Hostile Chinese Intentions, Pakistan-Based Terrorism and the Capabilities of Network Graphs
Targeting and Collapsing State and Non-State Threat Networks from Beijing and Islamabad, Protecting India
Strategic Rationale
India faces one of the world’s most complex security environments that involve a range of both domestic and regional concerns. Indian leaders tend to assign high priorities to both domestic challenges, such as the insurgencies in Jammu and Kashmir (Pakistan-backed) and across multiple North-Eastern states (China-backed), as well as regional rivalries. The insurgencies in the Northeast are the most numerous and varied and are of particularly acute strategic sensitivity as this region borders an increasingly hostile China. China also openly claims the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, an area that is twice the size of Switzerland.1
This current domestic dynamic has resulted in Indian threat assessments regarding the intentions and actions of even Chinese companies, such as highway construction or dam building, as continuously severe and viewed primarily through a strategic lens. However, these domestic challenges also mean that the Indian armed forces have substantially more ground/combined ground-air combat experience and other relevant operational experience compared to their People’s Liberation Army (PLA) rivals on the other side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC). Further, India’s intelligence services, law enforcement agencies and paramilitary organizations are becoming increasingly vectored on Chinese-origin threats.
In 2019, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi formally revoked the special status of Jammu and Kashmir as well as Ladakh in order to separate them into two administrative units and convert them into formal Union Territories that are governed directly by New Delhi. Modi and his leadership team likely took this action to ‘firm up’ India’s formal position near the western component of the LAC by mirroring the governance structure of the other Indian states along the central and eastern components of the LAC. This sent a strong message to both China and Pakistan.
In 2023 India faces strategic escalation on multiple levels from China, including a Pakistan that has become increasingly enveloped by Beijing. At this stage, it can be reliably determined that Pakistan no longer has complete control over key sovereign considerations and in many cases should be viewed as a derivative of Chinese ambitions regarding India. Despite facing acute financial pressure at home and being offered numerous opportunities to normalize relations with India, Pakistan maintains its support for terrorist groups such as Laskhar-e-Taiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and myriad of other non-state groups.
Recent LeT operations in both India and Afghanistan clearly demonstrate that the group has received advanced operational training and benefits from military-grade communications, intelligence and logistics support. As such, Pakistan-origin terrorist threats will remain constant while threats posed from China continue to escalate. This has resulted in India directly facing a more complex, multi-faceted and amorphous strategic environment that has hybridized previously distinct threats posed by China and Pakistan.
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