Abstract

Hybrid warfare is a multi-faceted military strategy, an amalgam of conventional, irregular, and cyber warfare where technology adds exuberant intensification in the methods of hybridity to achieve political goals. The objective of this study is to conceptualize hybrid warfare, analyze India’s hybrid warfare against Pakistan and suggest a counter-response to neutralize the hybrid forces working against Pakistan’s stability and sovereignty. This study endeavors to develop a vantage point to understand the concept of hybrid warfare and its projection on Pakistan at internal and external fronts. This research analyzes data through qualitative methods and finds the related concepts and methods through content analysis and interpretative methodology.

Key Words

Hybrid Warfare, Strategy, Global Security Environment, Pakistan, India’s Hybrid Warfare, Regional and Extra-Regional Actors

Introduction

War in the twenty-first century has evolved into a wide range of unfamiliar forms. New developments ushered by modern technology and innovative information system led to the reformulation of philosophies and the art of war. This type of war is composed of new methods, such as control on information systems through print and social media, paralyze the government of adversaries through cyberattacks, deliberate spread of disinformation to deceive the enemy, and a mixture of linear and non-linear strategies combined with regular and irregular forces in the same battlefield. This is an emergence of a new type of war termed hybrid warfare.

The hybrid warfare, according to Frank. G. Hoffman incorporates a range of different modes of warfare, including conventional capabilities, irregular tactics and formations, terrorist acts including indiscriminate violence and coercion, and criminal disorder conducted by both state and non-state actors, operationally and tactically directed and coordinated within the main battlespace to achieve synergistic effects.  (Hoffman 2007). Carl Von Clausewitz, a Prussian military philosopher, writes on this point, “War is more than a true chameleon that slightly adapts its characteristics to the given case”  (Clausewitz, On War 1976). Hybrid warfare contains a set of tools that cannot be seen as a traditional threat assessment. It targets the grey areas and vulnerabilities in a society in a way that it looks genuine as the particular group that is being used is just in their objectives (Cullen and Reichborn-Kjennerud, 2017).

The principal actor in hybrid wars utilizes a multi-pronged strategy to achieve the political goals by employing regular military forces along with irregular forces like insurgents, terrorist groups, criminal groups using coercion and violence to blur the distinction and create confusion on the battlefield. As a result, it becomes hard to identify those who start the war. The aggressor attacks the opponent group in a highly integrated and sophisticated military campaign that aims to impose economic pain, demoralize the political parties and delegitimize the governance, isolate the state diplomatically and erode its communication through cyberattacks and create disruptions among people in society. 

Since the independence of Pakistan on August 14th, 1947, India has constantly been threatening Pakistan’s sovereignty and break it into pieces as manifested by India’s Home Minister, Amit Shah,  (Desk, India threatens to ‘break Pakistan into 10 pieces’ 2016). India has launched a hybrid war against Pakistan and is exploiting the fault lines-ethnic, religious, socio-economic, and geographic differences within geostrategic transit state through unconventional warfare to disrupt, control and destabilize Pakistan. Evidence of India’s involvement in sabotage activities against Pakistan was a spy of the Indian Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) captured by the Pakistan army- Kulbhushan Jadhav was a serving officer; he was arrested while he was travelling from Iran to enter Pakistan. India sponsored him to train terrorist groups in Pakistan  (Desk 2019). Besides, the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) is also a foreign tool to destabilize Pakistan and is a classic example of hybrid warfare -providing funds to the PTM explains that economic tools are employed horizontally (Mahmood, 2020). As DGISPR revealed in the press conference that “ PTM is receiving funds from Pakistan’s rivals- RAW and NDS -Indian and Afghanistan spy agencies”(Syed, Raza 2019)

The introduction of new dynamics such as cyber-attack, subversive tactics, coercive diplomacy, and violence through asymmetric actors reveal that there is a paradigm shift in policies from inter-state wars to fault line conflicts. This brings our attention to Pakistan being confronted with kinetic and non-kinetic challenges posed by India. These states and non-state actors exploit Pakistan’s fault-lines. 

In Pakistan’s regional scenario, there are many drivers that are motivating India in opting for hybrid warfare tactics. The most crucial is Pakistan’s nuclear capability which involves a triad of its delivery systems based on land, in the form of missiles (Hatf series), in the air, consists of Pakistani aircraft and at sea in the form of Babur class of cruise missiles. China-Pakistan nexuses another driver, in terms of strategic partnership through China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and its related economic projects, and the intimidating role of China and Pakistan in the success of the United States-Taliban peace deal in February 2020. All these factors irk the enemies of Pakistan and accelerate their endeavors to destabilize Pakistan. 

Presently, India is moving towards establishing its hegemony in South Asia by having strategic convergence with the United States (US) with dual objectives. India in the pursuit of strategic engagement with Afghanistan and Iran in South Asia, with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates in the Gulf region, and Central Asian countries through economic investments in multiple projects, such as Chabahar, which may threaten Gwadar when India maintains antagonizing position with China and Pakistan. Domestically, India is following Hindutva ideology to create Akhand Bharat, originated by Arthashastra, Chanakya (Parekh 2016). In August 2019, India revoked the special status of Kashmir in its constitution that increased tension between India - Pakistan.

Increasing India-US and India-Israel nexus, Sino-India border disputes, China’s strong relations with Pakistan, Kashmir dispute, Indian assistance to insurgents in Baluchistan are the reasons for growing asymmetry in India-Pakistan relations that formulate the strategic appraisal of calculating national security policies in the domain of hybrid warfare. Besides, the conventional strength of military forces, nuclear capability, alliances and partnerships, economy and military cooperation between states who share common objectives compel states to adopt other options to destabilize the adversary. In this regard, Clausewitz emphasizes that “war is merely the continuation of policy by other means”  (Clausewitz, On War 1984). 

The change in the characteristics of war while the nature of war demands the evolution in military doctrines from conventional policies to sub-conventional and subsequently unconventional response in the onerous efforts to fight hybrid adversaries on the prevailing context of Pakistan’s global strategic position. 

In this paper, we have applied ‘the grand theory of military strategy to document the conceptualization of a multi-faceted strategy of hybrid warfare and to answer the question of the investigation. It is based on five fundamental military strategies, which means that there exists an unlimited variation of strategies. 




Grand Theory of Military Strategy’ on Hybrid Warfare

The Grand Theory of Military Strategy provides an all-encompassing military strategy derived from five basic military strategies  (Bowdish 2013). The basic theory of military strategy was presented by Sun Tzu in his famous book: The Art of War. He laid down the foundation of the strategies that are applicable to the battlefields in the present age. The strategic approaches exist in the physical and psychological domain with a direct and indirect approach to war. His dictum “to subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill” (Ratcliffe 2017) refers to achieve the strategic goals by fighting in the non-kinetic domain, i.e., by engaging the enemy through non-military methods. 

The use of deception in war is nowadays interlinked with the spread of fake news/disinformation. The Russian strategy of maskirovka (Elliott 2018) is being employed to create confusion and delay the enemy’s response. The framework of this theory interlinks two poles between, physical pole, which aims to destroy the enemy’s resource of war, and the psychological pole, which aims to break the will of the enemy to fight in a war. These strategies are employed in support of grand military strategy’s ends and policy and describe the ways in which military means (resources) are deployed to achieve the military objectives. 

The way that how the five basic military strategies are being employed in the current environment can be explained through analyzing all of them. First, the strategy of extermination describes genocides and minor disputes between ethnic groups, that how military means are mobilized to achieve the ends of exterminating a group of people. Second, the strategy of exhaustion implies the usage of guerilla tactics that how military means are used to indirectly break the enemy’s military power in war and their will to resist. Third, the strategy of annihilation explains the capacity of states to fight with massive firepower in attrition war and destroy the enemy’s forces; annihilation through dislocation attributes psychologically breaking the cohesion of the enemy’s armed forces on the battlefield by maneuvering the war strategies. Fourth, the strategy of intimidation; fourth basically refers to the art of strategic coercion in diplomacy. It compels an enemy to give up a political objective or alternately deters an enemy from exhibiting an unwanted political action. Fifth, the strategy of subversion is applied to destabilize a state through exploiting the top leadership of a state, as it targets the military means to spread disloyalties among the political and social groups of the opponent state to the point their loyalty is undermined, and transferring them into new structures according to the interest of the aggressor. The following figure provides the hindsight of the strategy.

Figure 1

The Continuum of Theory of Military Strategy

Source: “The Five Basic Military Strategies”, Military Strategy: Theory and Concept  (Bowdish 2013)

Nature of Modern Conflicts

The global system of today’s world is identified as anarchic in nature because of the absence of any single overarching paradigm, although many multipolar regional powers are emerging. The US and China are bridging the gap of economic disparity between each other while increasing the gap with the rest of the world. The US may not n enjoy the status of the sole superpower in future as China is rising and posing challenges to the US. The great powers seek the dominant position over the other states, which demands power maximization in the international system. Hence, a state of persistent conflict exists. In reference to the Grand Theory of Military Strategy, the prevailing continuum of modern conflict is the demonstration of ‘annihilation through dislocation’, which corresponds to the psychological domain.

Following the prevailing trends in the global world with intensification in technological innovations, major powers confine themselves from using military  means to achieve their national interest. In this kind of new war, the victor defeats the opponent state by breaking the internal cohesion between state’s institutions, which deteriorates the defensive capacity under a physical attack at a certain point- India has been implying hybrid warfare tactics in Pakistan. As proved by the government of Pakistan and it best uses capabilities to exploit the internal situation of Pakistan (Mirza, Babar 2020) 

In the current strategic landscape of modern conflicts, the techniques of unconventional and information warfare will dominate as the global and regional powers are focusing more on geopolitics over the power to control natural resources. This drives the major powers’ behavior of developing bilateral relations with South Asian countries after the Middle Eastern region. Rival states use asymmetric, irregular, disinformation and exploitation of fault lines as tools of modern conflict and are avoiding direct military combat to undermine their opponent states. In the present scenario, such factors contribute to the policy shift at domestic and international fronts. 

To understand the change in the character of conflict, consider the major powers’ military forces as an evidence in the case. States train their manpower forces in psychological and physical domains so that they would understand the circumstances of the modern conflicts and change their course of action accordingly in the new battlefields-they ensure to develop multi-purpose capabilities in combat forces and intelligence forces with flexible and credible combat power. They have a strong focus on increasing the capability of command and control and space operational art. For example, Russia is modernizing armed forces with a focus on electronic warfare and air-space defence capabilities in 2020. With the technological assistance, they have a plan to disorganize the enemy’s command and control organization and a subsequent attack through Russian special operation forces Spetsnatz; they will achieve victory at the ground by combining traditional and non-traditional concepts of war.




Pakistan and Hybrid Warfare Challenges 

The strategic environment of Pakistan got changed after the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the incidents of 9/11. In the multipolar world with the sole overarching superpower of the US, many supranational, transnational, and multinational companies were established to make an approach towards structural institutionalism to control the interstate conflicts in the future. Pakistan’s regional peace was threatened by multiple factors, which is the reason that Pakistan has been plotted to become a weak state by the rival states. In the current environment, the US as a world power. China is an emerging economy, India is ambitiously pursuing regional hegemony, ideological Iran and the rise of Taliban in Afghanistan are the key elements shaping the regional context in South Asia and the world as well. In the contemporary environment, how does the geostrategic position of Pakistan heighten the vulnerability of hybrid challenges? A study prospect has been given in the quest to draw specific possibilities. As we discussed earlier that India’s hybrid warfare strategy is driven by the fundamental actors – we briefly elaborate on these factors that have grave impacts on Pakistan and the region-South Asia. 

International Factors: Pakistan -India and Implication

China Factor

China is one of the major factors that annoyed India vis a vis Pakistan. In the post-Cold War era, China captured and successfully developed the soft image in underdeveloped states. Historically, China-India rivalry is the main irritant that provokes India. China- Pakistan nexus has increased the threat perception of India- thus, India is struggling to destabilize Pakistan. China is shifting global politics, which is more centric towards Eastern countries such as Russia, Pakistan, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asian states, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. This link is mostly based on a bilateral relationship with Chain’s establishment of Special Economic Zones. In the perspective of the US-China standoff in the South China Sea, China has a friendly foreign policy towards the countries in her surrounding in response to the US policy shift towards India and Australia. Towards the US, China is following non-confrontational policy to sustain economic growth. China’s close partnership with Pakistan has annoyed India-India is striving in sabotaging the China-Pakistan partnership and exploiting anti-Pakistan factions. Attacks on Chinese engineers and people were staged to destabilize China-Pakistan old relations. 




India-US Nexus

Currently, the US is pursuing a policy of containment of China’s economic rise in the view of an emerging superpower in future. Therefore, former US President Donald J. Trump announced friendly relations with India to uphold a strong position in South Asia and prioritized India over Pakistan in its strategic partnership with India (Chari 2014) also granted a specific role in India. However, Pakistan is developing and strengthening its relations with Russia. The US has a grand strategy of exploiting the several grey zones- forces against China’s flagship project in Pakistan. India, actively and persistently working in sabotaging CPEC. 

India’s economic and military ties with the US and Israel clearly manifest the nature of their relationship and goals in South Asia. 

India ambitiously desires to emerge as a regional power, subverting Kashmir’s autonomous status and capturing Pakistan through various channels of supporting insurgencies from within Afghanistan. India’s foreign policy and military thought are influenced by Chanakya Kautilya’s “six-fold policy”, which broadly covers economic, political and security relations with powerful states based on “alliances” (Khattak, 2011). 




Afghanistan Factor

In South Asia, Pakistan- Afghanistan relations are important. Both the countries share a 2430-kilometre-long border, language, culture and geographical proximity. Moreover, Pakistan has accommodated 1.4 million Afghan refugees (UNHCR, 2021). A peaceful Afghanistan is in the best interests of Pakistan and the region. Pakistan played an important role in US-Taliban peace talks. On the other hand, India has been playing the role of spoiler in Afghanistan in order to use the Afghanistan factor against Pakistan. India covertly tried to fail the implementation of the peace deal by cooperating with the government of Afghanistan (Hanif, 2020). Indian Intelligence; RAW has been conjoining with the Afghanistan agency National Directorate of Security (NDS) to activate sub-conventional attacks on Pakistan’s paramilitary, military, and security troop  (Khan 2020). Iran was also involved in the peace-seeking stakeholder in Afghanistan under the influence of geostrategic relations with Pakistan, China, and Russia. President Biden decision to withdraw from Afghanistan before the 20th anniversary of the September 11 incident was a hope for peace in Afghanistan. India was of the view that re-emerging of the Taliban would threaten regional peace, and Pakistan would use Afghanistan soil against India. India, itself, used Afghanistan’s soil against Pakistan and invested a huge amount in developing Afghanistan’s institutions- after Kabul fell, India launched propaganda against Pakistan -Pakistan is assisting the Taliban and mobilizing the international community to recognize them.




Iran Factor

India- Iran nexus is deep and old. Iran provides a corridor to the Indian access to Central Asia. Therefore, both states have signed important economic projects like the development of Chabahar port in Iran. India-US proximal relations have deep repercussions over India’s ties with Iran. However, India wanted to strengthen the previous government of Afghanistan in case of any insurgency following the US withdrawal- wanted to retain its friendly ties with the Afghan government- which consequently could be exploited on the basis of geostrategic relations with Pakistan. India endeavors  to destabilize Pakistan by using the soils of the neighboring countries-Iran, Afghanistan. US waiver of uplifting sanctions on Iran’s Chabahar seaport for trading India explains the geopolitics of the region (Basravi 2020). But the withdrawal of the US from Afghanistan has immensely changed the regional landscape and hurt India’s interests. 

Pakistan’s Fault Lines -How India Exploiting?

The successful applicability of hybrid warfare is through the exploitation of existing fault lines tendencies in the internal structure of the state. These fault lines exist in a variety of shapes that make the matrix of the society of any state. These are religious, ethnic polarization, socio-economic, and political disparities among minorities and identity based social groups (Akhtar,2009). Hybrid attacks in the first phase take place by exploiting the separatist or secessionist groups through sub-conventional tactics. The weakness in the form of vulnerabilities is easy to capture and can break national cohesion within the territory of a state. The immediate threat to Pakistan’s internal security is challenged by its existing fault lines (Pitafi 2020). Therefore, these must get identified and resolved through national security policies. In the case of Pakistan, the pattern of fault lines can be identified as:

• Socio-economic Problems

• Sectarianism 

• Ethnic Extremism

• Social Media Activists

• Non-state actors

• Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs)

• Disinformation or Fake News

• Propaganda 




India-Pakistan Conflictual Ties: A Brief Survey 

Pakistan and India since 1947 have indulged in an arms race, allied with major powers that match their interest -both neighboring countries have inherited a long-standing dispute, Kashmir, which is a bone of contention in the South Asian region. Over the Kashmir dispute, India-Pakistan has fought three wars in 1947, 1965, 1971 and a small-scale war at Kargil in 1999 (Cohen, 2013). The events politically engineered, militarily confrontational or diplomatically coerced has made the Indo-Pak relations complex. In 1971, India helped the Bangladeshi insurgents and Mukti Bahni organization. Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, confessed that “India played a part in disintegrating Pakistan in 1971” (Khan,2015)-and threatened to destabilize Balochistan. India’s involvement in East Pakistan is not secret “the specific aim of creating RAW in 1968 was to subvert the people of East Pakistan and prepare the ground for the creation of Bangladesh training of over millions of Mukti Bahni” (Khan,2015).

 India’s hybrid warfare tactics are not new-hybrid warfare strategy was implemented in East Pakistan in 1971, and India played its pivotal role. India engineered the strategy of intermingling the conventional and sub-conventional forces and provided training, logistics and support to the forces. The internal cohesion of East and West Pakistan was broken down by the Mukti Bahni forces launched over Pakistan to win the strategic goal by breaking the internal unity  (Hayat 2019). It was the largest armored war after WWII. Conflicts, disputes and skirmishes exist between the two nuclear countries. The Kargil War (1999-2000) was a limited war planed by the former Chief of the Army Staff, General Pervez Musharraf’ to liberate the Srinagar- Indian occupied Kashmir and Siachen glacier. In 2001-2002, the Pakistan-India standoff happened after an attack on the Indian parliament by the terrorist groups, followed by Akshardham attack on the Hindu temple in 2002 (Stolar, 2008). 

India blamed Pakistan after the attack on the Indian parliament in 2008 that shredded peace in the region. India employed sub-conventional and irregular war tactics to coerce Pakistan at international forums. In response to sub-conventional and 4th Generation Warfare (4GW), Pakistan evolved the ways of warfighting to address the Indian Cold Start Doctrine and “shock and awe” strategies by testing the short-range nuclear missiles in the region (Khan, Khalid 2018). The modern warfare tactics such as in 4GWs domain, information warfare, diplomatic coercion, network-centric war, espionage, insurgency, cyberwar, and disinformation is also being used by the rival state. The enduring rivalry between India and Pakistan is the reason for destabilization in the region. It is manifested in foreign states’ organized subversive, terrorist, and insurgent operations on the land of Pakistan. 

India’s Hybrid Warfare Strategy and Hindutva Ideology

The taxonomy of the word Hindutva was first proposed by a Hindu Mahasabha leader V. D. Savarakar (Anerson, Longkumer 2018). He proposed it in his book Essentials of Hindutva in 1923. Its ideological perspectives make it vulnerable to be India’s reason to fabricate hybrid warfare in South Asia against Pakistan. It assumes and rejects that Aryans did not come from Central Asia to occupy the Indus civilizations of Mohejo-Daro and Harappa by destroying the Dravidian inhabitants. Rather, he regards Aryan to be Sindhus (another word for Hindus) who occupied the Indus basin. This idea claims that Punjab, since its recorded history, belongs to Hindus. It claims that the land from the Himalayas to the sea around the Indus basin was established into a well-settled society by Aryans and Prince Ayodha brought the whole land under one sovereign authority. Land that makes the territory of Pakistan was resided by Sindhus or Hindus in the area that was called ‘Panchanad’ or Punjab.

The claims Hindutva ideology are being over enchanted by the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as a follower of Hinduism, to overwrite the history of Indus Civilization at educational and cultural institutes to spread the plethora of claims that the land of the sub-continent should be under the control of Indian leadership as it was in the ancient ages. Many political and cultural organizations in India have taken up this mission of Akhand Bharat to be accomplished. As we have observed, the Hindutva approach greatly exacerbated relations between India-Pakistan. Indian leadership may not accept a strong and stable Pakistan.




Manifestation of Hindutva in Modi-Doval Doctrine Against Pakistan 

Modi-Doval anti-Pakistan doctrine is the reflection of Hindutva ideology. Ajit Doval, the National Security Advisor and the former spy, designed “offensive defence doctrine” in 2014 against Pakistan, which explains that “there is nuclear war involved in that. There is no troops engagement. They know the tricks, we know the tricks better”, (Neelakantan, 2016). India outlined its strategy to isolate, terrorize and destabilize Pakistan through non-state actors and political organizations [ PTM]. Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is a cultural organization that was founded by Keshav Balram Hedgwar in 1925 as a step towards the establishment of Hindu Rashtra  (Kanungo 2002). It is a fascist militant organization that presumably controls the Indian political, social, religious, cultural, civil, and military domains of Indian administration. 

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is the political

Organization, functional as the political arm of RSS, appeared in 1980. Narendra Modi is a follower of Hindutva political ideology and an active member of RSS. In India, the pure Hindus who are less tolerant towards the Muslim minorities get popularism, and as in the case of Modi, he became the Prime Minister twice- owing to his radical, fascist approach towards the making of Akhand Bharat (United Bharat) by suppressing independent movement such as ‘Khalistan’ in India. Ambitious Indian leadership fabricated anti-Pakistan policies based on the fundamentals that emanate from Hindu ideology. 

Doval is an influential member in Modi’s cabinet-like Modi; he is also influenced by the fascist ideology of the RSS organization. He advised an aggressive security posture to the Indian leadership, specifically on Kashmir and Pakistan. For example, abrogation of articles 370 and 35 (a) of the Indian Constitution is a step towards giving India a stronger position by aggressively assimilating Kashmir into the Indian Union with the use of hard power. He believes that “in the game of power, the ultimate justice lies with the one who is strong “  (Aaron 2016). The Modi-Doval strategy worked and prevented Pakistan’s bilateral dialogue with Kashmiris Hurriyat leader on the Kashmir issue. The Indian strategy to occupy the disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir on August 5, 2019, has increased security dilemmas in the region. Pakistan called the Indian to act an Illegal Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) and refused by force unilateral accession. India’s policy on Kashmir is a reflection of a mindset that emanates from the ‘Hindutva’ ideology as well. The duo Modi-Doval strategy is aggressively defensive-offensive. The heart of the Doval doctrine is the exploitation of vulnerabilities in Pakistan at internal and external structures.

India’s Hybrid Warfare and Pakistan

In the 21st century, the Indian characteristics of conflict have been changed and have incorporated the aggressive Hindutva ideology to propagate the concept of Hindu Rashtara’ and ‘Akhand Baharat’into entire Indian territory because of its massive popular support. The extremist and fascist mindset of RSS organizations is quite popular in masses and government as well. The realization in Indian leadership that Pakistan’s foreign policy on Kashmir’s independence is unchallengeable, as the evidence of seven decades of Pakistan’s determination speaks loud; Indian politicians are driving the ultra-nationalism ideology to gain the hegemony.

Under the influence of a strategist like Chanakya, India is only concerned with building regional hegemony by increasing power posture through alliances with the super developed states and create an asymmetry in the region. Indian multi-prong strategy of launching hybrid warfare on Pakistan has shaped into isolating the state and destabilizing in different domains. The following domains have been translated by the Modi-Doval doctrine of hybrid war have implications on diplomacy, application of hybrid warfare in Jammu and Kashmir, application of non-conventional tactics, using water as a weapon, supporting insurgencies in Pakistan, disturbing CPEC, cyber warfare, and propaganda via media – these Indian made strategies are being applied against Pakistan.

Conclusion

The advent of the 21st century brought an evolution in every discipline of state affairs at internal and external fronts. The philosophies and art of war did not remain intact; rather, the new methods altered the entire spectrum of military-to-military episodes into the military to non-military operations. In view of Pakistan’s credible nuclear resources and the strength of the Pakistan Army in fighting the sub-conventional warfare successfully, the rival states adapted their forces to the new battlefields to fight behind the lead laying in the unknown shadows of the grey zone hybrid warfare. It implied Pakistan to change the previous military doctrines to the subsequent that suit them best to the new politico-military environment, which combines the conventional and unconventional tactics. India has launched hybrid warfare against Pakistan, and this fact cannot be ignored. The exploitation of fault lines or vulnerabilities in the internal structure of Pakistan, such as socio-economic problems, sectarianism, ethnic and religious extremism, and geopolitics in transit states, are combined to form the recipe of Indian hybrid warfare. ‘Hindutva ideology’ is feeding Indian political administration and military leadership with the concept to utilize the strategies of hybrid warfare against Pakistan and rise in the security environment of South Asia. The Hindutva warfare or Modi-Doval strategy of war consists of narrowing down the aura of Pakistan’s influence in the international community through disinformation, propaganda, dissemination of fake news, intentionally launched terror attacks, economic pains, and strategic coercion through diplomatic pressures. 

For achieving hybrid goals, India primarily has instrumentalized psychological war through content framing at media channels in the game of optics and perception to shackle the fundamental narrative of Pakistan among the masses. Europe Union DisinfoLab report revealed India’s disinformation network “that how India was using think tanks, scholars [dead professor], and organizations internationally to defame Pakistan. 

In the second phase, Indian watchers carefully capture the fissure groups and exploit their anger against Pakistan by feeding their minds with charming dreams. This triggers the outset of insurgencies and terror attacks on important facilities such as the one witnessed on the Karachi Stock Exchange by the Majid Brigade of Baluchistan Liberation Army (BLA). Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan spoke out as “there is no doubt that India is behind the attack”, and these insurgents have been trained and supported by an Indian intelligence agency, i.e., RAW  (DW News 2020). Pakistan’s economy is restructuring to become stable after having faced a long period of sub-conventional warfare imposed on it. India has taken full advantage of vulnerabilities in the economic sector. The Modi-Doval strategy of war is operationalized to give economic pains at international and domestic fronts. The counter-threat response to hybrid warfare requires the installation of a strategy that encompasses and unites all institutions of state at a single platform and unites the diverse political parties and religious factions in the state. This response should be capable enough to identify propaganda and dissemination of fake news on media and cyberspace. An independent social organization should be established to identify rumours and false news at information channels. The national security agencies should contemplate a response to having a complete check on the foreign funding of media channels, militant financing groups, identify the origin of exploitative news, and neutralize the cyber-attacks on the people working at administrative positions in the government of Pakistan. 

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