Bad behaviour now carries higher risks, Pakistan told

NEW DELHI: The strategic community is largely agreed that the Indian Army's surgical strikes across the Line of Control by breaching a self imposed restraint not to violate the LoC are intended to raise the “costs“ for Pakistan for promoting cross-border terrorism.

But how do the commando raids alter the India-Pakistan dynamic? How will owning up the action and implicitly holding out the threat of a repeat change military and political mindsets across the border? Just how have the risks increased for Pakistan and will this reduce or increase regional instability?

Seen in the context of the strategic theory of 'compellence', the Indian action altered the risks for Pakistan. Military reprisals are a new, unpredictable variable as Pakistan is forced to “share“ the risk of conflict and mutual damage rather than India bearing all the pain of a rogue state's aggression.

Despite the possibility of a Mumbai-type terror attack precipitating hostilities, Pakistan's use of terrorism as state policy resulted in a brittle yet durable equilibrium.Pakistan's agencies and jihadist proxies hit military and civilian targets while India's `strategic restraint' and limited options prevented a military response.

It is not that use of force does not hold risks for India.But the message is that Pakistani regimes may not be as lightly punished as has been the case. So, if surgical strikes carry the danger of military escalation, this does not apply to India alone. Pakistan's elites would need to calculate the economic and political costs too.

Redistribution of risks is at the heart of `compellence' where the initiator must be ready to bear the consequences of his action to make the threat credible. “To compel an enemy's retreat, though, I have to be ready to move,“ says American economist Thomas Schelling (Nobel winner for game theory) who first coined the term.

Though the Pakistan military's assumptions sometimes seem delusional, use of tactical weapons as a response to the cross-LoC raids were highly unlikely. But by lowering the threshold to theatre level, Pakistan intended to deter any direct action. This why its nuclear threshold was tested -and breached.

The conventional interpretation of deterrence is that it helps maintain status quo. But Pakistan's unique view of deterrence means its nuclear weapons can thwart India's military capacities, allowing it to wage a low-cost war. Compellence, which is all about changing an opponent's demeanour, challenges this inference.

Both deterrence and compellence are coercive but the latter is more urgent and action oriented. It has its limits and should be one of several measures. Surgical strikes cannot be resorted to for every terror attack. But its creative application can sow serious doubt in the mind of an adversary.