Guest Column | Dangers of Complacency

General Jehangir Karamat (retd)

The criticism most often levelled against retired military men is that wisdom seems to dawn on them only after retirement. This is true. While in service these men are pursuing careers and implementing policies. Their own input into policy-making is based on current events because they rarely have time for meaningful interactions and creative thought. Policies are made on the basis of evolving situations and their predicted outcomes. Once made, policies acquire a momentum of their own that creates lobbies giving them a sort of permanence.

Policy changes are equated with admissions of strategic misperceptions and lapses. Quite often the domestic pressures drummed up in support of policies are so strong that reversals or changes start looking like compromises on national interests.That is why you have 27-year follies like the Vietnam War by the US.

Policy changes become even more difficult if the pressure for change is seen as coming from external sources seen to be acting in their own interests. This is where the time and space factor becomes important. You have to realistically assess the time that will be required to change policy tracks without serious destabilisation and you have to determine the space that will be needed to create the environment in which major policy shifts become acceptable. This assessment has to include a consideration of both domestic and international factors that may be constraints on policy changes.

The violence in Kashmir is a ‘proxy war’ in Indian perception. The same violence is a ‘freedom struggle’ in Pakistan’s perception. The violence in Kashmir erupted because of India’s flawed policies and mis-governance. India’s policy response was, and remains, brutal repression and suppression. Pakistan, firmly committed to the Kashmiris’ right of self-determination and wiser after the events of 1971, followed the predictable course of exploiting the situation. These basic policy thrusts remain in