Pravin Sawhney

The chief of army staff, General Bipin Rawat has asserted that the recent Pakistan-supported Sunjuwan terror attack where six soldiers were killed would be avenged. Speaking to a national newspaper, he said, “Pakistan thinks it is fighting a war that is paying them dividends but we have several options, including surgical strikes.”

General Rawat means business. With the defence minister, Nirmala Sitharaman having already vowed to teach Pakistan a lesson for its ‘misadventure,’ the Indian Army would surely retaliate. The counter-response too would come, and the deadly cycle would continue with India losing trained soldiers and Pakistan losing low-cost, dispensable terrorists. This unending cycle of reprisals called tactics or battles is the job of junior military leaders, not generals, and certainly not the army chief.

Instead of micro-managing another surgical strike, General Rawat should be concerned with realisation of the political objective — compelling the Pakistan Army to end its proxy war so that bilateral tal