The Kargil misadventure in 1999 continues to haunt Pakistan’s soldiers and politicians. When and by whom was the military plan made? Who decided (and why) that the time had come to implement it? Was prime minister Nawaz Sharif sufficiently briefed on all aspects of the operation, including contingencies, failsafe and fall-back positions, tactical versus strategic gains or losses, etc? Who sought American mediation when the conflict was spiraling out of control? What are the current legacies and future ramifications of Kargil on Indo-US-Pak relations, on the issue of nuclear deterrence, on the status of the Kashmir conflict, and on the civil-military relationship in Pakistan?
We know that the Kargil plan was dusted off the shelves and updated for discussion following a change in government or army high command. On each occasion the core argument in favour was that a successful seizure of the Kargil heights would lead to a significant tactical advantage for Pakistan over the only ground supply route Indian forces can use to bring in supplies to the most remote eastern part of Kashmir. By advancing onto these mountaintops overlooking the Srinagar-Leh highway, it was argued that Pakistan would be in a position to weaken Indian control over a significant part of the contested province. On each occasion, however, the idea was abandoned for being too provocative or risky since it meant breaking the traditional ground rules governing the withdrawal of both armies from their most advanced positions in the mountains to avoid the difficulties of manning them during the winter and then returning to them in the spring.
But this changed in late 1998 after four particularly hawkish army commanders and one remarkably dim politician came to form the core constellation of power in Islamabad. SSG Commando extraordinaire, General Pervez Musharraf, was appointed chief of army staff; a future coup maker, DG-ISI to-be and Taliban-supporter, General Mahmud Ahmed, became corps commander, Rawalpindi; General Javed Hasan, an opinionated former Military Attaché in Washington, was put in charge of the Force Command Northern Areas; and General Mohammad Aziz Khan was transferred from heading the Kashmir Division in the ISI to the elevated rank of Chief of General Staff in GHQ. The icing on the cake was PM Nawaz Sharif with an attention span of three minutes.
The plan to go ahead was probably clinched by this military clique on or about the time of the Lahore Summit between Nawaz Sharif and Atal Bihari Vajpayee in January 1999. That would explain the visible hostility of the brass to the Indian prime minister’s visit and the provocative attitude of the Jama’at-e Islami in Lahore. Mr Sharif was thereafter conned into accepting its need partly by the deceptive argument that a successful operation in Kargil would strengthen his hand in negotiating a pro-Pakistan solution to Kashmir with the Indians (during one ‘briefing’ he is said to have actually asked how far Srinagar was from Kargil and whether there was any possibility that Pakistani forces could actually seize it by surprise) and partly by denying him a full and unequivocal brief on the cons of the operation and its possible aftermaths and repercussions. The fact that the operation was kept logistically secret even from the chiefs of the air force and navy in its planning stages confirms this line of reasoning. In other words, the prime minister of Pakistan and the two other service chiefs were treated strictly on a “need-to-know basis”.
The Kargil operation was brilliantly executed because most of the Kargil heights were seized without a shot being fired. But, as in 1965, the brass didn’t adequately reckon on the Indian response. When the Indians woke up and tried to retaliate, they got the worse end of the deal, as anticipated. But as their casualties mounted, the demand grew for mobilising and throwing the full force of their military machine, including the air force, into the battle, including the idea of opening other more advantageous fronts against Pakistan. The Pakistani military had hoped that the conflict would be limited to the LoC at worst (where its position was favourable) while the nuclear deterrent was expected to stop India from precipitating full-scale war. In other words, it was presumed to be a win-win situation for Pakistan.
Unfortunately, however, the potential role and assessment of the United States was not correctly sufficiently inputted.”The United States was alarmed from the beginning (by) the conflict because of its potential for escalation into nuclear cataclysm”, writes Bruce Reidel, the special National Security assistant to President Bill Clinton who had a ringside view of the 4th July 1999 talks between Nawaz Sharif and the American President in Washington. “The nuclear scenario was obviously very much on our minds. Since the surprise Indian tests in May 1998 the danger of a nuclear exchange had dominated American nightmares about South Asia… In the new post-May era we confronted the reality of two nuclear tested states whose missiles could be fired with flight times of three to five minutes from launch to impact. One well-informed assessment concluded that a Pakistani strike on just one Indian city, Bombay, with a small bomb would kill between 150,000 and 850,000 alone Given these consequences for escalation, the US was quick to make known our view that Pakistan should withdraw its forces back behind the Line of Control immediately. At first Rick Inderfurth and Undersecretary Thomas Pickering conveyed this view privately to the Pakistani and Indian ambassadors in Washington in late May. Secretary Albright then called Sharif two days later and General Tony Zinni, who had a very close relationship with his Pakistani counterparts, also called Chief of Army Staff General Musharraf. These messages did not work. So we went public and called upon Pakistan to respect the LOC. I laid out our position in an on-the-record interview at the Foreign Press Center in Washington. The President (Clinton) then called both leaders in mid-June and sent letters to each pressing for a Pakistani withdrawal and Indian restraint.”
In consequence, he concludes, “ the Pakistanis and Indians were both surprised by the US position: Pakistan because Islamabad assumed the US would always back them against India and India because they could not believe the US would judge the crisis on its merits, rather than side automatically with its long time Pakistani ally. Both protagonists were rooted in the history of their half-century conflict and astounded that the US was not bound by the past.
The unprecedented American public tilt in favour of India upset the grand Pakistani plan. General Musharraf and Nawaz Sharif were obliged to seek a face saving retreat from the LoC. That is when the Pakistan army’s casualties soared. The question then arose of who would take the rap for a failed politico-military operation. That was when the seeds of irreconcilable discord were sown between the prime minister and his advisors and the Kargil generals led by General Musharraf. Each feared the other would oust and disgrace them. Therefore each began to manoeuvre for his safety. When Mr Sharif tried to meet with certain corps commanders, General Musharraf sidelined or ousted them. In a last ditch effort, prior to launching his coup against General Musharraf, Mr Sharif dispatched Shahbaz Sharif to Washington in September 1999 where he extracted a public statement from a senior unnamed American official that “a military takeover in Pakistan would not be tolerated” by Washington. Then Nawaz Sharif struck. But he hadn’t reckoned on the fact that with General Musharraf away in Sri Lanka the “Kargil boys” – Generals Aziz and Mahmud – were ready and waiting to counter him.
Kargil has left a significant clutch of legacies. First, as a deterrent against full-scale war, the nuclear bomb on the shelf actually emboldened the Pakistanis to launch an aggressive incursion in Kargil. However, the fact that the United States didn’t recognise the deterrent value of the nuclear bomb and could compel its counter perception to prevail on Pakistan, meant that the bomb had no effective or operational deterrent value in certain strategic circumstances such as in Kargil. Second, it brought the Pakistan military back to power in a domestic and international environment ill-suited to it (the economy was in a bad way, President Clinton lectured General Musharraf for five hours in 2000 and the Commonwealth booted Pakistan out) and by a strange twist of events (9/11) enabled it to extend its stay in the new environment best suited to it. Third, it enabled India and the US to strike an unprecedented strategic long-term bargain which is likely to transcend the current favourable US-Pakistan equation to be reviewed after the worst of the war against terrorism is over. Fourth, it has compelled a significant shift in the Pakistan military’s approach to and attitude towards India and Kashmir. The military establishment has come full circle by going back to the Simla Pact of 1972 in trying to resolve Kashmir by means of a bilateral dialogue with India rather than by means of jihad or multilateral diplomacy and third party mediation. In other words, Kashmir is no longer the core issue for dispute resolution as fervently argued by the military establishment in the last fifteen years. Fifth, Kargil has definitely pricked the bubble of the Pakistani military’s propagandistic and self-induced triumphalism over the “cause” of Kashmir. The world is in favour of the status quo on the LoC and even China has abandoned Pakistan on this front. If Kashmir was the unalterable internal “solution” for the cause of military paramountcy in Pakistan until Kargil, it will henceforth have to be seen as the external “problem” to which a compromise resolution can be found.
General Pervez Musharraf’s military takeover was a direct result of Kargil. But it was a reactionary act by desperate men in suspicious times. It could not have been sustained if it had not been for a chain of events unleashed by 9/11. Fortunately, however, the combination of Kargil and 9/11 has compelled the powerful Pakistani military establishment to finally countenance a necessary paradigm shift abroad. The beneficial consequences of this are already apparent on the external front. But Kargil is destined to compel another paradigm shift at home. This will become obvious on the domestic political front once the overriding benevolence of the international community towards the Pakistani military leadership begins to fade in the aftermath of the war against terror. In the event, General Musharraf will be compelled to redress the political imbalance in civil-military relations and harmonize it with the rest of the world.