Chapter Title: THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE KARGIL CRISIS

Book Title: Limited Conflicts Under the Nuclear Umbrella

Book Subtitle: Indian and Pakistani Lessons from the Kargil Crisis
Book Author(s): Ashley J. Tellis, C. Christine Fair and Jamison Jo Medby
Published by: RAND Corporation

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7249/mr1450usca.8

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Limited Conflicts Under the Nuclear Umbrella

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 Chapter Two
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE KARGIL CRISIS

The Kargil crisis had several layers of significance for both Pakistan
and India, and generally these were very different for the two coun-
tries. For Pakistan, Kargil was significant primarily for the following
reasons:

• While Pakistan appears to have concluded that Kargil-like1

operations are not legitimate in the current international envi-
ronment, violence in the form of low intensity conflict (LIC) con-
tinues to be seen as a legitimate tool for attaining political objec-
tives.i
• Kargil was yet another example of the failure of Pakistan’s grand
strategy. In Kargil, as in the 1965 and 1971 wars, Pakistan failed
to comprehend that the international environment would not
support its position and consequently did not anticipate or plan
for the unanimous international opprobrium and isolation that
ensued.

______________
1In this report, a distinction is generally made between LIC and “Kargil-like” opera-
tions. In LIC, which regularly takes place in Kashmir, India confronts irregular forces,
such as the mujahideen, and typically uses paramilitary or police forces for such oper-
ations. Moreover, LIC operations have generally taken place only in India, particularly
in Jammu and Kashmir. Kargil was a departure from such LIC operations in several
respects. First, both sides used regular forces in combat. Second, the conflict involved
struggles over territory. Third, the scale of military operations was substantially dif-
ferent in that widespread use of heavy artillery and air power was witnessed during the
conflict.

5
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6 Limited Conflicts Under the Nuclear Umbrella

• Both the scale of Pakistan’s covert operation and the rapidity and
degree of India’s counter-response were unprecedented in the
history of the “violent peace” in Kashmir.
• For many, the Kargil crisis seemed to pose real concerns about
the possibility of the conflict widening to conventional war and
subsequently escalating to nuclear use.

For India, Kargil was significant for very different reasons:

• India confirmed its belief that Pakistan is a reckless, adventuris-
tic, risk-acceptant, untrustworthy state. Moreover, the Pakistani
military came to be seen as a substantial cause of the problems
in India-Pakistan relations, as it is understood to be the real
power in Pakistan that also happens to be virulently anti-India.
• Kargil motivated India to reconsider whether to engage Pakistan
diplomatically on the Kashmir issue. Any Indian inclination to
resolve the Kashmir problem with an acknowledgment of Pak-
istan’s equity, in the manner desired by Islamabad, has been
vitiated.
• Kargil strengthened the widespread perception that India’s intel-
ligence infrastructure has endemic deficiencies. It has reinforced
the Indian commitment to a more robust forward defense and to
improving logistics and intelligence capabilities to prevent future
Pakistani incursions.
• India realized that international attention to Kashmir is not alto-
gether undesirable, particularly when such attention focuses on
Pakistani misadventures. India, however, will resist international
involvement in the final disposition of Kashmir, particularly if
such involvement is directed toward “new map-making” in the
disputed state.
• Kargil was India’s first televised war. India dexterously made use
of the media to shape domestic and international response in its
favor.
The next two sections explore the ways in which Pakistan and India
perceived the import of the Kargil crisis.

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 The Significance of the Kargil Crisis 7

PAKISTAN’S PERSPECTIVE

Kargil-like Operations Are Disavowed, But Violence Remains

a Legitimate Tool to Achieve Political Objectives
One of the principal findings of this analysis is that while there is
broad consensus that Kargil-like operations are not viable in the
current international environment, violence in various forms re-
mains a legitimate—if not the only—means to achieve Pakistan’s
political objectives in Kashmir. As will be explicated in greater detail
later, Pakistan understands that it paid heavily for its adventurism in
Kargil and that the international community will not support the use
of overt force to alter the status quo. Stated more precisely, Islam-
abad has concluded that the use of Pakistani troops in Kargil invited
political failure, and consequently its incentive to repeat such an
operation is very small at present.

This does not imply, however, that Pakistan has concluded that other
forms of violence are either illegitimate or ineffective for altering the
status quo. Pakistan perceives its diplomatic and military options to
be quite limited as far as resolving the issue of Kashmir is concerned.
Given these constraints, Pakistan believes that one of its few remain-
ing successful strategies is to “calibrate” the heat of the insurgency in
Kashmir and possibly pressure India through the expansion of vio-
lence in other portions of India’s territory. Security managers and
analysts widely concur that Pakistan will continue to support insur-
gency in Kashmir, and some have suggested it could extend such op-
erations to other parts of India. It may be inferred that Pakistan has a
range of tactical choices for doing so: it can encourage some or all of
the jihadi forces (whether Pakistan-based “guest militants” or in-
digenous Kashmiri groups) to limit their operations to Kashmir alone
or to extend them to other parts of India; it can continue to encour-
age Pakistan’s social forces, such as the Jamaat-e-Islami, to spear-
head operations within India while leaving the Pakistani state to
concentrate on diplomatic activities relating to Kashmir; or it can
focus entirely on state-run and state-managed covert operations (in
Kashmir and/or throughout India), leaving substate groups in
Pakistan essentially on their own.

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8 Limited Conflicts Under the Nuclear Umbrella

Failure of Grand Strategy Coupled with Surprise and Shock at

International Isolation
Several issues loom large when the significance of Kargil for Pakistan
is explicated. Most notably, Pakistani informants and public opinion
shapers expressed varying degrees of surprise at the international re-
sponse to Kargil and the nearly unanimous conviction that Pakistan
was culpable. However, the ways in which this surprise was rational-
ized depended greatly upon how much these people knew about the
Pakistani Army’s direct role in the operation.

The analysts, retired army officers, diplomats, and journalists who

knew of the Army’s involvement argued that Pakistan’s security
managers were surprised in part because they did not perceive a dif-
ference between Pakistan’s doings and India’s violations of both the
LOC and the Shimla Agreement, of which Siachen is viewed as the
most egregious example. Another, less salient justification for their
surprise was the expectation that the international community
would be sympathetic to Pakistan’s moral claims owing to India’s
human rights abuses and other excesses in Kashmir. Those who
conceded the Army’s role in Kargil but did not think that Kargil nec-
essarily undermined the process of engagement represented by the
Lahore Declaration articulated a third reason for surprise at Pak-
istan’s isolation. These individuals argued that the Lahore Declara-
tion was designed for the consumption of the international com-
munity, which was still rankled by the 1998 nuclear tests in South
Asia, and was at any rate derailed by Indian statements in the after-
math of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s return to New Delhi.2
Thus, these interlocutors sought to dismiss the widely held beliefs
that Pakistan’s operations in Kargil exemplified Pakistani duplicity
and that Pakistan had in fact sabotaged the much-acclaimed bus
diplomacy and the resultant Lahore Declaration.

______________
2 Upon returning to New Delhi, Prime Minister Vajpayee remarked at a public
function, “We have not attacked any country in our 50 years of independence, but we
have been attacked several times and lost our land. . . .We are determined not to lose
our land in the future.” This was read by Pakistan as a clear signal that India would
be unwilling to cede territory on the Kashmir issue and as a clear retrenchment
from progress made at Lahore the week before. Consequently, Prime Minister Sharif
reportedly threatened to break off bilateral talks over Kashmir. (See, for example,
“India Determined Not to Lose More Territory: PM,” The Times of India, March 1,
1999.)

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 The Significance of the Kargil Crisis 9

The surprise and alienation felt by members of the Pakistani elite are
confirmed by a reading of Pakistan’s English-language press, which
strongly suggests that at the time of the conflict, editorialists and
other opinion shapers did not know that the incursions around
Kargil were not a mujahideen operation. The surprise evinced in
such editorials seems to stem from the writers’ beliefs that Kargil was
not Pakistan’s doing and that Islamabad therefore did not deserve
the opprobrium it received.

In the aftermath of the G-8 communiqué,3 which Pakistanis read as

laying the blame squarely on Pakistan, several articles spoke out
against what was perceived as an unreasonable and unfair interpre-
tation of events by the international community.4 One article
poignantly narrates Pakistan’s sense of loss, isolation, and surprise:

We have come a long way indeed from the time when the world lis-
tened to our entreaties on Kashmir with a certain amount of re-
spect. We have come a long way from the time that the OIC
[Organization of Islamic Countries] passed a unanimous resolution
on allowing the Kashmiris the right of self-determination. We have
come a long way indeed from the time that our protector and giver
of all, Amreeka Bahadur, was getting ready to mediate between
India and Pakistan. . . .Whatever happened to us? Why do we stand
at the very edge of the diplomatic precipice today? 5

To illuminate Pakistan’s current standing in the comity of nations,

the author of this article critically examined some of Pakistan’s more
alienating policies, such as its ongoing support for the Taliban.

The editorial pages also suggested a widespread conviction that

China was the last possible bastion of support. An editorial in The
Dawn compared this anticipated Chinese position to the emergent
U.S. position:

______________
3This June 21, 1999, communiqué articulated the G-8 position on the resolution of the
Kargil crisis.
4See, for example, “A One Side Approach Will Not Work,” The Dawn, June 26, 1999;
Abbas Rashid, “Raising the Ante in Kashmir,” The News International Pakistan, July 2,
1999; Dr. Manzur Ejaz, “An Unlikely Beneficiary of the Kargil Crisis,” The News
International Pakistan, July 11, 1999.
5Kamram Shafi, “Friendless in Kashmir,” The News International Pakistan, June 21,
1999.

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10 Limited Conflicts Under the Nuclear Umbrella

[T]he United States has proved to be a fair-weather friend. . . .In-

stead of showing greater understanding of Pakistan’s point of view
and impressing upon India the need to discuss the Kashmir prob-
lem . . ., the US is telling Pakistan to effect a withdrawal of the
Mujahideen (or the infiltrators, as the US prefers to call them) from
Kargil. China does not suffer from the same attitude and its under-
standing of the Pakistani position on all important matters of na-
tional security has always been fair and sympathetic.6

While such writers persisted optimistically in the days immediately

preceding Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s visit to China,
others sought to dampen any expectation that China would enthusi-
astically support Pakistan.7 These articles typically reaffirmed the
general contours of Sino-Pakistan relations while vitiating any expec-
tation that China would be totally forthcoming in assistance. A
common strategy employed was to contextualize China’s expected
stance on Kargil vis-à-vis China’s other pressing objectives (e.g., eco-
nomic, social, and military development).8

Of course, the eventual position taken by China did not live up to any
of Pakistan’s highest expectations. In the days and weeks after the
disappointing visits to China by Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz and then
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, there was palpable shock at China’s
position and vexation with the Pakistani Foreign Office’s efforts to
spin these visits as fruitful. Abbas Rashid’s opinion piece typifies this
sentiment:

Even China seems to have forsaken its traditional subtlety to get

across the message as plainly as possible that it did not support
Pakistan’s position. . . .Sartaj Aziz dashed off to Beijing and was re-
portedly told by Li Peng . . . that ‘. . . Pakistan should remain cool-
headed and exercise self-control and solve conflicts through peace-
ful means and avoid worsening the situation.’. . .Certainly, this is

______________
6“PM’s China Visit” [editorial], The Dawn, June 29, 1999.
7See Afzal Mahmood, “Ties with China in Perspective,” The Dawn, June 29, 1999; Afzal
Mahmood, “China's Cautious Approach,” The Dawn, July 4, 1999; Tanvir Ahmed
Khan, “Understanding China Is Vital,” The Dawn, July 6, 1999; Mayed Ali, “China
Pledges to Stand by Pakistan in All Circumstances,” The News, June 30, 1999.
8See “Hope in China” [editorial], The News, June 30, 1999.

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 The Significance of the Kargil Crisis 11

not the language any country would use to indicate support for our
position.9

Apart from the at best neutral posture adopted by China, Beijing’s

overtures to India were particularly vexing. Some writers sought to
legitimize this Chinese peace gambit with such pithy statements as,
“A big mountain can accommodate two tigers.”10

By the end of July 1999, after the simultaneously much-lauded and

much-loathed Sharif-Clinton joint statement, there was a consensus
that Pakistan was diplomatically isolated and marginalized by even
its closest allies. By mid-July, as will be discussed further in Chapter
Three, there was an emergence of popular discontent with the Pak-
istani government’s failure to predict both the international com-
munity’s response to Pakistan’s role in Kargil and India’s reaction to
what it perceived as an act of war.11

This accumulating international isolation and opprobrium, among

other strategic and tactical concerns, likely precipitated Pakistan’s
decision to withdraw from Kashmir. While it seems reasonable to
posit that China’s response may have initiated disquiet about the
durability of the expected or implied commitments presumed to in-
here in Sino-Pakistan relations, senior officers in the Pakistani Army,
the political leadership, and high-level civil servants suggested that
they did not anticipate wide swings in their bilateral dealings with
China.

This international isolation also impressed upon Pakistan the need

to be seen as pursuing peace with India to recoup some of the dip-
lomatic cachet it had in the immediate aftermath of India’s nuclear
tests. Pakistan’s actions in this regard are difficult at best to inter-
pret. On the one hand, Pakistan seems to understand that India has
received high dividends from both its mastery of the rhetoric of re-
straint and its decision not to cross the LOC during the Kargil con-
flict. As a result, Pakistan has begun to appreciate that it needs to

______________
9Abbas Rashid, “Raising the Ante in Kashmir.”
10Afzal Mahmood, “Ties with China in Perspective.”
11 Afzal Mahmood, “Seeing Kargil in Perspective,” The Dawn, July 18, 1999; M.B.
Naqvi, “Looking Beyond Kargil,” The Dawn, July 19, 1999; Lt. Gen. (Retd) Asad
Durrani, “Beyond Kargil,” The News International Pakistan, July 9, 1999.

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12 Limited Conflicts Under the Nuclear Umbrella

cultivate the public persona of peace mongering. Indeed, in Decem-

ber 2000, Pakistan made several overt gestures toward pursuing
peace. For example, Pakistan’s current foreign minister, Abdul Sat-
tar, offered India a trilateral process to commence before December
27, 2000, when the Indian-called Ramazan cease-fire was initially
scheduled to conclude.12 Pakistan has followed through with offers
of maximum restraint, withdrawal from the LOC, and offers of talks
at any time, level, or place. Pakistan also claims that it is trying to
crack down on “jihadi elements,” perhaps to counter India’s much-
aired exasperation with Pakistan’s entrenched unwillingness to do
so.13 Pakistan’s January 2001 airlift of aid to earthquake victims in
India may also be read as an overt effort to reposition itself as a peace
broker in the subcontinent.14 Indeed, General Pervez Musharraf
himself is trying to recast his image as “the mastermind of Kargil” to
the one who solves the Kashmir conundrum.15

A straightforward analysis of Pakistan’s strategy in this peace offen-

sive is complicated by the gap between what Pakistan claims it has
done and what Pakistan has verifiably done. One possible interpre-
tation is that Pakistan is simply deploying the rhetoric of peace to re-
gain international standing. There is some evidence to support this
interpretation. For example, despite the proclamation of troop with-
drawal from the LOC, there is no evidence that any thinning of Pak-
istan’s peacetime deployments had actually occurred as of March
2000. Pakistan’s claims to rein in the jihadis are even more dubious.
Musharraf’s much-heralded efforts to restrict the fund-collecting
activities of jihadi tanzeems (organizations that support the jihadi ef-
forts in Kashmir and elsewhere) have not been upheld by the Lahore
High Court.16 Moreover, the February 2001 controversy with The

______________
12B. Muralidhar Reddy, “Sattar Wants Tripartite Talks Before Ramzan,” The Hindu,
December 5, 2000.
13 B. Muralidhar Reddy, “Pak Vows Tough Measures Against ‘Jihadi’ Outfits,” The
Hindu, February 13, 2001; “Pakistan Vows Tough Action Against Extremists,” The
Times of India Online, February 13, 2001.
14 K.J.M. Varma, “Pakistan to Airlift Tents, Blankets for Gujarat Quake Victims,”
rediff.com, January 29, 2001.
15“It’s My Dream to Resolve Kashmir Issue: Musharraf,” The Times of India Online,
February 10, 2001.
16“Jihadis Cannot Be Stopped from Collecting Fund [sic]: Court,” The Times of India
Online, February 22, 2001.

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 The Significance of the Kargil Crisis 13

Frontier Post illuminates Musharraf’s inefficacy against Islamist ele-

ments.17 His lack of will here does not simply reflect inability; rather,
it reflects the deep ambivalence that many elites feel about the utility
of the jihadis in Pakistan’s overarching strategy. Surely, if Pakistan
wants to meaningfully contribute to the peace process, it must make
some very difficult decisions, the benefits of which are not yet
uniformly clear to many Pakistani elites and to Pakistan’s security
managers.

Another possible interpretation of Pakistan’s behavior in late 2000

and early 2001 is that Islamabad is engaged in some sort of tacit bar-
gaining. This explanation is supported by the fact that Pakistan did
reduce the number of infiltrations across the border in November
and December 2000 after its offer of maximum restraint.18 Pakistan
appears to be trying to signal to India through this effort that it can
rein in the jihadis and contribute to resolving Kashmir, conditioned
on receiving the right—reciprocal—signals from New Delhi. Unfor-
tunately, the unclassified evidence does not permit any easy evalua-
tion of these competing interpretative frameworks.

The Scale of Operations

Two notions of “scale of operations” emerged during this analysis.
One was the scale of Pakistani efforts in the conflict, and the other
was the scale of India’s reaction. As with the international response,
the impact of these two notions of scale was deeply perspectival and
depended greatly upon how knowledgeable the interlocutor was of
Pakistan’s true role in the crisis.

Those informants who knew of Pakistan’s role believed that one im-
portant difference between Kargil and Pakistan’s other activities was

______________
17 Barry Bearak, “Pakistani Journalists May Face Death for Publishing Letter,” New
York Times, February 19, 2001. The Frontier Post accidentally published an editorial
that was considered blasphemous. The publication of the editorial precipitated an
outcry for the editors’ executions. In the face of this situation, Musharraf offered only
weak statements, illuminating his lack of resolve against the jihadis and other
extremist conservatives.
18 See “Army Chief for Extension of Truce Beyond R-Day,” The Hindustan Times,
January 12, 2001. A competing hypothesis is that reduced infiltration could be
ascribed to weather.

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14 Limited Conflicts Under the Nuclear Umbrella

simply the scale and scope of the Pakistani operation. Retired high-
level army officers, elements of the political leadership, academics,
and think-tank analysts expressed this view. Generally, these indi-
viduals were not surprised that the Indians would respond in a rapid
and decisive fashion. These informants were surprised, however,
that Pakistan’s security managers apparently did not have this expec-
tation.

Those informants who did not know of Pakistan’s role (or chose not
to reveal such knowledge) generally expressed deep shock and in-
dignation at India’s aggressive response to the incursion.19 These
sentiments appear throughout the English coverage of the conflict.
India’s use of air power precipitated much bitterness, perhaps
because India had not exercised this option since the 1971 war. An
editorial from early June exemplifies this response to India’s use of
air power:

The military operations in occupied Kashmir have been continuing

for more than a decade now; and there is nothing new about them.
If at all there is anything new, it lies in the level of force. . . .Never
before, for instance, had India used its air force to prop up the
sagging morale of its occupation forces. . . .Not content with that,
the Indian military has stepped up its artillery bombardment . . .
and even attempted small-scale infantry attacks across the Line of
Control. 20

It is important to note that this surprise seems to have stemmed from

the belief that India was using unnecessary force against the mu-
jahideen.21 And in this vein, throughout May, June, and most of July,
writers tended to portray Pakistan as aggrieved by what was seen as
unjustifiable, naked Indian aggression against a handful of
mujahideen. It is an unanswerable question whether these writers
would have had the same opinion if they had known that the Pak-
istani Army was involved. Some evidence pointing to an affirmative

______________
19 Indeed, between June 1 and August 1, 1999, there were some 43 articles in The
Dawn that addressed the issue of culpability for the escalation. Twenty-three of those
articles clearly held the Indians responsible, compared to 10 articles that were more
even-handed in their assessment.
20“Talks at Last” [editorial], The Dawn, June 10, 1999.
21Afzal Mahmood, “Defusing the Tension,” The Dawn, June 5, 1999.

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 The Significance of the Kargil Crisis 15

answer to this question is provided by the opinion pieces emerging

in mid-July that asked why the Pakistani government misled the
populace on Kargil. This shift in thought dampened the outrage over
what was perceived to be Indian overreaction.22

The Possibility of Conflict Expansion

The final point of significance with respect to Pakistan is that many
writers in Pakistan expressed numerous concerns about the possi-
bility of the conflict’s expansion into an all-out conventional war,
which could further slip into a nuclear exchange.23 Indeed, the
Kargil crisis, having unfolded in the wake of the May 1998 nuclear
tests by both combatants, may have been the most salient opportu-
nity to reflect upon this possibility. However, some Indian observers
were rather cynical about this Pakistani concern, feeling that this was
simply a disingenuous Pakistani attempt, first, to generate anxiety
about the nuclear issue in the international community and, second,
to bolster Pakistan’s efforts to precipitate international mediation in
the Kashmir dispute.24 While Pakistan’s desire to raise the profile of
the Kashmir issue has been an enduring component of its conven-
tional and nuclear strategies, the Kargil Review Committee Report in
this instance may be overstating the argument. A careful review of
the chronology of Pakistan’s ambiguous threats to use its “ultimate”
weapons suggests that these warnings were issued only after India’s
conventional redeployments had reached significant proportions
and were increasingly visible to Pakistani military intelligence. Under
such circumstances, Islamabad’s nuclear signaling is likely to have
been driven, at least partly, by the prudential objective of cautioning
New Delhi against any further escalation, vertical or horizontal, in its
conventional military response along the international border.

______________
22Dr. Manzur Ejaz, “An Unlikely Beneficiary of the Kargil Crisis.”
23See, for example, “Defusing the Crisis” [editorial], The Dawn, June 5, 1999; “Before It
Gets Any Worse” [editorial], The Dawn, May 27, 1999; “Playing with Fire” [editorial],
The Dawn, May 30, 1999; Abdul Sattar, “Crisis with Deep Roots,” The News
International Pakistan, June 13, 1999; Shafqaat Mahmood (Senate Member), “Losing
the Peace,” The News International Pakistan, July 10, 1999.
24See, for example, India Kargil Review Committee, From Surprise to Reckoning: The
Kargil Review Committee Report (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2000), hereforth
referred to in text as the Kargil Review Committee Report.

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16 Limited Conflicts Under the Nuclear Umbrella

INDIA’S PERSPECTIVE

India Confirms Its Worst Beliefs About Pakistan

From India’s perspective, the most significant conclusion drawn
from Kargil is that dealing with Pakistan—as currently constituted—
is going to be deeply problematic and perhaps even justifies minimal
contact with Islamabad. This was the view expressed by a wide array
of political leaders, analysts, and military officials in India, for several
reasons.

First, Kargil demonstrated to India that Pakistan could be a reckless,

adventuristic, and risk-acceptant state, capable of behaving astrate-
gically and irrationally. Although surprised both by the fact and the
intensity of the Kargil operation, almost all Indian analysts argued
that—in retrospect—India ought not to have been surprised, because
this event comported perfectly with the history of Pakistani adven-
turism witnessed specifically in 1947, and thereafter in 1964 and in
1965. For many interlocutors, particularly within the Indian gov-
ernment, this raised grave, usually unsettling questions about Pak-
istan’s ability to assess its strategic environment, its capacity for
coherent decisionmaking, and its ability to subordinate its fear and
loathing of India to the more rational demands imposed by the nu-
clearization of the subcontinent and the fact of India’s greater
power-political capacity.

Second, Pakistan’s prosecution of Kargil even amidst its pursuit of

the Lahore Declaration process was understood to be outrageously
duplicitous, irrespective of the strategic calculus—or lack thereof—
motivating the operation. This view strengthens the argument
within India that New Delhi really cannot “do business” with Islam-
abad because it is an essentially untrustworthy partner. It also rein-
forces Indian convictions that the international community cannot
be allowed to railroad India into consummating some kind of a
“peace process” with Pakistan, given the past failures of both Shimla
and Lahore. More significantly, however, the “duplicity” of Pakistan,
made evident by the Kargil adventure, is seen throughout the Indian
government to necessitate critical changes in attitudes, institutions,
capabilities, and readiness in order to deal with future Pakistani sur-
prises in both the conventional military and the nuclear realms.

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 The Significance of the Kargil Crisis 17

Third, Pakistan’s chronic civil-military rivalry exacerbates India’s dis-

trust and wariness of the state. The Pakistani Army is and will likely
remain the vaunted power in Pakistan, even when under a nominally
civilian government. This institution is seen in New Delhi as being
virulently anti-India. Given this perception, the fact of Kargil and the
sketchy details available in India about the operation’s genesis,
planning, and execution only confirm the Indian suspicion that no
matter what improvements in relations can be envisaged as occur-
ring with Pakistan’s civilian governments, these improvements will
either be held hostage by the Pakistani military or will not be brought
to consummation because of military opposition within Pakistan.
This problem in turn leads Indian policymakers not only to despair
of reaching any viable agreements with Pakistan, but also to avoid
expending inordinate amounts of political capital to reach meaning-
ful agreements because of (a) Islamabad’s inability to recognize that
the problem of “Kashmir” as defined by Pakistan cannot be en-
throned as the “core” problem bedeviling India-Pakistan relations;
(b) the Indian fears that even valid agreements reached with Pakistan
will not stick or will be diluted by Islamabad depending on the politi-
cal exigencies of the day; and (c) the concerns in New Delhi that even
advantageous agreements reached with Islamabad could strengthen
the Pakistani military and reinforce its propensity to continue war-
ring with India. 25 In some sense, then, Indian policymakers and
security managers believe that the Pakistani Army is the root of all
major problems between India and Pakistan. Colonel Gurmeet
Kanwal captured this sentiment exactly when he argued that

India’s problems in Kashmir will remain until Pakistan’s rogue army

is tamed. . . .The real problem between India and Pakistan is the
Pakistan army and its abnormal influence in Pakistan’s affairs, and
not Kashmir or any other issue. Till democracy takes root in
Pakistan, Indo-Pak problems will remain irreconcilable.26

______________
25Many policymakers in New Delhi noted that this issue undercuts India’s willingness
to conclude satisfactory deals with Pakistan—for example, with respect to oil pipelines
running over Pakistani territory or with respect to trade.
26Gurmeet Kanwal, “Nawaz Sharif’s Damning Disclosures,” The Pioneer, August 16,
2000.

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18 Limited Conflicts Under the Nuclear Umbrella

India Strengthened in Its Determination to Marginalize

Pakistan on Kashmir
While all but the most fringe elements recognize that the Kashmiri
uprising in 1989 had indigenous roots, Indian stakeholders and the
polity at large have been divided on the reasons for its longevity.
Many have asserted that there is widespread alienation among the
Kashmiris that must be addressed before the Kashmir issue can be
resolved. This alienation is posited to stem from, inter alia, the poor
human rights situation, problems with structures of popular repre-
sentation, the lack of accountable state government, the persistence
of center-state conflicts, and hardships imposed by counterinsur-
gency operations.27 Others have taken the position that Pakistan is
essentially the only obstacle to the Kashmiris finding a livable solu-
tion within India. Within these broad positions, some people have
held that there is value in engaging the Pakistanis on Kashmir for the
purposes of moderating and attenuating Pakistan’s activities. The
Lahore Declaration can be seen in this light.

In India’s view, the Lahore initiative was a legitimate (and, for Vaj-
payee himself, a determined) effort to achieve normalization on a
broad cluster of key issues. 28 Kargil, likely launched around the time
of the Lahore initiative, raised serious doubts about India’s ability to
deal with Pakistan in good faith. Well-placed interlocutors in the
Prime Minister’s Office, Ministry of Defense, and Ministry of External
Affairs explained that one of the most important changes in the In-
dian mindset precipitated by Kargil is that those who formerly were
proponents of engaging Pakistan have been silenced or no longer
support this position. Even those on the left of the political spectrum
who formerly contended that diplomacy was a critical component of
resolving the Kashmir problem now opine that Pakistan cannot be
trusted, and almost all political constituencies in India are united in
the belief that negotiations—as opposed to merely “talks”—are not
an option now or in the future. The distinction between negotiations
and talks is an important one: whereas the latter involves, among

______________
27Sumantra Bose, “Kashmir: Sources of Conflict, Dimensions of Peace,” Survival, Vol.
41, No. 3, Autumn 1999, pp. 149–171.
28See the text of the Lahore Declaration, which can be obtained from the U.S. Institute
of Peace Web site: http://www.usip.org/library/pa/ip/ip_lahore19990221. html.

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 The Significance of the Kargil Crisis 19

other things, procedural and diplomatic engagement, the former in-

volves some prospect of substantive concessions. While India has
time and again affirmed its willingness to engage procedurally and
diplomatically with Pakistan, its incentives to engage in negotiations
that harbor the prospect of substantive concessions of the sort de-
sired by Pakistan—a plebiscite in accordance with the UN resolu-
tions, a redrawing of the territorial boundaries to include a possible
transfer of the Kashmir valley to Pakistan, or a trifurcation of the
state of Jammu and Kashmir along religious-ethnic lines—have al-
ways been minimal. This calculus has only been reinforced by the
events occurring at Kargil.

All this implies that the motivation to treat Pakistan as a legitimate

party to the Kashmir dispute in the sense traditionally understood by
Islamabad—which was never very significant to begin with—is now
all but extinguished, and New Delhi will pursue, as best it can, solu-
tions to the Kashmir problem that either bypass or marginalize Pak-
istan in the substantive (though not the procedural) sense. Any Pak-
istani engagement on the question of Kashmir is likely to be mainly
supplemental to internal Indian efforts at restoring local peace.

Kargil Was an Intelligence Failure Not to Be Repeated

Kargil was a significant blow to India’s perception of its security.
Media reports, interviews with key military and political individuals,
and numerous monographs written to assess the causes and out-
comes of the Kargil debacle all conclude that Pakistan’s adventurism
in Kargil was a tactical and strategic surprise.29 Several high-level
military and political stakeholders in India have described Kargil as
India’s Pearl Harbor, which has compelled New Delhi to take various
steps to ensure that a similar situation will not occur.

The significance of the strategic surprise is manifested in at least two

ways. The first is that the Indian political-military elite has begun to
identify the limitations that exist in Indian intelligence’s ability to
collect, analyze, and disseminate intelligence effectively. Accus-

______________
29The primary public document that addresses this issue is the India Kargil Review
Committee’s From Surprise to Reckoning: The Kargil Review Committee Report. This
document covers the shortfalls of Indian intelligence equipment and the inherent
deficiencies of the Indian intelligence apparatus.

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20 Limited Conflicts Under the Nuclear Umbrella

tomed to a seasonal pattern of summer diligence followed by a win-

ter of recuperative retreat, the Indian military and their attendant
intelligence agencies did little to anticipate a Pakistani foray into
LOC locations typically held by India. The intelligence agencies were
described as relying too heavily on the notion that the inhospitable
region and the lack of previous Pakistani adventurism precluded any
type of incursion into Kargil.30

Second, the Kargil Review Committee Report makes clear that there
were serious lapses in what can be considered baseline intelligence
collection. For instance, the Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW) failed
to correctly identify as many as five infantry battalions of the Pak-
istani Northern Light Infantry (NLI) and the de-induction of three
others. 31 Opinion pieces in newspapers following evidence of
strategic surprise were equally critical of the intelligence failure. An
especially harsh rebuke of the Indian Army represents the most de-
basing public response to the intelligence failure:

[H]ow did these posts get occupied by the infiltrators? This con-
stant shelling should have been taken as an ominous sign. I am
afraid we were not prepared. The euphoria since May 1998 has
lulled our politicians and public alike. But as a former military in-
telligence chief, I would not spare the army too. When you are
holding posts at those heights and are in eyeball-to-eyeball contact
with the adversary, not being able to see their movements, leave
alone anticipate them, is inexcusable. It is certainly an intelligence
failure.32

The timing of the incursion, the diplomatic context in which it oc-

curred, and Pakistan’s tactical audacity occasioned much introspec-
tion among India’s military, political, and intelligence officials.
Kargil precipitated a renewed dedication to military, technological,
and intelligence efforts to preclude future Kargil-like scenarios. This
issue is further addressed in Chapter Three, which discusses lessons
learned from Kargil.

______________
30Ibid., p. 160.
31Ibid., p. 153.
32Lt. Gen. K.S. Khajuria, “Kargil Task Not an Easy One,” The Times of India, May 29,
1999.

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 The Significance of the Kargil Crisis 21

India Realizes That International Attention to Pakistani

Adventurism Can Be Positive
The various statements made by the international community were
highly sympathetic to India’s position during the Kargil crisis, a
condition that India appreciated. A reading of the Indian op-ed
pages of major English-language papers suggests that India may have
concluded that select types of international attention can be benefi-
cial in some contexts, particularly when focused on Pakistani mis-
deeds.

The international response to Kargil nearly unanimously cast Pak-

istan as the transgressor and called for mutual restraint, a bilateral
settlement of disputes, and a resumption of the Lahore process—all
of which supported India’s position on Kashmir generally and Kargil
in particular. As noted above, even China espoused a rhetoric that
was consonant with the measured international response.33 For ex-
ample, the Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, Zhu Bangzao, ex-
plained: “China hopes India and Pakistan will exercise restraint and
peacefully resolve their differences and problems through patient
and sincere dialogue.”34

Conversely, India both maintained the support of old friends and

cultivated new bastions of support. Russia, for example, was “the
first country to come out openly in support of India by a categorical
declaration that it would foil Pakistan’s bid to internationalise the
Kashmir issue whilst reiterating its support for New Delhi’s action
against the infiltrators in Kargil.”35 (Russia may have been motivated
to take such a position because of its own situation in Chechnya.)
Given the long history of estrangement between the United States
and India and the intense U.S. pressure on New Delhi in relation to

______________
33K. K. Katyal, “Pak Wooing China,” The Hindu, June 10, 1999; C. Raja Mohan, “China
Unlikely to Adopt Anti-India Posture,” The Hindu, June 11, 1999.
34“Show Restraint: China,” The Pioneer, May 28, 1999; “Resume Talks, China Tells
Sharif,” The Hindu, June 29, 1999; and “Kashmir Is Not Kosovo,” The Pioneer, May 30,
1999.
35 Arpit Rajain, “India’s Political and Diplomatic Response to the Kargil Crisis,”
unpublished working paper, p. 8. See also “Kargil Infiltrators Are Fundamentalists:
Russia,” The Hindustan Times, May 29, 1999; Vladimir Radyuhin, “Moscow Backs
Operation Against Intruders,” The Hindu, May 28, 1999; “Assurance from Russia”
[editorial], The Hindustan Times, May 30, 1999.

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22 Limited Conflicts Under the Nuclear Umbrella

its nuclear programs, India was particularly surprised by the U.S.

reaction to the events in Kargil, which insinuated the Pakistani role
in the crisis by insisting upon Pakistan’s withdrawal of the com-
batants. 36 Moreover, the United States countered the notion that
Pakistan was provoked into retaliating against what it was trying to
paint as clear Indian aggression by stating that “to our knowledge,
India has not struck over the Line of Control, deliberately or acciden-
tally.” 37 The U.S. State Department was also quoted as saying that
sanctions might be imposed against Pakistan if it continued with its
intransigent posture.38 Additionally, India received accolades for
acting with restraint in the face of naked Pakistani aggression.39 It
may even be suggested that Kargil catalyzed a major shift in U.S.
policy away from its traditional formula, which affirms Kashmir as a
dispute to be resolved by India and Pakistan, toward a position ef-
fectively recognizing the sanctity of the LOC, a development that is
welcomed by New Delhi.

The response from multilateral organizations was also viewed by In-

dian elites as favorable. The United Nations, particularly members
of the Security Council, assured India there would be no attempt to
intervene in Kashmir, although Pakistan was said to have requested
such intervention. 40 Rather, the UN would maintain its position of
observer along the LOC. 41 Similarly, the G-8 issued a statement on
June 21, 1999, indicating its “deep concern” about the military con-
frontation in Kashmir, which it saw as being the result of an
“infiltration of armed intruders which violated the line of control.”42

______________
36See the July 4 Clinton-Sharif Agreement. See also Sridhar Krishnaswami, “Pull Back
Forces, Clinton Tells Sharif,” The Hindu, June 16, 1999.
37“U.S. Rejects Pak Claims on LOC Violations,” The Times of India, May 28, 1999.
38Sridhar Krishnaswami, “Zinni Mission to Pak, Very Productive,” The Hindu, June 29,
1999. See also C. Raja Mohan, “Will U.S. Match Words with Deeds?” The Hindu, June
26, 1999; Amit Baruah, “U.S. Asks Pak to Pull Out Intruders,” The Hindu, June 25, 1999.
39See, for example, “Clinton Appreciates India’s Restraint,” The Hindu, June 15, 1999.
40Amit Baruah, “Pakistan Wants International Attention,” The Hindu, May 28, 1999.
41For more discussion regarding the UN reaction to events in Kargil, see Arpit Rajain,
“India’s Political and Diplomatic Response to the Kargil Crisis.” See also “Security
Council Hands Off Kargil,” The Statesman, May 30, 1999; “Pakistan Crossed the LOC
Says UN Chief,” The Hindu, May 31, 1999.
42“G-8 Communiqué,” June 1999. See also “G-8 Can Now Play Proactive Role in Indo-
Pak Conflict,” The Hindustan Times Online Edition, June 22, 1999.

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 The Significance of the Kargil Crisis 23

The communiqué called for a “restoration of the line of control and

for the parties to work for an immediate cessation of the fighting, full
respect in the future for the line of control and the resumption of the
dialogue between India and Pakistan in the spirit of the Lahore Dec-
laration.” The language of the communiqué was clearly consistent
with the Indian interest in legitimizing the LOC as a border between
the two nations based on a bilateral agreement.

The international reaction to the Kargil intrusion, particularly from

the United States, G-8, UN, and China, demonstrated to India the
power of world opinion to restrict Pakistan’s options at all levels of
diplomacy and war. The Kargil Review Committee Report suggested
that India was cognizant of the role that international perception
played in the unraveling of Kargil and would seek to develop and ex-
ploit that perception. 43 To the degree that Pakistani support for
pariah regimes like the Taliban remains unwavering and to the de-
gree that Islamist radicalism extends its reach beyond Kashmir, In-
dia’s location as a front-line state in the fight against political ex-
tremism will be all the more obvious.44 India has thus learned to
value international attention to Pakistani adventurism, but it should
not therefore be concluded that India sees benefit accruing from in-
ternationalizing the Kashmir issue more generally. On the contrary,
India will persist in its efforts to minimize the role of other countries
and international organizations in any discussions regarding the dis-
position of Kashmir even while it cultivates attention that has the
effect of demonizing and ultimately constraining Pakistan.

Kargil Demonstrated the Utility of the Media in Military

Operations
The Kargil Review Committee Report states that

The media is or can be a valuable force multiplier. Even in circum-

stances of proxy war, the battle for hearts and minds is of

______________
43See, for instance, “Pakistan’s Dilemma,” The Hindustan Times, June 30, 1999. See
also “The Line of Crisis,” The Indian Express, June 29, 1999; “Taming Pakistan,” The
Times of India, June 26, 1999; “Pakistan’s Plan Backfires,” The Pioneer, June 25, 1999;
“India and the U.S. After Kargil,” The Hindu, June 24, 1999.
44India Kargil Review Committee, From Surprise to Reckoning: The Kargil Review
Committee Report, p. 222.

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24 Limited Conflicts Under the Nuclear Umbrella

paramount importance. It is little use winning the battle of bullets

only to lose the war because of popular alienation.45

A review of Indian military literature suggests that India has long

been aware of the need to develop a media strategy as an instrument
of warfare. The need for such a strategy has been reinforced by In-
dia’s extensive involvement in counterinsurgency (COIN) and peace-
keeping operations. 46 During Kargil, New Delhi demonstrated its
agility in handling a variety of media (e.g., television, print, radio, In-
ternet) to disseminate and control the Indian message, shaping in
the process both the international and the domestic perception of
events.

The role of the media in shaping domestic and international opinion

regarding Kargil is evident in the headlines of major Indian news-
papers printed during the time. Numerous Indian newspapers
were filled with accounts of how Pakistan “propped up intruders”
in a “qualitatively different” infiltration. Such narratives in effect
strengthened the view of India as a responsible and restrained nu-
clear nation victimized by its overzealous neighbor. Some represen-
tative headlines are as follows:
“Evidence of Pak Intruders on Indian Side,” The Hindu, May 29, 1999.
“Intrusion Obviously Had Full Backing of Pak Government: India,”
The Hindustan Times, May 27, 1999.
“Pakistan Army Officers Among Kargil Infiltrators,” The Statesman,
May 25, 1999.

______________
45Ibid., p. 215.
46 Maj. Gen. Arjun Ray, Kashmir Diary: Psychology of Militancy (New Delhi: Manas
Publications, 1997). Also see Pegasus, “Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency: The
Anatomy of an Insurgent Movement and Counter Measures,” Indian Defence Review,
Vol. 1, No. 1, January 1996; Lt. Gen. Vijay Madan, “Population Terrain—The Neglected
Factor of Counter-Insurgency Operations,” Indian Defence Review, Vol. 12, No. 2,
April–June, 1997; Col. D. P. Merchant, “Peacekeeping in Somalia: An Indian
Experience,” Army & Defence Quarterly Journal, Vol. 126, April 1996, pp. 134–141.

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 The Significance of the Kargil Crisis 25

Headlines such as these focused attention on a “blitz” of stories that

“expose[d] the direct role of Pakistan” in the invasion of Indian terri-
tory.47

Various print and television stories also painted India as a nation at

the front line of Islamic terrorism. The Indian press made explicit
references to the connection between Pakistan and vilified Afghan-
istan resident Osama bin Laden. 48 Such overtures were perhaps
symptomatic of India’s efforts to stimulate antipathy toward its un-
stable, nonsecular neighbor. Conversely, at an early stage in the
conflict, India sought to cast itself in an aura of responsibility and
trust.49 By publicly disavowing crossing the LOC—despite enormous
provocation from Pakistan—India cultivated an international opin-
ion that it was a responsible nuclear nation capable of restraint.

Another important objective in the aftermath of Kargil was the ex

post facto recasting of India’s engagement with Pakistan during the
Lahore Declaration process. Early in the crisis, the Indian media
rushed to proclaim Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s igno-
rance of Kargil and cast him as the Pakistani Army’s duped stooge.
Assuming ignorance was not at issue—an assumption that cannot be
taken for granted to begin with—this image had utility for two rea-
sons. First, it was a “carefully calculated move to sharpen the differ-
ences between civilian and military establishments in Pakistan.”50
Second, by casting the Pakistani Army as the rogue elephant respon-
sible for Kargil and by distancing the Sharif government from it, India
could insist that the Lahore Declaration represented a legitimate
form of engagement that was being subverted principally by the
Pakistani Army—a strategy that had some attractiveness insofar as it

______________
47 “Delhi Plans Publicity Blitz to Expose Direct Role of Pakistan,” The Hindustan
Times, May 30, 1999.
48“Kargil Infiltrators Are Fundamentalists: Russia”; B. Raman, “Is Osama bin Laden in
Kargil?” The Indian Express, May 26, 1999; “Taliban Are Waiting to Launch Jehad in
Kashmir,” The Asian Age, June 16, 1999; “German Intelligence Says Osama Is Involved
in the Kashmir Crisis,” The Asian Age, June 16, 1999.
49Arpit Rajain, “India’s Political and Diplomatic Response to the Kargil Crisis.”
50Ibid.

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26 Limited Conflicts Under the Nuclear Umbrella

could help vitiate the claims of some of the critics of Vajpayee’s dra-
matic bus diplomacy.51

One of the positive benefits of the media’s televised depiction of In-

dia’s war dead was the galvanizing of domestic support for more-
aggressive actions against Pakistan.52 This was watched with interest
in Pakistan, according to our interlocutors, who read these depic-
tions as a deliberate effort to instigate a frenzied consensus in favor
of attacking Pakistan. Indian media agencies also cultivated domes-
tic support with continuous news of activities on the front lines and
instant communication via the Internet. Several Web sites (e.g.,
www.indiainfo.com, www.kargilonline.com, and www.vijayinkargil.
org) described numerous episodes of heroism at the front, supported
Indian tactical and strategic decisions, updated events in real time,
and narrated stories of families of soldiers enduring the loss of their
loved ones.

While these Web sites have obvious utility in some regards, the de-
mographics of India imply that only a small fraction of India’s more-
affluent population was on-line and therefore accessible through this
medium. It is also likely that these Web sites targeted the expatriate
Indian population (which has developed considerable political clout
within some countries of residence). Some of these Web sites ex-
plicitly solicited financial donations. For example, kargilonline.com
(a site dedicated to the “welfare of soldiers and their families”) tried
to encourage donations to the Army Welfare Fund: “The debt of
gratitude the nation owes these heroes is incalculable. Nevertheless,
ordinary citizens like you and me must find some small way to chip
in.”53 The Indian Army’s official Kargil Web site (www.vijayinkargil.
org) did so also: “Contributions [for the Army Welfare Fund] includ-
ing those from the NRI’s [nonresident Indians] are welcome (in any
currency).”54

______________
51Ibid. See also “Sharif, ISI Uninvolved, by George!” The Hindustan Times, May 29,
1999; “Nawas Was Bypassed, Feel Western Experts,” The Pioneer, May 29, 1999.
52See “Pak Sends Mutilated Bodies Ahead of Aziz,” Indian Express, June 11, 1999; “Pak
Ploy to Escalate War, Draw Global Attention,” The Pioneer, June 11, 1999; John Wilson,
“Enough. Now Teach Them a Lesson,” The Pioneer, June 11, 1999.
53www.kargilonline.com.
54www.vijayinkargil.org.

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 The Significance of the Kargil Crisis 27

The mobilization of national and international opinion in support

of India is seen as a key component of future conflicts with Pakistan.
In fact, the Kargil Review Committee Report recommends a well-
structured civil-military apparatus to ensure all possible media con-
sistently and adequately portray the desired Indian message.55 The
significance of incorporating a comprehensive information warfare
component—one that is completely integrated with national re-
portage capabilities—cannot be overstated. Both the declared desire
to improve civil-military relations in order to mold positive percep-
tions among the domestic audience and the implied intention to en-
sure India’s posture of stability and restraint in the international
realm are key pieces of evidence that words are viewed as carrying
great weight in the ongoing battle for hearts and minds in the sub-
continent and beyond.

SUMMARY
The import of the Kargil crisis was generally very different for both
countries. While Pakistan appears to have concluded that Kargil-like
operations are not likely to be successful for many reasons and
therefore are not attractive as a matter of state policy, Pakistan
has not concluded that violence in general is an illegitimate means
for altering the status quo. Pakistan will continue to pursue low-
intensity operations within the context of its Kashmir policy, incor-
porating as best it can ordinary Kashmiris’ alienation from India in
support of larger political objectives. One of the reasons why future
Kargil-like episodes are seen as not likely to be successful is Pak-
istan’s understanding that the conflict subverted Pakistan’s position
internationally while simultaneously retarding its ability to focus on
economic and social renewal domestically.

What remains to be explicated is Pakistan’s continual willingness to

take on such risks. In fact, several Pakistani writers have questioned
Pakistan’s foray into Kargil, comparing it with the 1965 war as a fine

______________
55India Kargil Review Committee, From Surprise to Reckoning: The Kargil Review
Committee Report, pp. 214–219.

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28 Limited Conflicts Under the Nuclear Umbrella

example of why Pakistan should resist such adventurism.56 More

generally, prior to launching this operation, Islamabad should well
have comprehended India’s ability to inflict pain on Pakistan. Pak-
istan’s risk acceptance is revisited in the next chapter.

Most of Kargil’s significance for India can be seen in terms of the

conflict’s impact on bilateral relations with Pakistan. India believes
Pakistan to be fundamentally untrustworthy and capable of acting in
ways that appear to be completely irrational and astrategic. This has
strengthened the Indian determination to resolve the Kashmir issue
without acknowledging Pakistan’s equities in the manner desired by
Islamabad. Kargil also occasioned reconsideration of India’s per-
ception of its security and its intelligence apparatus: in particular,
Kargil strengthened the belief that Pakistani surprises can and will
occur with potentially dangerous results and that they consequently
merit anticipatory preparation in India. Kargil also revealed to India
that select aspects of international attention—particularly to Pak-
istan’s misconduct—have significant utility for its grand strategy.
Finally, Kargil demonstrated India’s ability to dexterously influence
the media to shape the domestic and the international response.

______________
56M. B. Naqvi, “Looking Beyond Kargil”; Gen-Maj. (Retd) M. Akbar, “Time for Sober
Reflection,” The Dawn, July 22, 1999; Shahid M. Amin, “Kargil: The Unanswered
Questions II—Time to Shed Illusions,” The Dawn, July 26, 1999.

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