Kargil: From Surprise to Victory

by V.P. Malik

The armed forces tend to draw inspiration and motivation from the scriptures and military history of their countries. India and Pakistan are no exception. In India, we do so from multireligious scriptures. The military history in any case covers periods under Hindu kingdoms, Mughals and even British rule.

Since independence, most public leaders in Pakistan have derived national pride less from economic productivity or intellectual output, but more from the rhetoric of ‘destroying the enemy’ and ‘making the nation invulnerable’.

‘To the extent that the military balance is stable at the level of all-out nuclear war, it will become less stable at lower levels of violence.’24