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PAMPORE TERRORIST ATTACK - A Special Kind of Failure
Manvendra Singh
“`I don't think they play at all fairly,' Alice began,' ...and they don't seem to have any rules in particular; at least, if there are, nobody attends to them.“ Alice, in this case, is the one lost in Wonderland. And she has an important lesson when it comes to the recently concluded, and deeply tragic, operation in Pampore, Jammu and Kashmir.
All the top-notch military précis, training manuals and doctrines don't prepare a conventional army leadership when it comes to employing Special Forces. Those lines from Alice encapsulate all that there is to know about how the Special Forces play -and how to play with them.
Special Forces are essentially anathema to a regular conventional professional army: a small number of highly trained and motivated lads, doing operations disproportionate to their numerical strength. An army is about mass; the Special Forces about less being more. The twain don't meet.
But an army has to tolerate them, because they exist. And they exist because there are individuals crazy enough to feel comfortable and confident with fewer around in taking on more than what they should. This, in essence, is the basic difference between a conventional army , and Special Forces.
India is not unique in this asymmetry . All professional (or even ceremonial) armies have faced this dilemma and `dispute'. Forward-thinkers will find a way out by accepting the reality that the `crazies' of any society can be an asset and should be used as such.
They leave egos aside, join the future, and give the Special Forces their space to operate. Some armies, especially the ones encumbered by their large bureaucratically driven system, deny the future and this logic. And then they pay a heavy price.
Pampore extracted that far too heavy price. In the public domain, it will remain an operation in which three terrorists were holed up in a building, killed three Special Forces troopers who tried to neutralise them. The public domain will look at, and remember, the operation as even-steven.
But it wasn't so, as the army was the loser. And it wasn't so simply because the operation was directed by those who didn't know how to employ Special Forces, and despite not knowing, insisted on telling the three Specials who died and their comrades who participated in the operation, how to do it.
Alice had figured it out perfectly . If you want them to play , let them play as they want to, fairly or otherwise. They have their rules, even if the rule book is indecipherable by most people. Never tell them this is the playground and play according to these rules. Because they can't. If they could, they'd be wearing different regimental insignia.
The insignia Special Forces wear on the right pocket compels them to think, feel, breathe and play differently .The commanders of war generally , and those in Pampore specifically , believe otherwise, and three precious lives were lost. Disproportionate to the three terrorists neutralised.
The terrorists holed up in the government building had their military psychology lessons correct. They released the civilians to continue with the charade of fighting for them. They pretended they had vulnerable hostages, and compelled the commanders to order an assault.
In a hostage situation, time is essential as delay means deaths. But in Pampore, an assault was ordered before it was clear whether there were hostages, where they were, and how many terrorists held them. Because Pampore is Srinagar and a multistorey government building meant the exigency was getting the hostages out fast.
Which is the first, fatal, mistake when it comes to military planning, special operations in particular. Never have a time-frame for concluding an operation, even if anti-national sloganeering is being aired by TV channels who don't think much of it.
Authority is about having the spine and the hide to take the barbs without losing the larger picture. In Pampore, alas, that was not the case. The TRP game came to play in a life-and-death situation, when there was no need.
Left to the Special Forces, both outstanding units, they'd have dealt with the operation differently . Room entry is part of their training. But multiple rooms and multistoreys are a different game altogether. Special Forces have the ability to adapt to a new challenge for which they haven't trained.
So, let them adapt, find the route, even if it is not a `fair' one. At least precious lives wouldn't have been lost, for the sake of time, which in the end doesn't tell. Only statistics do. And in that the army botched up. Badly .The writer is editor , Defence and Security Alert. Views are personal
PAMPORE TERRORIST ATTACK - A Special Kind of Failure
Manvendra Singh
“`I don't think they play at all fairly,' Alice began,' ...and they don't seem to have any rules in particular; at least, if there are, nobody attends to them.“ Alice, in this case, is the one lost in Wonderland. And she has an important lesson when it comes to the recently concluded, and deeply tragic, operation in Pampore, Jammu and Kashmir.
All the top-notch military précis, training manuals and doctrines don't prepare a conventional army leadership when it comes to employing Special Forces. Those lines from Alice encapsulate all that there is to know about how the Special Forces play -and how to play with them.
Special Forces are essentially anathema to a regular conventional professional army: a small number of highly trained and motivated lads, doing operations disproportionate to their numerical strength. An army is about mass; the Special Forces about less being more. The twain don't meet.
But an army has to tolerate them, because they exist. And they exist because there are individuals crazy enough to feel comfortable and confident with fewer around in taking on more than what they should. This, in essence, is the basic difference between a conventional army , and Special Forces.
India is not unique in this asymmetry . All professional (or even ceremonial) armies have faced this dilemma and `dispute'. Forward-thinkers will find a way out by accepting the reality that the `crazies' of any society can be an asset and should be used as such.
They leave egos aside, join the future, and give the Special Forces their space to operate. Some armies, especially the ones encumbered by their large bureaucratically driven system, deny the future and this logic. And then they pay a heavy price.
Pampore extracted that far too heavy price. In the public domain, it will remain an operation in which three terrorists were holed up in a building, killed three Special Forces troopers who tried to neutralise them. The public domain will look at, and remember, the operation as even-steven.
But it wasn't so, as the army was the loser. And it wasn't so simply because the operation was directed by those who didn't know how to employ Special Forces, and despite not knowing, insisted on telling the three Specials who died and their comrades who participated in the operation, how to do it.
Alice had figured it out perfectly . If you want them to play , let them play as they want to, fairly or otherwise. They have their rules, even if the rule book is indecipherable by most people. Never tell them this is the playground and play according to these rules. Because they can't. If they could, they'd be wearing different regimental insignia.
The insignia Special Forces wear on the right pocket compels them to think, feel, breathe and play differently .The commanders of war generally , and those in Pampore specifically , believe otherwise, and three precious lives were lost. Disproportionate to the three terrorists neutralised.
The terrorists holed up in the government building had their military psychology lessons correct. They released the civilians to continue with the charade of fighting for them. They pretended they had vulnerable hostages, and compelled the commanders to order an assault.
In a hostage situation, time is essential as delay means deaths. But in Pampore, an assault was ordered before it was clear whether there were hostages, where they were, and how many terrorists held them. Because Pampore is Srinagar and a multistorey government building meant the exigency was getting the hostages out fast.
Which is the first, fatal, mistake when it comes to military planning, special operations in particular. Never have a time-frame for concluding an operation, even if anti-national sloganeering is being aired by TV channels who don't think much of it.
Authority is about having the spine and the hide to take the barbs without losing the larger picture. In Pampore, alas, that was not the case. The TRP game came to play in a life-and-death situation, when there was no need.
Left to the Special Forces, both outstanding units, they'd have dealt with the operation differently . Room entry is part of their training. But multiple rooms and multistoreys are a different game altogether. Special Forces have the ability to adapt to a new challenge for which they haven't trained.
So, let them adapt, find the route, even if it is not a `fair' one. At least precious lives wouldn't have been lost, for the sake of time, which in the end doesn't tell. Only statistics do. And in that the army botched up. Badly .The writer is editor , Defence and Security Alert. Views are personal
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