1) The document discusses various strategies and theories related to deterring terrorism and non-state actors, including flexible response, pre-modern doctrines of deterrence, and imposing direct costs on terrorist organizations and states that support them. 2) It provides examples of stand-off weapons like air-to-surface missiles that could impose such costs from a distance while minimizing collateral damage. 3) The document argues that retaliation against non-state actors must be swift, proportionate, and focus on the organization rather than civilians in order to impact domestic morale and force supporting states to restrain terrorists.

1. A Flexible Response
Imposing Costs on Non-state Aggression.
Mohan Guruswamy
Centre for Policy Alternatives
New Delhi

2. What is Terrorism?
• "Terror" comes from a Latin word meaning "to frighten".
• In November 2004, a United Nations Security Council report described
terrorism as any act "intended to cause death or serious bodily harm
to civilians or non-combatants with the purpose of intimidating a
population or compelling a government or an international
organization to do or abstain from doing any act".
• "Terrorism is defined as political violence in an asymmetrical conflict
that is designed to induce terror and psychic fear (sometimes
indiscriminate) through the violent victimization and destruction of
noncombatant targets (sometimes iconic symbols).”
• “The purpose of terrorism is to exploit the media in order to achieve
maximum attainable publicity as an amplifying force multiplier in order
to influence the targeted audiences in order to reach short- and
midterm political goals and/or desired long-term end states."

3. Propaganda of the deed (or propaganda by the deed, from the French
propagande par le fait) is a concept that promotes physical violence
against political enemies as a way of inspiring the masses and
catalyzing revolution. Propaganda of the deed may take many forms, but
in many cases utilizes violence against people seen as threats to the
working class. It also refers to the use of symbolic acts of violence
against structural targets, in which the act is intended to evoke a broader
meaning.
“We must spread our principles, not with words but with deeds, for this is
the most popular, the most potent, and the most irresistible form of
propaganda."[ Mikhail Bakunin]
“Ideas spring from deeds and not the other way around." [Carlo
Pisacane]
Propaganda by Deed!

4. Terrorism in the age of globalisation involves the terrorist, victim
and also an audience, because of the exposure it has through
mass media.
To threaten, injure or kill innocent bystanders in a circumstance
of political, religious, or other ideological conflict is an ancient
form of human behaviour.
But in the twentieth century such behaviour is abetted by an
array of available technologies that dwarf all previous realities.
Terrorism in the Age of Globalization.

5. Voice from the other side.
“Start the fire now, nothing is going to
happen until you start the fire. When
people see the flames they will begin to be
afraid. This is the most important target.
The media is covering the target Taj Mahal
more than any other.”
……. Handler’s instruction to Mumbai terrorist

6. The most dangerous terror menace comes from Kashmiri groups
based in Pakistan with long and intimate connections to al Qaeda
and bin Laden. The group which has been linked by initial Indian
assessments of the Mumbai attack, Lashkar-e Tayiba (literally the
army of the pure or righteous), was founded in Afghanistan and
Pakistan in the late 1980s and early 1990s by a group of Kashmiri
activists with the assistance of the Pakistani intelligence service,
the Inter Services Intelligence Directorate or ISI.
….Bruce Riedel, former CIA officer and Advisor to three US Presidents on
Middle Eastern and South Asian issues.
The Most Dangerous Terror Menace.

7. Because the loss of life is so low, many economists measure the
benefits of successful counter-terrorism measures in terms of loss of
gross domestic product avoided. Trouble is terrorism does little to
disrupt economic growth, as even 26/11 demonstrated.
Using the case of the US, it is estimated that simply continuing the
present measures involves costs exceeding benefits by a factor of at
least 10. Adopting additional defensive measures (such as stepping up
security at valuable targets) would, at best, entail costs 3.5 times the
benefits. Taking more pro-active measures (such as invading
Afghanistan) would have costs at least eight times the benefits.
.
Economic Cost of Terrorism?

8. "You can be sure of succeeding in your attacks if you only
attack places that are undefended. . . .
He who is skilled in attack flashes forth from the topmost
heights of heaven, making it impossible for the enemy to
guard against him.
This being so, the places that he shall attack are precisely
those that the enemy cannot defend.“….
… Sun Tzu in Art of War
The Impossibility of Defence.

9. "You said you wanted to get Capone. Do you really wanna
get him? You see what I'm saying is, what are you prepared
to do?
. . . If you open the can on these worms you must be
prepared to go all the way. Because they're not gonna give
up the fight, until one of you is dead.
You wanna know how to get Capone?
They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to
the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. THAT'S the
Chicago way! And that's how you get Capone.
Now do you want to do that?“
What Jimmy Malone told Elliot Ness to get mobster Al Capone in
“The Untouchables”.
The Chicago Way!

10. In the Cold War days, the notion of deterrence was focused on the
threat of retaliation, the threat of punishment.
This notion was very much based on state-to-state interactions and it
was believed that three sets of conditions were critical for deterrence to
work.
One was that you could identify your adversary, the person or state.
The second was that the adversary had highly valued assets, and if you
could attack them, you could affect your adversary's decisions,
intentions, and actions.
And the third was that you had the means to deter your adversary and
the ability to credibly threaten the valued assets.
…….. Robert Nurick, Director, Moscow Carnegie Center
The Prevalent Notion of Deterrence.

11. Important that the other side soundly
predicts the response.
• To make the deterrent threat clearer and to maximize its credibility,
an adversary must be able to predict soundly what the scope of a
state’s response could be, not just what it would be.
• The most fearsome, rather than the most likely, military response
may hold sufficient credibility to deter an opponent. (MR!)
• The requirement is not necessarily for the adversary to be
completely certain that the threat will be carried out, but rather that
escalation would be reasonable, plausible military option in
response to the defined provocation

12. The relationship between a defending state and a nonstate
terrorist organization is inherently asymmetric.
One successful attack out of tens or even hundreds of
disrupted plans is a total success for the terrorist
organization, whereas for the state it is a total failure**.
*Dr.Shmuel Bar in “Deterring Terrorists”. Director Institute of Policy and
Strategy, Herzilya, Israel.
**"Mrs. Thatcher will now realize that Britain cannot occupy our country and
torture our prisoners and shoot our people in their own streets and get away with
it. Today we were unlucky, but remember we only have to be lucky once. You
will have to be lucky always. Give Ireland peace and there will be no more war.“
IRA statement after October 12, 1984 attack.
The Inherent Asymmetry.*

13. Managing the Tradeoff.
Good Taliban & Bad Taliban!
• Managing this tradeoff can be tricky.
• By restraining its response, the target runs a larger risk
of failure and thus future attacks.
• By retaliating strongly, however, the target risks
radicalizing moderates and plays into the hands of the
extremists, ultimately expanding their support and
power.
• Disabling the extremist while limiting damage may be
difficult, if not impossible.
• Indeed the terrorists count on this.

14. The asymmetry between states and terrorist organizations
seems to render paradigms tailored to strategic nuclear
deterrence inappropriate.
These theories tend to focus on the relationships between
states and on the unspeakable damage that can be inflicted at
the high end of potential conflict, either between conventional
armies or in a nuclear conflict.
These theories neglect pre-modern doctrines of deterrence*
which states have employed since time immemorial vis- à-vis
both states and non-state actors.
* Mathew 5:38 “You have that it was said: An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” Usually
called the Law of Retribution.
The Neglect of the Pre-modern Doctrine of Deterrence.

15. General Deterrence: Norms, laws, and enforcement are designed and
implemented to produce and maintain the image that "negative" and
disruptive behaviors will receive attention and punishment.
Specific Deterrence: Specific deterrence focuses on punishing known
deviants in order to prevent them from ever again violating the specific
norms they have broken.
Incapacitation: Within the concept of specific deterrence is the idea that
punishment must be effective.
Retributive Theory and Just Desert: Simply put, if criminals and
deviants choose to engage in their disruptive and threatening behaviors,
they deserve to be punished. The focus here is not on the future and what
an individual may do. It is not concerned with prevention or rehabilitation.
The aim here is to punish people for what they have done.
*Sociology 200, Robert O. Keel, USML.
Rational Choice and Deterrence Theory.*

16. On the basis of the above analysis one may outline a
strategy for deterring terrorist organizations based on
four main pillars:
( 1) direct military deterrence towards the terrorist
leadership;
(2) threatening the institutionalized assets of the “host”
country;
(3) pressuring the host population;
(4) covert “human influence” operations (psy.ops);
(5)And/to pressuring the terrorist organization’s patron
entities.
*Dr. Shmuel Bar.
The Four Pillars of Deterrence*.

17. Cost of Excessive Retaliation.
Terrorism is effective because it imposes costs on everyone, not just
its direct victims. The most substantial of these indirect costs is fear
of a future attack, even though such fear is grossly misplaced. The
probability that an average American will die in a given year from a
terrorist attack is roughly 1 in 5 million; he is 575 times more likely to
commit suicide.
The direct costs of the September 11 attacks were massive— nearly
three thousand lives and economic losses as high as $300 billion— as
were the costs of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that the United
States launched in response. But consider the collateral costs as well.
In just the three months following the attacks, there were one
thousand extra traffic deaths in the United States. Why?
……….Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner in Super Freakonomics

18. Options limited by the limited nature of our
strategic discourse.
• Cold War concepts of deterrence inapplicable. MR threat to a single
or very limited counter-attack on a non-state actor just not credible.
• Israel experience not applicable. The situation is entirely different
here. No PLO/Hamas dynamics.
• Our inaction distinguishes between externally sponsored terrorist
acts on us and on others.
• There is no difference between good Taliban and bad Taliban.
• We must, however, distinguish between domestic terrorism and
external terrorism because it is under the ambit of our law.

19. The Terrorist System. Inside and Outside.

20. Non-state Neighbors!
• Pakistan. LeT, HM, HUD, Babbar Khalsa etc.. Active state support.
• Good jihadis attack India, good/bad jihadis ( Omar, Hekmatyar,
Haqqani, Sayaff etc) attack America, and only bad jihadis (Tehrik-e-
Taliban Pakistan etc.) attack Pakistan!
• Bangladesh. ULFA, LeT, assorted groups. Regime dependent
official patronage. Presently bystander state.
• Burma. NSCN, KNF, assorted groups. No official support or
linkages. Bystander state.
• Bhutan. ULFA. Friendly country. Bystander state.
• Sri Lanka. LTTE remnants? Friendly country. No current threats.

21. What are India’s Options?
• Cry and Moan. Go to the UNSC, US State Dept., and get no
satisfaction.
• Economic sanctions. Don’t work as trade volumes are too low and it
hurts India more as trade balance favors it.
• Naval blockade. Difficult to sustain and maintain. Third country
sensibilities also involved.
• Army strike or Commando operation? Risk of failure, costs,
preparatory time and “heaviness” are factors against. Could turn into
a territorial issue.
• A one off stand off attack with PGM’s with inherent threat of more.
Cost effective. Fire and forget. Calms domestic opinion. Lowest cost
option and maximum bang for the buck! Limits action to non-state
actor assets. A submarine launched PGM attack could do just as
well.
• A specific punitive action on a non-state actor challenges the host
state to act against non-state actors, or to respond with inherent
risks of escalation, and run counter to international opinion.

22. Flexible response was a defense strategy implemented by John F.
Kennedy in 1961 to address the Kennedy administration's skepticism
of Dwight Eisenhower’s New Look and its policy of Massive
Retaliation.
Flexible response calls for mutual deterrence at strategic, tactical,
and conventional levels, giving the United States the capability to
respond to aggression across the spectrum of warfare, not limited
only to nuclear arms.
“Our defense posture must be both flexible and determined … our
response … selective, permitting deliberation and discrimination as to
timing, scope and targets …”
.….John F. Kennedy on 28 March 1962 in his Presidential message to the military.
The capability of military forces for effective reaction to any enemy threat or
attack with actions appropriate and adaptable to the circumstances
existing.
……Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms. US Department of Defense 2005.
Flexible Response

23. Air operations conducted to divert, disrupt, delay, or destroy the enemy's
military potential before it can be brought to bear effectively against friendly
forces, or to otherwise achieve objectives. Air interdiction is conducted at
such distance from friendly forces that detailed integration of each air
mission with the fire and movement of friendly forces is not required.
……. US Dept. of Defence dictionary
What is Air Interdiction?

24. An air-to-surface missile (also, air-to-ground missile, AGM,
ASM or ATGM) is a missile designed to be launched from military
aircraft (bombers, attack aircraft, fighter aircraft or other kinds) and
strike ground targets on land, at sea, or both.
One of the major advantages of air-to-surface missiles over other
weapons available for aircraft to use to attack ground targets is the
standoff distance they provide. This allows them to launch the
weapons outside the most intense air defences around the target
site. Most air-to-surface missiles are fire-and-forget in order to take
most advantage of the standoff distance — they allow the launching
platform to turn away after launch. Some missiles have enough
range to be launched over the horizon.
The Perfect Stand-off Weapon!

25. AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapon
Description
General Characteristics
Primary Function: Air-to-surface standoff weapon for use against a
variety of targets depending on payload.
Contractor: Raytheon Co.
Guidance: GPS/INS (Global Position/Inertial)
Length: 160 inches (4.1 meters)
Diameter: box shaped 13 inches on a side
Weight: From 1065 pounds (483 kilograms) to 1500 pounds (681
kilograms) depending upon the payload, sensor and propulsion
combination.
Wingspan: 106 inches
Aircraft Compatibility: F/A-18, F-16, AV-8B, P-3
Range: Low altitude launch - 12nm, High altitude launch - 40nm
Warhead: BLU-97 - Combined effects bomblets, BLU-108 - Sensor fused
weapon, BLU-111 - 500 lb general purpose warhead
Unit Cost: $150,000
Date Deployed: January 1999
AGM-154 Joint
Standoff Weapon

26. Muridke, home of Jamaat-ud-dawa, just 20kms as the crow
flies from Indian border.

27. Hqrs of Jamaat-ud-daawa aka LeT.

28. Aerial view of the other side from 25000ft

29. Puna from 4800ft. Minimal collateral damage.

30. POK Terrorist Camps

31. Impose Costs Instead of Crying for Uncle!
• Retaliation must be swift, relatively proportionate and
focused on non-state actor.
• It must happen within the High Adrenalin period.
• Present the “host country” with a fait accompli.
• Armed Forces must be tasked to prepare slew of
retaliatory options for Government to exercise.
• Retaliation may not deter in the short run but it is vital for
domestic morale. Pre-modern deterrence works.
• Willingness to match any State or non-state escalation
must be demonstrated.
• Skin the cat to scare the monkey! Set off new internal
dynamics in HC. Restrain the military. Force them to
chain down terrorists.

32. IAF SU-30MKI Standoff Weapons.
• Air to Surface Missiles:
• 2 × Kh-59ME TV guided standoff
Missile, 115 km
• 2 × Kh-59MK Laser guided
standoff Missile, 285 km
• 4 × Kh-35 Anti-Ship Missile,
130 km
• 1 × PJ-10 Brahmos Supersonic
Cruise Missile, 300 km
• 6 × Kh-31P/A anti-radar missile,
70 km
• 6 × Kh-29T/L laser guided missile,
30 km
• 4 × S-8 rocket pods (80 unguided
rockets)
• 4 × S-13 rocket pods (20 unguided
rockets)

33. The Kh-59ME answer to the LeT!
• 320kgs warhead
• Upto 200kms range
• Tested accuracy
• TV or laser guided
• Inexpensive
• The Kh-59 is propelled by a
powder-fuel engine, and
incorporates a powder-fuel
accelerator in the tail. The
folding stabilizers are located
in the front of the missile, with
wings and rudder in the rear.
The Kh-59 cruises at an
altitude of about 7 meters
above water or 100-1,000
meters above ground with the
help of a radar altimeter. It can
be launched at speeds of 600
to 1,000 km/h at altitudes of
0.2 to 11 kilometers and has a
CEP of 2 to 3 meters

34. Nestled under the wings of the mother!
The air-launched Raduga Kh-59ME (AS-18) is a television-
guided cruise missile for attacks on small ground or surface
targets of known location.

35. What are ‘Host Country’ options?
• Retaliate in kind. HC has recently adapted the Harpoon anti-ship
missile for use on land targets, over US protests, and in violation of
EUMA.
• Attack will have to be on Indian State military targets such as a
radar station or airfield; or on unguarded non military targets like a
power station or rail yard etc. This will invite retaliation on like HC
targets. Can it afford an air war with India?
• Will have to factor IAF attacking its aircraft on its territory with stand-
off AAM’s.
• HC will have to consider where the next escalatory step will be?
Several Indian options. IAF ingress into HC airspace. Navy SLCM
attack.
• HC moves divisions eastwards. Indian Army mobilization. Will have
to consider US objections. Too much time will elapse. Cooling in
would have set.

36. Or is it only for fly pasts and air shows?

37. Do Nothing!