India left the military engagement to the US and ISAF but got involved in earnest in the Afghan intelligence infrastructure and ‘institutional support’ to the Afghan bureaucracy-miniscule compared to the US military and economic expenditures. Helping to build institutions under this umbrella Indian RAW took over the Afghan intelligence service KHAD. This was an ideal vantage point to promote anti-Pakistan policy such as (1) feeding fake intelligence reports against Pakistan and (2) providing shelter to TTP members and (3) when Pakistan started a sweep against TTP, providing the TTP with arms, ammunition, money, etc. Moreover, active involvement with TTP included organising terrorist attacks in Karachi and Peshawar. This was a carry-over of the numerous bomb attacks in Pakistan, particularly Karachi carried out by RAW/KHAD during the 1990s. The blame for the growing turmoil because of the Afghan Taleban gains was shifted to the Afghan Taleban or TTP. The Peshawar school attack and the attack on the Pakistan Naval Station Mehran are two examples the connection of which are pointing to an Afghan connection. Indian Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar called this method of hybrid warfare very figuratively ‘kante se kanta nikalna’, literally meaning removing a thorn with a thorn, i.e. employing/outsourcing of terrorists to catch/kill terrorists. In a very significant event, TTP Chief Hakimullah Afridi’s No 2, Latifullah Afridi, was captured in Afghanistan by US Special Forces while he was accompanied by NDSI agents on his way to Kabul to meet President Karzai. Why was TTP’s No 2, engaged in fighting Pakistani forces, have to talk about with Karzai? Indeed how did Lt Commander Kulbhushan Yadev have a free run out of Afghanistan arraying out terrorism acts in Pakistan?
The years of war in Afghanistan that cost the lives of thousands of Afghans and hundreds of US and western soldiers, apart from the tremendous financial outlay became an ideal kinetic platform for India to exploit in order achieve its goals without involving themselves at all. Most of the blood shed was of Afghans and Americans. Furthermore India managed to club together the Taleban and the Kashmiri fight as terrorism, thus justifying the ruthless course of action of the Indian Army against the Kashmiris, all the time putting the blame on Pakistan as the ground zero of terrorism. It is a glaring example of hybrid warfare using kinetic and non-kinetic means over decades and covering up both their indirect and direct interference and influence with no sacrifice themselves.
These good times are coming to an end for India. The change in US policy after the election of Donald Trump and the recent decision that US forces will leave Afghanistan on a staged basis changes the whole scenario. US peace talks directly with the Afghan Taleban have created an entirely new situation that upsets the Indian applecart of its Afghan policy. India is the only country in the world that has no interest in peace in Afghanistan, on the contrary they want continued strife because such peace will stop the pressure on Pakistan and include the Taleban as a major political force. Another dangerous development in India’s view is the changed policy of its old friend Russia that now re-asserts its role in Afghanistan by supporting the peace negotiations while discouraging US influence there. The consequently mended relations of Russia with Pakistan and Russian support for the Afghan Taleban in their effort to negotiate a withdrawal of US forces has effectively nixed Indian policy towards Afghanistan. And to make the drama complete, Iran has changed its policy as well. That means things will change dramatically on the ground in Afghanistan. India has been excluded from the peace negotiations, obviously because their motivated self-interest in the matter is now beginning to be realized by others. Another central point of the negotiations is that any Afghan government that will come into existence after US withdrawal will have to make sure that Afghan soil is not used against any other country. This will have direct consequences for Indian policy in Afghanistan.
These changes will not mean the end of hybrid warfare in the region. That is why Pakistan has to be ready to deal with future Indian initiatives effectively. That needs raised preparedness of the security forces but also new modern foreign policy concepts that take into account the fast changing global and regional power equations. At the end of the day the realization has to be understood that conflicts in a globalized and nuclearized world, be they regional or global, have to be solved politically. The element of using both kinetic and non-kinetic means makes any number of locations in the region a possible hybrid war target as India has done with Pakistan using Afghan soil and the lines of Afghan with the help of American money (and also lives). With India having an opportunity to fight a proxy war against Pakistan without losing the lives of their own men or spending any of their own money, they took it! (the writer is a defence and security analyst).
Concluded
