And you have absolutely no clue what the issue is neither the depth to appreciate it.
If this insurgency was allowed to fester just below the tipping point, Bangladesh would have been delayed by atleast a decade.
It would have been almost like Chechnya for Pakistan. A bottomless pit for armies, funds and careers.
The same Pakistan after the debacle would have a military thoroughly shattered, a broken economy and a population that would be rabidly anti khaki.
The human rights issues would have been enough to deny Pak western weapons for a long time.
Nuclear cooperation that allowed AQ to steal tech would have been harder.
Sometimes the obvious answer has long term ramifications. But no one can predict the future. What we can do is learn from the past.
So I m of the view - let Pak die a slow painful death. Op Sindoor and the others that will follow it are welcome. The moment Pak gets out of line slap it silly. Keep eroding the state.
It worked for the US against the USSR. No nuclear war, a pliant Russia for 20 + years. Now when Putin bared his fangs, he is grinding away his armies, his economy and his legacy against a mirage.
Pakistan would have begun militancy in the 1970s instead of 1989+, from two sides. Regional fallout of this insurgency would have been unpredictable. We were too poor to manage refugees and foreign aid to Pakistan would have significantly increased the threat to India in the long term.
Pakistan retaining sovereignty over BD due to fighting a sustained insurgency would have made it harder for India to intervene in the later years, when the situation would have become the new normal. In the meantime, they would have stolen BD's resources and used it to develop their own military faster than they actually did. They would have turned BD into a military fortress too, making it impossible for India to invade. Our invasion worked 'cause Pak were too weak in BD.
Human rights don't exist for Pakistan's enemies. We already see that in Balochistan and Pashtunistan today. Pakistan's importance to the West was so great that they would have turned a blind eye to whatever the Pakistanis did. And this was proven by the fact that Pak was not punished for their genocide in BD.
Furthermore, the SU wanted a win after the Sino-Soviet split and provided full backing. There was no guarantee this would have come after 10 years.
We couldn't afford maintaining 3 fronts. We wanted to deal with PoK after BD, but couldn't because we did not have the military strength to fight on two fronts simultaneously, and that's our fault. So this situation allowed us to completely eliminate one front, and it's stayed that way for 50 years, and will probably continue to stay that way for many more decades.
Did you really want to fight militancy in Kashmir, BD, Punjab, the Naxalites, and the NE insurgency at the same time? We were lucky to have 3 problems instead of 5. Removing ISI from BD, the NE, and the Maoist belt was the best thing that could happen to us.
Liberating BD dropped Pakistan's population and GDP by half, eliminated one front, allowed us to make money off of it while limiting the NE insurgency. And when the Naxalites gained power, ISI wasn't around to foment more trouble, they were busy in Punjab. Once Punjab ended, Kashmir began. In the meantime, we removed the communist power base in WB. Then we put down Kashmir. While Naxalites rose in power, we put down the NE insurgency. And now we are eliminating the Naxalite threat. All this 'cause BD was peaceful.
As for today's Pakistan, sure, we would like to see Pak die a slow death without significant cost to India. But there's always the possibility of foreign aid preventing that from happening. That $50B or $100B package can ruin things quickly. So a quick, guaranteed death is the best outcome. What comes next can be managed with a fly swatter or a hammer as the situation dictates. The US was clueless about the SU's demise, and it was impossible for anyone to save the SU, but Pak can be saved.
If BD stops being peaceful, at least we will not have to deal with Punjab, NE, and Naxalites simultaneously. Kashmir may have been put down, unless Pak wants to hasten its demise, so we have achieved a new normal here. Of course, any BD-sponsored attacks can also be linked to the ISI, and that can be dealt with militarily too.
Firepower is the answer against military threats, not time.
www.thenews.com.pk
