Book By Paul Kapur, Trump's South Asia Pick, Captures Pakistan's Jihad Strategy & India's Response

News18

17-07-2025

Kapur's 2017 book 'Jihad as Grand Strategy' is more than an analysis of Pakistan's use of jihad as state policy. It anticipates much of what is unfolding today
In and around the Indian subcontinent, S Paul Kapur is going to become an important figure, working carefully behind the headlines. He will be the eyes, ears, and at times the hand of the world's most powerful nation in this region.
Kapur has been nominated as America's representative in India's neighbourhood. He will be the new Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs in the US State Department.
The extent of the power vested in him can be gauged from the legacy of his predecessor, Donald Lu. Lu is credited (or discredited) with engineering regime changes in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Kyrgyzstan; fomenting violent protests against the nationalist government in India; mishandling Afghanistan; keeping the Maldives and Nepal on the boil against India; and interfering in Central Asia's Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
So, who is Paul Kapur? What are his core geopolitical convictions? How closely do these align with India's vision and strategic approach?
Kapur is an academic born in New Delhi to an Indian father and an American mother. He rose through the ranks of the foreign service and enjoys enough of the Trump administration's trust to be entrusted with one of the most sensitive regions in the world.
His appointment becomes even more significant in light of the recent Pahalgam massacre of tourists by Pakistan-backed jihadis and India's response via Operation Sindoor.
Jihad as Grand Strategy. It is not just an analytical study of how Pakistan has used jihad as a central lever of its state policy— in many ways, the book anticipates what is unfolding today.
Kapur opens with a blunt statement of truth: 'Terrorism's ascendance as one of the world's leading strategic dangers has been a central development of the post–Cold War security environment… Scholars and analysts have generated a voluminous literature attempting to identify the demographic, economic, psychological, ideological, strategic and other patterns in terrorist violence. Although the nature and prevalence of such patterns are a matter of vigorous debate, one recurring theme concerning terrorism is strikingly clear: A disproportionate amount of it has been linked to Islamist terrorists based in Pakistan."
He backs this up with examples—how Al Qaeda operative Khalid Sheikh Mohammed trained 9/11 terrorists in Karachi and later wired funds for their mission; how Osama bin Laden was found hiding in Pakistan's garrison town of Abbottabad; how the leader of the group that bombed London in 2005 received paramilitary training in Pakistan and got bomb-making instructions from a caller in Rawalpindi; and how the Pakistani terror group Lashkar-e-Toiba carried out the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.
The book primarily deals with the impact that Pakistan's support for terrorism has had on its strategic interests.
Kapur rightly argues that the Islamisation of Pakistan did not begin with General Zia-ul-Haq, as is widely believed. The so-called 'liberal' Zulfikar Ali Bhutto used Islamism for political ends and was ultimately consumed by it. He was the one who declared Ahmadis as non-Muslims and banned alcohol in Pakistan.
'A number of other factors underlay Pakistan's use of Islamist militants, such as the lack of a coherent national founding narrative and material weakness relative to India," Kapur explains. 'Finally, Pakistan did not adopt its militant strategy during the Zia era; the Pakistanis had been using Islamist militants as strategic tools since achieving independence, long before Zia's emergence. It is a deliberate, long-running policy as old as the Pakistani state. Indeed, supporting jihad has constituted nothing less than a central pillar of Pakistani grand strategy."
Pakistan's use of jihad as central state policy did not simply begin after independence; it was a driving force in the violent separation from India and the formation of the Pakistani state—on both its eastern and western fronts.
Grand strategy, Kapur explains, is a state's theory of shaping national security. Pakistan has three main grand strategic tools: nuclear weapons, conventional forces, and militant proxies.
Before 1971, Kapur notes, Pakistan believed it could defeat India in any conventional conflict—drawing from the centuries-old triumphant lore of Muslim invaders. India disabused it of that notion by vivisecting it and creating Bangladesh. A bloodied and humiliated Pakistan then ramped up its use of terror proxies.
Other nations have also used non-state actors: Iran backs Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis; the Soviet Union supported the Red Brigades and Black September; the US trained the Afghan mujahideen and ironically propped up Al Qaeda and the Taliban, who later turned on their mentor; China is believed to support Maoist insurgency in India and radical movements across western democracies. But for no other nation is terrorism as central to state policy as it is in Pakistan, Kapur argues.
And Kapur believes jihad has, in some ways, worked for Pakistan.
It has delivered a number of significant domestic and international outcomes. The strategy has promoted internal political cohesion, offering Pakistan a raison d'être in the absence of a coherent founding narrative. By steadily attriting Indian military and financial resources, it has also helped address Pakistan's material weakness vis-à-vis India. Additionally, the strategy has enabled Pakistan to continue challenging Indian control over Kashmir and to ensure the region remains on the international agenda. It has also allowed Pakistan to shape the strategic environment in Afghanistan and install a favourable government on its western frontier.
However, these 'successes" are now backfiring. The terror organisations Pakistan nurtured are increasingly spinning out of control and severely undermining its interests.
Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) is no longer content with simply bleeding India—it harbours ambitions of conquering the entire country and spreading globally. The Tehreek-e-Taliban has seized large swathes of South Waziristan, launching attacks on Pakistani politicians and military personnel. The Baloch Liberation Army leads a fierce armed freedom movement to liberate Balochistan from Pakistani control.
Groups like LeT and Jaish-e-Mohammed often exceed the brief of their sponsors, conducting operations that drag Pakistan into dangerous confrontations.
Kapur also notes that Pakistan's military strategy has diverted crucial resources away from development, impeding its internal progress.
Perhaps the greatest blowback, Kapur writes, has been India's sweeping military modernisation in response.
Operation Sindoor has highlighted India's growing defence preparedness under PM Narendra Modi, if emerging expert accounts are anything to go by.
India reportedly executed remarkable acts of deception—most notably with the Rafale's X-Guard, an AI-powered towed decoy system that successfully fooled Pakistan's Chinese-made PL-15E missiles and J-10C fighters.
'It's the best spoofing and deception we've ever seen," former US Air Force F-15E and F-16 pilot Ryan Bodenheimer is quoted as saying by idrw.org. He added that the technology may have redefined the rules of electronic warfare.
'Driven by AI, the X-Guard constantly adjusts its signals to replicate Doppler shifts, creating the illusion of a jet roaring through the sky at Mach 1. For enemy radars and missile seekers, the decoy becomes indistinguishable from the real aircraft. Its fibre-optic tether ensures real-time communication with the cockpit, keeping pilots informed of missile locks and decoy status while staying immune to electronic jamming," the report said.
John Spencer, executive director of the Urban Warfare Institute, affirms Kapur's thesis on India's rapidly strengthening conventional bulwark against Pakistan's militant strategy.
Spencer writes: 'The operation demonstrated India's shift from a reactive posture to a proactive, precision-oriented doctrine. Seven of the nine terrorist targets were struck using long-range fires from the Army rather than airstrikes, including loitering munitions and rocket artillery. Counter-drone technology played a key role, with integrated use of radar, jammers, and both kinetic and soft-kill systems to neutralise incoming threats. Real-time battle damage assessments were enabled by persistent ISR from satellites and human intelligence. I was briefed on how even legacy systems, like L-70 guns, were effectively combined with modern platforms to create layered defences. The integration of kinetic force with narrative control was deliberate. What stood out was the clarity and firmness of India's red lines. Every terrorist attack will receive a military response. There will be no distinction between the attacker and those who support or harbour them."
S Paul Kapur's views in his book may occasionally collide with the murky realpolitik that shapes America's foreign policy. But one thing is certain: Kapur is no natural sympathiser of jihad, particularly the industrial-scale terrorism emanating from Pakistan.
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He sums up Pakistan's double-edged sword perfectly: 'Pakistan suffers from a jihad paradox. Political and material weakness originally made Pakistan's militant policy attractive and useful. Now, however, the same weakness makes Pakistan's support for militancy extremely dangerous."
Abhijit Majumder is a senior journalist. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18's views.
tags :
Islamic Jihad Operation Sindoor Osama bin Laden
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Location :
New Delhi, India, India
First Published:
July 11, 2025, 08:22 IST
News opinion Book By Paul Kapur, Trump's South Asia Pick, Captures Pakistan's Jihad Strategy & India's Response
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