How India can fight rising hybrid threats

There is an urgent need to adopt a bipartisan approach to national security. Political posturing, rhetoric, and opening old wounds will only impede national security

Several geopolitical events in the recent past point to a coalescence of anti-India hybrid threats that are gaining momentum independently. Before identifying these threats, it is essential to clarify the nature of contemporary hybrid conflict.

India’s security forces have largely come to grips with the rapidly evolving nature of hybrid threats (Photo by TAUSEEF MUSTAFA / AFP) (AFP)

Hybrid threats (primarily non-State entities) attempt to gain an advantage over conventionally superior adversaries (normally nation-States) by targeting fault lines in multiple domains — diplomatic, informational, military, economic, political, financial, legal, and intelligence — and dissipating the State’s energies and attention before striking. Hybrid threats rarely succeed without ideological or extremist moorings and proxy support from another State with adversarial designs or from influential and disgruntled elements within the target State.

Several Army officers who have fought terrorists during the recent encounters in Jammu & Kashmir point to the latter’s increased willingness to engage Indian security forces with better weapons and improved tactical awareness. There is also a distinct possibility that well-trained Pakistan army personnel could be embedded in these infiltrating groups. Pointers from history suggest that whenever pathways for peace backed by electoral legitimacy have emerged in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K), Pakistan’s Deep State has stepped up attempts to stoke secessionism and communal disharmony through hybrid actors.

In the absence of an elected government in Dhaka, the role of the Bangladesh armed forces in managing this emerging situation will be critical to regional stability. Adding to the Bangladesh conundrum, the ongoing civil war in Myanmar and the porous borders all around have the potential to derail the progress made in many northeastern states.

Many political leaders have become pawns in the hands of hybrid entities based overseas. Pro-Khalistan terrorists such as Gurpatwant Singh Pannun are emboldened by our political leaders’ irresponsible statements to the extent of filing a civil lawsuit in the United States against the government of India. Such actions constitute a hybrid security threat with moorings in the political domain.

There are no easy templates or preventive and proactive strategies to counter hybrid threats. India’s security forces have largely come to grips with the rapidly evolving nature of hybrid threats. However, there is an urgent need to adopt a bipartisan approach to national security. Political posturing, rhetoric, and opening old wounds will only impede national security. The need to build credible covert capability and erode the operational capability of hybrid actors on their home turf will be key to India signalling that it is no longer a soft State.

J&K now demands good governance even if the elected government does not agree with New Delhi on several issues. This will be critical to insulating the people from divisive actors who will test the resolve of the Indian State through limited hybrid action.

Governance must be accompanied by intelligence alertness and a willingness to militarily coerce and punish State and non-State actors who may feel emboldened by global events to disrupt the attempt to usher in peace after the assembly polls. Technology, precision capability, increasing use of Unmanned Aerial Systems and sophisticated employment of social media must be leveraged to disrupt and dominate the hybrid adversary.

The northeast demands deft handling of border management, dousing ethnic strife in Manipur, preventing a potential refugee crisis from the conflict in Myanmar, and restoring balance with Bangladesh without compromising on core security interests. All this while, India’s powerful northern neighbour will be watching carefully and assessing how an aspiring “power of consequence” is faring in complex and disruptive times.

Arjun Subramaniam is a military historian and a strategic commentator. The views expressed are personal