Gone are the days when conventional methods of warfare were used as a weapon against the enemy. In today’s world, the non-linear, non- traditional and cyber strategies are being used against the enemy to encounter their target and is termed as ‘hybrid warfare’. The emergence of nuclear weapons drove the nations towards the hybrid warfare, intelligence agencies make use of its unconventional and irregular stratagem to target the political, psychological, economic, social and diplomatic domains of the adversary. Pakistan is cladding threats from external as well as internal adversaries. India cannot afford a direct war against Pakistan, so waging Pakistan with Hybrid warfare due to which national security of Pakistan is being impacted.
While addressing the PMA Long-course, General Qamar Javaid Bajwa said that our enemy is trying to slander and destabilize Pakistan through hybrid warfare. So, Pakistan knows that India is trying to debilitate Pakistan through hybrid-warfare. India has 3D- objectives that is to destabilize, demoralize and disintegrate Pakistan.
India is executing information warfare propaganda against Pakistan by spreading false information through social media. For instance, URI a Bollywood movie portrays the surgical strikes of Indian intelligence in Pakistan. This was done to demoralize Pakistan as a nation and its armed forces and to portray that Pakistan army is incompetent of defending their borders. On the payroll of BJP, republic TV and Indian news channel was projecting that the suicide bomber and terrorists who are responsible for the Pulwama attack belongs to Pakistan and Indian Defense ministry played its role in spreading the false news after attack. It was done purposely to destabilize the image of Pakistan at international level and representing Pakistan as a terrorist sponsoring state.
Cyber warfare is primary aspect of hybrid warfare. The escalation in February-2019 during the post Pulwama-attack, India inflicted upon Pakistan a furtive attack in which the government, commercial and military assets were being targeted. India is also trying to weaken Pakistan through the development of fake websites. Moreover, European agencies have revealed that India has approximately 265 fake websites for propaganda against Pakistan.
Next, India is also waging economic and political warfare against Pakistan to blend its rise and to weaken it to the extent that it even cannot be a regional power. Our neighbor is inquisitive in making Pakistan stagnant and uncompetitive. India has a great influence over world financial organizations. In addition, India is making Pakistan weak by using water as weapon since Pakistan was made as it is an agricultural country. For instance, water supply to west Punjab had been cut off in 1947. Indus, Jhelum and Chenab were designated as rivers of Pakistan and Ravi, Sutlej and Bias were given to India according to treaty in 1960. But India was continuously violating this treaty by taking the advantage that it is upper riparian. For example, construction of Wullar barrage over River Jhelum, Bagliar dam over River Chenab and krishan-Ganga dam due to which it can control supply of water and floods in Pakistan. Consequently, Pakistan is becoming a water scarce country.
Another dimension of hybrid warfare is political warfare, which is basically a mixture of lawfare, diplomatic warfare and political instrument which is being used by India against Pakistan. Lobbying, containment, and global isolation are weapons of India in this regard. India is working on the policies of containment and lobbying to erode Pakistan and to globally isolate it from international trade, international relations and technological development processes which is devastating the national security of Pakistan. Pakistani Finance Minister, Assad Umar in 2019 asked FATF to pull out India from the Asia pacific joint group co-chair.
Furthermore, India is waging political warfare through CPEC by spreading mendacious information about the route and by creating a trust deficit among the provinces. Our adversary is also performing operations through special forces and various groups for the purpose of political warfare and they are impacting the national security of Pakistan. For instance, Hizbut-Tehrir as told by Brigadier Ali- khan attempted to break the state structure and TTP which was being evolved as a response to US-led war on terror. India tried to attack Pakistan through TTP on both civilians and military spheres to destabilize Pakistan.
Also, India through its offensive diplomatic strategies portraying Pakistan as a hub of terrorism and trying to subvert Pakistan. In addition, India is also waging war through Afghanistan as it pledged about 2 billion in the developmental projects in Afghanistan. And BLF (Baloch Liberation Front) is also spoonful in India’s hybrid warfare and considered as an example of separatists. Terrorists’ groups in Afghanistan who have hands in sabotage, blackmailing and promoting insurgencies took the form of pressure groups. Insurgencies for the political and financial objectives are being waged by BLA and responsible for terrorists’ activities in Pakistan under the Doval doctrine (aims at demoralizing, disintegrating and destabilizing Pakistan) and it was revealed by an Indian spy Kul Bhushan Jadhav who was a part of Indian research and analysis wing RAW including the attack on Quaid Residency, Chinese Consulate in Karachi, hijacking the PIA flight 544 in 1998, attack on Naval personnel at Bozi Top Baluchistan and on PC hotel Gwadar, which had huge impact on the security matrix of Pakistan. These proxies like BLF, BLA and TTP have their roots in RAW.
Pakistan government and military leadership has taken steps to tackle Indian hybrid warfare like for the security of Baluchistan and CPEC, Pakistan Army deployed 31-brigade and 440-brigade in Gwadar and Akra Dam and 44-division is also raised in Gwadar to provide security. India’s hybrid warfare has a psychological, social, economic, political and security impacts on Pakistan. However, Pakistan Army is also indulged in the activities to gain the confidence and assurance of individuals and serving civil administration in maintenance of law and taking several measures to unite the nation and making them aware of tactics of hybrid warfare. Pakistan must develop the awareness of the threat, security framework, proactive strategies, economic infrastructure to defend against recessions, technological advancements and information control to tackle India’s hybrid warfare and our country is successful in attenuating the impacts of the hybrid warfare.
