What to do when India can't afford a war, Pakistan doesn't want peace

First, congratulations to India for finally doing something. The government successfully dissimulated its intent by appearing to rule out retaliation, and achieved strategic surprise. Excellent. Details of the Indian Army’s very professional performance are given by MK Jha quoting inside sources. Next, the strikes against terror camps will achieve nothing. Repeat: they will have no impact. Why?

The government of India has learned the language of coercive diplomacy, but not of the requirements for successful coercion. No blame is attached to India: the US government is coercion’s most avid practitioner, possesses overwhelming force, and still fails 67 per cent of the time. The failure rate for coercion via airpower alone, a US favourite, is 75 per cent.

Some fundamentals of coercive diplomacy. Why use coercion rather than war? Because coercion is cheaper than war. What is needed for coercion? The means and the will to inflict consequences should coercion fail. A corollary is that the adversary must believe the cost of defiance is higher than the cost of compliance.

The truth is that India does not have sufficient military force to inflict unacceptable damage on Pakistan in the event coercion fails. To many, this cannot be true. Don’t we spend seven times more money on defence? Don’t we have twice the manpower? Don’t we have better equipment? Yes, we do. But are these advantages translatable into success on the field? No, except under one condition: you must have the will to fight the war until you win. In Pakistan’s case, this could take several months of sustained war. We don’t have the will, and currently we don’t have the means.

It follows that our effort at coercion is a bluff. Bluff can work. But not if all participants in the game know you are bluffing.

Let’s switch our point of view to Pakistan’s side. If coercion is to work, we must understand Pakistan’s stakes. The stakes for Pakistan are existential. By terminating the flow of terrorists into Kashmir, Pakistan legitimises India’s right to the part India holds. What’s wrong with that? From India’s side, we’d be happy to make the Line of Control (LoC) into an international boundary, because we’re not about to get into an all-out war to the bitter end just to recover Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

From Pakistan’s side, everything is wrong. If Pakistan gives up its claim to our part of Kashmir, it undermines the justification for the formation of Pakistan — if both parts of Kashmir can live side-by-side in peace, followed by a soft border, why can’t Punjab and Sindh? And once you have a soft border, you are inevitably on course for confederation.

Also, peace with India means the end of the Pakistan Army’s control of the country. Why would the Army do that? For the sake of the country? So when has the Army cared about Pakistan than itself?

Back to the Indian side. What are the stakes for us? Not particularly high. A few hundred terrorists infiltrating east pose no existential threat to our country. Indeed, it can be argued that if we want to, we could block infiltration – to a great extent, we already have. The reason Uri and Pathankot happened is that we are lazy and sloppy in protecting our borders.

To sum up: We have no interest requiring us to risk an all-out war. Pakistan does. Therefore, Pakistan will not be coerced, no matter what we do.Is there no solution? Yes, a simple one. Forcibly reintegrate Pakistan into India. It is entirely possible to do that. But of course we won’t. India is a “Don’t worry, be happy” nation.