Kargil

Asymmetric Warfare in South Asia: The Causes and Consequences of the Kargil Conflict

Peter R.   ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009

[Reviewed by Teresita Schaffer; Survival 52, 5 (2010): 219-20]

This volume is required reading for anyone who wishes to understand Pakistan’s military decision-making or the half-war in Kargil in 1999, just a year after India and Pakistan tested nuclear weapons. Peter Lavoy, long a scholar of South Asian military affairs, assembled a first-rate team from Pakistan, India and the United States to examine the causes, conduct and impact of the Kargil conflict, based in part on an astonishing number of interviews with high-level participants from both sides.

 

The resulting book does not change the basic ‘storyline’ of Kargil that has been generally accepted for a decade: that Pakistan’s tactical victory in crossing the Line of Control with India ended in tactical defeat, and that the nuclear shadow under which the fighting took place had effectively frozen the territorial status quo. But it does offer numerous surprising and important insights below that macro level. Lavoy’s introduction directs a spotlight on, among other things, the implications of Kargil for nuclear deterrence theory, noting that one of its key postulates – that a nuclear environment fosters arms control – is contradicted by Kargil; and two others – that nuclear powers do not fight and that they do not initiate or escalate crises – are at least partly refuted.

In my view, two other conclusions in this book have special importance. The first has to do with the dynamics of Pakistan’s decision-making. Several authors note that, in Pakistan’s view, the Kargil operation was intended to create a ‘fait accompli’ that would change the status quo in Kashmir, and also to avenge decades of what Pakistanis consider India’s taking advantage of them (most importantly the Indian intervention in the Bangladesh War, but also India’s occupation of the Siachen Glacier in 1984). Together with a long history of military pre-eminence in Pakistan’s decision-making and the Pakistan Army’s institutional distaste for self-criticism after its military reverses, this genesis of Kargil led the Pakistani military leadership to assume, in ways that seem quite remarkable to outside observers, that India would not mount much of a defence.

This streak of self-delusion in a military organisation that is in other respects highly professional has important consequences for the region, not to speak of Pakistan’s relations with the United States.

A second arresting analysis is the discussion of the role of surprise in military operations. James Wirtz and Surinder Rana review the literature and conclude that surprise is most valued by military leaders who face a stronger adversary and who believe that surprise can neutralise the power imbalance. They also conclude, after looking at the results of a number of surprise operations, that the result is often tactical victory but strategic failure. This is of course how Kargil turned out. It also raises questions about how both analysts and especially military leaders do and do not absorb lessons from history.

As happens in nearly every edited volume, there is a certain amount of repetition, and one chapter, by Bruce Riedel, basically condenses and reviews material he has already published elsewhere. But these are minor flaws in a book that combines many important insights and a welcome readability.