Fighting for Kashmir: The Evolution of Pakistan’s Military Strategy

Abstract

Based on the materials from Pakistani military journals the article analyzes strategies used by the Pakistan Army in Kashmir from 1947 to the present. Indian-Pakistani disagreements over the territory of Kashmir have caused large-scale wars as well as local border conflicts and still remain a source of tension between the two nuclear powers. A new round of tension in Indian-Pakistani relations is associated with revocation of article 370 of the Constitution of India in 2019, which provided the state of Jammu and Kashmir with the autonomy. However, due to the military superiority of India Pakistan has focused on non-traditional methods of solving the Kashmir problem since the early years of independence. Irregular forces became her main weapon and the methods of using them have been improving over decades. Great importance was also given to the buildup of conventional weaponry and the development of nuclear weapons. Thus, the Pakistan Army has shown interest in such strategies as guerrilla warfare, asymmetric conflict, state terrorism, proxy war, low-intensity conflict, limited and non-kinetic warfare. One of the results of the application of these strategies was the growth of terrorism not only in India but in the region as well. However, in recent years, in the conditions of hybrid warfare nuclear weapons as well as superiority in conventional weapons have ceased to be considered by the Pakistan military leadership as necessary factors for achieving victory in Kashmir. This initiated the search for new approaches to confrontation with India. Military experts consider non-kinetic methods of hybrid warfare to be the most advantageous strategy for the Pakistan Army.

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