 Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us. We were fully aware when setting this event up that it is not the best time of the year. Unfortunately, the people who did what they did in Mumbai ten years ago did not recognize the Thanksgiving break in the US. So this is the anniversary and we thought about it and we decided we should do it given that it's ten years hence. Thank you for joining us. My name is Mohit Yusuf. I am the Associate Vice President here of the Asia program at USIP. And our Asia program, our two largest programs are Afghanistan, Pakistan and we do a lot of work on regional issues including India and Pakistan. Personally, I've just written a book on India Pakistan crisis since 98 when they tested nuclear weapons so this is a topic very close to my heart as well and one of the main sort of case studies that I look at is this Mumbai crisis. Today though, my job is to strictly shut up and let our August panel speak. These are people who've actually worked on this issue for a long time both in governments and outside. And what we're hoping to do is not to re-litigate what happened ten years ago. This conversation is really about where to go from here. What are the lessons that India and Pakistan seem to have learned since the Mumbai attacks ten years ago? Are they better prepared today to deal with terrorism and other potential crisis triggers? I mean we talk about terrorism all the time and that's sort of what has triggered crises in the past. But what about other possible avenues? What about Kashmir and the line of control? I mean the violence levels there have been the highest in 15 years last year and one of our speakers who I will just introduce is an expert specifically on the LOC and the violations of the ceasefire there. What about crisis management? What if we do get into a crisis next time? Are India and Pakistan prepared? How are they going to manage it? And then I think a broader question is the state of terrorism in the region. Where do we see it going? And again we have experts who've written books on this and so you really could not have a better panel to have this conversation. Let me introduce the speakers. We'll begin with Dr. Hapiman Jacob who you see on the screen in New Delhi which means that it is probably what is it close to one o'clock in Delhi. Thankfully he's in night owl so he was awake. When I asked him he agreed or I had to force him actually. But anyways our agreement with him is he will speak for about seven to ten minutes, take any questions you have and then go to bed and then we'll go from there. And after that we will have Ambassador Riaz Khan, former foreign secretary of Pakistan spent about 40 years in the Pakistani Foreign Service. Was the foreign secretary from 2005 to 8 if I'm not wrong and also was a Woodrow Wilson scholar in 2009 and has written one of the best books that I've read on Afghanistan and sort of the first war and the Soviet patrol and events around that. We will then move to Shumaila Chaudhary. Again very good friend, somebody I've known and respected for a number of years is currently at SICE working as the senior advisor to the dean at SICE. Before that a director of Pakistan and Afghanistan at the National Security Council at the White House and at the time of Mumbai I believe you were at the State Department in the policy planning world. So again somebody who's seen this from very close quarters and will talk about the US angle of crisis management and the topic. And then last but not least again my good friend Steve Tankle who's an associate professor at American University has worked at the Department of Defense is an author and if you haven't read his books I strongly urge you to buy those and get your hands on them after you buy mine of course, no. But he's written a book on the LET the Lashkar-e-Taiba the group that was responsible for the Mumbai attacks and very recently written a book on US partnerships in counter-terrorism and how they help and hinder the war on terror and that's literally fresh off the press. So with that let me see if happy man you want to go first and give us a sense of the questions from India and then we'll move from there. It's as Mohit pointed out almost one 1245 so if I don't make so much sense you can blame it on the fact that this is very much my bedtime here but it's good to see you Mohit and good to see you Basra Khan, Shamila and Stephen. Thank you for having me it's always wonderful talking about India-Pakistan relations although things seem to be in a sort of semi-permanent freeze in the by that sort of partnership here. The decision to open the Kartarpur Saheb corridor I must say has sort of come as a sort of very encouraging sign that things are probably not going all that south that things might pick up in the days to come because there was a scare there was a worry that given the fact that we have elections coming up every bit next year and that things have been not looking very good things might not be all that fantastic between two sides but I think that we have something that is that is very encouraging in the form of the opening of the Kartarpur Saheb corridor but I want to sort of begin by talking about why 2611 all the mobiter attacks be sort of important for the for the Indians you know it has become sort of a rallying cry in India against sort of terrorism and unfortunately we have been unable to shake off the memories of 2611 and the vivid images streamed into our growing group from Mumbai 10 years ago and you sort of edge to deep down in our psyche for good or bad I think that's that's a reality so I think there's a lack of closure that still haunts the Indian psyche in many ways one because there is a feeling in India that the trials have not really gone anywhere as far as the perpetrators are concerned and secondly there is also the argument that the perpetrators continued to roam free in Pakistan but be that as it may you go through any track to the Indians will continue to press this point home that hey 2611 what about that so it's something that you can't really get over and we have the election season in India and one particular political party makes it point to talk about 2611 and Mumbai and for Pakistan every now and then this is also something that unfortunately unfortunately can't be shaken off so there is a lingering feeling in India that's an unfortunate feeling that we didn't do anything 10 years ago to avenge the death of our citizens in Mumbai and unfortunately this has come to sort of define India's understanding or image of contemporary Pakistan as it were hence it cannot be wished so I thought I sort of try and tell you this political context within which we in India majority India seem to perceive Mumbai and what happened 10 years ago to the specific question that you sort of asked what lessons India and Pakistan have learned from the Mumbai experience I think I think what comes to my mind very readily is that there is a certain feeling in India that there are very very few kinetic options in India which have a Pakistan on the case of terrorism of course there is this talk about surgical strikes and the sort of come to that in a minute but I think the feeling is pretty strong because of the nuclear overhand many people have talked about it including Mr. Menon in his book the then national security advisor in fact then the pretty national security advisor so what the point is that the kinetic options are very limited I think the Indian sort of learning is clearly that all the Pakistanis are I think seeing it from in India from the Indian point of view I think that the Pakistanis may have realized that it is important to keep a tight leash on some of these non-state actors operating out of Pakistan I think and I think the realization that these actors can probably escalate the situation out of control is a good sort of lesson learned as it were but I think one get what one gets to hear repeatedly in Delhi in the strategic surface here is that should there be a 21 a repeat of 21 there is likely to be some kind of a response now the point is that the politicians have talked about it so much that if something goes forward with something happens of that kind there is no way that they can get away from that they will have to do something about it it's sort of a promise that you keep repeating that at the end of the year for victim to that so even though one might therefore doubt the utility military utility of the 2016 surgical strikes it somehow in my mind reflects the underlying desire of the of the Indian state to respond to sub-conventional aggression from the Pakistani side so so in that sense the surgical strikes are seen as as one way of it's a no-course response to to the Pakistani to the Pakistani side but I must also say I think there is a lot more sensitivity on the Pakistani side the way I see it and I keep meeting Pakistani colleagues in various tractive forums about India's red lines and they seem to appreciate these these these reliance in many ways so that's probably why that you see that things have sort of not gone over the board since the Mumbai attacks so if you ask me if they have learned any mutual lessons I will say probably not because they have not been really talking to each other in a very useful manner as it were but to the to the second question are India and Pakistan better prepared today to deal with terrorism jointly or separately well I mean looking at it from from from 2018 now but 2018 I must say that's a very powerful sort of an idea but it is not without a procedure let's sort of look back at the India-Pakistan relations in 2006 a momentum was created under Bhasma Khanis here the India-Pakistan joint anti-terrorism mechanism and this was picking up in 2006 and 2007 when unfortunately after the Mumbai attacks it sort of died a very natural death and there has been some discussion in 2016 during the talks between the the Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Kumar Doval and then Pakistani and I say General Janjua but this is the reviving of this mechanism was reportedly discussed but I didn't really get anywhere we had recently the SEO joint anti-terror sort of drill that was conducted it was not it was much commented upon but of course it was brought by nature but at least that is that some sort of a beginning of something as it were again in 2000 going back to 2016 there was some basic intel that was that was given to the Indian side of infiltration from the Pakistanis and in fact the Pakistani NSA called up the Indian NSA and gave this intel but I'm a sort of if I may underline what to my mind is even more important is what happened after the attack and that was after the airbase airbase attack in the Indian side invited the Pakistani investigation team to come to a critical sensitive airbase in Punjab and take a look at for themselves as to how the attack may have taken place unfortunately the return invitation for the national investigation team of India to visit Islam and to continue that process that invitation ever came and unfortunately that somehow stole the entire process and there is no there's no talk of any sort of joint mechanism to deal with terror in this appointment it is sort of tied down there so there is very little at this point of time as you realize there's very little appetite for any joint approach for counter terrorism the the other question that you ask Moïtis about again is crisis management easier or tougher today than a decade ago I must say that the crisis management today is probably tougher than pre 2008 though it is probably not a tougher than say 2000 pre 2003 things used to be much worse before 2003 when we had the ceasefire agreement in the November of 2003 so but the reason why I say that the crisis management today is tougher because of three reasons one because we do not have any bilateral mechanism for crisis management we used to have the NSA level talks happening Janjua and Doval used to meet in the back of the ball of each other they used to share their thoughts on various issues with each other that concentration somehow does not take any take place anymore because Pakistan does not have an NSA so probably it's a good idea to designate a person who probably can be in conversation with Mr. Doval in Delhi second reason why I think the crisis management is tougher today is because there is no back channel between India and Pakistan at this point of time and we used to have a back channel between the two sides before 2014 Mr. Lambert and his counterpart in Pakistan and they did a lot of work even after the Mumbai so I must say that the back channel because they had the year of their principles in Islam and in New Delhi they did a lot of work behind the behind the screens and that's really not happening today and I think the elections for that is in many ways coming from New Delhi the Modi government is working on having seen as engaged in a sort of conversation sustained conversation in the back channel with Pakistan for clearly political reasons and third reason why I think crisis management is tougher today is because as Moid you sort of reading this very interesting book by Moid as you sort of point out in your book the United States played a very important role in the back crisis management in the past the question that I think we must ask today and we do ask that in Delhi is whether the Trump administration is in a mood to play that role and even if the Trump administration is in a mood to play that role is Pakistan is going to listen to Washington DC or that or is it going to be China that is going to sort of play a mediator's role and it's so is is nearly going to listen to China so I think we have a we have any tricky sort of geopolitical situation today and unlike say 0102 back in 2000 2001 2002 and in 2008 we have a very different sort of global geopolitical situation so we don't know who is going to play the honest the role of the honest broker but what is there any crisis de-escalation mechanism that exists today between India India India Pakistan and I sincerely doubt if there is any given the upcoming elections that we have in India and the continued ceasefire violations that we have on the line of control and the overzealous media especially on the Indian side covering what happens on the line of control with greater enthusiasm and with often with a lot of hyperbole you know things could really really go south but unfortunately we don't have any mechanisms to sort of take care of that you know we do talk about the surgical strikes as having been something at least on the Indian side surgical strikes were something really spectacular and that we did respond to the Uri humiliation attack the reality is that surgical strikes were done by both India and Pakistan even before 2008 and I've studied the phenomenon of ceasefire violations to some to a great extent and I can say with some certainty that this has always been the life on the line of control but what is different today is that it's a lot more escalatory today than it was ever before thanks to the media and thanks to the election cycles and hyper nationalist governments so the other thing that one must also say about the line of control and ceasefire violations is that and we know depending on how you look at it it's either positive or negative since the since the two sides because of the nuclear overhang cannot go to war in a sort of very overt manner much of the violence and the frustration and the and the desire for retaliation shifts to the line of control so you will see a lot more ceasefire violations you'll see a lot more surgical strikes you'll see a lot more tactical capture of land etc etc around the line of control because it can't be done elsewhere it's simply impossible to do that now it may be convenient but it is very dangerous you may think hey what happens with the line of control remains there but in reality it does not anymore so you may while it may be convenient to shift the heat to the line of control to my mind it's extremely dangerous so I think I think there are several things that need to be done clearly and that is one is the NSA contacts have to be revived the Pakistani side has been and rightly so asking for the formalization of the of the ceasefire agreement of 2003 number 2003 I think that is very important in fact a telephone conversation is not enough to maintain sanity and peace along this very dangerous stretch of border that India and Pakistan share and and thirdly I must also say that it is important to revive the back channel between the two sides as a crisis management as a de-escalation mechanism as it were but I must say that I must end this by saying that what Mumbai did was not just to rupture the relationship between India and Pakistan but really undo what was achieved between say 2004 and 2008 about the kind of remember that we were so close to achieving going by what what the principles and others have said on this matter a formula on Kashmir and all that is undone in in one spectacular attack and of course on the following up the Kabul embassy attack against the Indian embassy there but I think I think that is the unfortunate part it is undone what we achieved so I think with that I will I will stop more than die live stay on for some more time should have questions or comments on this thank you thanks a lot happy mon that was great comprehensive I will not let the others go that long because they are next to me but no this was this was fantastic let me also I forgot to mention happy monestalked a lot about the ceasefire violations in the line of control he actually runs a website called the Indo park conflict monitor and all of you should actually see that if you have time it's got some fantastic data on the line of control and India Pakistan conflict and the dynamics around that and of course he's a professor at GNU in Delhi as well so let me see more than I could stay back should you wish me to focus on this to finish the presentations and then take the first few set of questions I this would be another 45 minutes and I really don't want to do that to you then I'll take it yeah so let me just ask if anybody has a question for you now and if not we will thank you again and let you go does anybody have any questions for happy month okay let me ask you one question happy happy mom before you before you leave and this is something that I've grappled with a lot for my book but otherwise as well for my other work and you can imagine I get this question very regularly I was just writing an op-ed sort of thing on on this topic in the last couple of days and again this question came up and and every time I speak to Indian colleagues and interlocutors especially government there is a default ironclad conviction that any terrorism that is linked to a group that's based in Pakistan is happening with the understanding if not approval of the Pakistani state so sort of the default position is that all of this is still very much engineered on the Pakistani side I think there's one view that says this is all nonsense the more nuanced view is yes these groups have not been tamed they are there they are active but this is not the time of the 90s of the early 2000s and the proxy issue is much more complicated and I have sort of dug into this as much as I can and the more I do the more complicated it becomes because it's not it's very difficult to define the causality here so I'm going to ask this to to others as well but since you're here what is your sense from the Indian side of this view essentially no I think I think that's a fair question Moid most Indians tend to look at of course Pakistan in a very nuanced manner we have a very sort of black and white understanding of Pakistan and that Pakistani state has a certain revisionist agenda and they have been up to things in Kashmir they have been doing things we shall be India for the last several decades and all of which are of course not untrue clearly we often hear of the Pakistani officials and others telling us that hey up to your point we were doing things in Kashmir but not anymore clearly but we that as it may but I think I think the reality is that often we fail to understand that the Pakistani state's capacity in managing terrorism in managing terrorism is limited now that I'm not therefore suggesting that the ISI or the deep state or sections within the ISI have nothing to do with what happens in Kashmir and I am I am I firmly believe and I'm a regular visit to Kashmir that much of what is happening in Kashmir for instance is domestically it has domestic roots it is indigenous in nature and yet you have individual pressures going up from 2014 onwards so you have a domestic insurgency in Kashmir you do have local boys joining militancy and there is there is there is a lot of hopelessness in Kashmir there's absolutely no doubt about that and yet you do have weapons from across the border you do have money coming from across the border you do have infiltration coming from across the border so I think it's a it's a it's a combination of things you have a political conflict in Kashmir you have you have you have an outstanding issue between the two sides and that sort of compounds what what happens between the two sides so what to go by what I said earlier and that is to say I am not one of those who believe that everything is engineered by Pakistani Pakistani leaders have been attacked Pakistani if Pakistani military installations have been attacked in the past by terrorists there's nothing that tells me that they won't attack the Indians clearly they would but there are there are elements there are elite there is the elite and there are the there are the others who have had in the past links with the Pakistani team state so there are terrorists and there are terrorists but not all of them are sort of put up by the Pakistani state so I think it's I think it's a complicated story and to simplify that it would be doing more justice to the story. Thank you Abhimanyu once again thank you very much this is way beyond the call of duty we want to thank you for for joining you have a question sorry sorry we have one question for you so yeah the Kartarpur initiative how do the people or generally in India how are people looking at it as the Kartarpur initiative the corridor how what is the reaction in India you know it's it's it's complicated because within Punjab there isn't too much of a groundswell of support for the Kartarpur Sahib corridor as it were it's more a CBM rather than about the Sikhs are going to the other side and visiting the Kartarpur Sahib Gurdwara there it's so but so because I mean as you realize that the older Sikhs are probably more passionate about it but the the the the strength of the organized Sikhism and religion within Punjab is not really as strong as it used to be earlier so the the desire for going to Pakistan going to the Gurdwara is not as as as sort of enthusiastic it is made out to be that does not take away from the fact that this is an absolutely fantastic confidence confidence building measure and I hope that this goes a long way in sort of sustaining the thought that we have found and as a sort of mechanism to contain any any negativity that we've sort of witnessed in the last several months especially after the 21st of September when the Indian government said that we will not have the foreigners meeting in New York got you thank you very much again thanks for joining us thanks thank you me first we all remember with sadness the precious lives lost this week 10 years ago in Mumbai in my sort of comments I'll basically talk about the larger context of terrorism the groups extremist groups militant violent militant groups linked to Pakistan and thirdly the question that you have raised about the possibility of India Pakistan cooperation now first and obviously there is no consensus view of terrorism much of what is viewed as terrorism depends on political perspectives circumstances and history of a region I often prefer to call it extremist violence by non-state actors second Palestine and the Afghan jihad in my view have been the two main springs of radical militant Islam in the recent decades during the 1980s Afghanistan attracted radical elements from all across the Islamic world they enjoyed international backing in 1990s many of these extremist elements participated in struggles in Bosnia and Chechnya and spread as far as north and west Africa Al Qaeda of course emerged as a reaction to US presence a military presence in Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf War third in my view the wave of religious militancy and Islamic extremism has peaked two reasons Muslim countries affected by this militancy have suffered the most and rejection is coming from within those countries secondly the three models of radical Islamic governance are Chechnya under Dudayev Afghanistan under the Taliban and the ISIS in Syria and Iraq they were utter failures also most of the advanced countries have now developed vast counter-terrorism capacities capacities this does not mean that fundamentalism in Islamic society is on the decline this phenomena is in fact buttressed by the rise of the right religious right in the west and it carries the potential for breeding extremism now a brief comment on militant groups in Pakistan a lot is known about these groups and they have various religious political and ethnic disposition in the specific terms I would look at them briefly in two broad categories those who carry out acts of violence within the country and those who operate outside Pakistan generally speaking I'll place sectarian extremist groups ethnic militant groups and Tahrir Taliban Pakistan TTP in the first category and the Afghan Taliban and Kashmir related groups in the second category sectarian tensions as you know in the Pakistan society have always been there they were intensified by the Saudi Iran rivalry and turned violent with the ascendance of extremist Sunni groups buoyed by the Afghan jihad ethnic violence has affected parts of blue jistan and Karachi generally speaking it has political underpinnings and also outside encouragement the jihadi groups are a much larger phenomena they had access to financial resources from the Gulf and had benefited from western aid meant to fight the soviets in Afghanistan an important dimension of the phenomena was the mushroom growth of mother cells mainly of Devbandi creed which is closer to Bahabis apart from millions of Pakistani students from poorer sections of the society hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugee children received education in mother cells and became the foot soldiers for the Afghan jihad and then part of the Afghan Taliban movement by 1990s the Afghan jihad had morphed into civil war which continues to ravage the country until today Pakistan viewed the Afghan Taliban as part of the Afghan stance political landscape in early 2002 Pakistan pleaded for their inclusion in the bond process but they were lumped together with Al Qaeda which was a political error in the wake of 9 11 Pakistan targeted Al Qaeda as part of the war on terror but it made no such commitment with regard to the Afghan Taliban distinct from the Afghan Taliban or the Pakistani Taliban who largely grew in the aftermath of 9 11 administrative and power structures in the Fata region tribal regions of Pakistan had already been disrupted by the Afghan jihad with the rise of religious clerics 9 11 and the US intervention pushed into Pakistan not only the Afghan Taliban but also elements of Al Qaeda and militants of every stripe who had found safe haven in Afghanistan under the Taliban including Arabs Uzbeks Chechens and members of ETIM they joined hands with local dissident tribals who were riled up by the induction of Pakistan army in the region which was done to target Al Qaeda to pursue Al Qaeda they killed scores of local tribal maliks and targeted the army itself and it tried to intervene Lal Masjid incident precipitated the shaping of the TTP Swat and several other tribal agencies were infected by militancy it posed a huge challenge to the government and Pakistan army operations in south and north waziristan and swat spread over almost eight years in addition to tens of thousands of civilian casualties more than 5000 soldiers lost their lives during these operations Pakistan side repeatedly asked the ISF to help interdict the fleeing militants but we were disappointed today most of these elements have coalesced under the banner of ISIS inside Afghanistan and are responsible for violent acts in both Pakistan and Afghanistan now Kashmir related groups early 1990s witnessed a wave of protests and an uprising in Kashmir a phenomena that erupts intermittently and is evidenced there is an evidence of Kashmiri alienation this prompted the formation of Lashkar-e-Tahiba and much later Jash-e-Muhammad their agenda was centered on Kashmir the two groups were banned after the attack on the Indian parliament but they regrouped as charity organizations following Musharraf ceasefire initiative in 2003 and an effort to prevent militants from carrying out activities across the LOC many gravitated to FATA to join the militants there the Mumbai attacks are not ascribed to any Pakistani government policy and are generally linked to Pakistan based non-state actors Mumbai was used by India to embarrass Pakistan internationally and the attacks greatly damaged prospects of a reasonable settlement of Kashmir Jacob had just mentioned about the back channel I was part of the back channel and I know that how Mumbai affected later on these these efforts it moved terrorism onto the center stage of any dialogue between Pakistan and India the 2009 Sharmal Sheikh and 2015 Ufa joint declarations are a case in point in short Pakistan the Mumbai attacks hurt Pakistan's interests therefore Pakistan cannot conceivably think of benefiting from leveraging non-state actors to advance its policy on Kashmir since Mumbai the only incidents of some note are Pathan court and Uri in 2016 which could well be on account of local reaction Kashmir has been experiencing agitation and protests which is being suppressed with a strong hand by the Indian security forces while India accuses Pakistan of abetting violent activities in Kashmir through non-state actors Pakistan believes with evidence to support that India aides subversive activities inside Pakistan especially in blue chistan in FATA now I come to the question of whether counter-terrorism cooperation between Pakistan and India is possible and would it be helpful the first the dynamic of violent militancy in the region is complex involves political issues and extends beyond the purview of any possible Pakistan India cooperation of course within that larger context such cooperation can be helpful to illustrate the point take Afghanistan peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan remain elusive even though there are positive developments the U.S. has finally come around to reaching out to the Afghan Taliban Pakistan is serious in efforts to persuade them to engage in a peace process but Pakistan has limitations we cannot be blamed for the continuation of the conflict there if violence intensifies naturally Pakistan will suffer the fallout in this dynamic of the in this dynamics Pakistan India cooperation is a minor factor even if it helps to assuage Pakistani concerns regarding Indian subversion take Kashmir as long as the issue remains unresolved and Kashmiri agitation continues to occur there is potential for violent militancy which can agitate blame game and negate any prospect of cooperation efforts aimed at counter-terrorism cooperation have been tentative and bedeviled by distrust there have been crises in bilateral relations in the past which have pushed the countries even to conflicts yet the two countries have also shown capacity to pull back there is need to institute arrangements to arrest situations reaching a crisis point counter-terrorism cooperation can be part of such arrangements the key is communication and contact at civil and military leadership level to cite an example and I think Jacob also mentioned this thing when tension had risen on account of Pathan court earlier in 2016 and diplomatic dialogue was suspended the Pakistani national security advisor took the initiative to alert his Indian counterpart about a possible terrorist infiltration the Indian side acted on the information the media indulged in considerable negative speculation about Pakistani motives at that time but it did not detract from the importance of these steps such cooperation is both necessary and can help build trust similarly why can't there be regular summits between the two countries regardless of the state of their relations or high-level military and intelligence context I am not advocating friendship between the two countries as such advocacy will be judged as naive in today's environment in the region but beginnings can be made Kartharpur corridor is one example a cooling off of LOC resumption of Sark Summit which is scheduled to take place in Islamabad and relaxation in exchanges they these can be other other steps small steps the two neighbors are now far too dangerous for each other to ignore the need for communication and some understanding to avoid crisis is spiraling out of control even during the height of the Cold War United States and the Soviet Union never severed context and dialogue and I think Pakistan and India have a lesson to learn from that thank you thank you thank you okay thank you more he has already given me my five-minute warning and I have not even started to speak yet but I will be very sure leave time for questions exactly so I want to take the question of what are the lessons learned and just switch it around and use a phrase that I use with my children which is did they learn their lesson right did they learn their lesson it sounds very different than lessons learned and if you want to just if you want to see if someone learned their lesson or if a state learned their lesson you look at behavior right you don't look at anything else and so I think that when it comes to behavior with India and Pakistan and to a certain extent United States a lot of the behavior has remained consistent it hasn't changed so what I'd like to do is instead focus on the realizations that were made in the aftermath of Mumbai and look specifically at the American perspectives on what was learned and then I'm going to talk a little bit about the role of the United States as a mediator and then I'll save the rest for the discussion the first I think the biggest thing that we learned from the Mumbai attacks was that terrorists don't need large weapons or a lot of foot soldiers to have a strategic impact and they can do something very significant with the use of common technology with surveillance that's readily available to everyone the use of google maps satellite imagery that sort of thing and that a weak but and they can actually hold hostage a weak bilateral relationship which is already weak independently of you know any kind of attack and then that in turn affects the interests of the United States in a very big way in the case of Mumbai the question on American policy makers minds and in the case of a lot of the other instances of conflict is is this something that will escalate because both countries have nuclear weapons that's always kind of in the background and in Mumbai I think brought it home that you know it's not just a conflict between the state that's going to lead to this escalation we now have to think about non-state actors in a different way we have to think about non-state actors that we haven't been focusing on at all really right the at the time of the attacks the u.s. was very much focused on al-qaeda on large terrorist organizations on leaders of terrorist organizations and let was perceived as a regional threat but very much kind of india focused it wasn't really looked at as an organization that would threaten the United States directly or indirectly and in this case I think it was an indirect focus and an impact on u.s. interests now the question is did that actually lead to any new strategy or approach towards let and the part of the u.s. government I don't think so I do think that it gave the u.s. a new justification for viewing let through a broader global lens but it was really let's activities in Afghanistan that caused the u.s. to look at it differently as something that was a much more global threat than they had anticipated but that was something that came upon that was a realization that came up after the the Mumbai attacks on the more technical side I do think that Mumbai taught us as U.S. government and also analysts and kind of the think tank community about the limitations of signals intelligence and cyber surveillance a lot of the information in the signals intelligence which would have kind of allowed us to prevent the Mumbai attacks was out there some of it was out there it was shared but there wasn't the analysis that was needed to actually put things together and that's a resources issue and so I think the one of the lessons learned is also that a lot more a much more significant amount of resources are required if we are actually going to do crisis prevention of this kind and it will require a lot more multilateral dialogue and collaboration not just between India and Pakistan but also the United States and the UK and any other country that's kind of involved in this space and has information to share and there really isn't a framework or a structure there's no infrastructure for kind of having those conversations a lot of that depends on the strength of specific bilateral relationships so I just wanted to make note of that and finally the the whole issue of domestic radicalization I think really came to mind after Mumbai eventually when David Headley came into the picture and we were looking at kind of how this whole thing was allowed to happen and the extent of this operation it really caused a lot of us to think about the impact that just one or two people can have and through the support of private networks that will facilitate and finance terrorist activity okay so that's on the lessons learned part I think in looking at really briefly on how the countries can work jointly together or separately there's we should just distinguish between crisis prevention and crisis management I think crisis management is something that countries do when an attack happens and there's a need that needs to be met and there's a lot of political pressure to to to react in those instances I think India and Pakistan and the United States do as best as can be expected with each other there's a lot of pressure to to react there's even more so if there are non-India non-Pakistani citizens involved that was the case with Mumbai the so the expectation of India Pakistan collaboration and cooperation goes up from the international community but there's also conversely at home there's pressure to kind of protect interests and when you have nationalist governments they're also it's also going to be harder to make those decisions to cooperate and then I would just I'm not going to get into them now but I would just remind everyone to think about all that goes into kind of joint collaboration when there is a crisis there's emergency response but there's also the diplomatic engagement there's law enforcement the justice and courts angle which comes afterwards then there's the intelligence sharing which we talked about you know India and Pakistan are not built to work together on all of these I think there are some that they that are going to be easier to do like the emergency response but on the justice and courts law enforcement that's a lot more challenging I think intelligence is actually a space that is there's some opportunity there and with the US getting involved and we saw that after Mumbai that there was information shared and the US played as positive as could you know a role as it could have played so and then I would also just put the idea out there that does does India do India and Pakistan need to cooperate with each other on prevention can they exist independently right I'm just putting it out there is something we talked about before this event started and if you look at Mumbai on the response side a lot of the failures were actually in India right the cause of it was related to Pakistan but intelligence failure CT training the responsiveness of the commandos flawed hostage rescue plans these are all internal Indian kind of security apparatus dynamics that could be and have been work done since Mumbai that are don't require any Pakistani collaboration so I just want to put that out there we always jump to the conclusion that Indian Pakistan should work together on x y and z without thinking through can they work apart and then finally just on the on the US side I think that the you know the US has always played a role in India Pakistan conflict when it emerges it's it tends to work more effectively if it's private and if it's back channel unfortunately it happens most when there's fear of escalation there's not a kind of a regular kind of interlocutor role for the United States and that's because both because Indian Pakistan have different views of what that role should be and every new administration in the United States with the exception of this one I think has come in thinking oh well we'll help solve Kashmir right and historically the Pakistani policy towards that has been yes let's have the US facilitate that the Indians don't want that this administration hasn't gotten into that but it's it doesn't work because not everyone actually wants you know not everyone wants these three countries at the table right and I think that the bureaucracy in the United States government eventually you know wins on that kind of view that we should not get involved in these bilateral issues but then when you have a situation like Mumbai you have crises that are manufactured by non-state actors it actually forces the two countries to be connected again right so that this any attempt to de-hyphenate the policy is ultimately a failure because of these kind of security conflicts that can't be resolved and that the US actually we could get involved but there's not really space for us to do so I would just also say that any sustained pressure that the United States is going to utilize when it comes to South Asia will be will be focused more on Afghanistan and you know the war and any kind of militancy or security issues related to that over anything related to India Pakistan the US has been consistent in that kind of focus and that's just because of where the interests are should the US pull out all of its troops of Afghanistan I think then you have a very different situation you know at the same time there's there is a community of experts that's focused on India Pakistan relations they're focused on the nuclear question that you know the fact that a lot of these groups that are anti India are in Punjab so you know I wouldn't discount that there's an interest or focus but it's we always have to remember kind of how the policy is defined right now and what are the other competing priorities I'll just leave it at that yeah thank you thanks a lot and thanks for speaking to your time Steve thank you really going to be as quick as I can be let me start if I sort of had an overall thematic for this it would be that I think terrorism actually in the future will look similar to what it looked like before Mumbai not the same but similar but crisis management will look somewhat different so and I'll unpack that now first point is that I know we're not here to talk about history but I think it's important to recognize and understand that Mumbai was in many ways an aberration with when it comes to Lashkiri Taiba attacks in Pakistan and and I want to be specific let attacks that involve Pakistanis infiltrating into Indian territory outside of Indian administered Kashmir to execute attacks versus let supporting Indians for bombings and or tasking them for things of that nature it was a much bigger operational success than the leaders of the organization probably planned for that was in part due to the fact that initially they wanted the 10 men to try to exaltrate themselves and escape they made a determination late in the game to move to a martyrdom operation which meant everybody was going to fight to the death which meant that the attacks went on until everybody was killed and the Indian response was really bad and so this took over 60 hours also when you move to a martyrdom operation you're no longer to going to escape you don't need to go to the train station to escape anymore and the train station becomes a target which is where a plurality if not a majority of the killings occurred so I think it's important to understand that operationally Mumbai looks very different it's also important to understand that Mumbai happens at a time when Pakistan is beginning to face a really really large insurgency that it has now largely sort of got a handle on but it is a time when a group like Lashkri Tyba was facing defections not just of foot soldiers but of mid-ranking individuals which puts pressure on the organization to do something much bigger than it has ever done before those conditions on the ground in Pakistan look very different today than they did then so I think when we're talking about this it's important to understand that in many ways the terrorist attacks that we've seen since Mumbai like Patankot and the look similar to the ones that we saw beforehand right far less spectacular not as lethal that doesn't mean that they're not problematic but things look different that's number one number two as I alluded to Pakistan has gotten a handle on its insurgency India has also made I would argue progress and this is my second point both countries are if they have not won are at least winning their own wars on terror what do I mean by that well on the Indians I'm sorry on the Pakistani side the TTP has been severely degraded and pushed across the border that doesn't mean that it's no longer a threat there are still attacks but it is not at the height of the insurgency like it was a couple years ago all kind of the Indian subcontinent has never really really caught fire and IS Khorasan province is still primarily although not exclusively focused on Afghanistan and just as an aside would probably face some pressure from its Saudi donors not to really ramp things up in Pakistan even if it wanted to let is right back to being active in Indian administered Kashmir where I agree I don't think everything that let does in any Indian administered Kashmir is necessarily directed by the ISI it is still active in Afghanistan it has got a much bigger seat at the table domestically in Pakistan than it has in the past which means that it's got more to lose than it has in the past and it has always and I want to stress this always sort of I think towed the military ISI line when it comes to attacks in India outside of Indian administered Kashmir and I have not seen any evidence of Lashkri Thai but ever doing an attack in India that outside of Indian administered Kashmir that it did not believe was sanctioned and that includes the Mumbai attacks where a number of its handlers were involved which doesn't mean that it couldn't but I've not seen evidence of that Jason Muhammad is a different story I've seen evidence of the ISI and let trying to use Jason Muhammad as a sort of cat's paw right for the Lashkri Thai but that's that comes from Indian officials you know primarily in Indian administered Kashmir but also outside of it which takes us to India yes things are worse in Indian administered Kashmir than they've been in recent years some of that is is domestic some of that is imported it is nowhere near what things looked like you know 18 or 15 years ago the Indian Mujahideen which was a domestic jihadist organization that was nurtured and supported by Lashkar and by the ISI has been severely degraded that was the other big threat that India was facing from around 2005 or 6 through about 2010 or 11 that has been seriously degraded which leaves us with these sort of you know every couple of years LET and or JEM attacks we might be looking at the calm before the storm we might see another big Mumbai LET may spin out of control but there's no indications as of today that that's going to happen Jason Muhammad is I think more of a wild card and if I think that the ISI is playing with fire with LET I think they're playing with fire even more with with JEM when it comes to India which brings me to my third point which is what happens if things do spin out of control and there is another really big big attack and why do I think crisis management will look a little bit different first let me say that I agree with Shamila's point that I think crisis prevention is very very difficult for a lot of reasons if for no other reason that it requires sharing of intelligence which is something that is going to be very very difficult for the Indians and Pakistanis to do you know on a really you know big basis doesn't mean that they wouldn't necessarily collaborate to try to head off a big attack if that big attack wasn't sanctioned but that's a right that's different than sort of ongoing intelligence sharing on the one hand a lot of the structural impediments to a aggressive Indian response are still in place the reasons why India had did not attack Pakistan after 2008 why did not attack Pakistan after 2001 parliament attack are still there India has a lot to lose in this at the same time some things look different one is the fact that I think the US as a broker doesn't necessarily have the same credibility it has in the past two is that you know twice now Pakistan has sort of said we're going to get this under control we're going to rein it back in and has taken steps that were largely cosmetic banning both groups in 2002 LAT in JEM only to see them reemerge under new names putting seven people on trial after Mumbai now all of them are out on the street you know and Jamata Dower continues to operate that is the above grand organization for LAT LAT continues to operate as well and then I think the final wildcard is the leaders you know would Modi stay his hand I don't know that he would what would Imran Khan look like you know as a Pakistani you know leader in this type of situation I'm not sure that we can say and then finally I am sorry to raise his name here I know we've gotten through an entire panel without talking about Donald Trump but I don't know that any of us know you know whether Donald Trump is going to be a voice for calm or whether he's going to tweet out India should attack tomorrow thus creating more pressure on New Delhi to take action we just don't know that's a wild card and I've been you know privy to enough conversations you know where the question is asked should the United States be trying to stay India's hand and keep it from attacking Pakistan or should it be trying to sort of influence what a counter attack would look like because it believes that that it's the time has come where Pakistan is you know is punished for its actions that debate probably becomes operative again the minute there's a really large attack and again you know we just don't know what this administration is going to say whether it's going to try to you know throw water on the fire or gasoline so I'll leave it there just add one one thank you for bringing that one thing I forgot to say is that that level of or that the role that the United States has played as a mediator and being trusted has been diminished diminishing for a while now right so before Trump it was also the case that the US was seen as not as honest or had you know had competing interests and the we knew that we knew that and I part of the kind of interest in getting China to be more involved in certain security issues was to facilitate that you know these conversations then we would be able to look to China I wouldn't underestimate the role that the UK has played historically in these conflicts and would probably play in future conflicts especially given the China-India relationship I don't see the Chinese stepping in on behalf of Pakistan or as an honest broker right so there would be we should we might want to focus on the UK and then the second thing on CBMs if you don't have CBMs and you don't have a dialogue when there is a conflict there's nothing to put on hold right and a lot of these governments they actually if they're weak or if they're nationalist like they need something to show the public that okay this bad thing happened and now we're going to cut off this CBM essentially which does nothing which has no real impact or negative negative impact and then you can start it up again right and if but if you have nothing then you really have no there's no political space for leaders and bureaucracies to negotiate an outcome can I just yeah I think look going from your last point to sort of your first point that Mumbai was the death knell at the time for a really fragile peace process but you had a peace process that you could end if you were India and you don't really have that now right so there's you don't have that important political diplomatic step that you can take I think that's I think that's number one the the other point that I wanted to respond to or two points was that I think China has played a role in the past including in 2001 you know trying to step in and pull Pakistan back because it doesn't want to see instability in the region and I don't think it's an honest broker but I do think it is an invested broker in Pakistan in the way that it hasn't been previously and so maybe sort of trying to reign that reign it in and I think that becomes more important I think your point about the UK is accurate as well the third is just that you know I mentioned that idea of does the United States try to keep India from responding or influence its response and and there's two reasons for having that that debate right one is the question of whether it's necessary for India to respond in order to ultimately change Pakistan's behavior and then the other is whether India is going to respond regardless of what the United States says at this point and so you should try to shape that response rather than than you know blowing your credibility by keeping it from from responding but all of this is probably going to happen even faster than it did in 2008 or in 2001 and it's going to happen really really fast at a time when I'm just not sure that the US government in its current format I think you're right Shamila I think there's a lot of people that are focused on this but right at the top I'm just not sure where where the key players are are how that's going to work in what we need to be a really speedy crisis management scenario where they're going to have to make that decision really quickly are we going to try to shape are we going to try to restrain and again you have somebody who may just sort of be like forget it they should just go for it right and then what do you do thanks on that optimistic note so let me open it up just by saying that I'll just point to two things one I wouldn't underestimate the word nuclear in all of this in terms of the US policy thinking and one of the things I found in my book is just how obsessed people get with that and that's actually a good thing because it then drives this behavior of rationality the other thing is at least in my work I found the one thing that I discounted to a large extent is honesty and trust what really drove India and Pakistan to work with the US in crises was one they have no bilateral options good options and second it was the perceived influence that the US had over your opponent if India and Pakistan believed that if the US really wanted it could get them what they're looking for they would they would engage and I think China doesn't come close in that space for various reasons but let me open it up and and see if we have questions I have a couple but I'll hold off so that others have a chance or I could start if nobody has one okay let me let me sort of go to the panel and if you do please raise your hand and I'll stop and come back to you so the first question is perhaps for the panel and if I could get a quick response it's the same question I asked happy one I have sort of dug into this as deep as I can for for my own work and the more I dig into this the more I realize that basically I think at some point the Pakistani sort of mind transitioned from gaming this to becoming petrified of the consequences of this going wrong internally whether it's l e t or its other groups and so the struggle then is when when the question of sanction comes up or the question of proxy comes up for instance what does that mean it does that still mean the 90s does it mean that the top and the the remaining layers of the system are not in sync I mean I can give you my conclusion on Mumbai but but that's that's besides the point what where is this I'm asking because if from a crisis management perspective if India's default position is everything that happens is the Pakistani state that's doing it and if in a case of a crisis trigger that's not true then you've got a very odd situation where both India and Pakistan generally feel that they're not responsible for what's coming at them India wants to do something because of what you're saying Pakistan feels we have evidence we have nothing to do with this we're also you know and then that escalator ladder becomes much more likely because you've got two you know self-agreed parties if you will in that context so maybe that's what we want to begin and others can respond okay I think one question that one needs to ask is what is it that Pakistan was aiming to gain if there was some kind of an official sanction behind say attack on the parliament or Mumbai what is it what is the possible objective now if the question is that of derailing the peace process my god derailing the peace process is so easy within the bureaucracy of the foreign office and the military and others they just have to agree that we it doesn't suit us we don't want to go ahead you don't have to do a Mumbai or you don't have to do an attack on the parliament to derail that process what else could be the objective the objective is to get cashmere you don't get cashmere by attacking Mumbai so the thing is that this question must be asked when you know the question of mistrust that you have raised and the Indians that there is always some scheming people in the ISI or somewhere else that that are behind it so the question is that of the objective now if you remember after the parliament attack the twin peak crisis which took place yes it was United States which also intervened at one point of time there were diplomatic envoys who went to Delhi and Islamabad but one thing which also need to be taken into account is that all along right from the day one once the armies were in that eyeball to eyeball situation the Indians moved their troops to the border and Pakistan had to also do the same but after the what was Pakistan's position Pakistan had been saying de-escalation de-escalation de-escalation dialogue talk to us what is your problem so why why Pakistan should have done a thing which would have raised de-escalation when it is basically asking for de-escalation right after that so that is why I think these things this is this is very important as to whether this whole question of proxy which somehow the other is a is linked to the past of the 90s and the 80s in the 80s the proxies were used in Afghanistan and it was not just by Pakistan that the proxies were used by the half of the world had used those proxies so similarly later on we did think that probably these non-state actors can be helpful that was early 90s but afterwards there is no conceivable interest which is served by using non-state actors I take your point that it wouldn't make sense you know the Pakistani state would sanction this it doesn't benefit them at all in the long run but I would argue that there are competing interests within the state and there's also you know there are a variety of power imbalances which suggest that parts of the state might have an interest in supporting certain groups agendas perhaps not tactically supporting them but in spirit they may have mutual or shared interests which leads me to my my main point which is I think that the word proxy is kind of a cold war model I think we're thinking about when we think proxy we it makes me think we're in this old old mode of thinking and we really just have to think of non-state actors and of which the state has a relationship with and often that relationship is defined by action and inaction and because the Pakistani state has not acted on certain things with regards to these groups that I think that's one way to kind of explain that so these are conditions which enable this kind of activity and the facilitation of space or the availability of physical space so safe havens and then there's this shared interest question so you may not have a shared these groups may not have a shared interest with the state or at large but they may have a shared interest with say a segment of the intelligence apparatus which has I'm not saying rogue but anyway they're just let's leave it at shared interest I'll be as quick as I can first to pick up on Shamil's point about sort of the fact that the state is not a uniform entity I don't think anybody's talking about the civilian government wanting to do a Mumbai. I think we're talking about the military and the ISI supporting LaShkara Taiba and I agree that you know the term proxy is not a great term I don't like it it suggests a level of control that I don't think is reflected in reality but I think it's hard to argue that LaShkara Taiba is a state-supported organization it's a state allied organization it continues to receive active support from the Pakistani security establishment by any definition of the term active support there is provision of sanctuary and safe haven there is right almost certainly sharing of information intelligence there's organizational support you know we know that in Mumbai there was operational support for the attacks from the ISI David Headley is named the ISI handlers who were involved including one individual who chose the target who chose one of the targets okay so the idea that that the ISI wasn't involved with that is I think you know we should just there's an over abundance of empirical evidence to suggest that that there was support and there's no evidence to suggest that there that support doesn't continue the question then becomes whether the ISI leadership was aware or not whether the military leadership was aware or not and I wrote I had a column yesterday in the war on the rocks where I was like sort of like I don't know we still don't know but that's the problem is that the way that Pakistan has sort of set this game up at this point is if the leaders were aware then the military and the ISI and thereby therefore Pakistan because the military and the ISI controls foreign security policy are culpable and if they weren't aware then they've set up a situation in which this group is allowed to continue to exist is allowed to continue to get operational support from lower levels within the military and the ISI and not done anything about it in which case right from an Indian perspective it is you can argue they are also culpable as for the Mumbai attacks you know there's plenty of empirical evidence to suggest that they had multiple purposes one was to derail the fragile peace process a second was to shore up lush Kretiba you know we have David Headley in an interrogation saying that you know that one of the reasons why the ISI supported an attack of this nature was because they wanted to make sure that LAT had sort of solid jihadist credibility at a time when the anti-state jihadist insurgency was growing so you know I think that to me is how we need to look at this relationship it is complex but unfortunately in 2018 at this stage when LAT continues to exist in Pakistan it's hard to argue that you know that the India the Pakistan still has earned itself the benefit of the doubt the further risk associated with this is the mainstreaming of certain Islamist groups into political life in Pakistan as we saw last I think yeah all of this is fair the question I think remains it's a very important question for crisis management which is reality is less important than perceptions if both sides feel objectively that what is being put on them is not correct then crisis management becomes much more likely then if you feel one party you're guilty and you want to hide behind something and that's the question so in my work I've written a lot about a failure of imagination we are focused on what happened in the past as happening again it could be an ISIS Al Qaeda attack tomorrow in which case neither side would actually have a role in that but ISIS and Al Qaeda would do it precisely to create a situation where they feel they need to escalate we are seeing I mean one thing I disagree with you on Steve is you say that counter terrorism is better yes at a time when intolerance is growing in both societies so thanks well I don't know if they are because if that's the fundamental sort of pipeline through which some of this comes I actually think things could go horribly wrong because a number of people who are potentially there to be used is is much greater so I think there's a bit of a contradiction in what is happening in societies what we're seeing in India what we're seeing you know and the counter terrorism which to me is tactical the you know ultimately preventing it but let me first can I just make a two-figure let me get a question from the audience and then you can answer this yeah so because of this question about sort of the mainstreaming issue and thank you thank you all for coming so far my question is you know so on the one side if Pakistanis were to try to mainstream LTE right I don't see any scenario which the sort of western international community is necessarily happy about LTE becoming political actors who are first is true there's no scenario which the international community wants it to be terrorist so the question is that what do we do where how do we address that catch 22 because you know despite all the different issues that come up under that elevation that is the central issue is the LT in my opinion it's even bigger than cashier by itself I know cashier territorially is most important but the central issue of LT and it's a role in the region is something that we just haven't been able to pass and part of it they're part of it because of the life but that's not the only reason can I can I jump in on that and then also respond to your your other point so I agree with you it's it's really difficult and from a U.S. perspective the United States could never sort of endorse the idea of Los Gretaiba becoming a proper political actor because of the message that I think that would send globally right in terms of terrorism and at the same time what the United States could do sort of officially versus tacitly are two different things and I think right you could see a scenario where the United States publicly is not thrilled with this but privately is willing to sort of encourage and facilitate it the problem is LT is already becoming a mainstream political actor but without having to give up terrorism all right I had a conversation with a high-ranking Pakistani official a couple years ago I always used the sound anecdote and he was like what isn't it better that these guys are in politics than involved in terrorism and my response was yes but you don't force them to choose so I think that's one just very quickly to your point Moeid and Ambassador you said earlier that you think that right the wider jihadist movement is is weakening and so I think it's important to differentiate the state of organizations from the state of a movement I think you are correct sir that globally jihadist organizations are weaker but I think the movement is stronger and Moeid I would suggest that in both India and Pakistan terrorist organizations are weaker but the extremist ideologies behind them are stronger and I think we're seeing a rise in religious violence but that is not necessarily the same as state-supported terrorism or terrorist organizations that have the capability to launch international attacks sure but the pool is growing the pool of potential people you can borrow from is growing not sure the pool was ever the issue I think first you know this point about the ISI and some people that the institutions may not be on the same page I have some experience of the government in Pakistan and I can tell you that if the ISI or the military leadership doesn't want something then it can prevail and it is not just in Pakistan take for example this question of seachen on seachen the foreign officers of the two countries they came very close to a formula but it was the and it has been written by sham saran but it was the the army and the security they said no and they did not even give a reason they just said that Pakistanis cannot be trusted and there was no reason to argue that way nonetheless it was it didn't go forward similarly in Pakistan if the army did not want or the ISI did not want that the peace process should move further they just had to say that look this is not the time and that would have been enough not that they had to do the Mumbai or something else to install it so my point is that as far as rogue elements are concerned rogue elements are everywhere in the world we don't take responsibility for that but as far as the government policies are concerned and the government institutions are concerned where the leadership of those institutions are involved with decision making there I don't think that there is a a a sentiment that we should be using proxies for these kinds of actions now this question about the the extremist extremist violence I made a general point that it is the the the militancy is on the decline I think you may be right that there are spots where these people adhere to those those ideologies that extremist ideology still lives but within those societies within Pakistan I see a change that there is a certain rejection of these violent actions so that is going to going to make make a difference and as far as elite is concerned elite there may be some people who may say that look Kashmir is very close to our heart and we'll lay down our lives etc all that but would they be encouraged to go inside the Kashmir to commit violent actions I don't think that any government within the government sort of institutions there would be any support for that kind of policy because we have experience and we have seen that in 1990s it did not work so that is why I would say that we should keep this distinction as far as crisis management is concerned the most important thing is that both the countries by be by virtue of being nuclear powers they have to have a certain modicum of communication with each other and that is why I am a very strong supporter that there ought to be at least in three years once a summit level meeting because those meetings they cool down temperatures and then I see that there is no reason why the intelligence and the military leadership should not also have context of some sorts and I was very happy that the national security advisers they had some one homie with each other at one point of time. Thank you if not anything else I promised a provocative conversation I think we've achieved that I want to thank the speakers and Abhimon who of course is not here let me just end by saying that I think one of my big frustrations in this work is that so much of the time goes into proving the unprovable if you will at the end of the day I find for crisis management perceptions being much more important than reality and I at least would submit that perceptions on both India and Pakistan sides are actually far more negative than they were 10 years ago so if you get into a situation I mean we remember the crisis we remember to remember 2001 2002 we remember Mumbai what we don't remember is the number of times crises could have occurred but India and Pakistan chose not to create a crisis those are equally important data points you know and there were acts incidents of terrorism in the early 2000s where India basically didn't respond in 2007 there was the attack on the Samjhotha train express which killed I don't know how many Pakistani citizens sorry 50 plus Pakistanis Pakistan chose not to create a crisis we always remember the big bang but there have been episodes where there's been a decision not to escalate and I think if I were to sum up everything I've heard here I think that decision has become much more difficult politically on both sides you know one side feels that they've done certain things which are not recognized the other side feels I don't care if something hits me I'm the victim and I can respond and that's I think the the problem that we have to grapple with going forward thank you very much for joining us and please join me in thanking the panelists