Monday, October 21, 2013


WHAT CONSTITUTES COUNTER INSURGENCY OPERATIONS
Lt Gen Ata Hasnain 

I know Iftikh

ar Gilani and have asked him to meet me in relation to this ridiculous article. But we have called it upon ourselves  with our inability to project just what constitutes Counter Insurgency operations. 
The uninformed think that it is the job of the Army to kill terrorists; actually it is to kill Terrorism. Terrorism involves much more than what a Black & White brain can contemplate. It is an entire system which needs a comprehensive approach rather than just a 'military; approach. If the State is up to it and understands its responsibility I would be the first to abdicate all responsibility to it after a certain mutually decided threshold of residual terrorist capability has been reached.
 
Kashmir is different. It has a neighbor hell bent on proxy war, it has an active LC (no where else in the world does this exist),it has a separatist majority which is a minority in rest of the Nation, it has the capacity to be networked into the larger international Jihadi game and lastly it is a region dangerously close to the New Great Game.
 
To counter all this it does not have a capable State Government nor Police forces; if it did who in his senses from the Army would want to be involved in it. All it has is an Army which is hugely capable, committed, passionate but completely nonintellectual in approach. The last is not an insult to its capability but a challenge to its rank and file, to rise above the ordinary.
 
The Army will be driven to the wall in the field of Information Warfare, especially if it has no Info Policy and  no one to counter the jibes that an anti establishment and many times anti national media will make. Just every one knows that this is not the way to run things.
 
The organs of the Nation which have the commitment and capacity to act against separatism will always be the first targets of the propaganda machinery. You as the State can keep quiet and remain targeted but if you have the power of comprehension and the ability to communicate why not go hammer and tongs after your detractors and make attempts to build bridges with the Civil Government to explain to them just how a conflict unfolds.
 
Shocking that there are military professionals who want to put an end to the Hearts game and to Sadbhavna saying that the Army's job is only to use weapons and firepower; great, can we call these people professionals; probably never read a book in their lives nor analysed a situation. Warfare is such a dynamic phenomenon that those who remain rooted to World War II or 1971 operations need to be reminded about generations of warfare. Externally sponsored proxy  terror campaigns fall in the realm of the 4 and a 1/2th generation and cannot be countered by brains who think in terms of two generations  prior.
 
All the above is in the realm of imagination unless we have people willing to put their own hearts and minds to the National interest. Risk is inevitable but then in the business of soldiering do we go for operations only with 100 percent assured success. Time to think, ponder, be creative and turn the tables rather than sit on our haunches waiting for things to happen. They never will unless you wish them to happen.
 
Who says Maneuver theory applies to the mechanized battlefield alone. It is in the field of CI/CT operations that it really comes into its own.
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1 comment:

  1. I differ.
    Winning over the hearts and minds is not the job of the army but that of the govt. Army has only one job, as some American put it - To arrange a meeting between the terrorist and his maker.
    Distributing toffees and medicines in insurgency areas takes men away from their prime job. Nothing comes free. Every project robs you of some time and energy of your troops. I have seen troops being pushed too hard not so much to take up operations against terrorists, but to please the civilian leaders of the area. The brigade and division commanders want to keep the local politicians happy.
    The troops hate it. And so do some officers.

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