The Pakistani economy is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Structural factors are further augmented by its being placed on the grey list by the Financial Action Task Force or FATF. The FATF is an inter-governmental body established in 1989 with the objective of setting standards and promoting effective implementation of legal, regulatory and operational measures for combating money laundering, terrorist financing and other related threats to the integrity of the international financial system.

With the FATF disinclined to remove Pakistan from that list, losses totalling $10 billion per year to the economy can be safely anticipated. These are losses Pakistan can ill-afford with its currency under severe pressure following an IMF bailout and with dwindling foreign exchange reserves. In these trying circumstances for Pakistan, at least one familiar commentator has begun arguing in favour of India extending no-strings-attached financial help to the beleaguered economy. Sudheendra Kulkarni, an Indian politician and columnist, bases his argument, more or less, on India’s duty as a good neighbour. Such helpfulness will, he hopes, help Pakistan realise the importance of maintaining good relations with its neighbours.

Some stakeholders believe that a lack of dialogue with Pakistan represents a confrontational attitude on the part of India. Other advocates for diplomatic engagement and talks with Pakistan take statements originating from Constitution Avenue in Islamabad in favour of peace with India and a settlement of the Kashmir issue at face value, and tend to apportion blame on the Indian side for failure of such offers in the past.

The counterview is that this betrays a lack of appreciation for the Pakistani state’s intent, which has remained consistent from the era of Ayub Khan. For a democratic country like India, where the proliferation of social media ensures that feedback loops to the government are tighter and mercurial public opinion impacts policy, it is imperative to understand and to publicly enunciate the intent and actions of the Indian state’s primary adversary. Only then can consistent and clear policies emerge.

The clearest enunciation of Pakistani policy towards India was by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto during a speech to the UN Security Council in 1965. Mr Bhutto was then Foreign Minister in Ayub Khan’s cabinet. “We will wage a war for 1,000 years [against India], a war of defence … Irrespective of our size and of our resources, we shall fight to the end,” Mr. Bhutto stated.

This was not merely a rhetorical device but reflected state policy. After the crushing defeat of 1971 which clarified that Kashmir could not be taken by force by Pakistan, and especially after Bhutto was deposed by Gen. Zia-ul-Haq, the war of 1,000 years evolved into Pakistani military doctrine known as “Bleed India with a Thousand Cuts”. The implementation of the doctrine saw the Pakistani state aiding the Khalistan movement in Punjab in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Later during Benazir Bhutto’s reign as Prime Minister, the doctrine resulted in cross-border terrorism in Jammu & Kashmir as Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) began training, arming and infiltrating terrorists. This support continues till date but forms just one aspect of Pakistan’s warfare against India. Some commentators mistake support for terrorism to be the extent of the Pakistani state’s acts against India.

Others tend to believe Pakistan when it claims that terrorists receive no official support from the state, and nudge India towards talks with Pakistan at the slightest hint of reduction in cross-border infiltration and terrorist activity. This article traces the actions of the Pakistani state against India across multiple dimensions since the era of the Ayub Khan cabinet and places them within a well-defined framework for what can broadly be described as conflict that falls short of outright war.

A new generation of war?

Several terms have been used to describe conflicts that take place in the space between peace and war. The more widely known include hybrid warfare, ambiguous warfare, unrestricted warfare, new generation warfare, grey zone conflict, political warfare and asymmetric warfare.

Hybrid warfare has become popular in recent years—especially after the Russian Federation invaded Crimea in 2014—for describing the complexity of modern warfare. The historical perspective, articulated by military historian Peter Mansoor, defines hybrid warfare as “conflict involving a combination of conventional military forces and irregulars (guerrillas, insurgents, and terrorists), which could include both state and non-state actors, aimed at achieving a common political purpose”.

But this definition fits numerous military engagements right from the Peloponnesian War in ancient Greece to those involving the Wehrmacht. Such a broad—some would say overly broad—definition renders itself ineffective. “If everybody is a hybrid, then nobody is”.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, former Secretary General of NATO, describes hybrid warfare as “a combination of military action, covert operations and an aggressive program of disinformation”. Military Balance provided a more comprehensive definition, noting the use of military and non-military tools in an integrated campaign, highlighting the use of diplomatic initiatives, information warfare, electronic and cyber operations, intelligence action and economic pressure for achieving psychological and physical advantages (Complex Crises Call for Adaptable and Durable Capabilities). It has also been described as a blend “diplomacy, politics, media, cyberspace, and military force to destabilize and undermine an opponent’s government”.

Political warfare is a much older term, first mentioned by US diplomat and historian George Kennan in 1948: “Political warfare is the employment of all the means at a nation’s command, short of war, to achieve its national objectives”.

RAND Corporation notes that most tools of political warfare are non-kinetic in nature, and it is the combination of these with conventional military means that constitutes the “hybrid” aspect of hybrid warfare. The authors build upon Kennan’s definition to arrive at a comprehensive framework for those non-kinetic tools available to state and non-state actors in the modern context, placing them in four broad categories of elements of national power: (1) Diplomatic, (2) Information, (3) Military, and (4) Economic. Political warfare utilises one or more of these measures, which conveniently abbreviate to DIME, to affect the political composition or decision-making within a state. It is often carried out covertly, but always outside the context of traditional war.

This aligns with a recent White Paper by the US Army Special Operations Command which asserts that political warfare includes diplomatic and economic activities, military assistance, unconventional warfare, and information and influence activities. Practitioners note that unconventional warfare is just one aspect of political warfare.

A DIME for Pakistani doctrine

As is the norm with Pakistan, the Military assumes primacy.

Military

The Military dimension of political warfare is the easiest to elaborate upon in the context of Pakistan’s hostility towards India. It begins with the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947 when Pakistan recruited, trained, armed and logistically supported tribal militias, pushing them into Jammu & Kashmir. As the conflict progressed, the Pakistan Army overtly entered the war. Since then the Pakistani state has used irregulars or Pakistani troops operating as irregulars in its conflict with India. Kargil and the insurgency in Kashmir are clear examples of this.

In addition to direct involvement, the Pakistani state has trained, advised and armed terrorist groups like the LeT and JeM for decades. Indeed, the LeT is believed to be the Pakistan Army’s “most useful proxy … [and its] faithful executioner abroad”. But it is not the only one. The Pakistan Army and the ISI have supported various terrorist groups. This includes those associated with the Khalistan movement, supplying them with arms and ammunition and enabling the LeT to train them. Under its instructions, the LeT has engaged in multiple terrorist attacks in India, with the 26/11 attack in Mumbai being the most prominent. The Pulwama attack of 2019 is but the latest in a series of terrorist actions executed in India on instructions from Pakistan. The Pakistan Army regularly attacks Indian posts along the Line of Control in Kashmir, providing cover and pushing terrorists into Jammu and Kashmir.

The ISI’s links to and support for insurgent groups in the Northeast of India have also been extensively documented. Hostile actions aren’t limited to Indian territory. The 2008 bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, was attributed to the Haqqani Network which was helped logistically and in terms of planning by the ISI. The LeT was deemed responsible for the 2014 attack on the Indian consulate in Herat, Afghanistan. The attack led to the LeT being designated as a terrorist organisation by the United States of America.

Diplomacy

Pakistan has sought for many decades to turn the Kashmir conflict into a multilateral dispute by inviting third parties to intervene diplomatically, with a recent opinion piece from a Pakistan-based think tank suggesting that this continues to be its objective. It has opposed India’s entry to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation since the first summit at Rabat in 1969. Since then it has consistently urged that forum, either directly or through proxies, to pass resolutions against India on Kashmir in the hopes of transforming it from a bilateral issue between itself and India to a multilateral one. It has frequently urged the United Nations to intervene in the Kashmir dispute, most recently in the aftermath of the Pulwama attack of February 2019. In continuation of its efforts to turn the Kashmir dispute into a multilateral kerfuffle, Pakistan has on numerous occasions urged the United States government to intervene in Kashmir, seeking its participation as a mediator in the dispute. Other instances of Pakistan working in concert with China to harm India’s interests at multilateral fora such as the NSG have been well-documented.

Information warfare

The Pakistani state has long leveraged information warfare against India, particularly in Jammu and Kashmir. In the past it leveraged Cold War dynamics to brand India as a “colonial power exercising illegitimate rule over Jammu and Kashmir”. These efforts continue today, with groups like the Pakistan Cyber Force promoting anti-India content on social media. Although the groups deny it, analysts believe they work directly for the Pakistani state and are, in all likelihood, directed by the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR).

Twitter frequently sees what users refer to as hashtag wars between Indians and Pakistanis, but ISPR appears far better coordinated. One such hashtag that trends frequently when PM Narendra Modi visits Tamil Nadu is #GoBackModi. Twitter users who dug into this hashtag recently found that more than half the tweets associated with it originate inside Pakistan. Specifically, 58 per cent were found to originate in Pakistan and only 22 per cent inside India. Drilling down to the city level revealed that Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad were the top three cities as far as tweets with this hashtag were concerned. London came fourth, and Chennai—where the hashtag was believed to have originated—came a lowly fifth with just four per cent of tweets. However, another Twitter user disputed this claim when the hashtag #GoBackSadistModi was trending from Tamil Nadu

Another example of Pakistan’s information warfare was seen in the aftermath of the Balakot air strike when ISPR’s capabilities—specifically their attempts at misinformation—were on prominent display. ISPR and its social media handles first attempted to sow doubt about the efficacy of the airstrike by suggesting that the target was Balakote, which is almost on the Line of Control, rather than Balakot which is in Pakistan proper. After unofficial sources on the Indian side confirmed that the latter had been targeted, ISPR pivoted to questioning the accuracy of the strikes. Their mendacity has been documented by various sources, and the author summarised it in another article that dives deeper into the Balakot airstrike. All these claims were magnificently amplified, first on social media and then by news outlets and think tanks across the globe. The information warfare that followed the shoot down of an F-16 by Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman and his own consequent downing merits a separate discussion.

Terrorists in Kashmir are using social media to reach out to the younger generation among Kashmiris, and photos and videos of them at leisure glamorise terrorism and serve as effective recruitment tools. Pakistan and the terrorists it supports are also using instant messaging platforms to organise stone pelting mobs, especially at locations where the security forces have trapped terrorists.

But even outside of social media, the ISI exploits fault lines in Indian society to foment conflict. Some Hurriyat leaders, for example, have admitted to taking money from Pakistan for stoking unrest in the Kashmir valley. Large sums of money have been recovered by investigating agencies like the NIA through raids on Hurriyat members and other individuals connected to it. Official acknowledgement comes in the form of a Senate Committee report that provides policy guidelines including the need to re-establish a Public Diplomacy Office under the aegis of the Foreign Office, the need to hire lobbyists and strategic communications firms, and the need for outreach to segments of Indian public opinion opposed to the current government. The Committee also recommended exploiting religious and caste fault lines in India and suggests that the Maoist insurgency should be highlighted.

Economic measures

Fake Indian Currency Notes (FICN) is the term used by officials and the media to refer to counterfeit currency notes circulated in India. These are one of the major conduits of funding terror activities inside India, and investigations into at least three terror incidents in India— the Hyderabad bombings of August 2007, the December 2005 attack on IISc Bangalore, and the 26/11 attack on Mumbai—have demonstrated this linkage. Official estimates indicated that $2.2 billion in FICN were in circulation in India in 2010.

FICN are printed in Pakistan and smuggled into India, predominantly through Nepal and Bangladesh. The CBI, in a report to the Finance Ministry, has claimed that Pakistan government printing presses in Quetta, Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar are involved in the printing of FICN. Numerous arrests made over the years, including the recent arrest of Yunus Ansari and three Pakistani nationals in Nepal point to ISI’s direct involvement in the printing and circulation of FICN. Once smuggled into India, local criminal syndicates are used for distribution. FICN operations have been linked to gambling and opium smuggling in Rajasthan, for example.

Another vector by which Pakistan targets the Indian economy and society is narcotics. India’s proximity to the Golden Crescent—one of Asia’s two principle areas of illicit opium production incorporating Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan—makes it vulnerable to drug trafficking. Pakistan smuggles illicit drugs manufactured in the Golden Crescent into India. That the Pakistan Army manages this trade has been accepted by no less than Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. In an interview to the Washington Post, Sharif stated that in 1991, Chief of Army Staff Gen. Aslam Beg and the head of the ISI Gen. Asad Durrani proposed a detailed blueprint for selling heroin to fund the nation’s covert military operations, presumably against India. A consultant hired by the CIA reported that drug kingpins were closely connected to Pakistan’s institutions of power including the President and the military intelligence agencies (read ISI).

The Washington Post article also noted that Pakistan produced about 70 tonnes of heroin each year. This was in 1994, and there is no doubt production has gone up since. The money generated from the drug trade is then used by Pakistan to fund terror activities inside India, exactly as Generals Beg and Durrani had proposed to Sharif. This money is estimated to amount to 15 per cet of the finances of terrorist groups in Jammu & Kashmir. Drug trafficking is also said to facilitate human trafficking and gun running, and the same networks are used to smuggle explosives into the country.

A third instance of economic warfare is Pakistan’s refusal to accord Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status to India for 23 years. MFN ensures that member countries of the World Trade Organisation do not discriminate between trade partners. Every WTO member nation usually grants MFN status to all other members, and India did so in 1996. But Pakistan refused to reciprocate, maintaining a negative list of 1,209 items that were not permitted to be imported from India. Estimates have suggested that Pakistan’s according of MFN status to India could have resulted in a 32 per cent increase in India’s exports to Pakistan. By not reciprocating for 23 years, Pakistan was able to keep its exports to India competitive, thus earning valuable foreign exchange, while at the same time disadvantaging Indian exports to Pakistan. India finally withdrew MFN status to Pakistan in the aftermath of the Pulwama bombing and slapped a 200 per cent import duty on several goods from Pakistan.

Warfare by other means

Pakistan’s hybrid warfare against India is multi-dimensional and exacts a heavy price. The Indian state pays directly in terms of blood, sweat and tears on account of the military dimension of political warfare as well as the conventional military means that make up the hybrid threat. Countering Pakistan’s diplomatic hostility consumes India’s diplomatic capital and affects its relations with other members of multilateral organisations like the OIC. The social impact of Pakistan’s information warfare is not insignificant, nor is the cost of its economic warfare upon India.

In such a scenario, calls for bilateral engagements with Pakistan are naïveté. Some analysts note that such calls are counterproductive as they reinforce Pakistan’s strategy of coercion. Pakistan is a revisionist state, a state that is dissatisfied with the status quo in and is taking measures to change it. Revisionist states compete across all dimensions of power, and expand coercion to new fronts, violating sovereignty, exploiting ambiguity, and blurring the lines between civilian and military goals. And Pakistan has done just that over a period of multiple decades while India continued to engage in bilateral talks with it in the hope that talks would convince Pakistan to give up its revisionist behaviour. But that is unlikely given that this revisionist behaviour is directly driven by the most powerful stakeholder in Pakistani polity. To quote Ashley Tellis, Pakistan’s revisionist behaviour stems from its “army’s desire to subvert India’s ascendency as a great power” and is intensified by the “army’s ambition to preserve its dominance in domestic politics”.

This dominance is essential for protecting what Ayesha Siddiqua in her pioneering book Military Inc. calls “Milbus” which is “military capital that is used for the personal benefit of the military fraternity, especially the officer cadre, which is not recorded as part of the defence budget or does not follow the normal accountability procedures of the state, making it an independent genre of capital”. By dominating Pakistani politics, the Pakistan military in general and its army in particular get to extract resources from the nation’s economy and collect at least $20.7 billion in wealth through a maze of welfare trusts and foundations like the Army Welfare Trust, the Shaheen Foundation, and the National Logistics Cell, and through commercial enterprises controlled by the armed forces through serving and retired personnel.

Pakistan’s military is characterised as a holding company that owns and operates hotels, banks, insurance companies, farms and even an airline. Five welfare foundations—giant conglomerates in reality—run thousands of businesses from petrol pumps to large industrial plants. Retired and serving officers of the Pakistan military own 12 million acres of public land in the country, most of it awarded to them by a coerced state, and it is estimated that the military controls roughly one-third of Pakistan’s heavy manufacturing and up to seven per cent of private assets. The military justifies these activities by portraying civilians as incompetent and corrupt, and by donning the mantle of the protector of Pakistan against a hostile India. Continuing support for Pakistan-based terror organisations arrayed against India serves the Pakistan armed forces to continue extracting economic privileges by ensuring that India remains wary at best and hostile at worst to Pakistani intentions.

No amount of neighbourly economic aid or talks will wish this away, and allowing Pakistan what it has time and again demonstrated it wants—unconditional talks with India specifically about Kashmir, and the multilateralization of the issue without significant action by Pakistan against terror organisations and their supporters—means allowing the goals driving its hybrid warfare against India to succeed.