CRamS wrote:SSJi, taking of US action, retd. general Mehta, who views were posted here suggests that TSP has not mounted a big terrorist attack since 26/11 because of US pressure on TSP. Do you believe him?
There is a red herring here: somehow, it is assumed that there is any meaningful value in getting TSP to suspend its terrorism by some means, therefore we should be carefully safeguarding those means, when by some definition they are considered "effective."
This premise has been the justification for all the too-clever-by-half temporizing, saying some robust things but then backing off when it comes to execution, etc. If we somehow play this game--which actually has no meaningful rules to speak of, other than, just give them what they want, or act like you are going to give them what they want--we think we can somehow magically juggle this ball of "terrorism suspension" in mid-air. It may have started as a chanakian approach, but over time, we started believing our own lies to a great extent.
The premise is false. There is no value to speak of in a suspension of terrorism that could be literally un-suspended at a whim on the part of TSP. So, if we abandon this premise and the web of delusion that it induces, we are free to accept that we should treat enemy action as normal mankind has always treated it: either surrender to it, or fight against it and hurt the enemy back. This is the "Modi change." India, through Modi, has decided that we are strong enough, and more importantly, it is worthwhile enough, to fight back.
The consequences of this change depend on the nature of the enemy. If he is rational, he will sooner or later understand that he will have to certainly absorb the cost of our fight back, in exchange for very low probability of achieving his goals (kashmir, echandee, mughalistan, gazwa e hindquarters whatever) The logical course for him then would be to make a policy decision to end, not merely suspend, his attacks.
If the enemy is irrational or neurotic or psychotic, he will keep attacking (which leaves India in exactly the same position it would have been in, without fighting back, thus there is no incremental loss for India) and keep absorbing the cost.
Truth is powerful--inspite of previous governments' propensity to pursue the chimerical goal of "suspended hostility, time and again they were forced to inflict the costs of hostility on Pakistan; both UPA and NDA have done this to different degrees when it was their turn at the crease. They had also tried to approach USA to ask it to "tell" TSP to behave, either sincerely believing that it would work (as Gen. Mehta seems to be believing), or just generally thinking there is no harm in piling on the pressure, when it has no cost for us.
The difference now is that we are dropping the pretense, and embracing what we have always known in our hearts to be truth about Pakistan.
