Indian Politics & Policy Volume 1, Number 2, Fall 2018 | Page 16

India’s Ways of (Non-) War: Explaining New Delhi’s
Forbearance in the Face of Pakistani Provocations
fusing tensions and postponing decisions
to launch hostilities.” 78 On January
11, 2002, the Indian army chief, S.
Padmanabhan, issued a blunt nuclear
threat to the Pakistani leadership. If Pakistan
were to carry out a nuclear strike
against India, he said, “the perpetrator
of that particular outrage shall be punished
so severely that their continuation
thereafter in any form of fray will
be doubtful.” Responding to a reporter’s
question, he said, “We are ready for a
second strike, yes,” adding that India
had enough nuclear weapons for such
a response. 79
As in the Kargil conflict, Pakistan
hoped that the latest crisis would cause
the United States to take a more active
role in resolving the Kashmir dispute.
Islamabad argued that the necessity of
mobilizing troops along the border with
India would require Pakistan to deploy
fewer soldiers in the post-9/11 hunt for
al-Qaeda and Taliban forces in northwestern
Pakistan. New Delhi’s diplomatic
strategy was more successful;
while Washington urged both sides to
back off, it pointedly put JeM and LeT 80
on the State Department’s list of foreign
terrorist organizations. Many U.S. officials’
main worry was that the dueling
mobilizations of Indian and Pakistani
forces would “trigger unintended escalation
to a general war or even nuclear
use.” As a State Department South Asia
specialist framed this concern: “The
question was would things get out of
hand and prompt one side or another
to slide toward [nuclear weapon] use ...
Escalation could come quickly.” Another
State Department official recollected
fearing that India and Pakistan could
misperceive or not recognize each other’s
“red lines.” A “seasoned diplomat”
in State’s South Asia bureau characterized
the main danger as unintended escalation.
81 In her memoirs, U.S. National
Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice
wrote: “one thing was clear: whatever
the intentions of the two sides, they
could easily stumble into war whether
they intended to or not. Those nuclear-armed
adversaries could, within a
matter of hours, plunge the region into
chaos—possibly nuclear chaos.” 82 Senior
British officials, too, were alarmed
at the possibility of escalation to nuclear
war. 83
In response to Indian and U.S.
pressure, and with U.S. input, Musharraf
made an impassioned speech to the
Pakistani people on January 12, 2002,
in which he condemned the October
and December terrorist attacks in India.
“The day of reckoning has come,”
Musharraf said. “Do we want Pakistan
to become a theocratic state? Do we believe
that religious education alone is
enough for governance, or do we want
Pakistan to emerge as a progressive and
dynamic Islamic welfare state?” Claiming
that “the verdict of the masses is in
favor” of the latter course, Musharraf
pledged that “no organization will be
allowed to indulge in terrorism in the
name of Kashmir,” and that “Pakistan
will not allow its territory to be used
for any terrorist activity anywhere in
the world.” 84 Alas, Musharraf proved
unwilling to clamp down completely
on Pakistan’s jihadi groups. In the aftermath
of his January 2002 speech, Islamabad
arrested some 2,000 militants
and closed more than 300 of their of-
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