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OTHER STORIES RELATED TO COVER Operation Salami Slice Operation POK Chop

To wage a war, generals usually want their armies to strike at a time, place and manner of their choosing. Last week, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee chose a telling cluster of such factors to signal India's bellicose intentions towards Pakistan. On May 22, addressing army jawans at Kupwara near the loc, the prime minister looked grimly across at the high mountains of Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK) and said, "A challenge has been thrown to India and we accept it. My arrival here is indicative of something. Whether our neighbour understands it or not, whether the world takes note of it or not, historians will recall that we wrote a new chapter of victory."

TALKING TOUGH: Vajpayee greets jawans in Kupwara at the Line of Control last week

Coming after the May 14 Kaluchak massacre and his visit there a week later to comfort grieving relatives, the timing of Vajpayee's warning was significant. The message: A military offensive had suddenly become the option. As a senior Government functionary ominously said, "The train (of war) is about to leave the platform. If Pakistan doesn't take action against terrorists or the US can't get it to deliver, it will soon be on its way."

In India's calculus, America can no more, as an official put it, "waltz in, issue a demarche, get Musharraf to roll over and comply". Also the US can hardly turn sanctimonious if India decides to exercise its right to self defence. For Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, Kashmir is certainly not in the same league as double-crossing the Taliban. No insurance policy seems good enough for the Pakistan president to buy off the jehadis and the army if he ever decided to slacken his zeal for the Kashmiri cause.

As Pakistan stared into the barrels of a million Indian guns lined across the border, the moment of reckoning seemed nigh. For the US, it means showing just how much it is willing to extend its war on terrorism. For Pakistan, it calls for a move to jettison or moderate a policy it has been pursuing viciously for the past 50 years. And for India, it indicates carrying out something it has been threatening to do all these years-actually strike Pakistan first. No one is certain that a limited war which India plans to wage will remain that way. At this incredible intersection of moments, the world watches with trepidation.

Redrawing the Line of Control
Option 1
OPERATION SALAMI SLICE

THE BIG THRUST: Indian jawans training for an assault across the LoC in the Kargil sector. It has treacherous snow-clad peaks and a hostile climate which exact a heavy toll

The Indian prime minister seemed inclined last week to embrace the dictum of Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese war expert, who wrote, "So long as victory can be attained, stupid haste is preferable to clever dilatoriness." The need to demonstrate an electrifying military victory of some substance is now determining the shape and size of India's plans for an offensive. As General (retd) Ved Prakash Malik, former chief of army staff, points out, "War is one game that you cannot lose or draw, especially if you are the bigger country."

Also, with the monsoon due by June 30 in the mountains of Kashmir, the window of opportunity is narrowing for India because the rain would complicate military action. General (retd) V.N. Sharma, another former chief of army staff, believes that India "should either make a loud noise or none at all". Not enough, though, to cascade into a full-fledged war with Pakistan that has in any case been ruled out ever since that country crossed the nuclear threshold in the late 1980s.

The earlier plan of precision air strikes against terrorist camps located across the loc to demonstrate some military resolve is being put under. Defence analyst Air Marshal (retd) Kapil Kak argues, "Such strikes have only symbolic value as these camps are ramshackle structures built in crappy places with no real estate. They can spring up elsewhere and terrorists can continue to torment India with ease."

A growing band of defence experts including those in the Government is now veering towards what in military terms is called a "salami slice offensive" (see graphic). Much like the way a chef chops salami, the idea is to rapidly capture small swathes of territory in PoK and hold them as a bargaining chip while signalling clearly that India didn't want the war to escalate to other areas.

The likely targets of such offensives are in the high mountains adjoining the Uri sector or in the Poonch-Rajouri sector south of the Pir Panjal. It is in these areas that Pakistan has supported the maximum number of terrorist camps and used advantageous hill features to facilitate infiltration. India could justify making such an attack, stating it was only going after Pakistan's terrorist network and had no larger plans to annex territory. This would also allay international fears of an all-out war.

Before such strikes are mounted, Pakistani Army bunkers, artillery gun positions, ammunition dumps, supply lines, key communication facilities are detected through a surveillance network of satellites, unmanned aerial vehicles, reconnaissance aircraft and human intelligence. The offensive usually begins with heavy artillery shelling or a fire assault for 48 hours in the area of strike. "The idea is to exhaust the enemy's morale in the area of fire, knock out its artillery, command and control centres and disrupt its supplies," says Lt-General (retd) Vinay Shanker, a former director-general of artillery.

On D-Day, to ensure that the area is "sanitised", Indian Air Force fighters taking off from air bases in Udhampur, Srinagar and Pathankot would launch raids to knock the remaining Pakistani fortification and gain air superiority in the region. Air Chief Marshal (retd) A.Y. Tipnis, former chief of air staff, says air action is most effective for a degradation battle because it causes the "greatest damage" to the enemy's war-waging potential in the least possible time.

For the "slice" plan, an infantry division (around 10,000 men) would be used to physically occupy territory. The Indian intrusion could be as much as 10 km deep and 3 km wide in a day, giving India 300 sq km in just 10 days. The speed with which India accomplishes it would give it the edge. Pakistan could retaliate by trying similar offensives on the Indian side of the loc coupled with air strikes. But any effort to escalate the war to other fronts would bring international intervention. And Delhi could use the territory captured to drive a hard bargain with Islamabad.

Defence experts say the problem with a salami slice offensive is that it is something both armies have readied for over 20 years. Given the "tyranny of the territory" as it is called, both sides know where an attack could be mounted and are well prepared. This has reduced the surprise element, which is so vital for success, to a bare minimum. Kak calls for trying something that is "unexpected, innovative, inconceivable and which pays fast dividends".

Some defence experts feel the best option is what is termed a "PoK chop". It is designed to strike Pakistani army fortifications 100 km deep in PoK and take towns such as Skardu. It means capturing a finger of territory deep inside the PoK and holding it to bargain. Such an assault would begin with massive air attacks to degrade Pakistani fortifications (see chart) followed by an entire brigade being paradropped to hold Skardu "It's the kind of shock treatment that could leave Pakistan in a daze," says Shanker. But it comes with a much heavier strike force and there is every chance of Musharraf rapidly escalating the conflict into a full-fledged war.