The most ineffective way of fighting your adversary in a hybrid conflict, like the one in J&K, is to fight it through only the military route. It will mostly ensure that you will restore temporary order and the situation will slip back to create mayhem around you and often under your own presence. However, in most parts of the world that is exactly how such modern day conflicts are fought and therefore are rarely won. It is so because the understanding of the term ‘hybrid conflict’ never focuses on the first word of the term but rather on the second. The common perception is that conflict has everything to do only with the military and hence is its purview and others have only a peripheral role. Actually the reverse is the truth. The word hybrid is the more important one and its scope extends to multiple domains which are multiplying by the day with new technologies and other dimensions of modern human existence. Violence at different levels and different locations keeps the conflict relevant and visible while an adversary delves into other domains silently and effectively. Among these domains are promotion of extremist radical ideology, creation of intense alienation, keeping the organs of government on tenterhooks and incapable of governance, intimidation of government agencies, media and private citizens, gun running and narcotics to sustain finances and lastly and perhaps most importantly maintaining financial conduits for the unimpeded flow of money into the conflict system. Without the latter no such hybrid conflict can be sustained beyond a few months.

Fighting hybrid conflict only militarily is the inability of a society to grow intellectually and appreciate the true potential of different forms of conflict. Killing terrorists is easy when we have a large enough force of soldiers and policemen. The invisible elements of hybrid conflict are far more dangerous than the seemingly more potent but largely visible elements such as cannon fodder terrorists who die in sufficient numbers to keep statisticians busy in their jobs.

A common question which even some intellectuals tend to ask me is – “why despite killing so many terrorists and losing so many soldiers, we cannot establish better control over Jammu & Kashmir”.  I hate to give you my answer because it actually trivializes the achievements of my fellow soldiers and that is something I am wont to do. Yet, someone has to take on the mantel to explain to the public that the type of conflict we are witnessing in J&K is not the good old conventional war which they are used to hearing about. While keeping our army and police forces engaged in the fight against terrorists and stone throwers there have been a range of activities taking place under the sponsorship and patronage of a host of other people. The Separatists have been projecting the cause for separatism through literature, social media, media patronage, mosque power, direct engagement and creation of structures which can be activated in minutes to respond to diverse situations. The campaign to radicalize Kashmiri society, denied by most Kashmiri citizens, has been a deliberate ploy to empower the mosque and link Pakistan’s deliberately chosen path of radical Islam to become the Valley’s new ideology. It happened right under the care of all elements who profess to know the Valley rather well. None of us could stop it because of our intellectual inability to realize what was shaping around us. In any case India’s security agencies were largely bereft of knowledge on religious ideology when radical Islamists across the border were planning and coordinating activities in the Valley with sheer impunity.

None of the above can be done by Separatists with the level of competence they have displayed without adequate financial backing and that is a truism for any such conflict. The ISIS could survive three years in Northern Iraq because of the looted finances from the Mosul treasury and the revenues of taxation and the oil refinery. Once most of that was spent it was no longer possible to continue in the same mode. For some of us who understood the nature of conflict in J&K and the actual strategy of Pakistan it was always a question of evolving our own strategy through ‘whole of government’ approach. Unfortunately the political class could not appreciate what its role was at the operational and strategic level. Its role in preventing the flow of finances to the separatist ranks and the obstacles in the way of ideological change taking place in the mosques would have made all the difference. The bane remained the perception that it was a conflict situation and was the responsibility of the security forces.

I have written many times so let it be  only a reminder that the Separatists have  far better network and organizational structures than even the army. There are elements in every ‘qasba’ and every town, the intelligence providers, backed by an army of lawyers, treasurers, ideologues, rabble rousers, stone throwers, drug addicts and of course terrorists. All of them survive on the additional income provided by the Separatists. There has been enough money coming in to finance a plethora of over ground workers, compensate families of terrorists, pay guides at the LoC or safe house owners and compensate stone throwers on an everyday basis.

Yet all these years the infrastructure was allowed to remain in place. Money came from foreign sources into legitimate accounts, cash was drawn by cards from accounts opened and existing in Delhi and more cash was even available through gift packets on Pakistan national day, at the Pakistan High Commission. This happened primarily because there was some element of faith in the Separatists that successive governments had reposed. The government was underwriting much of their personal expenditure in the hope they would eventually deliver. With the situation in South Kashmir having drastically changed the equations of control of the movement, the Government has finally acted and acted swiftly after a media inspired sting operation. It is good to see that both parties of the coalition government in J&K have supported the National Investigation Agency’s initiative with arrest of seven Separatist leaders. Details of the financial networks which is the darkest part of terror networks is bound to produce enough incriminating material to ensure that the leadership is sufficiently ineffective for long. Care must be taken to prevent VIP facilities and availability of communications to the leaders otherwise the entire gamut of operations may be compromised.

Finally, it appears that the whole of government approach is at last emerging in the J&K situation. Next should be curtailing of mosque power and for that the effective advice of moderate Muslim clerics from rest of India should definitely make a difference.  In the interim the Army and other security forces must continue the excellent run of counter infiltration and counter terror operations   to prevent the resurgence of gun power in the Valley. The ‘whole of government’ approach must continue hereafter in different domains with energy and understanding as never before.