Lack of strategic thought and keeping the military deliberately out of strategic decisions, matters military and even national security has been the bane of independent India. That is why we now face a two-and-a-half front or rather a three-front war.

Facilitating Kargil II just got delayed, though may not be fully called off given the propensity of our polity to create goof ups, especially when every now and then someone rises in the morning dreaming he has turned a security strategist. Civilian strategists often think they understand use of force better than the military.

After failing to kill Osama bin Laden with some 80 cruise missiles fired into Khost during 1999-2000, Clinton thought that Al-Qaeda could be dealt with “a bunch of black ninjas rappelling down into their camp.” When Musharraf stated that many more Kargils would follow, he obviously took into account this trait of the polity. A major reason why the Kargil intrusion was launched was terrorism in the Valley had gone below levels of the liking of Musharraf.

The Kargil intrusions forced shift of one Mountain Division from the Valley to Ladakh post haste, lifting pressure on terrorists and facilitating infiltration. Currently, the Army has brought the situation to a level wherein powers that be should have gone full throttle to improve administration and ensure automatic writ of the State, ameliorating feelings of alienation. The Army Chief rightly pointed out that the civil administration had not capitalised on violence levels brought down by the Army – a factual statement which made a veteran politician of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) go ballistic whereas he should have done serious introspection.

The present incumbent in J&K now gets the same feeling one fine morning and talks of removal of Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) ‘without consulting the Army’, because of whom his administration is secure. Whatever made him take such a decision is beyond comprehension especially when the Prime Minister and the Defence Minister have been stating that terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) is fully active and a large number of terrorists are waiting to infiltrate. Even the US now openly acknowledges that Pakistan is the mother spawning terror. To top it, the Chinese are offering Pakistan full support in anti-India jihadi activities, having invested Pakistan’s rear with PLA garrisons in POK and Pakistan in the garb of construction workers.

Ayaz Mir, senior Pakistani journalist, writes that China wants to also establish military bases in North Waziristan and FATA. Chinese State TV has been showing the map of India with J&K not a part of India, continues giving stapled visas to people of J&K and claims whole of Arunachal Pradesh. In such environment, removing AFSPA from parts of the Valley simply implies providing safe havens to terrorists in those areas. Before making such an announcement, the Army should have been consulted unless the intention actually is to provide respite to terrorists and prolong the existing state of affairs.

Whether in J&K or the North East, the urgency and will to resolve the security situation has been lacking, as witnessed over decades. After all look at the plusses of such insecurity—crores of rupees pour in from the Centre with no accountability, everything is subsidised, no one (less the military) has to pay income tax and attention gets diverted from the timber mafia and drug cartels. Lack of strategic thought and keeping the military deliberately out of strategic decisions, matters military and even national security has been the bane of independent India. That is why we now face a two-and-a-half front or rather a three-front war. Nehru’s pleas to the US during 1962 fetched only some machine guns. The situation is not going to be different in future too. Everyone looks after their own national interests. We obviously do not because we are yet to even define them.

The views expressed herein are the personal views of the author.