TOO STABLE:

The Dilemma of Dealing With Terror Central: Could the war on terror intersect with an India-Pakistan war? (Ramesh Thakur, 1/19/09, YaleGlobal)

What then might be a way forward? One or both of two further equations need to change. First, the military must be brought under full civilian control. This cannot be done until the government accepts the evidence of the connections to Pakistan from the captured terrorist as well as satellite and cellular phone logs and intercepts. Outsiders, including India, cannot help if the government persists with denial well past the point of plausibility. The dossier provided by India, assembled with the help of the forensic skills of American and British agencies, is compelling. There is justification for Secretary Madeleine Albright’s description of Pakistan as an international migraine and the more popular label of it as the world’s terror central.

The second solution should be attempted only if the establishment of civilian supremacy over Pakistan’s military-intelligence services proves impossible. Like the Americans firing missiles into Pakistan from unmanned drones, India should adopt the policy of taking the fight into neighboring territory from where terror attacks originate. It should root out the human leadership and material infrastructure of terrorism through surgical strikes and targeted assassinations. India does not have such intelligence and military capacity today; it must embark on a crash course to acquire it. And combine it with escalation dominance capability: Pakistan should know that any escalation from the limited strikes will bring even heavier punitive costs from a superior military force.

This brings us to the need to change a final equation. Pakistan’s contributions to the war on terror on its western front are of lesser import than its fuelling of terror on its eastern front. Yet the rewards for the former exceed penalties for the latter. And much of the $10 billion US military aid has been directed by Pakistan at India, not the Taliban. India and the US together need to reverse the structure of incentives and penalties.

India ought to help turn Western Pakistan into a complete mess so that Pakistan is forced to deal with it.

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 23, 2009 6:39 PM