Devangshu Datta: Lessons from US Senate's report on CIA's methods

It's a pity America couldn't find more acceptable means of fighting asymmetric wars

The United States Senate's report on the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)'s brutal interrogation methods has highlighted the fact that asymmetric conflicts are always dirty. Nobody has worked out effective, clean methods of fighting asymmetric conflicts and the Geneva Convention doesn't apply, even in theory. The unconventional side indulges in random violence and terrorism. The conventional side tortures and kills civilians, some of whom are bound to be innocent.

Since 9/11, the world has been embroiled in a dirty asymmetric war. The scale and scope of the CIA's actions reflect the global nature of the conflict. The report also shows that torture just isn't very useful in developing actionable intelligence.

India has plenty of experience of internal dirty wars. Kashmir has been a sore point since 1989. The Left Wing Extremists (LWE) have been in business across seven states for the past decade. Nagaland and Manipur have lived with permanent insurgencies for the past 50-odd years.

There were earlier long-running conflicts in Assam, in Mizoram and in Tripura. There was the Punjab. Prior to the Punjab, there was the Naxalite business with its epicentre in Bengal. Apologies if I've missed out on the odd Kamtapur, Bodoland and Tebhaga.

These conflicts have affected hundreds of millions across generations and collectively, brutalised the entire security establishment. To my knowledge, nobody has done an analysis of how much such internal wars have cost, directly and in missed opportunities. Nor have there been studies of the psychological impact on children who grow up in the middle of violence.

The costs must be vast. Consider a hypothetical situation where India did not suffer internal conflicts. If gross domestic product had compounded at one per cent more every year across 65 years as a result, the economy would be twice as big.

The military methods that work in winning asymmetric wars tend to be unacceptable. For example, mass extermination. In Indonesia in 1965-66, a communist insurgency was put down by killing over 500,000 civilians. The Sri Lanka civil war also ended with vast killings of civilians.

Joseph Stalin used mass deportation to suppress revolt in Chechnya, holding a large number of Chechens hostage in Siberia. This was too extreme a solution for Vladimir Putin to attempt a reprise during the Second Chechen War.

The British won the Boer War by conceptualising "concentration camps". Afrikaner women and children were incarcerated in camps, creating hostages and depriving the Boer Kommando (guerrilla bands) of food, shelter, etc. Over a century later, there is still bitterness in South Africa about the women and children who died of disease and starvation in camps. ("Kommando" and "concentration camp" were coined during the Boer War, though both words later acquired different meanings.)

The Chinese have been experimenting with "demographic swamping" in Tibet and in Xinjiang, where the Beijing regime faces hostility from local ethnic groups. Large-scale immigration by majority Han Chinese into the trouble spots is encouraged. The rebellious locals will eventually be reduced to an insignificant minority. Of course, this requires ancillary measures like confiscation and redistribution of land, employment-related incentives that discriminate against locals, etc.

The Indian state won against the Khalistanis and beat the first wave of Naxalism by shotgun approaches. Large numbers of young men were picked up, tortured and killed by security forces. Thirty years later, those methods are difficult to replicate without outcry. They are also less effective, going by the Kashmir and the LWE experiences.

If the military solutions are unacceptable, political solutions must be attempted. The Indian experience suggests that political resolution can take decades even when it works, as in Mizoram. The direction of the global conflict since 9/11 reinforces the impression that resolution takes a very long time.

Torture and extra-judicial killings diminish everyone concerned. The torturers end up damaged, and, of course, so do victims. The Senate report also indicates torture is ineffective. It is a great pity that America could not find more acceptable and effective means of fighting such wars.

Twitter: @devangshudatta