[ALOCHONA] Emulate Operation Abbottabad?: No India Can or Can’t

Emulate Operation Abbottabad?: No India Can't

Abhijit Iyer-Mitra
Research Intern, IPCS
email: abhijitiyermitra@gmail.com

A mere three days after the elimination of Osama bin Laden, two of India's service chiefs made statements to the effect that India's armed forces were both 'competent' and 'had the capability' to carry out a similar operation. This seems to be at variance with the facts and also ignores much deeper operational and doctrinal issues, added to the military's seeming inability to grasp geopolitical reality.

Beginning with capability - photos of the crashed chopper from the Abbottabad compound indicate a heavily stealthy version of the Blackhawk, a version never seen before - and probably one that would have never been seen had it not crashed. That India could manufacture a covert-ops stealth helicopter, given that it is still struggling to indigenize the ostentatiously 'indigenous' Dhruv, stretches credibility to the limit. The live link to the White House which enabled the joint special operations command (JSOC) to give critical directions at critical turns is heavily dependent on advanced satellite communications facilities of which India has no demonstrated capability and is excluded from, due to the refusal to sign the communications interoperability agreement (CISMOA) with the US.

One also needs to remember that unlike the West, India has no significant heliborne combat rescue capability or experience - a prerequisite for covert insertions of this kind. Since after 1991, the West has successfully rescued every one of its downed pilots, even in the face of overwhelming odds. Contrast this with Kargil in 1999, where Indian aviators were downed owing to lack of counter-measures on their aircraft. In addition, those that did eject on the wrong side of the border did not have the training to evade capture nor the Air Force a credible extraction capability. Moreover the Mi-8/17's (the backbone of India's helicopter fleet) crudeness should be contrasted with the sophistication of Pakistan's latest F-16 fighters mated to advanced air-to-air missiles and the Aspide surface to air missiles. The Mi-8 incidentally is the same machine that was shot down by 80s era Stinger missiles in Kargil, indicating that the Air Force had not factored it in as threat even a full decade later.

The creation of a joint chief of the armed forces was torpedoed by both the Navy and the Air Force fearing Army domination of any such institution - effectively ruling out any synergistic effort on the lines of JSOC. Political interference in military matters for its part has made a joke of operational secrecy. This was demonstrated during Kargil when Defence Minister Fernandez' absolution of Nawaz Sharif was criticized, proved by the release of recorded conversations  that blew the cover off one of India's highest value intelligence assets – the surveillance system that had enabled these recordings of the deliberations of the Pakistan military to be made. The DRDO too is notorious for thoughtlessly trumpeting new weapons systems unmindful of the consequences, the latest being the Ballistic Missile Defence programme that drove Pakistan's recent expansion of its nuclear arsenal.  This is a heavy price to pay given that most DRDO programmes are proven failures. As for RAW evidently the Indian media is able to locate wanted fugitives with greater accuracy than a 'professional' organization as India Today's exposé on Dawood Ibrahim's hiding place in Karachi proved.

Geopolitically an operation like this would be a disaster since Pakistan could then justify shooting down Western planes claiming ignorance of their origin - crippling the latter's targeted elimination operations in the FATA - a significant own goal the Americans would not take kindly to. Also one must remember that Pakistan's eastern border is guarded by twenty strong divisions, all on high alert, while the western border merits a mere five weak divisions, trained to treat air incursions as both routine and authorized. While India may be able to launch some haphazard strike - whether it can militarily or diplomatically contain the fallout remains doubtful. The option of targeted assassinations has long existed - but raises questions as to why the military never presented it as an option before - settling instead for the dangerous delusion of 'Cold Start'. In fact the drones that India could use for such an operation have high radar visibility optimized for Israeli operations where the opposition has no credible air defence as opposed to the Indian scenario where the opposition has mauled the Indian Air Force repeatedly.

Given that the then Army Chief's lack of knowledge of ammunition stocks led to stalemate instead of victory in 1965, given that the Army initially tried to hush up Kargil, given that the official war histories of 1965 and 1971 are off-limits - even to those studying in the defence academy, given that 'Cold Start' is proving itself an unusable liability, given that the military takes decades to gauge and respond to new threats (if at all), the question begs asking - Is not the political leadership's distrust of the military legitimate? One can only hope that the advice given to the Prime Minster in private is of better quality than the wild hyperbole fed to the public.

http://www.ipcs.org/article/india/emulate-operation-abbottabad-no-india-cant-3374.html

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Emulate Operation Abbottabad?: Yes India Can

Gurmeet Kanwal
Director, Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS)
email: gurmeetkanwal@gmail.com

The killing of Osama bin Laden by US Special Forces in Abbottabad, a Pakistan military cantonment that houses the Pakistan Military Academy and the Baloch Regiment Centre, is undoubtedly a significant achievement in the annals of counter-terrorism. About 70 US troops, largely Navy SEALs, were involved in the heliborne operation launched from Jalalabad, Afghanistan. While one helicopter had to be destroyed, there were no American casualties. Operation Geronimo was a classic textbook military operation that will be studied for many years by military planners. It was boldly conceived, meticulously planned and methodically executed.

It is completely in keeping with the Pakistani army and the ISI's perfidious character that Osama was found in a Pakistani cantonment. CIA chief Leon Panetta said after the strike, "It was decided that any effort to work with the Pakistanis could jeopardise the mission. They might alert the targets." John Brennan, counter-terrorism adviser to President Obama has said, "It was inconceivable that Osama bin Laden did not have a support system in Pakistan that allowed him to remain there for an extended period of time." Also, only a week ago leaked US embassy cables had described the ISI as a terrorist organization. Hard questions are now being asked and several US Senators and members of Congress have called for the suspension of all aid to Pakistan.

The death of bin Laden will not mark the end of al Qaeda's terrorist strikes. It will be only a temporary setback for the organization as it has a cellular structure and is not hierarchical. Leaders heading various cells have always operated fairly autonomously and will continue to do so. The al Qaeda has developed linkages and coordinates its operations with many international affiliates, including the LeT, JeM and HuJI. Its peculiar brand of Jihad will go on. In fact, in the short term, some reprisal attacks may be expected against western targets and those in India. A spectacular attack with a 'dirty nuke' - a high explosive bomb filled with radioactive material - also cannot be ruled out.

Since the ISI knew about Osama's presence at Abbottabad for five years and even provided support to him, it has been proved beyond an iota of doubt that it is a rogue intelligence agency that must be dismantled. The Pakistan army and the ISI are part of the problem and cannot, therefore, be part of the solution in the so-called 'global War on Terror'. Pakistan is in danger of collapsing from the centrifugal forces generated by internal instability and accentuated by creeping Talibanization, and its inner contradictions as a state ruled for long by the army. If the probability of collapse reaches the tipping point as it soon might, Pakistan's nuclear warheads must be taken out or destroyed in order to avoid a nuclear holocaust on the Indian subcontinent. Such an international effort will invariably have to be led by the Americans. As the most directly affected party, India must provide all the help and assistance that the US might ask for, including direct military participation.

The main lesson for India from the spectacular military operation conducted by the CIA and the US Special Forces is that nations that are too moralistic and legalistic in dealing with the complex challenge of state-sponsored terrorism usually end up as hapless victims. Only pro-active covert operations conducted by counter-terrorism agencies and Special Forces can raise the cost for the adversary sufficiently enough to deter him from launching terror strikes. There is no reason why terrorist-criminals like Hafiz Sayeed, Masood Azhar and Dawood Ibrahim should be walking freely, planning future terrorist strikes and delivering inflammatory anti-Indian speeches from Pakistani soil. They can and must be brought to justice through covert operations launched by Indian counter-terrorism agencies in concert with armed forces personnel of the Special Forces.

The US and Israel have repeatedly demonstrated their determination to eliminate non-state actors who plan terror strikes against them. In the interest of national security, India too must follow the same lead. The major requirements for pro-active operations are political will, meticulous intelligence acquisition and the requisite counter-terrorism and military capabilities. The government must permit the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) to re-establish covert operations capabilities that were dismantled under a prime minister's orders around 1997. Air assault capabilities exist with the armed forces, but these need to be modernized and qualitatively upgraded.

http://www.ipcs.org/article/india/emulate-operation-abbottabad-yes-india-can-3373.html

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