India's diplomatic pressure on Pakistan during the Kargil War illustrates the interconnection between diplomacy and war and how the former influences military actions and resolve conflicts
This article is part of the essay series: Kargil@25: Legacy and Beyond
There is a misconception that diplomacy and war are independent of each other. However, they are inextricably linked or operate in parallel—diplomacy may be irrelevant to the general course of military operations, but pivotal in limiting adversary actions such as the torture of captured Prisoners of War (PoWs) and securing their release. It performs a regulative function. However, diplomacy is likely to be ineffective, despite efforts by the warring parties to engage each other during the confrontation to end the war, because the objectives of both sides are fundamentally incompatible in diplomatic terms. Yet, there is also a second or coercive dimension to diplomacy in war, which can help terminate military hostilities quickly through threats of escalation if third-party pressures can be brought to bear against the aggressor. The subsequent analysis only deals with these two dimensions of diplomacy—both its limited impact on actual military operations and its role in terminating the Kargil War in India’s favour through diplomatic coercion.
There is a misconception that diplomacy and war are independent of each other. However, they are inextricably linked or operate in parallel
In May 1999, when India was on the cusp of the general elections, Pakistan sprang a surprise on its Indian adversary by seizing strategically important mountain heights in the Drass-Kargil sector across the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir. The Indian political and diplomatic establishment and the Indian Army (IA) were stunned by the sheer audacity of Pakistan’s decision to launch an attack of that scale. It was only the second time in history that two nuclear-armed adversaries fought a conventional war. The diplomatic and political response for the Vajpayee caretaker government conceded the folly of misjudging Pakistani intentions despite his government’s overture to engage through ‘bus diplomacy’ and summit meetings with his Pakistani counterpart—Nawaz Sharif. As Vajpayee stated in a press conference: “While I was taking the bus to Lahore and discussing peace there, preparations for the infiltration were already underway.” Although the painful costs accruing from battlefield losses have generated Pakistani conventional military restraint, as opposed to sub-conventional aggression by Pakistan for more than two decades, Kargil was also a watershed because it drew attention to the role of diplomacy in a war.
Diplomacy is relevant in any war. Both war and diplomacy are a means to an end. Diplomacy is a low-cost means to reconcile interests and resolve conflict, whereas war is only a costlier means of doing so. Diplomacy can aid or accelerate the end of war and Kargil was no exception. What was unique to India’s diplomatic approach was that it combined diplomatic restraint with diplomatic assertiveness or pressure as the conflict progressed. This will be elaborated, but suffice it to say, New Delhi’s diplomatic assertiveness can be described in the American strategist Alexander George’s words as “Coercive Diplomacy” which essentially requires that the demand made by the coercing state against an adversary with the additional threat of punishment if there is non-compliance by the latter. At Kargil, what was important to recognise was that this punishment operated through second-order coercion, with India exerting diplomatic pressure not so much on Pakistan directly, but through an intermediary—the United States (US).
By late 20 May 1999, India had to escalate symmetrically with massive force once it became evident that Pakistan sought to present India with a fait accompli and depict their aggression as nothing more than a deployment across their own territory. A key factor working in India’s favour was its military restraint as the war was fought exclusively on Indian soil, which helped consolidate international support around New Delhi’s position. Unlike past military campaigns in response to Pakistani aggression, India did not cross the Line of Control (LoC) or the international border as it did in the 1965 War. Although the international community was also concerned about escalation, it could see India's restraint by confining its hostilities to India’s side of the LoC. This helped consolidate further international diplomatic support around India. In late May of 1999, the Indian Air Force (IAF) struck targets against Pakistani forces in the Muntho Dhalo range leading to a MiG-27 pilot to bail out following an engine failure over Pakistani-occupied Indian territory and being captured by Pakistani forces. India warned that no harm should be brought to him. The eventual release of the pilot, which happened within a week of his capture did not affect the pace of military operations. Indeed, as a senior Indian defence official coinciding with the release observed at the time: “The airstrikes are now a routine exercise and it will continue until the infiltrators and their weapons are neutralised in these occupied areas”. Meanwhile, the Pakistanis called for a ceasefire, whereas India wanted an unconditional withdrawal of Pakistani forces with Sartaj Aziz Pakistan’s Foreign Minister visiting New Delhi on 12 June, which produced no outcome due to the diametrically opposed positions of India and Pakistan.
By late 20 May 1999, India had to escalate symmetrically with massive force once it became evident that Pakistan sought to present India with a fait accompli and depict their aggression as nothing more than a deployment across their own territory.
Yet Indian military restraint that confined combat operations to its side LoC started to take a toll and by early June, it became increasingly evident that India’s eviction operations would take longer than expected. The failed visit of Sartaj Aziz to secure an unconditional withdrawal from the Kargil heights compelled India to change tack. India’s National Security Advisor (NSA) Brajesh Mishra met with his American counterpart Sandy Berger delivering a letter from Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee that India would be compelled to attack if Pakistan did not withdraw its forces from Kargil. This had a telling effect on the Americans in that their concerns about horizontal escalation by India which had nuclear consequences were likely to become a reality, pushing them to accelerate their efforts to pressure Pakistan. India’s pressure through second-order coercion was now starting to bear fruit. The first visible step Washington took was to announce the halt or a deferral of an International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan payment to Islamabad in late June. Finally, on 4 July 1999, in a meeting with President Clinton in Washington Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif agreed to pull back Pakistani troops unconditionally. On 11 July, in a televised address to the Pakistani public, he called on Pakistani forces to withdraw and by 26 July, the remaining Pakistani positions were overrun by the Indian Army (IA) or left vacant after Sharif’s withdrawal call.
Specifically, the isolating effect that Pakistan’s Kargil misadventure had on Islamabad and Rawalpindi is critically owed to how deft Indian diplomacy cornered Pakistan and fundamentally reinforced the Line of Control (LoC) as the de facto border and legitimised between India and Pakistani. Today, the international community is unlikely to tolerate seizures of territory, even if it is contested, by nuclear-armed adversaries. To be sure, there is no guarantee that Pakistan would not attempt or launch a Kargil-type attack like it did 25 years ago. Being an irreconcilably hostile adversary for nearly eight decades, it would be hard for Rawalpindi, given half a chance, to resist the temptation to carry out a Kargil-like aggression. Yet the two and half decades since Kargil, Pakistan has not repeated it and that to a significant extent owes to very effective and deft Indian diplomacy as it is to the combat performance of the Indian Army (IA) and the Indian Air Force (IAF), who fought the Pakistanis in demanding battlefield conditions. As the then US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, put it to the External Affairs Minister (MEA) Jaswant Singh: “Jaswant, it was a masterly handling of the Kargil crisis. You did not put a foot wrong.” This was a tribute to skilful Indian diplomacy.
Today, the international community is unlikely to tolerate seizures of territory, even if it is contested, by nuclear-armed adversaries.
Nevertheless, Kargil-like wars could occur in the future with Pakistan as the aggressor and how third parties, especially great powers like the US and China pivot will be crucial to their outcome. China played a limited role in the Kargil war, if not an irrelevant one, but its role in a future war similar to Kargil could be significantly greater given its antagonism with India and its power. India may also have to stand and fight alone without much external assistance in the form of diplomatic pressure against Pakistan from great power third parties such as the US. In purely military terms, another Kargil would drive up costs for India if third parties stay outrightly neutral.
More broadly, diplomacy occurs concurrently with the execution of military operations regardless of how brutal the war is. Indeed, even the most destructive wars involve some form of diplomacy when it comes to the influence of third parties, the treatment and repatriation of Prisoners of War (PoWs), the status and protection of refugees, and the exchange of hostages. The ongoing Israel-Hamas and Russia-Ukraine wars have also involved PoW exchanges, Palestinian prisoners locked in Israeli jails have been swapped for hostages held captive by Hamas, despite the continuation of military operations by each of the belligerents. Diplomacy has also played its part in the Israel-Hamas war with negotiations by both sides as well as the involvement of third parties. As this analysis shows, these developments do not necessarily or always dictate the pace or operational tempo of the war and abate the intensity of combat engagements as we see in the Gaza and Ukraine wars.
Kartik Bommakanti is a Senior Fellow with the Strategic Studies Programme at the Observer Research Foundation.
The views expressed above belong to the author(s). ORF research and analyses now available on Telegram! Click here to access our curated content — blogs, longforms and interviews.
Kartik Bommakanti is a Senior Fellow with the Strategic Studies Programme. Kartik specialises in space military issues and his research is primarily centred on the ...
Read More +
PREV
