STRATEGIC DEPTH: RECIPE FOR CONFLICTS
1. Three major flash points of the world today Ukraine, South China Sea and AFPAK are victims of the hypothesis of ‘strategic depth’. Be it Pakistan, Russia or even China are obsessed with this idea of depth and has driven them to the wall and seemingly no exit possible or available. Strategic Depth in the military lexicon was the distance between the Centre of Gravity (CoG) and Forward Defended Localities (FDLs). It allowed forces to trade space for time without exposing the CoG to enemy offensive maneuvers. It is axiomatic that ensuring the security of a nation is paramount for the people and the government of that nation. For nations which suffer from security paranoia the need for absolute security of their geography becomes an over-riding priority of the governing class.
2. As far back as 2005, Vladimir Putin had considered fall of Soviet Union as the greatest geopolitical catastrophe in Russia’s history. Fragmentation of Soviet Union has cost Russia the element that had allowed it to survive invasions since the Napoleonic times: strategic depth. For any country to defeat Russia decisively, it would have to take Moscow. Both Hitler and Napoleon reached Moscow exhausted and were beaten by distance, winter and by the fact that the defenders were not at the end of their supply line. At the zenith of Cold War, St. Petersburg was about 1,000 miles and Moscow about 1,300 miles from NATO. Today, St. Petersburg is about 100 miles away, and Moscow about 500 miles. NATO has neither the interest nor the capacity to engage Russia. But for Putin the capacity change of NATO was good enough to go full throttle at Ukraine which would further denude the strategic depth to Moscow which would be 465 miles from Kiev.
3. China’s geographic challenge arises from its need to maintain control and access to Pacific Ocean and adjacent waters. The United States sees free Chinese access to the Pacific as a potential threat to its own strategic depth, something fundamental to the United States since the end of World War II; call it the Pearl Harbour Syndrome. Chinese access to the Pacific is blocked by a series of island states; Japan, Taiwan, Philippines and Indonesia, indirectly supported by USA and its alliances like AUKUS and QUAD which have a common interest against Chinese naval expansion. China wants to defend its strategic depth which includes its One China Concept of which Taiwan is an integral part by seizing and controlling it. The United States wants to defend its strategic depth by defending it. China is searching for a strategic solution and probing USA trying to understand its potential responses. The response to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit pressed the limits of an invasion of Taiwan.
4. Strategic depth is vital in the very long term, and its importance is burned into Russian and Chinese memory. While both China and Russia may assume the worst, their immediate problem remains economy and reliance on energy exports for Russia and energy imports for China. This search for strategic depth and economic succor has pushed both countries closer and forced them to bury their historical hatchet of boundary disputes. The war in Ukraine has become a catalyst for both countries. Bilateral trade between Russia and China[3] hit a record 1.28 trillion yuan ($190 billion) and is expected to reach $200 Billion by 2024 and also a watershed energy deal worth $400 Billion which entails transfer of natural gas to China from Russia.
5. Closer home a similar game of strategic depth is at play with Pakistan obsessed with this concept since its inception and looking at Afghanistan as its perfect foil for such enunciation. To some the concept translated into merely the parking space in Afghanistan for the Pakistani Air Force in the event of an Indo-Pak War. It was only for a short while after 9/11 that Pakistan gave serious thought to abandon the policies of strategic depth and nurturing strategic assets for Afghanistan and Kashmir, because by that time this political and security doctrine had turned into a strategic nightmare for Pakistan. Democratic governments in Pakistan owe their ascension to power to an alignment of Deep State, ultra-conservative religious groups and militant organisations on both sides of the Durand Line which relentlessly try to develop strategic depth. The effort of Imran government was the most recent attempt which has backfired yet again. Afghanistan has not played as per the Pakistani Rule Book which they thought would come into force with the Taliban takeover post the withdrawal of US forces. While planning and nurturing the theory of strategic depth, political leaders like Imran, military generals like General Faiz Hamid and the Deep State should not have forgotten Hilary Clinton’s warning; that if you raise snakes in your backyard, they are likely to bite you.[4] TTP is showing no signs of relenting and Taliban has not reined them in as well. The violence levels have gone through the roof post abrogation of the cease fire between TTP and Pakistan government[5]. The recent interaction of Pakistani Defence Minister Khwaja Asif and Lieutenant General Nadeem Anjum, the DG ISI with Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar[6], Afghanistan’s acting deputy prime minister was an effort to calm the frayed nerves on both sides of the Durand Line.
6. It is best to understand the origins of the theory of Strategy Depth and what it has done for Pakistan in the last thirty years or so. Mirza Aslam Beg, the military chief under dictator General Zia-ul-Haq, is supposedly the author and architect of the idea of strategic depth and strategic assets. Pakistan’s search for strategic depth has always been India specific given its geophysical vulnerability and the proximity of its major cities and its lines of communication to the International Border. So insecure was Pakistan that it ceded 5000 sq km of Kashmir territory to China to ensure its security. Pakistani rulers have since then followed a policy and subsequently developed a strategy of containment of India by proxy (in the hope that Indian occupied Kashmir would fall under her influence and thus create strategic depth for her) and of gaining strategic depth westward by supporting Taliban. The latter was to enable Pakistani control of Afghanistan and thereby preclude Pashtun nationalist sentiment arising as a threat on either side of the controversial Durand Line. Senior officers or even heads of security agencies made no secret of their love and support for some militant organisations, and General Hamid Gul and General Jawaid Nasir are prime examples of people who promoted and encouraged the use of proxies composed of Islamist militant fighters for the cause of generating leverages in Afghanistan and Kashmir.
7. In theory, this policy was supposed to be a proactive defensive strategy of securing Islamic depth in the west to counterbalance the militarily superior “Hindu India” by establishing greater political and military relations with Afghanistan and the Arab world, through a pro-Pakistan or friendly regime in Afghanistan. The physical manifestation of the strategy called for the need for dispersal of Pakistan’s military assets in Afghanistan, beyond the Durand Line, and well beyond the reach of Indian military’s offensive capabilities. To give effect to the doctrine, Pakistan needed the ability to field its military assets at a time and place of its choosing, which in turn required not just neutral areas around the Durand Line but also Pakistan dominated areas well within Afghanistan. The purely military aspect of strategic depth also attained full clarity post Exercise ZARB — E- MOMIN[7]. This offensive defense exercise was designed to test Pakistan’s concept of strategic depth by extending the war into India by a combination of covert and conventional means and by having a pliant Afghanistan in the west. In the eyes of Pakistani Army this exercise confirmed the military rationale of and ability to acquire strategic depth.[8]
8. Pakistan promoted, trained and helped the Taliban even while it was an ally of USA in the GWOT, all in the hope that Pak proxies will be in control of Afghanistan after the US withdrawal, but that did not come to be. Soon after the US withdrawal, the region of KPK and FATA and adjoining areas across the Durand Line became a safe haven for jihadi terrorist groups which aspired to take control of the entire country and impose their rule under the guise of Shariah. The spirit behind the military policy of proxy war in Afghanistan and Kashmir has turned inwards with volunteers drawn from Islamist militant groups of Pashtun and Punjabi ethnicity now prepared to execute the policy cis-frontier in Pakistan before looking at trans-frontier application of the spirit of Islamic jihad and their fanatic belief in the ’cause of Islam’.
9. This is greatly helped by the use of jihadis being churned in assembly line fashion from the innumerable madrassahs in South Punjab, KPK and also Karachi, training facilities provided by rogue elements of Deep State with huge influx of arms, ammunition and money provided by Saudi Arabia, global Muslim diaspora and conglomerate of terrorist organizations like AQ and ISKP. Militant groups trained, nurtured and helped by the state have now become nightmares. Government of Imran Khan continued the policy of harboring a soft corner for the militant groups like the TLP; and embracing the controversial blasphemy laws and turning a blind eye to the activities of Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed as well as the Haqqani network despite facing the ire of FATF and becoming pariah in the comity of nations. Pakistan today faces grave and significant threats, not only to its internal security but also to its very existence from factions of the TTP and other Islamist militant groups like IS or Da’esh.
10. What road should India take now that Pakistan appears to be imploding? India and Pakistan are conjoined twins and each cannot wish the other away. We need a super crystal ball to predict the full spectrum of possibilities in that hapless country and assess what would suit us better but with one overarching thought that 75 years and Pakistan still stands it has become a state which refuses to fail or allowed to fail by others. Course of Action notwithstanding one must remember that a Pakistan that is assured of security from a large powerful India may not need to seek strategic depth in order to preserve its strategic and economic independence. However, if the weaker country perceives threat to its national security, it will continue to evolve strategies to defend its sovereignty — whatever be the cost.
[1] https://geopoliticalfutures.com/russias-search-for-strategic-depth/ accessed on 25 Feb 23
[2] https://www.economist.com/special-report/2017/04/20/how-chinas-asian-neighbours-survive-great-power-rivalry accessed on 25 Feb 23
[3] https://www.reuters.com/world/china-customs-says-trade-with-russia-hit-new-high-2022-2023-01-13/ accessed on 26 Feb 23
[4] https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/snakes-in-your-backyard-wont-bite-only-neighbours-hillary-to-pak-573412 accessed on 25 Feb 23.
[5] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/12/10/pakistan-taliban-ceasefire-peace-talks accessed on 23 Feb 23.
[6] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/2/22/pakistan-defence-minister-isi-head-discuss-security-with-taliban accessed on 23 Feb 23.
[7] Exercise Zarb–e–Momin was a field exercise conducted by Pakistan Army in 1989. It was held in conjunction with the Pakistan Air Force’s High Mark exercise. At the time of the exercise Chief of Staff General Mirza Aslam Beg described it as a test of an “offensive-defensive” military doctrine and a simulation of an invasion of India.
[8] https://usiofindia.org/publication/usi-journal/pakistans-strategic-depth-2/ accessed on 23 Feb 23.
