of contemporary Islamist terrorism suggests that it is also a potent weapon of geopolitics.
Hence, neither the conventional
military means nor the routine criminal justice system of open societies is in a position to
eradicate the threat of terrorism. That too in a definitive time-frame and at
sustainable material-human costs.
over the past five decades, Pakistani military has
built an elaborate trans-national support structure of Islamic terrorism to
attack India. It seeks to fracture our national cohesion and destroy
security of our public spaces to cripple our optimal rise as a nation. Terrorism
may have generated a degree of boomerang impact for Pakistan, where some of its
own proxies have turned against it. But Pak Military establishment has
consciously nurtured terrorism as a mode of warfare against India.
A terror attack on soil of
any nation indicates failure or incapacity of at least some of its institutions.
Under these circumstances, military response is the only option. Successful
military attacks on terrorists and their infrastructure helps prevent further attacks
at least temporarily. But given the symbiotic linkages of terrorism with
organized crime and radicalism at one end and geopolitics at the other, I doubt military strikes are sufficient to eradicate the threat of terrorism. Besides,
over reliance on conventional military means against irregular war of any shade
drains national energies, impacting long-term capacities.
A total military victory against
terrorism may be possible only at exorbitant material, human and developmental
costs. A developing nation that depends largely upon imported hardware for its
military security has to be particularly careful. Terrorists are low-cost dispensable proxies of
terror perpetrators. A large pool of radicalized youth, alongside easy access
to weapons and dirty cash, shall ensure abundant supply of terrorists willing
to kill and die in the name of Islam.
Hence, Indian state has to
explore effective, innovative and sustainable strategies to win this war within
a definite time-frame. Our Prime Minister has been consistently highlighting
the twin threat of organized crime and radicalism alongside terrorism. It is
assessed that organised crime may be generating hundreds of billions of dollars
of dirty money in India itself to feed local and regional infrastructure of
terrorism. Organised criminals are suspected of subverting integrity of state institutions
not only in the developing world but to some extent even in the developed world.
The entire phenomenon is so clandestine and fluid that the real global master-minds
of organized crime can never be pinned down.
Probably the complexity of
Islamic terrorism has not been fathomed by the strategic community of even the
most powerful democracies. As per the Cost War project of the Brown University,
United States has spent nearly 8 trillion dollars in war against terror, which
also involved human casualties to the tune of nearly 5 million. Yet the war remained
inconclusive. The resultant hit to the US economy depleted its capacity to dominate
the world the way it had done in the previous century. It conceded edge to
China in many of the cutting-edge advanced technologies.
The hidden complexities of
Pak linked Islamic terrorism may also be formidable. Despite detection of Osama
Bin Laden in Pakistan, there was no serious consequence for the Pakistani
military establishment. This generates an apprehension that the most powerful democracy lacks a cohesive and consistent approach to deal with Pakistan backed Islamic terrorism. Many among their ranks may be perceiving Pakistan’s
terror capacity as useful weapon for pursuit of their own geopolitical agenda.
We have the most
professional military in the entire world. Pakistan is no match to us. Even
impartial global media, including purportedly anti-India New York Times, has confirmed
precision strike of targets deep inside Pakistan by Indian defence
forces. They have also exposed the bluff and falsehood of Pakistani
counter-claims of hitting Indian targets.
Yet Pakistan’s unfettered access
to advanced Chinese weapons may potentially dilute our advantage. Besides, Pak military
is least committed to its people. Its senior functionaries continue to enrich themselves
through dirty and deniable means. They con their masses to retain their pre-eminence through brazen criminality by serving agenda of powerful global forces. Pakistan can never emerge as a credible and
responsible state. But it shall continue to retain its utility for certain
global powers who will never let it sink completely. Hence, despite
discontinuation of military supplies to Pakistan by the West, it is assessed
that sections of powerful incumbents within their establishments may be having some inexplicable nexus with Pak military establishment.
On the other hand, India is
indeed being bled through thousands of invisible cuts. Apart from external
enemies, many influential locals may, knowingly or unknowingly, be doing the same.
This is what explains our relatively deficient output on most parameters of
governance and national power compared to China. This is despite the fact that
we are an open and competitive society and they are an opaque and authoritarian
state. The primary culprit in this direction is bound to be a higher degree of subversion with the backing of global organized crime networks.
Clandestine global
organized crime networks derive their strength from subverted criminal- justice
systems in the developing world. It allows them to run parallel regimes in
selected pockets and sectors through their proxies. They not merely infiltrate
key institutions but even hijack some of these. It helps neuter capacities of
the concerned state to optimally empower and protect itself. This phenomenon is
particularly glaring in most of South America and parts of Africa. But our
challenges may be formidable given the sheer geopolitics of the region and
extent of radicalization amongst Muslim youth amidst Pakistani capacity to
aggregate and coordinate terror and organized crime networks.
Hence pursuit of our Prime Minister’s aspiration for zero tolerance to terrorism, calls for a larger systemic and psychological transformation of India. We need a model of governance that optimizes our economic and technological potential and output at a faster pace to sustain an increasingly sophisticated and effective national security architecture. Simultaneously we must focus on innovative strategies to deter and win all shades of irregular, hybrid, covert or even conventional warfare at sustainable costs to protect our growth and developmental goals, potentials and aspirations.
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