— Says India has failed to understand hybrid warfare
A former general of the Indian Army, Lt Gen (r) Syed Ata Hasnain has commended the Pakistan Army’s media wing, Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) for adopting an outstanding strategy in the domain of hybrid warfare.
Speaking at a seminar organised by the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London, he acknowledged that ISPR outclassed the Indian Army in the information war.
He said: “I give full marks to Pakistan for the manner in which it has played out the information strategy. The ISPR did outstanding work for Pakistan.”
The retired officer, who also served as the general officer commanding Indian Army’s 15 Corps in Occupied Kashmir, said that ISPR brilliantly performed its work for Pakistan by ensuring the complete alienation of Kashmiris against Indian armed forces.
He said he was aware of the fact that the Pulwama-like incident is inevitable due to the Indian government’s lack of understanding of the conflict.
He added that in India “everyone knows what the ISI is but nobody knows what the ISPR is” and only military professionals know about the ISPR.
The concept of hybrid warfare is not yet understood in India and the rulers have failed to understand that hybrid war can only be fought by hybrid retaliation and not through conventional forms, he said.
BIG FAILURES:
Giving the examples of Iraq and Afghanistan, he said that US has spent billions of dollars on its military interventions there but it could not achieve the desired result. “Hybrid in Iraq and Afghanistan should have been fought by hybrid, but hybrid was fought by going conventional,” he argued.
Advising India to “take a leaf out of Pakistan’s strategy”, he said that India has made many mistakes but one of the biggest ones has been about the “the Military-Civic Action (MCA)”.
“The MCA is not soft power. It’s not psychological. In 30 years, Indian has made many mistakes as far as its strategy is concerned but one of the major mistakes is to think that the MCA is a psychological operation, it’s information operation. It’s not,” he said.
“If anyone has taught us how to play information operation it’s the ISPR of Pakistan who have done it marvelously, I would like to give it back to them, always. Credit to them.”
Speaking about occupied Kashmir, he said, “From 2012 onwards Pakistan got upper hand and the change of the generation and social media made all the difference. We didn’t know how to carry the information side of things but Pakistan has done it extremely well.”
Blaming the Modi administration for the February 15 suicide attack in occupied Kashmir, the former Indian Army’s General added the use of force could not solve the Kashmir dispute, and India would eventually come to give up the muscular power in Occupied Kashmir.
