The war of last resort
MARTIN WOOLLACOTT
on Pakistan’s desperate options
Lahore, Sunday. The Pakistani objective in the limited war with India is not yet entirely clear. What is clear is that her chances of success are small. The ideal result for Pakistan would be to acquire and hold sufficient territory in the West to bargain India into a “hands off East Pakistan” deal. But that is very probably regarded as an unrealistic aim by Pakistan’s generals, even if it is any longer thought of as politically desirable, since the belief that the east wing must go has been gradually spreading as the months have gone by. The ultimate purpose is best described as achieving a solution to the East Bengal problem, following Mrs. Gandhi’s military arm-twisting in the East, that is more acceptable to Pakistan’s soldiers than simple capitulation. Thus the ideal case is presumably sufficient success in the West to perhaps achieve an extrication of the East Bengal Expeditionary Force - four divisions of Pakistan’s best troops - after some kind of Great Power intervention. What must clearly be avoided at all costs is humiliation in the West as well as defeat in the East.

Pakistan’s principal problem is not its fairly slight inferiority in ground troops but its great inferiority in the air. Pakistan got the better of India in the air in the last war because, although inferior in numbers, its planes were better and its pilots possibly better trained. Now it is the Indians who have both the numerical and the qualitative advantage with their MiG-2 Is and SU-9s against Pakistan’s fewer and older MiGs, its handful of Mirages and its Starfighters. It is, however, not quite an open and shut situation since MiG-2 Is are regarded as poor air superiority fighters and the SU-9s are ground attack fighters.

So apart from an initial effort at surprise strike, which there is evidence the Pakistanis tried without massive success, the objective of both sides in the air battle must be to tempt the other side into its air space. Then the defending side can use its interceptors with their short range and short endurance to the best advantage. This is probably why comparatively few aircraft have so far been committed to the air battle by the Indians, their objective being to hit airfields and other installations in Pakistan rather than to precipitate air combat over Pakistan. The situation on the ground is to some degree analogous. One Western military attache said: “The side which goes on the attack is going to get a bloody nose, whichever one it is.” Most of the Pakistani thrust into Indian territory should thus probably be seen as feints, partly to distract Indian attention from a possible main thrust, but also made in the hope of inducing the Indians to mount a general all front offensive in which their numerical advantage would be cancelled out by the Pakistani troops’ defensive advantage.

From the Indian point of view, however, it would be foolish to do this and this perhaps explains the apparent fact, according to the patchy evidence available, that - most of the Pakistani thrusts have gone quite well. Apart from the possible factor of surprise in these magically successful counter-attacks the Indians may well prefer for the moment to deal cautiously with these local advances. That way they can wait to identify any main thrust while at the same time biding their time until the Pakistanis expose their flanks by moving too far forward without the extra units they need to buttress an advance.

The purpose of Pakistani main thrust would be, of course, to gain substantial territory, and the obvious candidate is Kashmir. The less likely possibility is the Rajasthan Desert, and the least likely possibility is the densely defended area of the West Punjab. In spite of its suitability for tanks, to think of tackling that one, Pakistan would have to win the air superiority battle rather than merely avoid loosing it. There is some scanty evidence of unit movements which would indicate that Kashmir is indeed the objective, farther to the north than the obvious thrust at Jammu, very possibly in the Srinagar area.

Most Pakistanis imbued with the myth that Pakistan against huge odds almost won the 1965 seem confident of success. Even in the army the myth goes as high as Brigadiers. According to one Western diplomat, there is some reluctant acceptance among upper class civilians of the fact that war almost inevitably means writing off the divisions in the East, and in the East wing itself one Lahore businessman, bemoaning the loss of his eastern investments which included the Coca-Cola franchise, consoled himself with the hope that the US company would help him get at least some of the money back. There is a recognition, too, of some of the dangers of the war. But there is no understanding of the fact that Pakistan’s hopes for success rest on a terribly risky series of military ifs; if the Indian general staff acts stupidly, if the air battle is won, and so on. The real hope for the neutral is that India, which has not acted with restraint in the East, will do so in the West.