Response to Mumbai: India's Options

What are India's options in the wake of Mumbai attacks? Alsol, are we confronted with a discontinuity here-- are attacks of this nature going to remain isolated and rare, or do you believe that a war has been declared on India, and such attacks will now become rampant?

Researching on the web, and within blogs, this is what I find for India's Options:

1. Do nothing (supporting assumption: Mumbai was a freak incident, and will not be repeated again)

2. Accelerate diplomacy with Pakistan (Assumption: They are willing, capable  and ready to collaborate, and the all that is needed to facilitate such collaboration is greater exchange of information and views, and that further attacks will be prevented by this)

3. Work toward a diplomatic isolation of Pakistan (Assumption: Interests inimical to India can be weakened, and those likely to cooperate strengthened by such an isolation, and that further attacks will be prevented by this)

4. Work toward economic-sanctions against Pakistan (Assumption: The state is constitutionally opposed to India's weal, and the stress of economic isolation will drive reevaluation of institutional and national agenda, and that further attacks will be prevented by this)

5. Carry out surgical operations against terrorists on Pakistani soil (Assumption: The terrorists are well-identified, and isolated within Pakistani territory, that these attacka will deal a blow to their ability to reconstitute, and Pakistani government will not start supporting terrorists. Finally, that this will not lead to a disproportionate response from Pakistan, nor bring down civilian government, and that further Mumbai-like attacks will be prevented by this)

6. Carry out a full fledged invasion of Pakistan (Assumption: India will be able to permanently cripple Pakistan's ability to threaten India, and prevent Iraq-like instability in its aftermath. That a nuclear war would not ensue, nor will China opportnitstically make advances on Arunachal, etc. All this to prevent Mumbai-like attacks)

In designing such options, and I admit myriad can be made up, we balance the fear that the response will be ineffective (numbers 1 and 2, for example) with the fear that they will be counterproductive (numbers 5 and six possibly)

I think, given current threat level and India's limitations, options 3. and 4. cited above (diplomatic isolation OR economic sanctions) are the kinds we will want to choose from amongst.

Combining them, we can either

A. Go for maximum wattage, and seek economic sanctions against Pakistan, and demand clear, specific, time-based actions against them

OR

B. Build a case for economics sanctions, by allowing diplomatic isolation to fail

My thinking in all this is that India is faced with a secular discontinuity here-- that Mumbai attacks we NOT a one-off incident, but the begining of what will be a sustained campaign against India.

Do you agree? What options will you construct for India?

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A new strategic plank to build Indo-Pak alliance upon

"India cannot prosper in spite of Pakistan, and Pakistan can prosper because of India."


The following is a letter I wrote to Dr. Farrukh at the "Strategic Foresight Group." I will await his response. Meanwhile, your comments are invited.



Hello Dr. Farrukh,

I like your posting, "The Cost of Indo-Pak conflict"

on

http://www.strategicforesight.com/sfgnews_74.htm

Clearly, you are a proponent of peace and sanity, and a defender of the Pakistani point of view. I hope that if I differ with you on the latter, that you'd not discount my devotion to the first (to peace and sanity.)

The core thesis I want to run by you is: "India cannot prosper inspite of Pakistan, and Pakistan can prosper because of India."

To expand on the statement above, there is no way India can be a flourishing democracy without being a growth-economy. To grow, India needs foreign investment, for which it needs security, which it cannot have if the current relations with Pakistan continue. I hope my words don't sound critical of Pakistan-- it is great country, and a greater nation, though a suffering state. But Pakistan has the potential to hold India back.

Equally, India has the potential to help Pakistan grow-- India, with it's mercantile success, experience with democracy and liberalism (I would unhesitatingly accept all specific criticisms of Hindu fundamentals,) and progress on property rights -- can help Pakistan build a stronger economy, fashion stronger institutions, reverse the politicization of the military, and reduce the exhausting spending on defence.

I think the realization (that Pakistan can hold India back) is stronger in the subcontinent, than is the realization that India can help Pakistan grow. The first has built a jaundiced Indian foreign policy, and a militant Pakistani approach. A realization of the second can help reverse the venom of the first.

The flowering of culture and arts that attended the first contact of Islam with India is indicative of the synergy of Islams virility with India's fecundity. In no other country have Muslims created such vast and fabulous empires, contributed so much to arts, learning, and defence.

Where, given today's rancor, do Indians begin to solve the current problem? What do we need to do to fight the impression that Pakistan has succumbed to militancy? Can India do anything to strengthen progressives within Pakistan and weaken the irridentists? Finally, I have long believed that India should recognize the LOC in Kashmir as an international border, and the two countries should move on beyond that dispute-- your thoughts?

In the interest of full disclosure, I am a Hindu, the son of a military officer, grandson of a Gandhian, and now a resident of US, working for a multinational. If you see my antecedents burdened with agenda's inimical to the interests of Pakistan, please know that if nothing, I will be honest with you. Sphere: Related Content

Five reasons for and against Indo-Pak war

I write this with no levity-- there is a strong case to be made against a war in the subcontinent. There is, however, also a case to be made in favor of one. I'd make the two, and hope to read your comments and views on the topic.

The case against is indubitably fiercely strong and, long term interests given preeminence, a most incontrovertible one. I'd enunciate five "pillar" arguments in favor of Peace in the Indian subcontinent;

1. The two nations are nuclear-armed.
2. The countries are poor, and densely populated, making widespread misery inevitable.
3. A war will make matters much worse
4. External interference will increase after a war
5. Multinational entities and capital will leave the region in droves, and development and commerce will be set back a century.

However, as I said in the beginning, there is constrained logic that makes a hesitant case in favor of a war

1. India, maybe unwillingly and even unwittingly, has become one of the global fronts in the "Jihadists" war.
2. What happened in Bombay was not an isolated incident, but one of many others to come, and a confrontation is not a matter of "if", but "when" hostilities breakout.
3. A limited theater engagement with Pakistan is possible
4. This engagement will lead to a fundamental, structural change in the constitution of the enemy, and lead to a long term solution to the problem
5. India is the best placed actor on the world stage to deliver this knockout blow, and would receive broad based support from the comity of nations

The summum bonum guiding this determination will be the likelihood that a world post war will be better than the world before it. India must go along with such a plan like don Quixote-- in a false belief in its manifest destiny to destroy a chimerical enemy. India must go in knowing it is sacrificing its preeminent interests to "save the world."

The real need here is to fight corruption, build strong institutions, and build an India where all share in prosperity, and opportunity is not limited to the privilaged. That will mean the populace gets over its hysteria, abandons petty differences, and moves decisively to build a modern polity.

Unfortunately, blaming and attacking an easily hated enemy is the easier. Sphere: Related Content

Selecting a Mac

For all the new and would be Mac'sters out there-- here is some help for selecting and enjoying your (prospective) assets.

First, Hersh's five rules of Mac ownership

1. An Apple product lasts, and stays technologically current, for about five years

corollary: In general, the more expensive a Mac, the longer it stays technologically current

2. While an Apple product becomes a very personal possession, the entire family uses your asset in one way or other

3. Apple products retain 80% their value (because of 1. above) for the first two years, and 50% for the first four-- a $1000 computer you bought in 2005 is still worth $700 today. The $500 Dell is selling for $100!!

4. All Apple products work seemlessly for media, document editing, and on the internet. The only problems you'd have are with corporate software, like SAP, etc.

5. The tasks for which companies write Mac versions of PC software, the Mac version is better-- has more features, and is easier to use. e.g., MS Excel for Windows still had a 30 MB file size limit, when the Mac version had no such constraint, AND had strated using the task-pallete later unsuccessfully incorporated in the Windows version of the software.

So, now that you know these general "FAQs," we can answer more specific questions.

1. Mac Book or Macbook Pro?

2. Laptop or iMac

3. When do I buy Mac mini

I will post answers to these questions, but in the meanwhile feel free to email me questions, and post comments.

Happy Mac'ing

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Preemption: Mercantile and Military

It is important to understand the stakes and strategies defining the current Indo-Pak confrontation. The two rivals have gone beyond the stage of negotiation, and are testing each others resolve. The next step may be a preemptive strike by one against the other, and from there-- war.

In this blog I describe the anticidents of this situation, then create a framework with which to analyze the situation, and finally make recommendations as to the next steps.

Preemption is relevant when two rivals operate in a competitive theater,

1. at least one of the players is known to perceive "zero sum" constraints,

2. both perceiving there to be first-mover advantage or, as is more common, second-mover disadvantage,

3. situational arithmetic prevents cooperation, and

4. there is uncertainty as to the intent of the players

We superimpose on this structure the default game-theoretic constrains (see Hurwicz, Maskin, and Meyerson, 2007 Nobel in economics) viz.,

A. Each player enjoys "selfish agency," and

B. Each sees information and resource asymmetry as a source of advantage

We also assume that Mike Jensen's REM (Resourceful, Evaluative, Maximizing) model obtains-- not so much to simplify our exploration, but more on account of the realism this concession brings to the analysis.

Relevant examples here are

Game(I) Pepsi versus Coke

Game(II) India versus Pakistan

Game(III) Anne Anderson, et al., v. Cryovac, Inc., et al.

We take the first from the business world, the second from politics, and the last from the movie "A Civil Action"-- a combination of the two worlds.

Now, Game(I) has been played out, and we go back to the Cola Wars of the'80's and 90's to revisit the narrative. (I take the Indo-Pak situation very seriously, and am not seeking to dilute that seriousness with this example. I am merely trying to trial-run our model on a non-normative game.)

So, Pepsi and Cola are fighting for market share. And, if one wins, the other automatically loses (market share.) Both expect the other to try and wrest advantage. Both seek agents in this fight-- fans, who amplify their sides message and (wittingly or unwittingly) help grab new Nielsen-points.

To take one example, Pepsi launched what ended up being a very successful campaign-- the "Pepsi Free Stuff" roll out. This helped Pepsi outsell coke in Atlanta, the Mecca of the Co'cola drinkers, during Olympics held in that city. Coke sought to replicate the success of this campaign, but clearly Pepsi had a first-mover advantage.

However, fighting over the Nielsen-points for the two was costly, and was turning effectively into a competition on price and quantities-- you either reduced your price, or sold less. Their agents were acting selfishly, for example when one "Free Stuff" enthusiast sued Pepsi for significant damages.

The wars cooled down when the two realigned their utilities, Pepsi by going for a dominance of the snack market, and leaving the dominance of the Cola world to Coke. The ability of the rivals to recognize the mutually-assured destruction inherent in their competition, and subsequent concessions, helped them cease hostilities.

In Game(III), the case of Cryovac v. Anne, as the movie A Civil Action shows, the two rivals, each seeking to visit examplary punishment on the other, were on a trajectory of a mutually destructive litigious war. However, the presence of an external arbiter (the courts of law) brokered their competing claims to impose a settlement.

When we move to the Indo-Pak conflict, we seek to identify the "Neilson-points" equivalent of this conflict. The candidate quantities could be

1. National security (Mumbai attacks)

2. National honor (Appearance of weakness in the comity of nations)

3. Territory (Kashmir)

4. Chances to win an election (for Congress in India)

5. Control over polity (Pakistan, the Army, vs. Politicians, vs. Militants)

All these are quantities that can be increased and, if they increase for one, the other sees their own utility decrease. Granted that 4. and 5. appear to be, and are, predominantly inward looking sub-games. However, they impose a heavy externality on the relationship of the rivals.

At a superficial level it is #2 that is the key variable that each is seeking to maximize, at the other's expense. In what follows, I posit Honor to be the resource under contention ("Neilsen-Points" or revenge in the the other examples.)

Honor is an "irrational" quantity-- it is subjective and non-material. That said, it is very clear to the partisans as to where the maximization of their utility lies. For India, it is in getting Pakistan to respond by dismantling its version of "Pepsi Stuff" campaign.

For Pakistan, this campaign (involving terrorists as free-agents) has brought them great dividends, and that success has come to imply virtue-- the strategies success against their key nemesis sanctifies it. In the triumvirate of Military-Militant-Politician struggle for power in Pakistan, India-bashing is the best way to gain advantage.

Since the interests of the two parties are, at least to the first observation, monovariate-- i.e., they both want the maximization of the same one variable (national honor), and the victory of one is the others default loss, this is a "stale mate" till one of them out-chickens the other.

Or, as in the case of Pepsi and Coke, they align their utilities such that they are not sucked into a zero-sum game: India could insist on security, and Pakistan on honor, and implement a "joint petrol" of border regions.

If they don't realign their interests, each giving in where the other is the most adamant, and getting symmetric concessions in return, then they either "fight to the finish," or an external broker will need to impose their will to help reach a settlement. Which is kind of what the British did between warring principalities.

Now, what if we decide to fight-to-finish? That is when the calculation of the (next) preemptive strike becomes relevant. We can agree that the attack on Mumbai constituted the first preemptive strike, though we clarify this later.

Pakistan, as we discussed briefly, has three groups jockeying for "harms India the most" badge. Their implements, however, are different. The military uses soldiers, and the militants, to invade "disputed" territory. This makes them popular, and shows the politicians to be weak-against-India and not-in-charge. The militants use the fundamentalist leanings of the foot-soldiers to prevent the military from completely controlling them, and strategically incite trouble with India to keep the Army off balance. The politicians try to invoke dreams of "rule of Law" and development to contain the increasing power of the brass and the Mullahs.

There are periodic tensions between the two countries, incited by turns by the military and the militancy. In the interim between these episodes, the politicians on the two sides seek to "normalize relations."

The problem is, each episode requires a retaliation from the Indians, which obligates the Pakistani politicos to greater bellicosity. Indians expect contrition, and contrition is exactly what these besieged and discredited politicians cannot express-- that is assuming they would want to.

The two neighbors are currently in the throes of such an episode. The question is, how will they resolve this crisis. The options, as we discussed, are

1. they would find an accommodation of interests

2. an external party would impose a settlement

3. the situation will move closer to a war

I want to stipulate that neither country would come out of the war better off than it went in. Victory may be read into propaganda, and in who comes out the less worse off.

However, while "victory" in such a war is a fiction, advantage is indubitably the highest priority for each side right now. The strategy is to salvage honor, the tactic is to gain visible advantage.

Each side knows the other is going to play for advantage in this stalemate. The question is, which one of the two is the more likely to seek this advantage in a "preemptive strike?"

In my opinion, that depends on whether the players are prepared to allow for two or more rounds, or if they expect that the other is playing the last round. I seriously doubt that the latter will be true. It is most likely the former-- the civillian leadership on both the sides is building towards the next few rounds of negotiations. If that is true, then India will/should strike first-- India knows that if a skirmish breaks out, the US will strike hard at Pakistan to ensure that China stays out, and that Pakistan gives in quick, and the Afghan frontier stays the focus.

However, Pakistan may game the situation to see first-mover advantage-- If the US sides with India in a confrontation, they can count Pakistan in the "opposition" column for the next ten years. With this assumption, they will see a strike against India as a tool to force China to declare partisanship, and to call India's bluff.

The problem is, India is not bluffing, and we will have a war on our hands. So, for the sake of peace, India may want to strike first.

Now, I want to return to the statement that the attack on Mumbai was the first strike. What was it a strike against? Honor, India's, was involved, but was that a collateral casualty, or the prime target? I'd say it is the peace process that was the prime target. This peace process endangered the two most discredited Pakistani power centers, the militants and the military. Therefore, they sought to gain advantage by injecting Indo-Pak enemity.

If we buy this reasoning, then the more ways we can find to buld trust with, and go easy on, the despicable Mr. Zardari, and the more we work to weaken his enemies in the Paksitani power structure, the better we are avenged in the shortrun, and strengthened in the long.

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Re. the attacks on Bombay-- the innocence and idealism of the first fifty years is probably lost for ever. Have things truly changed? Can we expect an offensive-and-resolute India to arise out of all this chaos, in place of the defensive-and-resilient one.

I am writing this because my first response was to blame Pakistan, and wish the Armageddon on them. Then I wondered who benefits from this? I can now see other, bigger powers standing to benefit more from us fighting-- like Alexander did when Ambhi betrayed Porous. The ISI, a power within Pakistan-- nay, THE power within that floundering nuclear keg-- is one clear suspect. As bombs went off in Bombay, Pakistan's foreign minister was in India, advancing the agenda of peace. This peace threatens ISI.

My thesis is-- this terror grows in the cesspools of slums and madarsas and across the border; but the funding and guns come from further afar. We can't not respond to the local threat-- it needs a strong tactical response. But we also need a strategic response for the puppeteers. An important element of that response is more trust in our neighborhood.

One big enemy here, in my opinion, is the initial instinct to blame all "Pakistanis and Muslims." A sensibility that is offended at even the suggestion that they may be as much a patient as the source of contagion. As we rise-- as Indians-- to a greater mercantile stature, we threaten very powerful potentates. We can overcome the distrust with our neighbors, and rise, or we can allow unreasoned hatred to balkanize us back to where the British found us.

The China-Taiwan rivalry, the insurrections in Russia's backyard, the bloody Iran-Iraq wars, the festering Arab-Israel conflict, revolutions and political assassinations in Latin America-- all these are admittedly slaked in part by external forces. Incidentally, the same interests that would not miss the silver lining in a besieged India. And, minus the intervention of which forces, there will be fewer guns, gorillas, and blood in all these conflicts.

One example of a good response would be that the heads of ISI are covertly "punished," or the leadership of SIMI  publicly disciplined by the law. A bad response will be to allow a mob to scorch a muhalla. The first reduces our enemies, the second, which we of late seem inclined to, increases them. All my opinion, based not on reading, but on judgement, and so very likely flawed.

In this, I think, it is also important who actually hurls the "vajra"-- if the government of India has a monopoly on violence, and uses it wisely, our nation is strengthened. If private "patriots" start plotting and delivering retribution, then we are left with a weaker government.

Much as I think a divided, weakened Pakistan threatens us the less, I also realize that a decent, healthy neighborhood, like the Nordics have forged despite deep historical distrust, liberates us the more. It is the only long-term solution to our voes. India can't soar with a laden Pakistan sapping our vitality.

I expect that the guns will be trained on the usual suspects. As they should, specially if we have reasonable proof. Certainly not all of them are innocent, and this tragedy even gives us some permission for some collateral damage. However, if we can nuance our wrath, we can win the longer game. Otherwise, the global geopolitical stratagem seems set to overtake the subcontinent again.

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Bombay Blast-- time to contemplate a response

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