Time for a pause - Reflections on Pathankot

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1160126/jsp/opinion/story_65816.jsp#.VqeP3_l96M8

Brijesh D. Jayal

Now that the tsunami that swept through newsrooms and electronic channels during and after the recent terrorist attack on the Indian air force station in Pathankot has blown over, it offers an opportunity to pause and reflect on the deeper ramifications of the entire event and, indeed, the national response to it. At one level, it would appear that this was in line with a series of such storms that continue to buffet the national scene at an alarmingly regular frequency. While debates on these can be considered part of an ongoing political turf war or a healthy democracy at play with an inquisitive media playing its rightful role, the Pathankot episode concerns not just national security, but how we, as a society, respond to a new and still evolving threat of terrorist violence unfolding across international frontiers. Such an event should be considered beyond the pale of partisan politics, media hype and ill-informed debate and discussion. This is all the more important since this is not going to be the last of such happenings and just as the armed forces will hold incisive debriefs and learn lessons, other institutions of our democracy would also be well advised to do so.

One understands the fierce competition that prevails in newsrooms of the electronic media for viewership, so that some of the debates tend to be dramatic and even hysterical. While this may be of good entertainment or viewer-rating value it would be fair to accept a degree of seriousness when covering the national security domain. More so when operations are ongoing and minders of terrorists are monitoring the media to glean information and guide their foot soldiers in real time. Getting hold of veterans and others eager to face the camera and calling them "defence experts" when some were not even considered so by their peers when they were in service, is to be unfair to a subject as serious as national security.

There has been much criticism on how terrorists could make an entry into a military airfield little appreciating that military airfields are spread over large areas and while all have security perimeter fencing/walls and so on, these can measure up to 20-30 kilometres in length and are by no means impenetrable in warlike situations unless secured by the army. That is why passive air defence and ground defence of airfields (as indeed many other pre-designated civil and military vital areas and vital points) during a state of war is the responsibility given to army formations who along with the IAF or other concerned authorities carry out routine exercises to ensure seamless and coordinated action in the event of a cautionary for hostilities being declared. During peace time a plethora of intelligence, police and paramilitary forces are expected to ensure that war-like threats are unable to rear their head.

Within the airfield, forest and green cover is extensive as this provides natural camouflage from aerial attacks for strategic assets, which include not just airborne platforms, but fuel-storage depots, bomb and ammunition dumps, missile storage sites, engineering and support hangars and many others. Even within the airfield perimeter these assets have further individual security. In addition, there are domestic camps housing personnel and their families. So, if a few terrorists are able to enter this vast area, it is not difficult for them to take advantage of this camouflage and hold on for some days.

The media were at great pains to dissect an operation that was not only ongoing, but of which very little precise information was available because it was sensitive. We had critics complaining of multiplicity of command and control, questioning why the NSG had been sent, why the operation was taking unduly long and a host of other sensational issues conveying the general impression of chaos and incompetence on the part of the security response. It needed the army chief to finally put to rest this misinformation when, in a press meet on the eve of the army day, he clearly stated that the entire operation was under the command of the army commander western command and there was no lack of coordination. This is exactly how it is planned to be in the service war plans.

As to the role of the NSG, which is a specialized force, it is ironic that the very voices criticizing delay in deploying the force during the Mumbai attacks are now questioning its pre-emptive positioning. Indeed, so negative was the general perception that an editorial in this daily wondered whether honouring an undeserving dead officer was part of a larger scheme of covering of lapses from defence minister downwards.

One series of questions that barely found mention was whether in view of the escalating terrorist threats, when we are faced with a proxy-war situation, we should upgrade the threat level to all or some designated vital areas and vital point to a higher security level, which would then mean handing the security over to the army. A natural question to follow would be whether the army has adequate resources for the task. Or to go a step further, should not border security in Punjab be handed over to the army, as is the case in Jammu and Kashmir?

But these questions will then beg further questions as to what are the five central armed police forces doing to earn their bread? Just to take the example of the BSF whose website boasts of a strength of 186 battalions with 2.4 lakh personnel and an expanding air wing, artillery regiments and commando units. It further claims to be the world's largest border-guarding force being termed as the first wall of defence of Indian territories. Yet it is through this wall that heavily armed terrorists carrying a huge cache of weapons walked through undetected to target the Pathankot airfield.

In the context of the Pathankot attack and the many lapses that the security forces are being charged with, it is worth looking at three major terrorist attacks on military airfields in the recent past. In October, 2007, 21 LTTE commandos attacked the Sri Lankan air force base at Anuradhapura. Whilst 20 of the terrorists were killed, the SLAF suffered 14 dead, 22 wounded with 9 aircraft/helicopters destroyed and another 10 damaged. At the time, the late B. Raman, an erstwhile additional secretary in the Research and Analysis Wing and an expert in counter-terrorism, said about the attack that it "had been preceded by painstaking intelligence collection, planning and rehearsal".

In May, 2011, 15 terrorists of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and al Qaeda attacked PNS Mehran, the headquarters of Pakistan's naval air arm located near the Pakistan air force base in Karachi, killing 18 military personnel, wounding another 16 and destroying two high-value P-3C Orion surveillance aircraft built by the United States. Finally, in September, 2012, the international security assistance force base of Camp Bastion in the Helmand province of Afghanistan was attacked by a suicide assault team of 15 terrorists. During the attack, 14 terrorists were killed and one captured while two ISAF soldiers were killed with eight others and one civilian contractor injured. A total of 6 US Harrier Strike aircraft were destroyed and another 2 significantly damaged. In comparison, the loss in Pathankot was of seven lives (of which four were in the domestic area) and no damage to valuable assets at all. If, in the eyes of our people, this constitutes failure that needs cover up, there is not much one can say about national self-confidence.

If there is unanimity on one issue it is that the attack on IAF station Pathankot was an act of terrorists who are operating from across the border. Terrorists plan their attack to obtain the greatest publicity and the effectiveness of the terrorist act lies not in the act itself, but in the public or government's reaction to the act.

Viewed in this background and without attempting to pre-judge the results of investigations and analyses that each of the elements involved in this operation will undoubtedly undertake, a few points are worth noting. First, this was an operation that had been meticulously planned and rehearsed and not a reaction to prime minister's Lahore visit. Christine Fair, the author of Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army's Way of War, writing a column, Pakistan's Terror Game, says that it is a serious misunderstanding to judge the Pathankot attack as an attempt to derail the nascent peace process. Instead, "the attack on the Pathankot Air Base is the latest manifestation of a Pakistani national security strategy that addresses its own internal challenges while also pursuing its revisionist agenda against India".

Second, and more significantly, the fact that not an iota of damage could be done to the material assets points to an exceptionally professional response by the security forces and a complete failure of the terrorists' objective of wide publicity through spectacular damage to vital air force assets. Third, those in uniform who sacrificed their lives did so in the true tradition of their commitment of unlimited liability to the nation. Errors, if made, in the fog of battle are those of judgment and not neglect. The military treats even the enemy dead with respect, so let us not grudge a military funeral to our dead or else we risk breeding a risk- averse soldiery.

Finally, if the perpetrators of this attack have to draw any satisfaction from their mission, it is the public criticism and humiliation of the Indian security system that was heaped on itself by none other than India's own self-proclaimed upholders of national interest. This is one success that their Pakistani handlers must be truly relishing.

The author is a retired air marshal of the Indian Air Force