Prime Minister’s Office, South Block, Delhi
‘I offer my resignation, Prime Minister,’ said Mani Naidu, the head of the Intelligence Bureau.
‘Refused,’ replied Hari Dixit as he took his chair at the head of the table and opened a book in front of him.
‘I would like you to accept my resignation as well,’ said Chandra Reddy, of RAW, who should have known in advance of Pakistan’s attack on Kargil.
‘Refused,’ said Dixit, running his finger down a page in the book. He looked up at Naidu. ‘If we had a Home Minister, he could go, but we don’t because he has been murdered. The situation is so grave and the actions of Hamid Khan so unpredictable that to reshuffle my intelligence agencies at this time would be immature to say the least. Within the past thirty minutes, the whole of the Dras-Kargil sector has fallen, and we need to look ahead. Foreign Minister, before we begin on the details could you sum up where we stand diplomatically with China, Pakistan and the United States?’
‘Pakistan denies involvement,’ said Prabhu Purie, ‘although we have the wreckage of their helicopters all over Kargil. We have heard nothing from Hamid Khan directly, but I expect them to call for a UN Security Council meeting in the next few hours. Equally disturbingly, China is racking up pressure both bilaterally and through international institutions. I’m told its troop levels on the border are almost high enough to launch an invasion. Reddy could give more details on that. Beijing has launched official complaints against us to the Human Rights Commission in Geneva.’
‘What on earth for?’ said Dixit.
‘Prison conditions,’ replied Purie. ‘We treat our prisoners inhumanely.’
‘They must be out of their minds.’
Zhongnanhai, Beijing, China
President Tao Jian had risen to become the leader of the world’s largest one-party state on a reputation for incorruptibility and hawkish nationalism. Having gained the support of the economists and diplomats within the Party, he finally won over the military in March 1996 when the United States sent an aircraft carrier into the Straits of Taiwan during China’s missile tests. It was Tao, then a vice-minister, who suggested that the then President Jiang Zemin and Foreign Minister, Qian Qichen, be summoned for a dressing down. From the viewpoint of the Chinese military, if the Americans had the nerve to threaten China with an aircraft carrier, China had clearly shown herself to be too forgiving of Taiwan’s democracy and too soft in response to international pressure.
On the rare occasions when he had to meet an American official, Tao made it unequivocally clear, albeit as part of a joke, that if the United States attempted such a show of force again China would attack. His favourite parting remark, which he had mastered in English, was: ‘We may not be able to hit the Pentagon, but we can vaporize Hollywood.’ He became a key liaison figure in pushing through the new policy to down-size the army, modernize it and invest in missiles and a blue-water navy.
Like most Chinese leaders, Tao was a pupil of the works of Sun Tzu’s Art of War. But he had also been influenced by the Prussian officer Carl Philipp Gottlieb von Clausewitz, whose work Vom Kriege or On War advocated that war should be seen as an extension of political policy and not as an end in itself. Years ago, when Tao first read Clausewitz, he discussed it with translators and military experts to ensure that he understood the meaning. He then blended Clausewitz with Sun Tzu’s teaching that the supreme art of war was to subdue the enemy without fighting. ‘War is a matter of vital importance for the state,’ wrote Sun Tzu in 500 BC, arguing that the military was the instrument which delivered the coup de grace to an enemy previously made vulnerable. While Sun Tzu argued that ‘there has never been a protracted war from which a country has benefited’, Clausewitz insisted that ‘To introduce into the philosophy of war a principle of moderation would be an act of absurdity. War is an act of violence pushed to its utmost bounds.’
As Tao Jian contemplated his political objective with India, he thought about Hari Dixit. Dixit had offered to come to Beijing and had then cancelled without explanation. He had struck Pakistani positions across the LoC and emerged diplomatically unscathed.
The man might be a follower of neither Clausewitz nor Sun Tzu, but clearly he was a national leader of high brinkmanship and courage. The war about to be waged was not about Pakistan, but about India and China. Ultimately, it was the first skirmish in a fight for global leadership.
Prime Minister’s Office, South Block, New Delhi
‘How are we fixed militarily?’ asked Hari Dixit. The National Security Council had not left the room since convening overnight. Each time decisions were made, messages interrupted the meeting with new developments.
‘The Rajasthan and Punjab borders are in battle-ready positions, Prime Minister,’ said Chief of Army Staff, Unni Khrishnan. ‘We could move on Lahore any time you want. Fighting is still going on along the LoC. A counter-attack has begun to retake Kargil.’
‘Casualties?’
‘Not clear yet on their side. But we have more than fifty confirmed dead and about two hundred wounded so far. We have drawn up plans to create a buffer zone on the Pakistan side of the LoC, rather like the Israelis did in southern Lebanon. We’ve named it Operation Qabza-e-Zamin, or in English, Secure Ground.’
‘How would that go down at the UN and elsewhere?’ said Dixit.
‘Given what happened last night, if we went in now, we could get away with it,’ said Purie.
‘Can it be done?’ Dixit asked Khrishnan.
Khrishnan hesitated: ‘At a pinch, yes. It is high altitude and carries risk.’
‘What risk?’
‘The environment is the most hostile imaginable. Movement through the mountains is painfully slow. It takes an average of ten minutes to cover a hundred yards, five times longer than on the plains. It’s even slower with rations, ammunition, weapons, warm-weather protection and communications equipment.’
‘But it is the same for the enemy, is it not?’ said Dixit.
‘They are dug in, sir. I am not saying we cannot do it, because this is what the mountain troops are trained to do. What I am flagging up is the chances of failure and the reasons. The pathways, running along the mountain ledges, are narrow. The men have to walk in single file. If they slip and fall, it is certain death. If the enemy pins them down with machine-gun fire, there is nowhere to flee to. Once out there, each unit is often cut off without a radio link. The high-frequency VHF radios operate on line of sight, so we have to set up relay stations, visible to each other to make sure commanders can pass instructions through to the forward units. And finally there’s fatigue. The thin air saps the energy of the men.’
‘I assume each battle-front carries its own unique set of risks,’ said the Prime Minister, ‘and that Kashmir is worse than most. If we go in now we can argue our case on the international stage. Can you do it?’
‘If you accept the level of risk, sir, we can give it our best efforts.’
‘And the China border?’
‘We shouldn’t fight there, Prime Minister,’ replied Khrishnan, glancing towards Purie.
‘The Chinese have diplomatically shot themselves in the foot by breaking the Missile Technology Control Regime and nuclear proliferation agreements,’ said Purie. ‘They also have a record of backing losers. Cambodia, North Korea and Burma are not shining examples of success. We should persuade Beijing that Pakistan is only going one way and that is towards collapse.’