Can Conventional War Help With Counter Terrorism?
In recent years, we have seen many examples of countries threatening or even waging classical war as part of their counter-terrorist measures. Whether we are talking about USA waging war in Afghanistan, India mobilising its army against Pakistan and Israel currently bombing away in Lebanon and Gaza, these are all examples of war used as a response to terrorist actions. One may quibble over the minute details, but overall, this is what they did. What is the big deal? Why go for full fledged war when faced with terrorism? Does this work? What broad lessons can we draw from an admittedly small sample? Incidentally, while Israel and Hezbollah were hammering away at each other, I got hold of an interesting book, Operation Parakran, The War Unfinished, by Lt. General (Retd.) V. K. Sood and Pravin Sawhney. Sood and Sawhney are two of the strategic thinkers in the Indian Defence circles and they wrote this book in 2003, after India mobilised its army in response to a (Pakistani based) terroris
