Note: A version of this article appeared on BBC World on February 19, 2019. Due to unapproved changes by the editors, the original draft has been reproduced below. The final published version can be read here.
On
February 14, India experienced its worst Islamist terrorist attack in a decade
when the car bombing of a paramilitary convoy in Jammu and Kashmir resulted in
over 40 fatalities. While the suicide bomber was a local Kashmiri, the group
that recruited, trained, and equipped him was Jaish-e-Mohammed, a United Nations-designated terrorist organisation that claimed
responsibility for the attack and operates openly in Pakistan.
The incident
at Pulwama adds to a long history of terror attacks in India by groups
protected and supported by Pakistan’s security agencies, including the 1993
Mumbai bombings, the 2001 assault on the Indian parliament, the 2008 Mumbai
attacks, and the 2016 targeting of military bases at Pathankot and Uri. With
Indian general elections around the corner, the government is under pressure to
respond to the latest provocation, or at least demonstrate that such actions
are not without consequences. What are some of India’s options?
Diplomatic Efforts
At the political
level, India-Pakistan relations have been frozen for almost three years. In his
first two years in office after 2014, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi invited his Pakistani counterpart to his
inauguration, resumed talks between National Security
Advisers, made an unscheduled visit to Lahore, and approved a much-criticised effort at collaborative counter-terrorism
investigations. Pakistan responded to these efforts with firing across the Line of Control
separating the two sides, insisting on meeting with Kashmiri
separatists in India, approving the attack on Pathankot, and arresting and
sentencing to death an alleged Indian spy. By July 2016, as Pakistan sought
to take advantage of renewed agitations in the Kashmir Valley, New Delhi’s
patience dried up and its position on a number of issues hardened. Despite a new civilian government
in Pakistan under Prime Minister Imran Khan, a meeting between the two
countries’ foreign ministers at last year’s United Nations General Assembly was
cancelled. Normal diplomatic channels have,
however, continued.
After the
Pulwama attack, India has undertaken a renewed diplomatic effort to make the
case against Pakistan’s state support for terrorism. This outreach builds upon
many years of India insisting on condemnation of Pakistan in its diplomatic pronouncements with other friendly countries,
including the naming of individual groups such as Jaish-e-Mohammed,
Lashkar-Taiba, and D Company. It has also linked Pakistan to the primary
security challenges of its partners: for example, Japan’s concerns about North Korea. Such moves have sensitised others
to India’s concerns about Pakistan, facilitated intelligence cooperation on Pakistan-based
terrorist groups, and encouraged crackdowns on their financing by government
authorities in many countries. New Delhi’s continued efforts in these respects
also helps to create greater acceptability for economic or military costs that
India might impose at a later date.
The
challenge facing India is that other countries, however sympathetic, will
continue to see value in retaining their ties with Pakistan. Although the
United States has become increasingly frustrated with Pakistan’s duplicity on
terrorism, China remains Pakistan’s closest ally, as it has for decades. It has provided Pakistan with nuclear
and missile technology and equipment, conventional arms, and – under the
China-Pakistan Economic Corridor – billions of dollars of investment in
strategic projects. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates also have
continuing economic and security ties with Pakistan, although both have also
been warming their relations with India over the past few years.
Even the
United States and Europe differ in the priorities. The United States and European Union continue to offer Pakistan
preferential trading benefits, in some cases resulting in lower tariffs on
imports compared to India. Some EU officials have privately blamed the United
Kingdom for Brussels’ accommodative approach towards Pakistan, and have
intimated that they may take sterner measures after Brexit.
Economic Costs
The day
after the Pulwama attack, India’s Cabinet Committee on Security announced that
India was withdrawing Most Favoured Nation trading status with Pakistan. This
had been in place since 1996, even though Pakistan had not reciprocated. The
absence of MFN will significantly raise customs duties on Pakistani exports to
India, effectively resulting in unilateral Indian sanctions. Given that direct
trade between the two countries is negligible, this move is primarily symbolic.
The
absence of trade is indicative of a general lack of direct economic leverage
that India enjoys with Pakistan. This is because, in some ways, it has been
implementing punitive measures against Pakistan for years. To give but one
example, India has not played Pakistan in a bilateral Test cricket series since
late 2007, in part because such a series would result in a financial windfall for the Pakistan Cricket Board.
Other,
more severe, measures such as abrogating the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty have been
suggested. Such a step would have significant costs, including eroding India’s relations with other countries with which it has water-sharing
arrangements (such as China, Nepal, and Bangladesh). That said, India is already inclined to making fuller use of the waters
of Indus and its tributaries, within the ambit of the existing treaty.
Beyond
bilateral issues, India will likely continue to employ diplomatic pressure to
raise the costs of economic and business ties with Pakistan. One expected effort
will involve advocating for Pakistan to join Iran and
North Korea on the black list of the Financial Action Task Force, an
intergovernmental body that coordinates policies to combat financial crimes. This
would raise scrutiny on financial transactions involving Pakistan, with second-order
effects for its currency inflows, credit rating, stock market, and banking
sector. However, such a move will likely be resisted by China, which only
dropped its opposition to Pakistan’s ‘grey listing’ last year in exchange for
India’s support for Beijing’s vice presidency of
the organisation. Other multilateral efforts may extend to leveraging India’s
position at various export control groups in which it recently acquired
membership.
Military Options
The
primary challenges of military responses are that Pakistan possesses a nuclear
deterrent – including possibly one of the fastest growing nuclear arsenals – as well as a potent
conventionally-armed military. For all the sabre-rattling in the Indian press
and public, these are realities that the Indian leadership must keep in mind.
However,
both Pakistan and India have explored options below the nuclear threshold. In
1999, Pakistani forces made an incursion onto India’s side of the Line of
Control resulting in the limited Kargil War. On a number of subsequent
occasions, India retaliated to Pakistani provocations with coordinated
small-scale raids across the Line of Control. The 2016 attacks, in response to the
Uri attack, became widely known as ‘surgical strikes.’
Beyond
limited ground forces operations under the nuclear threshold, countries such as
the United States and Israel have made use of other kinetic options in similar
situations. These have included air or missile strikes against terrorist sanctuaries
and military facilities, military blockades, and various covert operations.
Other
military options would be long-term in nature. The challenge of countering
cross-border infiltration from Pakistan into India has already benefited from
the use of various new security technologies as well as intelligence
partnerships with other countries. Improvements in these areas, including
through the acquisition of unmanned aircraft and enhanced technical
intelligence cooperation, would represent major investments in countering the strategic
challenge of cross-border terrorism from Pakistan.
Of course,
these represent only some of the many ways in which India might choose to
respond. If recent history is any guide, we may witness something entirely
unprecedented and unexpected.