null The London based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) is the world’s most influential thinktank on international strategic affairs. Its director, John Chipman, and one of its fellows, Gary Samore, have made some policy recommendations to India and Pakistan on what they could do to lower their present confrontationist posture. (‘War’s your trump card, tips on how to play, The Indian Express, May 27)

They think that both antagonists could come out winners from this military stand-off if they do what they prescribe them to do: Pakistan curbs terrorist activities on its soil, India scales down its current force levels and both enter into negotiations over Kashmir.

Taking a leaf out of Western thinking — shaped by institutes like the IISS — India’s strategy is rational. The force level deployed is meant to tell Pak that if it doesn’t end cross border terrorism, it faces the risk of a conflict whose scope is deliberately not defined

When the IISS counsels us to to scale down our current high military posture against Pakistan on the ground that to maintain it over any length of time carries the risk of war, it clearly implies that we do not quite know how to use military power diplomatically. This is what Chipman and Samore mean when they say that the threat of war has been effective in creating pressure on Islamabad, but the execution of this threat would be extremely dangerous and self-defeating.

This is obvious to anyone in New Delhi. Any nuclear threat, if ever executed, would result in the destruction of its executor and of the party against whom it is executed. But the trick is to play the nuclear brinkmanship: threaten to cross the brink and hope your enemy gives in first.

Taking a leaf out of Western strategic thinking, which in no less measure has been shaped by IISS, one could say that the strategy India has adopted since December 27 is rational. The force level it has deployed is meant to tell Pakistan that should it not end cross border terrorism, it faces the risk of a conflict. The scope of the conflict is deliberately not defined.

There is always a risk of escalation to a nuclear level in any face-off between nuclear adversaries. But who is going to pull the nuclear trigger first, we or Pakistan? It’s obvious that it’s Pakistan that will have the greater compulsion than us to escalate to the nuclear level because it cannot fight us with conventional weapon for any length of time across the LoC or the entire border.

However ‘victorious’ we may emerge from the stand-off, the Kashmir problem will remain. An unresolved Kashmir issue always carries the risk of another Kargil or armed confrontation

Now it has been well established from the numerous Soviet-American nuclear confrontations in the ’50s that the side that thinks the only choice it has is surrender or total destruction gives in first. Khruschev’s Soviet Union blinked first during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, when American President John Kennedy stared at him resolutely and told him to remove tactical nuclear missiles from Cuba or face the risk of running the American naval blockade of Cuba.

Kennedy could do it because the United States had overwhelming superiority in conventional arms, which left the Soviet Union little choice but to reach for the nuclear level.

Now we enjoy enough superiority over Pakistan in conventional arms to selectively bomb Pakistani military installations across the LoC and even hold a part of the territory in PoK and thus compel Pakistan to widen the conflict along the entire Indo-Pak border. Should it fail to contain India’s conventional thrust, it would have no choice but to escalate to the nuclear level. Would it do it or would it chicken out first? We are better placed than our adversary to win this game of chicken.

The other suggestion of Chipman and Samore that we acknowledge that the problem in Kashmir is ‘‘one of people as well as territory’’ should be unhesitatingly accepted by us. However ‘‘victorious’’ we may emerge from this stand-off, the Kashmir problem will remain. Since the outbreak of the deep and spontaneous unrest in Kashmir 1987, our leadership — the Janata, Congress and BJP — has responded to the Kashmir problem only militarily. It believes or chooses to believe that the Kashmir problem is only the creation of Pakistan, and the only way it can be dealt with is by force.

The election this September offers us a great opportunity to let the people of the Valley vote freely. Only an impartial administration and the presence of monitors — Indians of high moral integrity or outsiders — can assure that the election will be fair. Otherwise the Kashmir problem will remain. An unresolved Kashmir problem always carries the risk of another Kargil or armed confrontation.