How India Will
Fight Its Own War Against Terrorism
By
C. Raja Mohan
INDIA
HAD hoped that the declaration of a global war on terrorism at
the end of 2001 would mobilize significant international support
in defeating the forces of terrorism that bled the nation for
more than a decade and a half.
But the results two years later have been mixed and India is left
with a simple lesson. While international cooperation is necessary
to counter terrorism in the subcontinent, it is not sufficient.
Rather than bank on international cooperation, India will have
to develop its own means to vacate the threat of terrorism.
Undoubtedly,
the global normative framework against terrorism has substantially
expanded since September 11. While there are many, including our
neighbor Pakistan, who continue to quibble over the definition
of terrorism, never before has there been such a widespread international
consensus that the employment of violence against a civilian population,
irrespective of the nature of the political grievance, is absolutely
unacceptable.
Along
with this consensus has come an expansion of international rules
against terrorism and a strengthening of the mechanisms for cooperation
among nation states. There is much greater empathy and support
for India from the international community in its war against
terrorism. India's efforts since the late 1990s to gain cooperation
bilaterally and multilaterally has paid dividends since September
11. Cooperation between Indian law enforcement agencies and their
counterparts abroad has improved. And there is mounting pressure
on many states, which in the past had turned a blind eye to terrorists,
their finances and support structures.
The
central premise of the global war on terrorism since September
11 has been the importance of ending state support to terrorism.
While extremist groups have dramatically improved their capabilities
and reach, they remain susceptible to isolation and defeat if
they are robbed of state support. While some states have supported
or cooperated with terrorism as a matter of policy, there is a
new international awareness of the threat posed by failed or failing
states.
These
states become havens for terrorist groups, international criminal
networks and extremist groups. State failure appears inevitable
as a large number of nations, many of them unviable and artificial,
had been created in the last part of the 20th century. Dealing
with this remains a challenge for which consistent answers are
yet to be found. September 11 also produced a number of other
propositions.
Terrorism
has become a preferred way of warfare in modern times for a large
number of groups and political forces. Their ability to access
and employ modern technology has significantly improved. Weapons
of mass destruction are now within their reach. The scale of the
attack on September 11 suggests that modern terrorist groups will
not abide by the traditional rules of warfare and are unlikely
to demonstrate the restraint states have traditionally exercised
in relation to weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Combined with
the core capacity of the terrorist groups to choose the place
and timing of their attacks at random and without notice, urban
societies have never been more vulnerable.
India's
experience with terrorism since the late 1980s underlines the
assessment that the combination of WMD, terrorism and extremist
ideologies has emerged as the single biggest threat to the international
system.
Islamabad's
ability to conduct a relentless campaign against India has been
sustained by the fact that its nuclear deterrent prevents India
from using its large conventional military power. India has struggled
to break out of this box. Befriending Pakistan through peace initiatives
and confronting it with the threat of war, as after the attack
on Parliament on December 13, 2001, have not produced results.
India
has no difficulty in agreeing with the argument that the world
needs a new set of rules and military ideas in coping with the
challenge of asymmetric war posed by terrorism. The change must
necessarily involve a radical rethinking of the alliances, military
doctrines, and international treaties and organizations. But the
effort to fashion this change by the United States, as part of
the global war on terror, has run into major difficulties and
has polarized the world.
The
unprecedented international unity fashioned in the wake of September
11 has quickly dissolved into recrimination and division among
the major powers as the political focus of the war on terrorism
shifted from completing the tasks in Afghanistan to ousting the
Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq.
There
is fundamental disagreement among the major powers today on when,
how and in what form force must be used to deal with the threats
of international terrorism and the states that sponsor them. Nor
is there an agreement on the priorities. The United Nations has
become ineffective faced with the choice between meek compliance
and ineffective defiance of the US.
The
American efforts to devise new rules for managing WMD threats
too have proved to be controversial. While everyone agrees that
the war on terrorism cannot be won merely by military means, there
is no consensus on how to promote political conditions that will
drain the swamps of terrorism.
India
has sought to find a way out of the divide between the American
emphasis on unilateralism and the focus of the other great powers
on multilateralism by stressing on the creation of an alliance
of democracies to deal with the challenges posed by terrorism.
India has also argued that this alliance must come up with a new
set of agreed rules that must fashion the response to terrorism.
But
India is a long way from creating the political basis for a new
consensus on this question. While the debate on new methods to
deal with terrorism will continue for a long time, the biggest
disappointment for India has been the reluctance of the international
community to confront the sources of terrorism in Pakistan.
To
be sure, India has gained from a number of steps the international
community took after September 11. The US and its allies have
banned a number of organizations. based in Pakistan that have
indulged in terrorist activities. Equally significant has been
the moves by the international community to hold the state in
Pakistan responsible for clearing its soil of activities that
threaten the rest of the world.
The
US has also forced Pakistan to give assurances that it will end
cross-border infiltration on a permanent basis. Islamabad's verbal
promises, however, have not been translated into concrete actions.
The
US is not willing to confront Pakistan with a warning that its
refusal to implement commitments will have costly consequences.
Despite the recognition that the sources of terrorism today in
Afghanistan and Kashmir are located in Pakistan, Washington is
paralyzed by the potential troubles from challenging the Army
and its leadership in Islamabad. Pakistan is considered an important
instrument in the American war on terrorism, so it must be exempt
from the principles of that war.
As
India comes to terms with this irony of the global war on terrorism,
it must look inward. While continuing to participate in the global
debate on terrorism and maintaining the pressure on the international
community to retain coherence in its counter-terrorism strategy,
India needs to alter other dimensions of its policy.
The
first is the approach to Pakistan, which must start with two premises
— that there are limits to what the US can do, and the impossibility
of getting Islamabad to negotiate away its leverage on terrorism.
That will lead a different set of options to the top of the Indian
agenda vis-à-vis Pakistan.
One
is to develop an activist engagement with the Pakistani polity
and society that aims at containing the negative forces in that
nation. India's constant temptation has been to avoid dealing
with Pakistan as a way of punishing those responsible for terrorism.
That approach has not worked. Instead, India must actively intervene
in the political dynamic inside Pakistan.
Tied
to this bold policy toward Pakistan must be comprehensive security
sector reforms at home. Without a root and branch overhaul of
the security forces, intelligence agencies, border management
and the higher political command of internal security, India's
own war on terrorism will not succeed. There has been too much
rhetoric on the threat from terrorism and too little thought on
recasting India's internal security strategy.
