Fighting Guerrilla

Fighting Guerrilla

 While the Vietnam War was raging, with the Americans unable to subdue the Viet Cong; there was another, little known war being fought against Communist inspired and trained mountain tribesmen in the Gulf. But fortunately for the “free world” and its dependence on petroleum, this one was decisively won in the mist-shrouded mountains of Dhofar, bordering Socialist South Yemen.

 The winning force was professional and multinational, even as the wily enemy routinely inflicted heavy casualties on it. The Sandhurst trained Sultan Qaboos bin Said of Oman wisely asked for help. And so, there were Iranians from the Shah of Iran’s Armed Forces; the largest contingent of British forces involved overseas since the Korean War; and Omani soldiers drawn from tough men of Zanzibari and Baluchi extraction.

The key to victory however was in the discipline inculcated into the British officered Sultan of Oman’s Armed Forces, ably assisted by seconded officers and soldiers from the fabled British 22^nd SAS Regiment of commandos.

And this war, largely off the world’s radar, secured the Arabian Gulf from a determined takeover attempt by Communist forces from both China and the Soviet Union, working through “Adoo” tribal irregulars.

Following the recent hardening of the conflict between the Indian State and our indigenous Maoists, the considerable similarities with that little known war in Dhofar are remarkable. Except, God forbid, that one raged on for two decades!

The Dhofar War is in mention again thanks to the appearance of a new book by British SAS officer Ian Gardiner who was there. It’s called:In the service of the Sultan,   published in February 2010.His book is relevant because it raises some of the very same issues at stake now in India, particularly when viewed from the perspective of a Chinese Communist-backed insurgency.

An insurgency, only nominally to do with tribal neglect and underdevelopment, and rather more about a determined and well planned attempt to take over the Indian state from within. The Maoists are dead serious. And their war on the Union of India is designed to ruthlessly debilitate, injure, thwart, bleed, encircle, corner, and destabilise, a thriving, if far from perfect democracy.

Yet even as India stands bloodied, it remains complacent and does not call for external help from nations like Israel trained in counter insurgency and battling guerrillas. You’d think that we were being threatened by bow and arrow wielding primitives, and not trained commandos expert at jungle warfare. And thoroughly conversant with their territory to boot. They allegedly also have ex- Indian Army trainers and military experts from China, the erstwhile Tamil Tigers and so on.

Not only have the Maoists demonstrated their savage military prowess and the penetration of their intelligence gathering; they have also managed to give a good account of themselves and their supposedly lofty motives through sympathisers amongst the NGO community, and certain Left-leaning members of the intelligentsia!

The Government has underestimated this threat for far too long. The dilemma is about what level of force to use on an internal challenge. The Omanis however did not suffer from such semantic worries. They used helicopter gunships, fighters, the best and latest weaponry and training, intense patrolling, and a powerful hearts and minds campaign. Even then, it took two decades to finally win out.

 So it is interesting to consider, as we fiddle around with debates on the choice of weapons, what kind of South Asia might obtain if we lose to the Maoists. Instead of becoming a counterpoint to Chinese ascendancy, India would all but lose its sovereignty to become a kind of Vichy State under Chinese  over-lordship.  

  

The Dhofar War had to be prosecuted not only in the mountains bordering Yemen but also far away in order to cut supply routes coming across the Indian Ocean. And also to protect the arteries that connected Omani oil fields, pipelines and highways across the country. It forced the rapid modernisation of the Sultanate from an overlooked backwater into a modern State and valued strategic ally of the West; perched, as it is, at the mouth of the Gulf of Hormuz. Again there are lessons in this for us. The Maoists have already talked of taking the battle into the cities for example.

Coincidentally, I have lived in both Bastar and Muscat. I was a little boy in 1959 when we lived in Jagdalpur. My father was a Government Civil Engineer and had volunteered for the experimental Dandakaranya Project for the resettlement of East Bengali refugees.

I remember idyllic afternoons catching mud crabs on the banks of the river nearby. And other, Mowgli like trips to the deep forest replete with tented camps, jungle sounds, thunderous waterfalls and bare-bodied, bow and arrow toting tribals. But even in 1960, the steel smelting furnaces of Bhilai were being lit. The propaganda of neglect which is treated as nearly axiomatic in the debate on causes of Maoism may actually be much exaggerated.

We lived in Oman also, through its scorching developmental years even as it fought off the Communists using the most modern means at its command. India too needs to modernise its armed response to this insurgency, even as its economy develops rapidly. We need to invest all the men, resources, planning, soft skills and technical expertise necessary to eliminate the Maoist threat in the shortest possible time. Given that we are also confronted by hostile neighbours on more than one border, in addition to the depredations of Islamic terrorists and other insurrections in the North East; we cannot afford the luxury of a long war of attrition.

Guerrilla warfare, may indeed mean “little war” in Spanish; but with its reliance on trickery, sabotage, ambushes and raids, its efficacy can be borne out by its disconcertingly successful track record. Witness: The People's Liberation Army in Mao's China; Fidel Castro's rebellion in Cuba, the Viet Cong in North Vietnam; the Irish Republican Army, the Kosovo War and so on.

In fact, guerrilla war, with its flexibility, relatively low cost, its undeclared ability to harass and weaken, could well become the preferred mode of future conflict between nations.

There are indeed many advantages to its conduct, both stated and unstated. But it is the great Henry Kissinger, who put the moot point as follows: " The conventional army loses if it does not win. The guerrila wins if he does not lose".

(1,052 words)

13^th April 2010

Gautam Mukherjee
Published as Leader Edit on Edit Page of The Pioneer on April 30th,2010 and also online at www.dailypioneer.com as "We're fighting a guerilla war". The piece is also archived online at www.dailypioneer.com under Columnists.