B Raman 

The expressions covert action, covert warfare and proxy war are often used as if they are synonymous; they are not. Covert action has been defined as a clandestine, deniable action undertaken by an intelligence agency in foreign territory to achieve a national security objective, for which the use of the Armed Forces or traditional diplomacy would not be advisable or feasible. A covert war or warfare is the paramilitary component of a covert action, when it is undertaken on a sustained and not on a sporadic basis.

A proxy war is an undeclared, indirect war waged by a state through its intelligence agencies against another through the intermediary of surrogates without its own Army directly getting involved. A proxy war could be totally covert and deniable or partly overt and partly covert, with only the covert component kept deniable.

All the three, however, have a common feature - all of them are undertaken under the clandestine leadership of an intelligence agency. The need for a covert action/covert warfare/proxy war capability in external intelligence agencies had been recognised since the First World War, but its use was largely confined to conflict areas in times of war. Its increasing use during peacetime started after the onset of the Cold War, with both the camps using it in an attempt to weaken each other and undermine each other’s influence in third countries. Covert actions against own nationals was not an unknown feature before the Watergate scandal. An example would be the FBI’s covert actions to have Dr Martin Luther King, the civil rights leader, discredited. Other western intelligence agencies too have indulged in such actions, often at the behest of the political leadership, before elections, for example. The post-Watergate enquiries are supposed to have put a stop to the practice of the internal intelligence agencies of the West indulging in covert actions, either on their own or at the instance of the ruling political leadership.

Before the revamping of the intelligence agencies not only in the US, but also in other Western countries after the Watergate enquiries, there were no ground rules regulating covert actions by external intelligence agencies in foreign territory. The power to order or approve covert actions was exclusively with the Executive, with the Legislature not entitled to any say or even sharing of knowledge in the matter and once approval was given, the agencies had the discretion to adopt any means considered by them to be appropriate for achieving the national security objective. After the Watergate enquiries, certain ground rules have been laid down in most western countries, either through an order of the Executive or by an Act of the Legislature.

Such ground rules cover the following:

1. Inclusion of covert actions in the formal charter of the intelligence agencies.

2. Legislative oversight. The oversight powers of the legislature in respect of covert actions are still quite limited as compared to its powers in respect of intelligence collection, analysis, assessment and use.

3. Prohibition of what came to be known as “dirty tricks” as part of the repertoire of covert actions - such as assassinations, actions involving casualties of innocent civilians, use of journalists, academics and religious leaders of own nationality for covert actions, etc.

4. Budgetary control over covert actions.

Before the 1970s, the fact that external intelligence agencies had a covert action capability and indulged in such actions in foreign territory was itself kept deniable. It is now accepted that carefully-controlled covert actions are part of the responsibilities of external intelligence agencies and need not be deniable. What should be deniable are the details of individual actions and their targets and objectives.

Covert actions fall into the following categories:

Political: Through assassinations (since prohibited); through funding of foreign political parties, leaders, moulders of public-opinion, non-governmental organisations and others; through instigation/encouragement of agitations and military coups against leaders considered permanently hostile to the interests of the country to which the agencies belong, etc. Examples: The assassinations of Patrice Lumumba in the former Belgian Congo and Che Guevera in Bolivia, the overthrow of Mossadegh in Iran, Allende in Chile, Sukarno in Indonesia and Slobodan Milosevic in Yugoslavia and of many Governments in Francophone Africa, which were viewed as hostile to French interests. A current, on-going covert action of the US, which figures frequently in Congressional discussions, is the one directed against President Saddam Hussein of Iraq by funding the activities of Iraqi political exiles abroad and the Kurd separatist elements. A curious, but disconcerting outcome of conceding to the Congress limited powers of oversight in respect of covert actions is that the conservative sections of the Congress have become more ardent advocates than even the Executive, of covert actions against regimes considered hostile to US interests. One finds the Executive in the US coming under frequent criticism by Congressmen for the perceived ineffectiveness of its covert actions against Saddam Hussein.

Economic: Through funding of trade unions, special interest groups and non-governmental organisations taking interest in issues such as labour rights, environment, child labour etc; through the instigation of strikes, mass movements, media campaigns etc; through the dissemination of counterfeit currency notes; through carefully-engineered currency and stock market speculation, etc. Examples: Instigation of strikes by the port and mine workers of Poland against the communist regime in the 1980s, weakening the competitiveness of developing countries because of their low wages by encouraging/ instigating agitations on issues such as labour conditions, use of child labour, etc. Dr Mahathir Mohammad, Prime Minister of Malaysia, believes that the currency collapse in the ASEAN countries in 1997 was brought about by the US intelligence to punish them for rejecting the US opposition to the inclusion of Myanmar in the organisation.

Para-diplomatic: The use of intelligence agencies and non-governmental personalities for maintaining deniable channels of communications with regimes, which are either not diplomatically recognised or with which relations are acutely adversarial; funding of Track II diplomatic initiatives in India and Pakistan since the two countries conducted nuclear tests in 1998 and so on.

Para-military: The use of deniable armed intervention either through trained military personnel acting under the cover of civilians, or through state-sponsorship of insurgencies and terrorism or through a trained and well-motivated clandestine Army different from the Army of the State such as the ISI’s clandestine Army of Islam consisting of bin Laden’s Al Qaida, the HUM, the JEM, the LET and the Al Badr or by arming separatist and other alienated elements in the target country. Examples: The CIA’s support of the Khampa revolt in Tibet in the 1950s, the CIA’s use of Cuban dissidents since the 1960s, China’s use of the armed insurgencies of Nagaland and Mizoram in India’s Northeast before 1979, Pakistan’s assistance to insurgents of India’s Northeast since the 1950s, to the Sikh terrorists of Punjab since the 1970s, to the terrorists of Jammu & Kashmir since 1989 and its post-1992 infiltration of units of its Army of Islam not only into J&K, but also into other parts of India, the USA’s use of the Contras in Nicaragua and the Mujahideen and the Arab mercenaries in Afghanistan through the ISI in the 1980s, its current use of the Kurds in Iraq, etc.

Psychological: Use of disinformation and motivated speculation to discredit ruling regimes in target countries, to subvert the loyalty of the local population to their Government, to create political and economic confusion, etc. Examples: the CIA’s and the MI-6’s Cold War disinformation campaign against the Communist countries since 1950 and against Indira Gandhi after 1971, etc.

Cyber-based: Covert actions in cyber space could be of two categories - propaganda and disinformation, that is psychological, and covert actions to paralyse the computer networks of target countries serving sensitive establishments. Examples of the first category have been described in the earlier chapter on “Threats From New Technologies”. What happened to Iraq in 1991 is an example of the second.

In its report of 1996, the Les Aspen/Brown Commission of the US strongly underlined the need for a continuing covert action capability even after the end of the Cold War. It said:

    “Responsibility for carrying out covert actions rests with the CIA, whose Director is charged by the National Security Act of 1947 “to perform such other functions and duties related to intelligence affecting the national security as the President or the National Security Council may direct.” By Executive Order, the CIA alone is specifically authorised to undertake covert actions that are individually authorised by the President, although other departments and agencies may also be directed to undertake or support covert actions as the President may authorise.”

    “In 1975, the Rockefeller Commission investigated alleged abuses in certain covert action programmes and concluded that there were “many risks and dangers associated with covert action, but we must live in the world we find, not the world we might wish. (Therefore) covert action cannot be abandoned, but should be employed only where clearly essential to vital US purposes and then only after a careful process of high level review.” This Commission strongly concurs with this conclusion. Moreover, the Commission notes that the laws governing covert actions do contemplate a careful process of high level review, including approval of the President and notification to Congress.”

    “Some witnesses recommended that para-military covert actions - which typically involve arming, training and/or advising foreign forces - be conducted by the Department of Defence rather than the CIA. The Commission concludes that responsibility for para-military covert actions should remain with the CIA. CIA has extraordinary legal authorities and an existing infrastructure that permit the secure conduct of clandestine operations, whereas the military does not. Giving this function to the military would also involve it in a controversial role that would divert attention from other important responsibilities. The military should provide support to para-military covert actions as needed, but should not be given responsibility for them.”

The increasing resort to political, economic and psychological covert actions by the Western intelligence agencies since the 1950s was accompanied by a mushrooming of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) focusing on human rights, trade union rights, environmental issues, etc. Many of these NGOs were inspired and funded by the intelligence agencies of the US and other Western countries. In the 1960s, there were widespread allegations that the initial set of office-bearers of the Amnesty International had a retired officer of the SIS (MI6), the UK’s external intelligence agency, and there was criticism of its silence on human rights violations by the British Security Forces in Aden, Southern Rhodesia, etc and by the white racists in South Africa. During those years, its human rights campaign was largely directed against the Communist countries and it allegedly turned a blind eye to the human rights situation in many countries in Latin America and other parts of the world ruled by pro-Western authoritarian regimes. Its greater objectivity subsequently was an outcome of the revelations in the British House of Commons about its alleged proximity to the Harold Wilson Government and the post-Watergate enquiries in the US, which threw light on the use of NGOs by the CIA as covert action tools.

In the 1970s, there were similar allegations of CIA funding of the Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists, an NGO specialising in human rights issues, through the cut-out of co-operative lawyers’ organisations of the US. The increasingly assertive role of the NGOs on issues such as the lack of attention to the evil effects of globalisation, the cancellation of the outstanding debts of the least developed countries, as seen at Seattle and Genoa and on the human rights of the discriminated sections of societies in different countries as seen at Durban, show that after having created and encouraged the NGO movement for use against their adversaries, the Western intelligence agencies have lost control over many of them, just as they have lost control over the force of religious fanatics created by them in the 1980s for use against the Soviet troops in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan marked an important landmark in the evolution of covert action techniques. It was a proxy war, partly overt, partly covert, to make the Soviet troops bleed through the use of surrogates, without the direct involvement of US troops. Conscious encouragement of religious fanaticism was, for the first time, used as a covert action tool. Whereas the past covert actions of the Western intelligence agencies were projected in ideological terms (democracy vs. Communism), those in Afghanistan were projected in religious terms (Islam vs. Communism). Jihad was brought out of the closet of medieval times and sought to be used against the evil empire of Communism, without a careful examination of its long-term implications for peace and stability in the world. In their eagerness to take full advantage of the entrapment of the Soviet troops in Afghanistan, the Western intelligence agencies reverted to the pre-1970s concepts, which viewed any means as good means for achieving a national security objective. Even the production and smuggling of heroin were encouraged to make the proxy-war at least partly self-financing and to promote addiction amongst Soviet troops. As a result of these ill-advised actions, Islamic Jihad has become a multi-headed hydra, striking here, striking there and striking everywhere and no country, which has a sizeable Muslim population, has been able to escape its ravages.

Let there be no mistake about it. The long-term objective of Pakistan’s Army of Islam vis-à-vis India is no longer the acquisition of territory in J&K. It is to make the sub-continent safe for the spread of Islam by weakening Hinduism, by debilitating the Indian State and thereby paving the way for the restoration of the Mughal State. This is an illusion, but illusions can cost lives and suffering. India has been the target of a religious war, which is not going to end with the resolution of the Kashmir issue. What is in danger is not just the future of J&K as an integral part of India, but the future of India itself as a secular, politically pluralistic and economically prosperous state.

Pakistan’s objective of debilitating the Indian State, which is the driving force behind its proxy war, is not of recent origin dating from its experience of its successful (as perceived by it) role in the Afghan War of the 1980s. This has nothing to do with the two-nation theory; this has nothing to do with the so-called unfinished agenda of the Partition of 1947, as Pakistan describes its quest for J&K, by hook or by crook. It has everything to do with a mindset, riddled with complexes, which is marked by a permanent hostility to India, by a compulsive urge to take advantage of every difficulty faced by India and to keep the Indian Security Forces bleeding and by a burning desire to prevent, by every manner possible, the emergence of India as a major regional power. It was this mindset, which was at work in the Northeast before 1971, in the Punjab thereafter and in J&K since 1989.

Pakistan’s proxy war against India dates back to the 1950s and the 1960s, when it started training and arming the Naga and Mizo hostiles. It suspended this after the humiliating defeat of its Army in 1971 and started it again, this time in Punjab, after General Zia-ul-Haq seized power in 1977. What is new about the latest phase of its proxy war in J&K and other parts of India is the use against the Indian Security Forces of the expertise, the experience and the arms and ammunition and other tools acquired by it under the supervision of the CIA in Afghanistan. What is equally new is the use of the clandestine Army of Islam of the Afghan War vintage, without the direct involvement of its Army of the State.

The diversion of this Army of Islam from the battlefields of Afghanistan to J&K serves three purposes, in Pakistan’s perception:

1. It keeps the Indian Security Forces and civilians bleeding without the Pakistani Security Forces suffering any casualties.

2. It keeps the fanatical jihadis dying at the hands of the Indian Security Forces, thereby preventing their return to Pakistan and clamouring for the imposition of a Taliban-type rule there. In the Pakistan Army’s perception, the longer the jihadis are kept fighting and dying in Indian territory, the longer it would be able to prevent a possible Talibanisation of Pakistan.

3. It provides a training and motivating force and a training ground for Muslim extremist elements from other parts of India such as the cadres of the Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) just as it had functioned in the 1980s as a training and motivating force in Afghanistan for Muslims from Muslim and non-Muslim States wanting to take up arms against the State.

The post-1989 phase of Pakistan’s proxy war has an overt as well as a covert component. The overt component relates to its political, moral and diplomatic support to the indigenous Kashmiri organisations, its orchestration of the All-Parties Hurriyat Conference, its Psywar against India on the human rights and other issues and its attempts to internationalise the issue. The covert component is about its letting loose its Army of Islam against the Indian Security Forces and civilians. The Pakistan Army thinks that its demonstrated nuclear and missile capability has insured it against a retaliatory response from the Indian Security Forces due to the fears of the Indian leadership that retaliation could degenerate into regular warfare. Its feeling of having acquired an asymmetric advantage over India due to the nuclear factor has given it a confidence that it can persist with its proxy war at no cost to itself. In the absence of a meaningful and effective response from our side, it is India, which has been bleeding at the hands of this Army of Islam, with the Pakistan Army remaining untouched. Unless and until the Pakistan Army is made to realise that a proxy war is a game which two can play and that India can play it more effectively and conclusively than Pakistan, there is going to be no respite from the ravages of this war.

Till now, we have been restricting ourselves to the conventional counter-terrorism strategy based on the principle of passive defence in our own territory in response to Pakistan’s proxy war. This strategy has not brought this war to an end and is unlikely to do so. We have to adopt a counter proxy war strategy based on the principle of active defence through a mix of overt and covert actions. UN declarations and international laws and practice justify the adoption of an active defence strategy by a State against another State, which seeks to use terrorism as a weapon to achieve its strategic objective.

State-sponsors of terrorism generally tend to project the terrorist groups backed by them as “freedom-fighters”, just as General Musharraf has been doing since he captured power on October 12, 1999. How to differentiate between terrorists and freedom fighters was one of the questions considered by President Reagan’s Special Task Force on Terrorism headed by  George Bush (Sr), his then Vice-President and the father of the present President. It said that while freedom fighters confined their attacks only to Security Forces, who were in a position to defend themselves, terrorists were those who killed innocent civilians. It defined a state-sponsor of terrorism as a State “supplying money, weapons, training, identification documents, travel documents, or safe haven for terrorists.”

The USA’s Department of Defence Directive 2000.12, issued in 1996, fine-tuned the definition of terrorism in order to bring under its ambit acts directed against civilians as well as security forces. Its definition of terrorism is as follows: “Unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence against individuals or property, with the intention of coercing or intimidating governments or societies, often for political or ideological purposes.”

It laid down the following other definitions:

International (or Transnational) Terrorism: Terrorism in which planning and execution of the terrorist act transcends national boundaries. In defining international terrorism, the purpose of the act, the nationalities of the victims, or the resolution of the incident are considered. Those acts are usually planned to attract widespread publicity and are designed to focus attention on the existence, cause, or demands of the terrorists.

Non-State Supported Terrorism: Terrorist groups that operate autonomously, receiving no significant support from any government.

State-Directed Terrorism: Terrorist groups that operate as agents of a government, receiving substantial intelligence, logistical, and operational support from the sponsoring government.

State-Supported Terrorism: Terrorist groups that generally operate independently, but receive support from one or more governments.

The State Department’s report on the Patterns of Global Terrorism during 2000 has further expanded the definition of terrorism to bring under its ambit even attacks on military installations. It said: “We also consider as acts of terrorism attacks on military installations or on armed military personnel when a state of military hostilities does not exist at the site.”

A Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States in Accordance with the Charter of the UN approved by the UN General Assembly on October 24, 1970, has laid down that “every state has the duty to refrain from organising, instigating, assisting or participating in acts of civil strife or terrorist acts in another state or acquiescing in organised activities within its territory directed towards the commission of such acts.”

Subsequently, while speaking during a debate on another Declaration on the strengthening of International Security, which was passed as Resolution No. 2734 on December 16, 1970, delegates from the USA, the UK, Canada, Italy, Australia, Japan and the then USSR described the sponsoring by a state of acts of terrorism against another state as indirect aggression.

The right of a victim-state to defend itself against such indirect aggression by the use of appropriate conventional as well as non-conventional means was underlined in an address delivered by George Shultz, the then US Secretary of State, after the signing on April 3, 1984, by President Reagan of a National Security Directive on this subject and again later in a foreword contributed by Bush Sr to a study on Terrorist Group Profiles in November, 1988. Schultz described state-sponsored terrorism as a new form of warfare and said that the success of diplomatic options in dealing with State-sponsors of terrorism would depend on the readiness of the victim-state to hit back, through conventional military and non-conventional clandestine means if the diplomatic options failed. He, therefore, expressed the determination of the US to follow a strategy of active defence, that is, taking the counter-terrorism operations into the territory or against the interests of the state-sponsor of terrorism, if left with no other alternative.

In his foreword, Bush Sr reiterated the determination of the US to demonstrate to state-sponsors of terrorism that their actions would not be cost-free.

Even though international law and practice thus give us the right of active defence against Pakistan, we have not exercised it even once. We do not have, even after so many years, a credible counter proxy-war strategy to demonstrate to Pakistan that its proxy war will not be cost-free.

Is it any wonder that General Musharraf behaves towards us with such impudence? There is not even a sense of outrage in us as was seen by the way we fell over each other in welcoming and lionising him when he came to India for the Agra summit in July, 2001. Nations, which become incapable of feeling a sense of indignation and anger when attacked and let their will and readiness to retaliate, when warranted by circumstances, be weakened by misplaced forbearance invite greater aggression.

A credible counter proxy war strategy against Pakistan has to have an overt and a covert component. The overt component relates to extending political, moral and diplomatic support to the alienated sections of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) and the Northern Areas (NA) in their agitations/struggle against the Government of Pakistan. Islamabad goes to the world promptly with exaggerated accounts of every incident taking place in J&K in order to keep the issue constantly in the media and before international public opinion. At the same time, it has imposed a virtual iron curtain on developments in POK and the NA in order to keep world media and public opinion in the dark about the real situation there.

For nearly two years, the world was not aware of the massacre of the Shias in Gilgit in 1988 by the tribal hordes of bin Laden instigated by Musharraf. The world was ignorant of the demonstrations all over POK in 2000 against the proposal of the military junta to raise the height of the Mangla Dam to benefit the farmers of Punjab. Amnesty International’s report on the Pakistani ban on pro-independence groups/individuals contesting elections in POK has hardly received any publicity. The policies followed by the Zia and the Musharraf regimes of settling Punjabi and Pathan ex-servicemen in the NA in order to weaken the nationalist forces there are hardly known even in the rest of Pakistan. The outbreak of sectarian riots in Gilgit in the second fortnight of June before Musharraf’s visit to India and the way, after Agra, Musharraf forced the POK Assembly to elect Major General Mohammad Anwar Khan, the Deputy Chief of the General Staff in the GHQ, as the President of the POK after he had prematurely retired from the Army to contest the election have not been brought to the attention of the world.

The world does not know that the POK Assembly does not have any financial powers, that the budgets are prepared in Islamabad, that the Chief Secretary and other senior officials of the NA are either Punjabis or Pathans, that the people of the NA have never participated in the elections to Pakistan’s National Assembly and that they are governed even today as the frontier tribals of British India were before independence, by the Frontier Crime Regulations promulgated by the British colonial masters, under which no native of the NA can move from one village or city to another without the permission of the police and has to register himself or herself with the police during such movements. After 1988, a number of new organisations came up in the POK and the NA demanding greater democracy, autonomy and even independence, but the ISI has ruthlessly suppressed them keeping their leaders under detention without trial. Those, who escaped arrest, are living in exile abroad.

India claims that the entire J&K as it existed before August 15, 1947, is an integral part of India and, yet, our political leadership, bureaucracy and public opinion have taken no interest in the plight of the peoples there and in bringing to the attention of the world what has been happening behind the iron curtain erected by Islamabad. One has the impression that New Delhi is as ignorant about the state of affairs on the other side of the Line of Control (LOC) as the rest of the world. It has taken little notice of the emerging new leadership in the POK and the NA and has avoided interactions with the political exiles from these areas living abroad. No attempt has been made to better organise them in their struggle against Islamabad. We have every moral right to do so if we consider the POK and the NA as rightfully belonging to us. This tragic neglect has to be put to an end as part of the overt component of the proposed counter proxy-war policy. What should be the contours of the covert component cannot be discussed in a study like this, but certain points can be flagged. It has to be based on recognition of certain ground realities such as the following.

Ideas such as the right of hot pursuit, raids on training camps across the LOC, etc will not work. Hot pursuit can work against terrorists/insurgents indulging in hit and run raids from rear bases across the border. There cannot be any hot pursuit of terrorists operating from shelters inside our territory and against suicide bombers. The question of raids on training camps across the LOC does not arise because the camps are located on either side of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and not in the POK or the NA.

Covert actions against the Pakistani interests in the POK and the NA would be difficult because of the strong presence of a Punjabi-Pathan component (mostly ex-servicemen) in the local population. Even before 1947, the present POK had a strong Punjabi presence and this has increased since then due to the systematic resettling of Punjabi and Pathan ex-servicemen. The NA had very little Punjabi-Pathan component before 1947 except in the areas in the proximity of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). Today, Punjabis and Pathans are economically dominant, though not yet numerically. Pakistan has the advantages of terrain and local support in this region and, therefore, will be able to frustrate any covert actions without serious difficulties.

Hence, the epicentre of the covert component of any counter proxy war policy has to be largely outside the POK and the NA, in areas where we will have the advantage of ground conditions and local support. We have to carefully choose the terrain, which will hurt Pakistan and hurt it badly.

Before drafting and implementing an effective counter proxy war policy, we have to pose to ourselves certain questions, which have rarely been posed till now, or if posed, rarely been answered keeping in view the imperatives of national security. The more important of these questions are:

1.      Is it in India’s interest to ensure that the law and order situation in Pakistan continues to be as bad as ever thereby deterring foreign investment?

2.      Is it in India’s interest to do any thing, such as the normalisation of the bilateral trade, which might help Pakistan come out of its economic difficulties?

3.      Is it in India’s interest that the unbridgeable sectarian divide in Pakistan strengthens demands for an independent Shia State?

4.      Is it in India’s interest that the movements of the non-Punjabi nationalities of Pakistan for a genuine confederation, if not independence, succeeds?

5.      Is it in India’s interest that the movement for the restoration of democracy with the Army returning to the barracks with no political role gathers momentum and succeeds?

6.      Is it in India’s interest that Pakistan remains inextricably trapped in the black hole of Afghanistan?

7.      Is it in India’s interest that the swarming Mullahs and their organisations continue to drag Pakistan back into the past, thereby making it an unwelcome proposition for the rest of the world, either as an ally or as a friend or as an investment destination?  

You find the right answers to these questions and you will have the right mix of the covert component of our counter proxy war strategy. The careful drafting of the strategy has to be entrusted to a special task force on a time-bound basis. Once the strategy is adopted, its implementation has to be the responsibility of a counter proxy-war centre in the external intelligence establishment. We have till now treated our intelligence agencies essentially as intelligence collection, analysis and assessment agencies and not given them an adequate covert action/counter proxy-war capability. This capability is an urgent need.

Excerpted from Intelligence : Past, Present and Future. Reproduced with permission from Lancer Publishers Ltd - Indian Defence Review Volume 16 (4) 2002.