The Hindu : New Delhi News : War would be a lonely affair: appraisal

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Monday, Dec 29, 2008
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War would be a lonely affair: appraisal

Sandeep Dikshit

NEW DELHI: India has concluded that a full fledged war with Pakistan would be a lonely affair with little prospects of international support much before its all-weather ally Russia expressed its consternation over the possibility of an India-Pakistan military confrontation, according to highly placed sources.

Also, even before the air strikes on the Gaza Strip by Israel on Saturday, the armed forces had crossed out the option of precision or surgical strikes on select targets.

The information about India having the option to conduct surgical strikes was “prematurely declassified” by the political leadership, noted an assessment by the Defence Ministry.

“Premature declassification” is a euphemism for the option being declared in public. “Such things are never announced. The retaliation usually takes place 72 or even 48 hours after an attack. The impact of conducting a strike was lost after some responsible political leaders announced that India was looking at this option,” said the sources.

‘Second priority’

In the event of a war, India was seen as “second priority” for the U.S. and the U.K. in view of their priority to maintain the main supply route through Pakistan for their troops in Afghanistan.

As the U.K. and the U.S. would not have taken kindly to their supply lines being disrupted due to movement of Pakistani forces from the North Western Frontier Province to the border with India in the event of a war, India would have to contend with a freeze on supplies from both countries.

Growth factor

The assessment also noted that India stood to lose much more economically than Pakistan in case of war. The implication here, said the sources, was that foreign direct investment would be badly affected and the growth sentiment would have gone on a downswing with the beginning of military hostilities.

On the other hand, Pakistan, which approaches multilateral institutions for bail out packages at least once every decade, had nothing to lose since it has little growth trajectory chalked out for the coming years.

The appraisal of a lonely and costly war came before Israel conducted aerial strikes on Gaza Strip that have earned all round condemnation, including a grudging statement from the U.S.

It was also before Russia said that it was “extremely concerned” over the reported military build-up on both sides of the India-Pakistan border, and called upon both countries to show maximum restraint.

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