Here’s an article about ‘N’ word, conventional and unconventional.
Editorial: Unconventional Wisdom
A recent statement by General Pervez Musharraf has sent everyone scurrying for cover. Did he use the N-word or not? If he did, what did he hope to achieve, given the highly inflammable international environment regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction and nuclear programmes? And if he didn’t, what did he mean and why did he think it necessary to say so?
To be precise, this is what General Musharraf said: “In my meetings with various world leaders, I conveyed my personal message to Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee that the moment Indian forces cross the line of control and the international border, then they should not expect a conventional war from Pakistan (emphasis added).”
An international wire service reported this statement before a gathering of army officers in Karachi as threatening India with nuclear weapons if New Delhi had followed up on its troop mobilisation earlier this year and attacked Pakistan.
However, a quick “clarification” issued by the military spokesperson Maj-Gen Rashid Qureshi says General Pervez Musharraf never spoke about holding out a nuclear threat to India in January 2002 when the two adversaries were locked in a military standoff. Talking to the BBC, Gen Qureshi said General Musharraf’s use of the term “[un]-conventional warfare” was misinterpreted to mean nuclear war whereas all he meant was that in case of an Indian attack, the people of Pakistan would fight alongside the Pakistan military. The context of General Musharraf’s speech, according to Qureshi, should remove the ambiguity.
General Musharraf’s use of the negative with “conventional” would mean “unconventional” and while the dictionary defines unconventional as simply something that is “not limited or bound down by convention”, in strategic parlance, it does refer to weapons of mass destruction. In its haste, therefore, to offer a juicy bit of news to the world, a decidedly irresponsible act, the news wire service put its own spin on the quote. “Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf said Monday that he’d been prepared to use atomic weapons if neighbor India had invaded earlier this year when tensions peaked…(emphasis added)”. Of course, General Musharraf never used the term “nuclear” or “atomic”.
However, while the clarification should settle the issue, there are other dimensions that continue to vex one’s mind despite the stand-down. Just a week ago, reports quoted India’s new COAS-designate Lt-Gen N.C. Vij as telling paratrooper units in Bangalore that the Indian army had planned “a major commando operation in January 2002 to hit and seal off major terrorist launching pads in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir as part of…Operation Parakarma.” Back in January, just a day before General Musharraf made his famous January 12 speech, the then Indian army chief, Sunderajan Padmnabhan speaking on the Army Day, had held out the nuclear threat, which by all indications, stepped up tensions further. But on the surface New Delhi seemed to think that General Padmnabhan had gone a little overboard in his references to the use of nuclear weapons. That is why India’s Defence Minister George Fernandes then issued a clarification.
These three incidents look innocent enough. General Padmnabhan holds forth on nuclear escalation in January 2002 and is gently rapped on the knuckles; General Vij talks last week about a planned operation in January 2002 which never happened; and now General Musharraf says something about unconventional methods which is misquoted to mean nuclear weapons. What is going on?
Let us look at it from another angle. New Delhi was in the process of mobilisation; it embarked on a military-diplomatic offensive; it was also concerned about where Pakistan had drawn the red line. So it asked its COAS to signal to Pakistan as well as to the rest of the world about where India stood. The COAS did as directed; the defence minister then duly came on line to say that the very thought of using nuclear weapons was horrendous. Sounds good. But the essential objective has been achieved, the message conveyed.
On the other side, General Musharraf made his famous January 2002 speech, alternating between holding out the olive branch, urging the international community to get India to back off, threatening India with dire consequences if it tried something adventurous and asking it to begin talking. At some point he also chooses to indicate to New Delhi where the red line exists. Appropriately, he does so through various interlocutors. Then he makes another speech on May 25. This was again a combination of appeasement and belligerence. Within 48 hours of the speech, Pakistan test-fired three missiles. Here is his message: **We want to talk, but don’t get any wrong ideas. **
Now the incoming Indian army chief has chosen to talk about an operation that never was because the Pakistanis raised their hands; thus it made sense for General Musharraf to inform Pakistanis why there was no Indian operation, i.e., India backed off in the face of Pakistani will and determination. But he was smart enough to not use the N-word. And unconventional, as the dictionary shows, does not necessarily mean “nuclear”.
The clarification therefore puts the news wire service in a spot. But none of this gamesmanship addresses the basic question: Where are Pakistan and India headed? Both think they have won the previous round, so none is going to look forward to changing the paradigm of conflict. Add to that the internal political dynamics of both countries and it should be clear to observers that neither side has the will or desire to engage the other meaningfully. This only means more gamesmanship.