Latest news with #ChristineFair
Express Tribune
8 hours ago
- Politics
- Express Tribune
South Asia's David vs Goliath
The recent Indo-Pak duel was an indicator of a worsening security dilemma in South Asia. Since 2016, New Delhi has adopted a policy of cost imposition on Islamabad for their support of the Kashmir cause. For Pakistan, the Kashmir cause is tied to its national fabric; for India, it remains a constant security concern. This issue is likely to persist despite India's show of military and conventional capability in 2019 and again in the early hours of May 7, 2025. The calculus among Indian strategists appears to be shifting towards a mix of vertical and horizontal escalation, designed to pressure Pakistan into accepting India's political, diplomatic and military primacy in the region. However, Pakistan's strategic culture is unlikely to shift, and in the case of direct confrontation, both countries are unlikely to back down. This increases the likelihood of more focus on hard security and balance-of-power politics in the region. Around 1:30 AM on May 7, reports emerged of multiple strikes on locations in mainland Pakistan. An Indian PIB press release later confirmed the strikes were part of Operation Sindoor, a retaliatory mission following an insurgent attack in Pahalgam. The Indian media framed the operation in two ways: as a political victory for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and as a display of India's rising military influence. The strikes were conducted using Indian Air Force aerial assets, targeting nine locations with precision munitions, launched from within Indian airspace. As the attack was underway, Pakistan reportedly initiated defensive measures, resulting in an air-to-air engagement between the PAF and IAF. Pakistan's ISPR claimed six Indian aircraft were downed. Even critical voices like Christine Fair considered it likely that at least two Dassault Rafales had been lost. This not only marked the loss of high-value equipment but also hurt India's military image. Operation Sindoor, which was likely meant to be a strategic warning to Pakistan and a symbolic flex to Beijing, ended up escalating risks in the region. The seriousness of the situation became clear when Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif called a meeting of NCA - the body overseeing nuclear weapons policy. As tensions climbed, so began UAV-based surveillance missions from both sides to probe air-defence systems. Hours before Pakistan's anticipated response, the IAF launched another wave of strikes targeting airbases, including Nur Khan near Islamabad. On May 10, Pakistan launched Operation Bunyanum Marsoos i.e. an unbreakable barrier. It targeted 27 locations inside India, three times the number hit by Operation Sindoor. The strike package included Fatah-1 short-range ballistic missiles, PAF aircraft, loitering munitions and cyber assets. The goal was to reject any idea of a "new normal" and re-establish strategic balance with India. This response was calculated, rapid, and likely met its intended signal. The skirmish ended just as quickly as it escalated, with both sides claiming that the other had called for a ceasefire. This confrontation was a focal event in South Asian security and Indo-Pak relations. It introduced new elements of escalation: drones, cyberattacks and long-range standoff munitions. Both sides revealed parts of their strategic calculus. Operation Sindoor was disproportionate in scale for a response to a localised insurgent attack. Pakistan's retaliation, however, denied India any clear advantage and pushed back against claims of conventional superiority. Pakistan asserted it had downed six aircraft, destroyed an S-400 battery, and struck an Indian military HQ in Kashmir and a BrahMos facility. While such claims are debated, India's missteps were clear: underestimating Pakistan's willingness to respond; misreading its civil-military resolve; and believing further escalation would serve as deterrence. For policymakers in Pakistan, the answer to Indian aggression may not lie only in conventional or nuclear means. Like David against Goliath, Pakistan must strike the sensors that give India an edge. Building electronic warfare, cyber tools and AI-enabled systems should be a priority. Pakistan also needs an information warfare strategy to counter Indian propaganda and project its own narrative clearly and credibly.
Scroll.in
3 days ago
- Politics
- Scroll.in
Interview: India's options are limited but military strikes are ‘symbolic', won't deter terror
Military strikes will not deter Pakistan from using terrorism as a tool of foreign policy since Kashmir and the conflict with India are existential to the Pakistani army, said Christine Fair. 'The purpose of this was more illustrative than it was deterrence,' Fair told Scroll in an interview. India's options remain extremely limited, said Fair, an associate professor at Georgetown University who is considered an expert on the Pakistan army and the country's terrorist network. Terror groups, like the Lashkar e Taiba, are domestically crucial to Pakistan while Islamabad's use of nuclear threats in negotiating with the West will ensure its continued survival, said Fair. 'The only thing that really changes Pakistan is a decisive military defeat of the Pakistan army that leaves the Pakistan army in complete disarray,' she said. 'This is not something that India can do right now or for the policy-relevant future. It's not possible at all now [given the nuclear umbrella].' Referring to the military strikes, she said they generated a lot of jingoism in India and were risky but didn't change anything on the ground. 'They're really important symbolic attacks – but they're symbolic attacks. They don't degrade the ability of these organisations to operate.' Fair also pointed out that the off-ramp in this case was manufactured, like it was during the 2019 military strikes in Balakot after the Pulwama terror attack. In both instances, she said, the Indian and the Pakistani publics were left with this 'enormous sense of victory'. The Indian media's 'bakwas', or nonsense, said Fair, also made it difficult to evaluate the implications for foreign policy. Edited excerpts: Play Do you think Pakistan will be deterred by what just happened? No, not at all. The Pakistan army is an insurgent army – it can't defeat India conventionally. And for that matter, India can't defeat Pakistan in a short war because the forces along the IB [international border] and the LOC [Line of Control], are similarly poised. India's advantage can only kick in during a long war and that's increasingly difficult because of nuclear weapons and so forth. So India can't defeat Pakistan, Pakistan can't defeat India. But Pakistan views Kashmir as part of this incomplete process of Partition and that Pakistan itself is not complete without Kashmir. This is a story that all Pakistanis learn. It gives rise to every army chief. There was a lot of hay made about [General Asim] Munir's speech about Kashmir being the jugular vein of Pakistan. The fact is every army chief says this and every prime minister says this. The Pakistan army can't take Kashmir. But what the Pakistan army can do is deny India the victory of saying that Kashmir is calm and a peaceful part of India. I also wanted to dispel any criticism that has been leveraged against the Indian state saying this is an intelligence lapse. I was in Kashmir two years ago [and] the counter insurgency grid is very robust. But the fact is you can't stop every attack. It's just not possible. So, Pakistan has to do this to show that India hasn't compelled or deterred it. What this means is that we're going to see a return to normalcy – just as we did after Pulwama. But mark my words, there's going to be another terrorist attack. It'll likely be in Kashmir. I don't think anything has happened here strategically that is going to deter Pakistan from using terrorism as a tool of foreign policy. But does it increase its cost? In Balakot in 2019 and again this time, we're seeing credible sources that Pakistani air bases have been hit. So does increasing that cost at least impose a further barrier on Pakistan exporting terror to India? The short answer is no and the evidence really shows this, right? Pulwama was pretty costly, but let's look at the lessons that came out of Pulwama. This is important because it involves the duplicity of Indian and Pakistani media. What the Pakistanis, credibly, can say is that they shot down a MiG and they returned its pilot and they were accoladed for doing what a country is supposed to do. What allowed India to back down was this complete fabrication of an F-16 shootdown. There was no F-16 shot down. I say this with 100% confidence. This entire off ramp was manufactured, right? Let's take a look at the off ramp here. It is from the Indian public and from the Pakistani public. The Indian public believes if I listen to [Republic TV anchor] Arnab Goswami, apparently Pakistan took Karachi port. The Indians have these fictive beliefs about these capacious gains that were made vice Pakistan. Pakistan, for its part, believes that it shot down five Indian aircraft. Now, there is evidence that it shot down two, but we don't know about the other three. The Indian and the Pakistani publics are both left with this enormous sense of victory. It's going to take a really long time to do satellite imagery analysis. India made very capacious claims about damage that was made to Balakot. It turned out to be absolute nonsense. But it took a couple of weeks for those claims to be interrogated through satellite imagery analysis. By the time that the actual truth comes out, the media has moved on to something else. In any event, neither the Pakistani or Indian media are interested in what actually happened – because that's just not the way they're operating. Both of the publics have been misinformed, which allows them to have very different beliefs about the costs and the benefits that have been. So what can India do now? India really pulled out all its stops in some way. What do you think that India could do now to credibly deter the Pakistan army from misadventure. The only thing that really changes Pakistan is a decisive military defeat of the Pakistan army that leaves the Pakistan army in complete disarray. That happened in 1971. And yet, within a matter of years, we had Zia ul Haq and we know about the terror story under Zia's tenure. That's the best example we have. But there was a period of relative peace between '71 and '77 or so. So the only way to really deter Pakistan is to decisively defeat and dismember and dismantle the Pakistan army and thoroughly vilify it in the eyes of the Pakistanis. This is not something that India can do right now or for the policy-relevant future. It's not possible at all now [given the nuclear umbrella]. At a strategic level, it's very unfortunate for India. The only way forward, is the path that won't be taken, which is the international community has to resolve that the Pakistani state as it is currently constituted is a menace not only to India but to the international order. What what we've seen instead is that Pakistan gets away with this every single time. It was never on the blacklist FATF [Financial Action Task Force] because that would have deprived it of IMF [International Monetary Fund] funds – and no one wants to deprive Pakistan of IMF funds because it's too dangerous to fail. So absent a consolidated and concerted effort by the international community to reorder the way Pakistan does business, this is going to continue. I have a lot of empathy for the paucity of options that India possesses. As this conflict was going on Pakistan received a $1billion loan from the IMF. Even in a post-Afghanistan situation, we are seeing a Pakistan which does have support from the West and is best friends with China. Practically, will the West ever completely turn away from Pakistan and want to dismember it or completely change the way the state is currently? It's never going to happen. And it's never going to happen because Pakistan uses its nuclear weapons to blackmail the West that we're too dangerous to fail. In the old days we had a parking meter: you put a quarter in it, you got 15 minutes. With Pakistan, you put a quarter in it and you got two minutes – but it was a reliable two minutes. People are afraid that if you change the policy with respect to Pakistan, you'll put that quarter in and you'll get negative 15 minutes. People feel confident that they can manage Pakistan – sort of like mowing the lawn. But in this belief that it has somehow managed Pakistan and managed the conflict that it generates, it actually enables the very same conflict that is so dangerous. What has this conflict meant for Munir. The Pakistan Army's popularity has been declining over the last few years. Does this reverse that decline? It's really fascinating because the Pakistan Army hates me and its enthusiasts have hated me. There have been several occasions over the past year… I was at an airport with a former army officer of all people… So I've had a number of people reach out to me and say, '...I used to hate you because of your views about the Pakistan army, but now I love you because you were right.' This was an actual quote from a former army officer at the Dubai airport. And I was absolutely gobsmacked. So I said, 'It's because of Imran Khan, isn't it? You're an Imran Khan supporter.' And he said, 'Yes'. Imran Khan has put a huge wedge between the Pakistan army and the Pakistan people. And Munir has been suffering tremendously. Imran Khan really was the first prime minister – whether you love him or you hate him – to aim his sights at the Pakistan army, which is why he is in jail. You don't do that and get get away with it. We saw remarkable scenes – people overrunning Pakistani cantonments. The Lahore core commander's house. Just things that you don't see. Domestically, not just Munir, but the Pakistan army is really on its heels. The other issue that doesn't come up, of course, is Balochistan terrorism. In the same way that Indians believe there's a Pakistani hand behind every explosion in Kashmir, the Pakistanis believe there's an Indian hand behind every explosion in Balochistan. There was just a very horrific terrorist attack on a train in Balochistan. In terms of the timing, what explains what's going on with Pahalgam is threefold. There had been normalcy, for the most part, in the Valley. Tourism was returning. Kashmiris were making money off of the increased tourism. You have the declining popularity of Munir specifically, but the army more generally, and then you have this pretty severe spike in terrorism in Balochistan. Those three factors account for why Pahalgam and why now. When there's a war, there's a sense of national unity, especially behind the army. Will this end up badly impacting the PTI [Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf]? This is going to give the army a very temporary respite from the criticism. There's always been discussion about corruption within the army. But for the first time you have the 'core' commanders being called the 'crore' commanders. There's a much more systemic rot in the Pakistan army. The Pakistanis themselves are attuned to. This is going to provide some temporary respite, but it's not going to provide a permanent solution to the gap that has emerged between army supporters and PTI supporters. Can you describe for us how this terror network works? Right now is the Lashkar-e-Taiba as strong as it was 10 years back or has there been a decline in how Pakistan looks at and supports these terror groups? I would say just the opposite. Everyone knows about the LET conducting operations on behalf of the army. But what very few Indians are aware of is the domestic utility of the LET within Pakistan itself. The Lashkar-e-Taiba opposes all of the violence that's taking place within Pakistan, not just obviously the Baloch violence, but also the Islamist violence. They take aim at those that engage in takfir [excommunication]. They take aim at those that are trying to destabilise the government. Lashkar-e-Taiba has this really important domestic function as well as an external function. It is a militant opponent of the Islamic state. The LET is much more important in this post 9/11 world than it was before. You called the Pakistan army an insurgent organisation rather than one that behaves like a conventional army. It's very difficult to defeat an insurgent. Take a look at the Taliban. Look at how many hundreds of thousands of forces, during the height of the surge, and we still couldn't defeat the Taliban. But how does an insurgent organisation prove that it hasn't been defeated? It just has to conduct one attack. It's very easy for the Pakistan army to show that it hasn't been defeated by conducting attacks in Kashmir. More structurally, the Indians are at a huge disadvantage. If the Indians want normalcy – or the semblance of normalcy – which is usually measured by terrorist attacks to return to the valley, they have to have an increasingly impressive counter-insurgency regime, which causes a lot of resentment in the Valley, which furthers the goal of of making Kashmiris feel that they're part of the Indian project. The Pakistanis win this game because it's not a game that's hard for the Pakistanis to win. But on the other hand, it's a very difficult game for the Indians to win. What is the end game for Pakistan and its army here? It keeps exporting terror to Kashmir? Pakistan itself becomes poorer and poorer. Where does this go and end? The Pakistan army only thinks of its own corporate interests. Having an aggressive India that the Pakistan army can credibly say menaces Pakistan, burnishes the Pakistan army's credentials – it allows it to have this huge conventional footing. If there were to be peace with India, the Pakistan army, as it exists today, could not exist. There's no rationale for its existence. For the Pakistan army to have the size that it has, to have its outsized role in politics – it has a hegemon that claims the state's resources – it needs a strong India that looks menacing. I think it might be difficult for Indians to understand that all of this just benefits the Pakistan army. It's almost as if conflict is existential to the Pakistan army. People say if there were peace, there would be a better economy – and this is of course true. But the Pakistan army puts its existential needs above material gains. We've seen that happen in '71 where the Pakistan army was ready to have Pakistan divided rather than lose power. Correct. How popular is support for these terror groups domestically in the public in Pakistan? Your average Pakistani doesn't view these groups as terrorist groups for one thing. They view these groups as fighting a good fight in Kashmir, helping to liberate their Kashmiri brethren from an oppressive Indian state. If people are familiar with the group, they don't view them as terrorists. The other thing that Lashkar e Taiba does [is] it has a bunch of front organisations that do things like health and social service outreach. For example, in Sindh, the state has completely neglected to provide water to the residents. It's also an area that has a lot of Hindu residents. The Lashkar e Taiba provides water services and actually through those service provisions, they've also converted several Hindus to their creed, which is really amazing. Through these health and services outreach, coupled with those who know what they do in Kashmir not being viewed as terrorists, the support is reasonably high. I did a survey of Pakistan. It's very, very out of date – I think it was done in 2013. Obviously, support for the Lashkar-e-Taiba is highest amongst the Punjabis [of Pakistan's province] and it is lowest amongst the Baloch – because Lashkar-e-Taiba is also used as a bulwark against Baloch terrorism and against Baloch nationalism. There are 10 districts in Punjab [province] that account for about 90% of LET recruitment. It's very similar to the Pakistan Army actually. There's an overlap. And the reason for that is they need people with similar skill sets. A lot of what India did in this conflict is to target Punjab, which is such a stark diversion from Indian policy earlier. Do you think that will have an impact on Pakistani army morale? I support the attacks. I'm not criticising India for the attacks. I want to be very very clear. But I also want to be very clear that it was very very risky. And the fact is none of those targets are going to strategically degrade the ability of Jaish-e-Mohammed or Lashkar-e-Taiba to operate. That's a fact. So, it was a lot of risk for not a lot of gain. And by the way, that's why it assured that there would be a strong Pakistani response because when the Indians struck, they didn't go into Pakistani airspace. Within Indian airspace, they used standoff missiles to attack Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. That was pretty provocative, right? We saw the escalation at Balakot pretty quickly. So, obviously the Pakistanis were going to respond robustly to an attack upon the Punjab. But what I wish people would reflect upon – how do I put this nicely? This burnished the credentials of the chappan-inch sinawala [the one with the 56-in chest]. It generated a lot of jingoism in India. It had a lot of risk, but it didn't change anything on the ground. The purpose of this was more illustrative than it was deterrence. I think they were much more political in calculation than they were aimed at degrading the organisations. They're really important symbolic attacks – but they're symbolic attacks. They don't degrade the ability of these organisations to operate. Where does the US-Pakistan relationship stand now post the Afghanistan withdrawal? During the Afghan war, we were really dependent upon Pakistan because of the ground lines of communication. All the war material, most of it flew through Pakistan's airspace or was transported on the ground through Pakistan's ground lines of communication. So we needed them and we were much more willing to put up with their nonsense. But after the withdrawal, the essential concerns about Pakistan's failure remain in place. You still have the constituent of people saying that we should be engaging the Pakistanis, we shouldn't be isolating them. This conflict is going to burnish the credentials of those people who are arguing for engagement. Paul Kapoor has been tapped to be the Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, and it's very unfortunate that he had not been confirmed prior to this crisis. He will be very welcomed in India. He will not be welcomed in Pakistan. It is going to limit our ability to engage Pakistan. We'll just have to see what happens after we have an assistant secretary of state in place. How do you evaluate India's foreign policy performance during this conflict? It's hard to evaluate because the Indian media was just a sea of bakwas [nonsense, rubbish]. And I have to say, after the whole Balakot affair and the manufactured F-16 shootdown, I no longer take Indian announcements as being credible. India lost a lot of credibility for me in the Balakot affair. Because of the media? Because the media was so bad, but also the Indian government directly participated in this fabrication of an F-16 shootdown. So, it's not just the media, it was the Indian government, and specifically the Modi government. I can't just take Indian pronouncements at face value, but what I can see is that the proof is in the pudding. You had a bunch of people engaging on both sides. We encouraged both sides to engage peacefully to resolve their outstanding issues peacefully. But India sees that as a defeat, right? For India that's a defeat. For Pakistan it's a victory. Because it's an acknowledgement that Pakistan's equities are valid. But for India it's a defeat. I can't evaluate the rigorous efforts that were made, but what I can see is that in the outcome of those efforts, India did not secure unequivocal support from international capitals. [Donald] Trump's tweet is something that in India we're looking at with a lot of disfavour. Let's be really clear, right? Trump and JD Vance are not reliable narrators. I actually don't know the extent to which to trust their pronouncements. The Indians have pretty much rubbished a lot of what Trump has said. I don't know the truth because my media is also unable to get to the bottom of things. But today's tweet is a really good example of what I would say is a failure of Indian foreign policy. Because if India had successfully persuaded the United States of its position, we would not have seen such an obtuse statement coming from the President of the United States.
Hindustan Times
13-05-2025
- Politics
- Hindustan Times
US prof Christine Fair predicts another Pak attack, Reveals plan to stop it
On the heels of the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack, India launched Operation Sindoor, a bold military campaign targeting terror sites in Pakistan and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. In just three days, the situation in South Asia rapidly escalated with Pakistan launching a series of drones and missiles across its border with India. Now with a ceasefire in place, how do the next days, week and months look like? Professor Christine Fair, one of the most prominent and provocative voices on South Asian politics & security, also a political scientist at Georgetown University and the author of Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army's Way of War, says with surety that "Pakistan will attack India again". So, to end terrorism in Pakistan, one needs to "take out" Pakistan's military from the country.
Scroll.in
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Scroll.in
Interview: ‘Op Sindoor won't stop terror; conflict with India existential for Pak Army'
Play Operation Sindoor will not deter Pakistan from supporting terror. That is what Christine Fair, a professor at Georgetown University and possibly the world's leading expert on the Pakistani Army and its terror apparatus, tells Shoaib Daniyal in this interview. In fact, Fair believes that another terror attack is inevitable in the Kashmir valley. Though India's counter insurgency network is very good, it is impossible to stop every single attack, she says. Pakistan's army uses terror groups such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba not only used in Kashmir but also domestically, says Fair. They do charity work and also combat other forms of internal violence within the country.
&w=3840&q=100)
First Post
11-05-2025
- Politics
- First Post
India-Pakistan ceasefire: Delhi mows the grass, but terror may sprout again
Operation Sindoor marked a paradigm shift in India's response matrix to cross-border terrorism, but it does not mean its end read more An Indian Army soldier looks out from an armoured vehicle on a highway leading to south Kashmir's Pahalgam, in Marhama village, in Kashmir, April 23, 2025. Reuters The ceasefire requested by Pakistan has been prompted by the Trump team, which has pretended a hands-off policy during the latest flare-up. It seemed it would play for another day or two. There was no let-up in the trading of drones and missiles between two warring nations for the third day following India's bold and effective kinetic retribution for the Pahalgam massacre. It deserves repetition that Op Sindoor marked a paradigm shift in India's response matrix to cross-border terrorism (CBT). STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Christine Fair, whose study of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism and proxy wars excels any other study on the subject, has noted that she was terribly surprised by India's daring strikes against the dens of terrorism in Muridke and Bahawalpur, that too in the heart of Punjab, adding she was also impressed by the sophistication of the precision strikes. But it did not mean the end of CBT. So, where were we on the escalation ladder? After testing India's air defences with drones and missiles for two days, Rawalpindi finally launched its counteroffensive, Operation Buniyan ul Marson – taken straight out of the Quran. It targeted Indian military airfields and installations across the International Border and Line of Control using its full spectrum of air assets, inflicting limited damage and causing civil and military casualties. India's response was directed at Pakistan's air bases, radars, weapon dumps, and command and control facilities, inflicting substantial damage. Further, India's response was qualified with the usual adjectives 'non-provocative' and 'non-escalatory'. The nature of the damage caused to each other's war-waging capacity is unknown. India's strategy was to locate and take out air defence systems followed by disabling the airfields as part of counter-air operations. The imponderable on May 10 was: is Pakistan satisfied with its 'one notch up' response to de-escalation? Or would it attempt further drone and missile strikes to achieve full satisfaction? As the satisfied power, Delhi has regularly indicated its readiness to de-escalate, provided Islamabad follows suit. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Meanwhile, the US has been working the back channel in total secrecy. Pakistan's DGMO, who traditionally speaks to his Indian counterpart every Wednesday at noon, broke protocol Saturday afternoon at 3 PM to urge for a ceasefire, which was accepted. Also, the ceasefire of February 2021 brokered by the UAE was not cancelled by either side. There were some reports of ceasefire violations, but as per the India Today report, 'The Indian Army, in an official statement, said the ceasefire along the LoC is intact and continues to be observed as per the understanding between both the armies.' So what about the Trump statement claiming full credit for the ceasefire and his desire to hold India-Pakistan talks at a neutral site? Unanswered question: Will India agree to dialogue, breaking its long-held policy that terror and talks don't go together? If the ceasefire holds, India and Pakistan will have fought their shortest non-contact, four-day standoff aerial war. But Op Sindoor will not end cross-border terrorism. For that, deterrence has to be restored. Meanwhile, India has mowed the grass of cross-border terrorism. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The author is former GOC IPKF South Sri Lanka and founder member Defence Planning Staff, now Integrated Defence Staff, Ministry of Defence. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost's views.
