A Smoldering

Volcano: Pakistan
and Terrorism after
Balakot
ASHLEY J. TELLIS MARCH 14, 2019
ARTICLE
Source: Getty

Although propitious political circumstances made the Balakot crisis between

India and Pakistan manageable, Pakistani terrorism remains the principal
continuing threat to stability in South Asia. U.S. policy moving forward must
relentlessly pressure Pakistan to crack down on jihadi groups or risk continuing
crises in the region.

!e crisis surrounding the recent Indian air strikes on Pakistan

at Balakot has subsided—for now. But the confusing welter of
claims and counterclaims about the military action on both
sides continues. Whether Indian Air Force (IAF) strikes on their
intended targets were successful, whether Pakistan did in fact
shoot down two Indian aircraB or only one, and whether the
IAF did in fact bring down a Pakistan Air Force (PAF) F-16 are
all controverted issues. DeHnitive answers appear elusive at the
moment, despite insistent probing within South Asia and by the
larger international community. While the questions pertaining
to the speciHc military actions are interesting, there is a real risk
that an excessive focus on the operational minutiae will obscure
three larger strategic issues that bear upon the challenges of
preserving peace on the Indian subcontinent in the long term.

PAKISTANI TERRORISM
REMAINS THE REAL THREAT
TO STABILITY
!e combustive IAF strikes on Pakistani territory on February
26, 2019, were a long time coming—and they were owed entirely
to Pakistan’s extant strategy of employing terrorist proxies to
wage war against its neighbors, Afghanistan and, especially,
India. For over two decades now, the sequence of events that
precipitated the Indian military riposte in late February has
been simulated in war games in Washington and likely in New
Delhi and Rawalpindi as well. !e progression of events is
depressingly familiar: a Pakistani terrorist group attacks an
Indian target and causes signiHcant casualties; depending on the
circumstances, the Government of India Hnds itself compelled
to respond through the use of conventional military
instruments; this, in turn, precipitates a Pakistani military
reaction and, before long, a vicious action-reaction spiral—if
not contained by external intervention—produces a major
conWict between the two nuclear-armed powers of South Asia.

Many observers feared that

the latest crisis—which
began with Jaish-e-
Mohammad’s (JeM) suicide
bombing of an Indian
Central Reserve Police
Ashley J. Tellis
Ashley J. Tellis holds the Tata
Chair for Strategic Affairs and is
a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace, specializing in
international security and U.S. foreign and
defense policy with a special focus on Asia
and the Indian subcontinent.

Force (CRPF) convoy at

Pulwama on February 14,
2019, provoking Indian military retaliation and the subsequent
Indo-Pakistani air battles on February 26–27—was heading in
exactly this direction. !at it did not eventuate in a full-scale
war as a simulation might have predicted is owed greatly to
propitious political circumstances. But if such deadly outcomes
are to be averted permanently, for the sake of peace and stability
in South Asia, the fundamental cause of the convulsion—
namely, the Pakistan military’s continued support for terrorist
groups deployed against its neighbors—must be confronted
squarely by the international community and ultimately by the
Pakistani polity itself.

It is possible that, even aBer the initial attack at Pulwama, a

further escalation might have been avoided had Pakistan
responded in ways to help defuse the crisis. When India
demanded that Pakistan stop supporting terrorist groups
operating from its territory—aBer JeM had already claimed
responsibility for the bombing and had in fact identiHed the
assailant—Pakistan’s foreign ministry disingenuously rejected
the Indian entreaty on the grounds that “JeM remains a
proscribed entity in Pakistan since 2002 and Pakistan is
implementing its obligations on sanctions implementation.” !e
Hrst part of this claim is meaningless, because the supposed
proscription had no impact on JeM’s ability to operate with
impunity inside Pakistan, and the second part of the claim is
entirely fraudulent. Not to be outdone, the Director General,
Inter-Services Public Relations, the Pakistan military’s
diplomacy arm, only added fuel to the Hre when, continuing a
hoary tradition that predates the recent attack, he insinuated
that the bombing at Pulwama was “some sort of [a] staged
incident” by India to embarrass Pakistan. Furthermore, he
claimed this always occurs “whenever there is supposed to be an
important event in Pakistan, or [when] the country is moving
towards stability.”

!is pervasive refusal to accept responsibility for the actions of

terrorist groups that not only operate out of Pakistani territory
but also enjoy the active support of its military and intelligence
services in their ongoing covert war against India remains the
real cause of the repeated crises in South Asia. Rawalpindi’s
strategy of attempting to bleed India through such
“subconventional” conWicts represents an insidious form of
nuclear coercion, in which Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are
“employed” to protect it against any Indian conventional
retaliation that might ensue as a riposte to terrorist attacks
carried out by its proxies.

Pakistani nuclear weapons, accordingly, serve simultaneously as

a license for open-ended terrorism against India and as a
deterrent against any Indian conventional retaliation that might
follow. Should India choose to dare Rawalpindi’s challenge,
Pakistan’s nuclear weapons serve an additional function as well:
as a catalytic device to compel international (mainly U.S.)
intervention aimed at restraining Indian retribution during a
crisis provoked by Pakistan. !is strategy of intimidation has
been largely successful over the last three decades insofar as it
has prevented India—until Balakot—from undertaking any
direct attacks on Pakistani territory. To be sure, New Delhi
sought to retaliate episodically for some Pakistani terrorist
attacks in the past, but it did so principally through covert
attacks by special forces or by targeted artillery strikes on
Pakistani positions across the Line of Control in Jammu and
Kashmir.

!e fear of escalation to major conventional conWict that might

result in nuclear use prevented New Delhi from ever attacking
Pakistani territory—outside of the disputed areas—directly,
thus strengthening a resilient form of Indian self-deterrence.
!is ensured that Pakistan would never have to bear the costs of
the depredations inWicted by its terrorist proxies on India, an
immunity that only further stimulated continuing attacks on its
larger neighbor. Even when Pakistani terrorist groups conducted
attacks on India outside of state direction or control, the same
beneHts accrued to their military sponsors: Pakistan enjoyed
immunity to Indian retaliation because of New Delhi’s fears of
provoking a larger crisis.

Irrespective of the tactical effectiveness of the IAF’s strikes at

Balakot, the strategic signiHcance of Indian Prime Minister
Narendra Modi’s decision to attack targets in Pakistan’s Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa Province is that it has Hnally exorcised the ghost
of self-deterrence, which had threatened to become an iron-clad
constraint on the conduct of Indian retaliation. To be sure, New
Delhi’s capacity to convey resolve would have been substantially
enhanced had the IAF’s operations been viewed as
unambiguously successful by all observers; had the Indian
government characterized its actions simply as retributive
justice intended to shore up deterrence rather than taking refuge
in the legally obscurantist locution, “non-military preemptive
action,” which was intended mainly to justify Indian decisions in
terms of the laws of war; and had Indian political leaders not
expressed questionable claims of success centered on body
counts and the like. But even if the IAF strikes were a complete
failure, the fact that the Indian government for the Hrst time
chose to attack sites in what is recognizably Pakistan’s national
territory represents the erosion of a major psychological barrier
—namely India’s reluctance to frontally challenge Pakistan’s
nuclear coercion—and opens the door to future punitive actions
that may be far more painful than those witnessed in this initial
salvo.

Having said this, however, it would be equally premature to

conclude that the fresh precedent of overt and direct attacks on
Pakistani territory will henceforth automatically come to
constitute a new Woor for future Indian retaliation. !e kind of
avenging action that may be undertaken, or is justiHed, hereaBer
will always depend on political circumstances and the character
of India’s leadership, which may push it in one of several
directions: no retribution, limited retaliation, or highly
expanded reprisals. No permanent rules can be derived for the
indeHnite future from the recent decision to attack Balakot,
even though the Modi government’s decision to target Pakistani
territory represents an important change from past Indian
strategic practices.

Furthermore, Indian policymakers should be exceptionally

careful to avoid suggesting that a repeat of Balakot, or more
ambitious versions of the same, will henceforth come to deHne
India’s retaliatory response to any signiHcant terrorist attacks.
Any insinuation or declaration to that effect would create
unnecessary and unhelpful tests of Indian credibility, thus
pushing policymakers into a cul-de-sac where they might either
have to embarrassingly eat their words in a crisis or be forced
into unwise courses of action that may not be justiHed by the
demands of prudence.

Effective deterrence of Pakistani terrorism, especially aBer

Balakot, may require more deliberate efforts by New Delhi to
induce uncertainty about the severity of its future military
responses. Such ambiguity is likely to be far more effective in
coping with the continuing threat of Pakistani nuclear-
shadowed terrorism than the unhelpful tyranny imposed by
either declared redlines or the presumption that all future
Indian retaliation must, as a matter of course, exceed the bounds
set by the Indian military action in February 2019.

GOOD LUCK MAY NOT HOLD

FOREVER
Although the international press was charged by fears of nuclear
escalation as India and Pakistan traded aerial blows at Balakot
and beyond, the key distinguishing characteristic of the recent
crisis was the deliberately limited levels of violence unleashed by
the two South Asian rivals. In part, this restraint arose from the
fact that the calamity at Pulwama created an inconvenient crisis
for both nations.

At the Indian end, it is easy to imagine that the JeM attack on

the CRPF convoy had produced a fresh opportunity for Modi’s
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)–led coalition to recover its
political fortunes as it heads into a tighter national election than
was imagined a year ago. Since the BJP is an ardently nationalist
party that under Modi’s leadership has pursued tough policies
both in Kashmir and against Pakistan, the Pulwama attack
could arguably have provided Modi with an opportunity to
inWict major reprisals on Pakistan. Such a course of action would
demonstrate the merits of his decisive leadership, would
summon Indians toward renewed national unity of the kind that
materializes only in a crisis, and would create political capital in
support of the BJP at a time when its economic record—the
plank on which Modi secured his decisive majority in the 2014
election—was under attack in domestic politics.

On these assumptions, the terrorist attack at Pulwama would

seem like a golden opportunity for Modi to transform an
election that, until that point, was fought mostly on economic
and political issues into a plebiscite on national security, where
his nationalist credentials would advantage him over his
opponents. For all these supposed beneHts, however, the crisis
precipitated by the JeM attack brought signiHcant political
downsides. For starters, the very fact that the attack occurred
raised renewed questions about Indian counterterrorism
effectiveness, the limitations of Indian intelligence, and the
weaknesses of the operating practices of India’s internal security
forces. Furthermore, that JeM was able to recruit a local
Kashmiri to carry out the suicide bombing in its name—a
deviation from the traditional pattern in which suicide attacks
are carried out by Pakistani inHltrators—opened the door to
uncomfortable questions about the Modi government’s policies
in Jammu and Kashmir, obviously an issue that the BJP would
not want reopened in the prelude to the election. Finally, any
major terrorist attack in India raises the uncomfortable question
of military retaliation—an issue that Indian governments
traditionally have been skittish about for a variety of reasons
ranging from the uncertainty about the effectiveness of their
military responses to the fear of precipitating major conWicts at
a time when the Indian nation is deeply concerned about
pressing economic issues.

For all these reasons, the crisis produced by the attack at

Pulwama could not be welcomed even by a strongly nationalist
leader like Modi at a time when his reelection hangs in balance.
!e outcomes of interstate confrontations can never be
discerned with certainty, are rarely subject to easy manipulation
—because the antagonist has a vote too—and, if concluded
either ambiguously or adversely, can actually harm a politician’s
fortunes. Given these realities, Modi found himself in an
unenviable situation. !e attack at Pulwama was sufficiently
conspicuous that some form of punishment was inevitable,
particularly in an election season when the prime minister’s
political credibility as a tough leader was on the line. Eschewing
retaliation would have diminished his reputation for
decisiveness and would have signaled timidity to Pakistan and
especially to its deep state, emboldening Rawalpindi to step up
its coercion of India. Vengeance, accordingly, was unavoidable,
with the only question being whether it could be kept limited in
space, time, and intensity.

If Modi was thus constrained in regard to the decision to use

force, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan was even more
hemmed in. Pakistan’s Hnancial situation is extremely parlous
and the country is once again contemplating a bailout by the
International Monetary Fund, which would require the support
of major global powers who are already deeply dismayed by
Pakistan’s long history of support for various terrorist groups.
!e country is also under the scrutiny of the Financial Action
Task Force for weak enforcement of several terrorism Hnancing
codes. !e United States, under President Donald Trump’s
administration, has furthermore adopted a very tough posture
toward Pakistan, cutting out large amounts of Hnancial and
military aid and threatening further unspeciHed consequences if
Pakistan does not curb its support for terrorism and assist
Washington in negotiating an orderly exit from Afghanistan.
!e circumstances of Khan’s election to the prime ministership
have not helped matters either: elevated to power in what is
widely seen as a corrupted poll conducted under the tutelage of
the Pakistan military, Khan has since struggled to establish his
own legitimacy as a rightful leader, arrest Pakistan’s economic
slide, and improve its image as a responsible state in the
community of nations.

With these aims, the JeM attack at Pulwama could not have
come at a worse time for Khan. Although it appears that he
recognizes the growing liabilities to Pakistan posed by the
army’s support for various terrorist groups, he simply cannot
compel the service and its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) arm
to shiB course with respect to the policy of perpetually bleeding
India. As a result, when the Pulwama attack occurred, Khan
quickly realized that Pakistan would once again be in India’s
crosshairs as the smoldering volcano of terrorism had erupted
anew: whether or not the JeM attack was actually authorized by
its ISI patrons was beside the point. !e group operated out of
Pakistan, had close links to the Pakistan military’s premier
intelligence service, had a long history of violent attacks in
India, and its actions now threatened to bring the two neighbors
into a serious conWict that, however painful it might be for
India, would be potentially catastrophic for Pakistan.

ABer his government’s early attempts at parrying Indian

accusations failed—because the critical point was not whether
the Government of Pakistan or its agencies had authorized the
attack but rather that they have provided continuous sanctuary
and support for JeM, among other groups, in the Hrst place—
Khan shiBed his focus toward securing international support in
order to ward off the expected Indian retaliation. On this score,
too, his regime was disappointed as no permanent members of
the UN Security Council offered support; the United States took
a particularly tough line, with the European Union and Saudi
Arabia joining in to urge Pakistan to root out the terrorist
groups operating from its soil.

Perhaps the unkindest cut of all came from the Organization of

Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which, having invited India’s
external affairs minister as its guest of honor to its annual
meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers, rejected
Islamabad’s plea to rescind the invitation as a mark of solidarity
with Pakistan. Pakistan’s foreign minister, accordingly,
boycotted the meeting and its government had to be content
with a ritual denunciation of the Indian attack issued by the
OIC secretariat, which “urged India and Pakistan to exercise
restraint and avoid any steps that would endanger peace and
security in the region” (emphasis added). As one senior Trump
administration official speaking on background summarized
things later, “!ere has been a lot of solidarity with India and a
lot of frustration with the fact that Pakistan has still not cracked
down on [terrorist] groups. Pakistan has been pretty isolated
over this situation.”

Recognizing that Pakistan found itself vulnerable on the issue of

terrorism internationally, and obviously seeking to avoid an
unnecessary conventional war with India, the Khan government
responded to the IAF’s attacks at Balakot with a deliberately
measured rejoinder: it mounted a modest air raid across the
Line of Control in the disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir—
eschewing the option of attacking Indian territories beyond—
while announcing in language that mimicked India’s that the
PAF had “taken strikes at non-military target [sic], avoiding
human loss and collateral damage.” Although the Pakistani
surface strikes were probably as ineffective as their Indian
counterparts at Balakot, the PAF shot down an Indian MiG-21
and apprehended its pilot as he bailed out over Pakistani
Kashmir. (India claims that it downed a PAF F-16 during this
engagement, but this claim has not been independently
corroborated as yet.) Having demonstrated to India that its
attack would not go unanswered, Imran Khan then seized the