The Doomsday Scenario....

About a month back, I had written about the scenario of the Taliban taking over Pakistan and the emergence of Talibanistan on our western borders - the blog was titled Talibanistan.

The scenario is getter truer by the day.

Today's edition of The Hindustan Times had this full page feature titled "Talibanistan" taking about the real possibility of the Taliban taking over the entire Pakistani territory.

The article presented a few scenarios, including the one on the right of this text.

A pretty scary scenario indeed.

Be assured, the United States would bleed more in Afghanistan in the next few years. The financial pain at home would force them to pull out.

And what could be worse is that we will find ourselves unwillingly in the eye of the storm, at the epicenter of the Third World War.

As we look into the crystal ball at the way the scenarios would pan out, our preparedness to cope is in question.
How do we prepare ourselves to cope with all this?

Increased defence spending is a great idea, provided the increased budgets go into military hardware and also into building electronic and human intelligence networks. Our defence forces are undoubtedly skilled, but if we don't have the intelligence, we might fail miserably. Networking with other intelligence agencies would be critical for this. I believe this has already started. A pointer to this is the recent visit by the CIA chief, Leon Panetta, to India.

Military conscription has to be started immediately - we a need a readily available supply of trained personnel who can be called in at short notice to defend us against aggressors.

Civilian capability to withstand such a doomsday scenario has to be built. Ex-servicemen can be employed for this task. Such a preparedness would in handy ensuring the support systems don't collapse in the event of a surprise attack. We can learn from Israel about this.

I may be called a hawk for visualising a doomsday scenario, but we would be better off being prepared for it rather than get taken by surprise.