The horrific terror attack at the lush green meadows of Pahalgam in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir on April 22 has shocked the conscience of the nation and brought to the fore the familiar calls for retribution and solidarity with the victims of the tragedy. While such dastardly acts of cowardice have become a de-facto norm as far as the acts of violent non-state actors are concerned, what is new is how these acts of terrorism are linked to the part of a new form of warfare that has emerged almost two decades back but has acquired salience in recent times.
Terrorism is a part of the playbook called hybrid warfare. As an idea, hybrid warfare was coined by former US Army officer and researcher Frank G Hoffman in a research paper. He defines hybrid warfare as, “incorporating a range of different modes of warfare, including conventional capabilities, irregular tactics and formations, terrorist acts including indiscriminate violence and coercion, and criminal disorder.”
In the 21st century, barring a few and that too on extremely rare occasions, inter-state industrial war, marked by the mobilisation of entire societies and resources for the war effort and characterised by the need to achieve the unconditional surrender of the enemy is no longer tenable. The de facto mode of warfare today is what General Rupert Smith calls in his book The Utility of Force “war amongst the people”.
Hybrid warfare incorporates a range of different modes of warfare, including conventional capabilities, irregular tactics and formations, terrorist acts including indiscriminate violence and coercion, and criminal disorder, says Frank G Hoffman
Deconstructing Pakistan’s Origins
An exposition of Pakistan’s origins sets a proper context for decoding its motivation for hybrid warfare. Pakistan is not a nation-state, it is an idea, a perverted idea born out of the crucible of the controversial two-nation theory. The ideological roots of Pakistan, argues J Sai Deepak, go back to the times of the 18th century, particularly during the times of Shah Waliullah Dehlavi, the architect of Wahabbi Islamic thought.
Based on the notion of purging Islam of innovations that had been internalised over the centuries in India from different religions and metamorphosing it into Islam of 7th century Arabia, Dehlavi sowed the seeds of Islamism in India. It is based on the long line of thought of the thinkers of this puritanical school that contributed to the polarising politics of the Muslim League, resulting in the partition of the country and the spawning of Pakistan.
The Islamist ideology of Pakistan received a shot in the arm with Zia Ul Haq’s Islamisation drive during the 1980s. For Pakistan, the aim is to eviscerate India which is a “Dar Al Harb” and turn it into “Dar Al Islam”.
Pakistan’s Hybrid Warfare
Pakistan’s hybrid warfare playbook involves a combination of irregular warfare in the form of terrorism, economic warfare in the counterfeit currency network, narco-warfare in the Indian state of Punjab, and cyber warfare through misinformation propaganda about Jammu and Kashmir.
Pakistan operates with the familiar template of using violent non-state actors such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Muhammed, and Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist groups. Given the international sanctions regime under the UNSC’s 1267 Sanctions Committee and the Financial Action Task Force’s constant vigil that is operating against Pakistan, it has launched a new way to surreptitiously wiggle its way out of the web-TRF or The Resistance Front, an organisation that is allied to the Lashkar terror group. The group has managed to remain under the shadows due to a change in tactics – the creation and use of accounts on social media platforms like Instagram, and the dissemination of content through YouTube to carry out recruitment of brainwashed individuals in Kashmir.
The counterfeit currency network is another key part of Pakistan’s diabolical plot. The objective behind the counterfeit currency is to destabilise India’s economic base, thereby undermining the confidence of both Indian and foreign investors in the economy. This network was dismantled by India during the demonetisation exercise carried out by the Union government in November 2016.
Pakistan’s hybrid warfare involves terrorist attacks, economic damage with counterfeit currency, smuggling of various narcotic substances in the Indian state of Punjab, and misinformation propaganda about Jammu and Kashmir
The third component is narco-warfare. It involves the smuggling and dissemination of highly addictive psychotropic substances like methamphetamine, LSD, brown sugar, and now, the emerging drug called Fentanyl. This operates largely in Punjab through covert hawala networks operated by groups sponsored by the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence. Worrying signs are already emerging with regard to the future of the youth in Punjab as drugs are becoming a menace to the societal fabric of the state.
The last component of this warfare involves the dissemination of misinformation by Pakistani state-sponsored and financed cyber groups based out of Pakistan and abroad to tarnish India’s image by raising the bogey of ‘human rights violations’ in Jammu & Kashmir in general and the Muslims of India in particular.
It involves the spread of fake news of attacks on Indian citizens of Islamic faith across the country to project India as an Islamophobic country. Another example was terming the consecration of Lord Ram temple in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, as an egregious day.
As the country gears up to respond in proportionate measure to the cowardly attack by the Pakistani deep-state, it is imperative that both in India’s official as well as academic circles, the research on hybrid warfare and discussions on its mode of operation and nature is undertaken on an expeditious basis.
–The writer is currently working as a Research Associate at Defence Research and Studies (dras.in) and is a columnist. The views expressed are personal and do not necessarily reflect the views of Raksha Anirveda
