Pakistan is perhaps a unique country insofar that it has faced preemptive strikes or felt the fear of a pre-emptive strike from countries as diverse as the United States and Iran—two countries poles apart in international politics, and yet both these countries have accused Pakistan of harboring militants and terrorists.
More than 400 drone strikes that the American CIA carried out in Pakistan’s erstwhile tribal areas could be described as preemptive strikes. Americans used to say that militants hiding in the Pak-Afghan border areas were planning attacks on American forces stationed in the border towns and cities, and in order to preempt those attacks, they launched drone strikes.
On Wednesday, Iran did something similar - citing the presence of militants on the Pakistani side of the international border. Iranian missiles and drones hit targets in the Panjgur district of Balochistan. The Pakistani military retaliated within 24 hours, hitting targets inside Iran. By all definitions, Iran is a brotherly country and despite all the tensions that have existed between two countries in post-Iranian Revolution times, a military conflict between the two countries is unimaginable.
Both countries don’t maintain a heavy military presence on either side of the international border. If, in the minds of military planners of both the countries, war is close to unimaginable, then how would one explain this tit-for-tat military retaliation from the Pakistani side?
Pakistan’s security paradigm is primed on the position of instant retaliation—with nuclear weapons if required -- in case its territory is attacked with much larger and superior conventional military power by the Indian military. The more Indian conventional military strength grows, the lower Pakistan’s nuclear threshold is set to be.
Let’s take a look at how the Pakistani Foreign Office defines Pakistan’s relations with Iran in these times of tensions: “Iran is a brotherly country and the people of Pakistan have great respect and affection for the Iranian people. We have always emphasized dialogue and cooperation in confronting common challenges including the menace of terrorism and will continue to endeavor to find joint solutions,” the Foreign Office statement reads. If Iran is a brotherly country, then wouldn’t it be more appropriate to lodge a complaint with Tehran instead of launching a military retaliation?
In the words of a retired Pakistan General—who once occupied one of the central positions in the military planning process—the answer is a firm no, “Answer and message contained in a counter strike is not simply meant for the Iranians, it is addressed to all and sundry in the region and the larger world,” said the retired officer from the Army.
Preemptive strikes, if they were actually carried out as part of incursions into Pakistani territory, bring with them the fear of deterrence failure. Pakistan’s security paradigm is primed on the position of instant retaliation—with nuclear weapons if required -- in case its territory is attacked with much larger and superior conventional military power by the Indian military. The more Indian conventional military strength grows, the lower Pakistan’s nuclear threshold is set to be.
The message is meant to be clear: if Pakistan is responding to minor provocations with serious military retaliation, how would it respond to a major military incursion?
But does that mean Pakistan would respond with nuclear weapons to every conventional provocation or attack from the Indian side? Suppose India sends in a battalion of tanks into Pakistani territory to launch a conventional attack, what would be Pakistan’s response? Would Pakistan’s response be nuclear to such a minor provocation, which will pose no existential threat to Pakistan’s survival? Few months ago, an Indian cruise missile landed on Pakistani territory with no damage to property or life. Indians claim the missile was launched by technical mistake. “Pakistani didn’t respond by making it clear to India in behind-the-scenes communication that had there been any damage to life on the Pakistani side, Pakistan would have responded in kind,” a senior military official told The Friday Times. The key is that Pakistan is desperate to maintain the reputation of its deterrence. Which in practical terms would mean that Pakistan is primed to respond to slightest or even minor provocation in military terms.
The message is meant to be clear: if Pakistan is responding to minor provocations with serious military retaliation, how would it respond to a major military incursion? And if Pakistan is effectively responding to a provocation from a country which it is itself describing as brotherly, how would it respond to a military incursion from a country, which it describes as hostile – an enemy of the first order?
In the words of a senior military expert, it is clear that Pakistan military planners believe that Iran could be convinced with words and diplomatic parleys, but Indians cannot be convinced with words. Pakistani military planning is a complicated affair, as it has to compensate for its inferiority in conventional military power with its nuclear arsenal and unconventional military weapons, which act as its deterrents against much the larger conventional military fielded by India. Pakistan military planners fear that the Indians could again launch a false flag operation close to its parliamentary election scheduled to be held in May 2024. A lowered nuclear threshold means Pakistan would have to appear desperate at times. In this way, it has to maintain the reputation of its nuclear deterrent in every event. To every Pakistani, this might be the best way to ensure Pakistan defense and security in a tough neighborhood. But to people around the world this position appears as suicidal as in case deterrence fails, Pakistan’s nuclear strike would attract massive nuclear retaliation - which could mean the end of Pakistan as a viable state.
The global community, though, understands Pakistan’s situation better than its neighbors. In August 1998, President Bill Clinton launched Tomahawk cruise missiles from the Arabian sea into Osama Bin Laden’s training camps in Afghanistan—the cruise missiles had to fly over Pakistan airspace—Clinton sent his most senior military officials to Islamabad, who was meeting the then COAS, General Jehangir Keramat, at Chaklala Air base at the very moment the cruise missiles were flying through Pakistani airspace to take the military leaders of nuclear Pakistan into confidence, lest Pakistan would have mistaken the Tomahawks to be incoming Indian missiles about to hit Pakistani nuclear installations.
This might have been very satisfying for the egos of the military leadership of Pakistan, but again portrayed Pakistan as militarily desperate. In those days, Pakistani media highlighted the fact that preemptive strikes that the US carried out in Afghanistan could become fashionable in the region and could instigate India to launch preemptive strikes against targets inside Pakistani territory.
Pakistan, in a way, is quite vulnerable, as it is surrounded on most sides by countries which are accusing it of harboring militant groups hostile to Pakistan’s neighboring countries, including Iran and India.
In the period between 2004 and 2018, Pakistan’s military instinct to respond to every minor provocation with serious military retaliation was in deep sleep. This was the period when the American CIA launched countless preemptive strikes inside Pakistan tribal areas - almost on a daily basis - to target Al-Qaeda and Pakistani Taliban leaders. Some of the experts believe that in this period, Washington was in some kind of tacit trilateral understanding with India on the one side and Pakistan on the other, that India would not take advantage of the new situation where preemptive strikes by the American CIA was a norm. The fact that the Pakistan military and political leadership was complacent in the US drone campaign lends credence to this opinion.
Pakistan, in a way, is quite vulnerable, as it is surrounded on most sides by countries which are accusing it of harboring militant groups hostile to Pakistan’s neighboring countries, including Iran and India. Till the US occupation of Afghanistan, the US military also used to accuse Pakistan of harboring militant groups that were launching attacks against US and NATO forces in Afghanistan from across the border. In the context of the present situation, it could be said that the Pakistani could have taken the path of diplomacy and could have warned Tehran about the consequences. But it has chosen a military path.
In this way, it might have succeeded in maintaining the reputation of its deterrence, but in the process, it has also lost something equally precious—its reputation as a normal country. In the foreseeable future, Pakistan’s external face will be shaped by fear of preemptive strikes and related fear of losing the reputation of its nuclear deterrent. Our 75-year history has contributed greatly to making South Asia a tough neighborhood. We have in fact harbored militant groups and, in the process, we have become a natural sanctuary for Sunni militancy. Let’s pray that we don’t spend the next 75 years protecting only the reputation of our nuclear deterrent. And let us pray that our policy makers give equal importance to our reputation as a normal country with non-military priorities also.