https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/general-oberoi-on-one-leg-and-a-prayer

General Oberoi: On One Leg and a Prayer

In a ‘personal mini account’ penned a decade back, Lt Gen Vijay Oberoi recounted his life in uniform and out of it. Its fullness was testified by the title, No Commas; No Pauses; No Full Stops. The details were to follow in a fuller biography, which he was reportedly working on with assistance of his grand-daughter, recently returned with a Masters’ degree from King’s College London. Since the ‘mini account’ whets the appetite for more, the forthcoming book can be expected to further illumine the trajectory India’s post-Independence military.

Given the historical shortage of access to official thinking - routinely made available in public archives in other democratic countries - biographies are one way to tap into India’s strategic turning points. While this route may suffer the drawback of selective and partial perspective, regrettably the attentive public will soon be deprived of even this vestige. The regime’s threat to turn off pensions is out to stifle even sanitized recollections. The outcome will be fewer resources with levels of General Oberoi’s blunt-speak, allowing space for strategic mythologizing to take over.

General Oberoi will be known for many things – not least of which is his post-retirement stewardship of the War Wounded Foundation. He along with three contemporaries – Lt Gen ‘Yogi’ Sharma, Lt Gen Pankaj Joshi and Maj Gen ‘Kartoos’ Cardozo - rose through the ranks despite the war-attributable disability, or rather because of it spurring each on to super the challenge. While this shows the army in good light, each had to contend with individual sceptics making each journey remarkable.

A significant innings of the general was his appointment as founder-director of the Center for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS). His credentials as a ‘soldier-scholar’ were the right mix to take the Indian army into the twenty-first century. Operation Parakram had just wound down and an early lesson learnt was that the limited war window - espied first after the Kargil War - needed to be exploited. Following the footsteps of the air force, the army set up CLAWS with a view to take forward doctrinal thinking. The second edition of the official army doctrine was articulated even as the center was set up. General Oberoi, as head of the Army Training Command (ARTRAC) had overseen the writing up of its first doctrine in 1998. He was thus a default choice. Interestingly, the general rues the pretension that the 2004 doctrine was the first iteration of doctrine!

Outstanding in his ‘soldier’ credentials is that as an infantry officer he was picked to convert a mechanized division into an armoured division, becoming only the second infantry officer to lead one; Sundarji being the first. His three-star commands were of a strike corps and of the Command tasked for offensives, the Western Command. Besides, he had headed the operations branch and had overseen it as vice chief.

He conceptualised the map exercise portion of Exercise (Ex) Brasstacks, receiving the second highest distinguished service medal, rare at one-star level. He later participated in its final version – exercise with troops – as a brigade commander. He followed through as the operations chief with Ex Brahm Astra and, later when at Chandimandir, with Ex Divya Astra. Since the nuclear shadow loomed larger in the period pockmarked with crises ranging from Kashmir to Kargil, conventional doctrine had to delicately keep pace with strategic developments. The general, along with contemporaries as Lt Gen ‘Shammi’ Mehta, thus helped birth the current limited war doctrine, which in its latest avatar has Rudras and Bhairavs at vanguard.

The scholar part of his ‘soldier-scholar’ tag is equally significant. This feature of his personality was noticeable early with his figuring on the prestigious competitive list of the top twenty for the year-long defence staff course. He underwent the National Defence College-equivalent course meant for budding brass-hats at Carlisle. Earlier, he’d tenanted the horizon-widening post as defence attaché in Malaysia. He had a longish tenure at Shimla, heading the training command, since his generation of general officers was lucky to have their years in service extended by two years. This spared him the usual merry-go-round that the ARTRAC chair usually witnesses, allowing him time for reflection.

This author was witness to two instances of the general’s eye for innovation in the period. One was his interest in the infantry assault technique to unlock deliberate defences such as exist in the obstacle-ridden terrain along the Pakistan border. The technique harks back to the German storm troopers of the First World War. In the Indian context the technique was perfected by an officer who had served under the general in his battalion command days (incidentally the first company commander of this writer). It was put out as an ARTRAC training note. Co-incident with the Kargil War, a just-in-time pamphlet on multipronged assaults in mountains adapted the technique to the terrain.

The second instance was in regard to a paper I wrote on educating army officers. Fresh from sabbatical, I pompously advocated that the liberal arts and science educational curriculum at the academies be substituted with hard-core military studies (p. 62). He called me up to Shimla for presenting the paper to the concerned staff. Gratifyingly, and testimony of his attention to detail, some advocated subjects soon started figuring in professional military education curriculum, such as international humanitarian law which was includ by when I underwent the senior command course at the war college. Now, of course, the emphasis is on technology, though one hopes this is not at the cost of understanding war through the more befitting political science lens.

His character-building legacy for officers is of forthrightness. He’d demonstrated this repeatedly, once requesting to be replaced in a senior appointment in military operations directorate, owing to a run-in with someone at headquarters. Later, as military operations head, he yet again bid to be posted out. He stepped down at CLAWS too after contesting restrictions on the autonomy of the fledgling institution. No details of the disagreements figure in his biography prequel, held in reserve for his intended (now posthumous) biography.

From his trenchant critique of the bureaucracy, it can be reasonably surmised that his tiffs were with defence ministry bureaucrats, who - at the time - were known to have authority without responsibility, a characterization by one of their own, ‘Subbu’ Subrahmanyam. To the general, the bureaucracy suffers a ‘feeling of inadequacy or fear their lack of knowledge will stand exposed.’ Today’s incorporation of the military into the ministry and the nascent concept of fusionism owe in part to the fulminations of the military veterans on the bureaucracy forming an intervening layer between the military and the political leadership, redefining civilian control away from political control.

The current generation of brass-hats must contend with the downside of the resulting proximity: the ideological adhesive inherent in fusionism. It has already led to a manipulative and transactional relationship with the military, expanding grey areas on roles such as of a recent tasking of the air force for distributing exam papers. This gives rise to the question if military is signalling ideological compliance, such as by tweaking dress codes, going overboard on perception management or in rhetorical genuflection to viksit’ism, to receive a bounty of sorts?

His legacy on this in his own words, is: ‘There is a moral somewhere here; if you feel strongly about a wrong, do not keep mum and hesitate because of a perceived notion that you are deliberately inviting harm to yourself. One should take action and if there are adverse consequences, so be it!’

An ongoing debate, the general participated in – if not quite precipitated - is on jointness. In his book, he recalls a heated debate with Air Marshal Vinod Patney – who as the most decorated military officer ever was no spring-chicken in the art of repartee. At the Western Command war game in the presence of a bemused defence minister, the debate on the respective roles of land and air forces in prosecuting war can be credited with kicking off the impetus to ‘think purple.’

On the nuclear aspect, the general breathed fire. As an armoured warfare exponent, he required a water-tight nuclear umbrella allowing mechanized pincers to do their thing. To this end, he favoured the official nuclear doctrine, that promises visiting down annihilation for any nuclear first use. Inherent in this is the risk of conventional provocation of indeterminate nuclear thresholds. This threat has receded somewhat lately with operationalization of the limited war doctrine, keeping off nuclear redlines by relying mostly on stand-off delivery of ordnance by drones and missiles. Recent reports on a set of operationally-ready nuclear warheads have set off calls for a doctrinal revision. If conventional war is subject to limitation, surely nuclear war – decidedly more dangerous - also merits like attention.

His military thinking rested on firm foundations laid with the legendary Jangi Paltan, with which right on commissioning he participated in liberating Daman. Come 1965, he was injured in the leg while chasing Pakistani infiltrators in the Dachigam forest near Srinagar. His fellow officer on that patrol, Lt Raut, was fatally injured; testifying to the two sticking to the well-regarded dictum for young officers: lead from the front. The leg amputated, only further energised him into higher endeavour.

As a middle-piece officer, he was the first second-in-command of a new raising. He earned his first distinguished service award in command of the same unit, a rare distinction. The unit’s record has been such as to earn it a tenure at the Rashtrapati Bhawan, where it looks to belatedly celebrate its golden jubilee (full disclosure: it is the unit this author was commissioned into). He went on to tenant the appointment of ‘colonel of the regiment,’ an post threatened with obsolescence under the decolonizing rationale. Both a good and successful officer, he validates the motto most Indian officers live by: ‘karam hi dharm.’

Finally, in the context of the times, it is worth mention that the general was a model secular being. Not only did he court and win his wife, Daulat - herself a product of an inter-religious marriage - but though exposed to the travails of Partition as a young boy, he did not allow its memory to becloud his humanity. He was scathing on prejudices that are at full tide today.

The general walked into the sunset last week. As a privileged recipient of a signed copy of the limited edition No Commas…, I can only pass on the exhortation personally inked by him: ‘Keep Walking!’

 https://open.substack.com/pub/aliahd66/p/toting-up-legacies-of-generals-poised?r=i1fws&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Toting up legacies of two generals poised to fade away

Two generals are in their legacy period: General Chauhan just handed over the chief of defence staff baton, while General Dwivedi is doing his farewell rounds. Both have been around at a consequential time operationally and in terms of developments in civil-military relations. A look at what they leave behind is timely, though the last word on either cannot be pronounced just yet.

The lucky general

General Chauhan’s retiring a second time round is a notable first. This is the second precedent he sets for his successor, General Subramani. It seems that the route that’s proved lucky for both – through the national security council secretariat as military adviser to national security adviser (NSA) – serves to ideologically vet and socialize CDS candidates. General Subramani took care to reference the ‘honourable prime minister’ in his inaugural address to the press.

Despite this advantage, General Chauhan’s legacy can be summed up in one sentence: Just prior to demitting his chair after some four years and one extension, General Chauhan sent up a proposal on theaterisation to the ministry. Presumably in his prior billet as military adviser, he’d have been privy to the thinking of both, his regimental mate, General Rawat as CDS, and of ethnic kin, Ajit Doval as NSA. Yet he was left out in the cold; yet another case of political abdication and attempt at firing from uniformed soldiers, which in this case at least turned out a blank.

If anything must be laid at Chauhan’s door, it was his inability to goad on his mentor, the NSA, and political master, the raksha mantri. Even that is not so much his personal cross to bear as much as commentary on the military’s heft in the national security system. That said, till the ministry pronounces on the recommendations, his legacy cannot be figured out in full; and in the event, credit - if any - will be shared by his successor if he can pull it off in his tenure.

Since General Chauhan had command authority only over a few fledgling outfits (notably the Strategic Forces Command takes its marching orders from an unelected civilian, the NSA), it’s his first-among-equals position as chair of the chief’s committee on which his showing must be gauged. He can be credited with limiting Op Sindoor, given that it had non-military objectives at the outset; included a peaceful outreach when underway; and was stopped promptly, once the air force got even. The last he may have to share with Trump! Even so, the political leadership thought it prudent to consult some veterans too on the last evening, betraying either goose bumps or under-confidence in the uniformed leadership.

A good thing was the CDS admitting to losses suffered in the air, albeit doing so on foreign soil and somewhat economically for a democratic country. A bad thing was letting pass the targeting of the Nur Khan air field, though the escalatory potential of such adventurism was known prior, particularly since he himself is an acknowledged nuclear expert and is the military adviser to the nuclear command authority.

As the deterrent value of Op Sindoor remains uncertain, no definitive acclaim can be accorded. Given that Op Sindoor persists as Op Sindoor 2.0, it is clear that Op Sindoor itself is a self-acknowledged failure of the regime. Therefore, if it was at all a strategically sustainable step is questionable. That it resulted in the limbo of indefinite duration dubbed the ‘new normal’, shows up a deficit in strategy making, attributable directly to NSA Ajit Doval. Given that the regime already wants to walk back from the posture – with its backers calling for talks with Pakistan - is a telling commentary on myopic strategy making. As principal military adviser to the raksha mantri, the general must have had a say; so, must bear with his share of the scrutiny. However, domestic political aspects having more to do with it – keeping Pakistan in the doghouse is good for keeping Indian Muslims on the backfoot, both together constituting the Other in the regime’s world view - General Chauhan can be let off, but not wholly.

A lasting impact of his tenure is in his introduction of the concept of fusion into the discourse and in practice. Though the concept is nothing new, it caught steam on General Chauhan’s watch. He went a step further aping China in recommending that the military and defence stakeholders be ideologically convergent. With no clarity on the ideology he had in mind or whether he was referring to a work ethic or a patriotic sentiment, it cannot out-rightly be said that he was only plugging atmanirbharta. A danger is that fusionism, though visualised as securing and enhancing civilian stakeholder participation in national security, may well turn out the other way round, it being a two-way street; for instance, military involvement in moving competitive exam papers about!

The less lucky general

There is precedence in a serving chief not making it to CDS. General Naravane – by his showing in handling the Chinese and in being sceptical on agnipath - had perhaps ruled himself out of the running. General Pande retired when the CDS post already had an incumbent. For now, coup-proofing concerns and a continuing continental mindedness rule out sister service nominees for CDS. Therefore, General Dwivedi not making it is comment-worthy: a four-star chief is thought not fit, while his own three-star vice chief retiree is. The only thing distinguishing General Subramani from the competition is the ‘soldier-scholar’ tag; which arguably suited his last appointment better, considering that its first incumbent was also dubbed likewise.

Ordinarily, the Chief ought to go down in history for enabling at long last a structural innovation envisaged two decades back. He has overseen the raising of integrated battle groups, which would allow the land war component to take the battle to the enemy. With the army restricting itself to stand-off fire assaults and air defence in Op Sindoor, it felt the need to fast-track a capability to launch conventional limited attacks, which at the next crisis could help it respond in quick time to either a terror atrocity or the adversary’s upping the ante.

However, the General’s last verbal scrum with Pakistan – on nuclear portents of a conflict - suggests that while the intention of war limitation is there, there is little confidence in it. Since this is a work-in-progress, the final word on the measure – whether it proves an escalatory first step up the proverbial ladder or a slip into a morass – can only be kept in reserve.

It also has another underside: that the army is not quite lacchak – for want of an apt word - enough to respond to crisis outbreak. It intrigues as to why the army needs tailored forces when its units and formations should be able to combine into employable forces in a reasonable time-frame. To do away with what weighs the army down, such as ‘bull’ and superfluous housekeeping, appears not to have been explored. For now, he can only be known for keeping up the din on Op Sindoor.

Chiefs are expected to be political savvy enough to serve as an institutional guiding light. In General Dwivedi’s case, it is cannot be said with any certainty if he is complicit with the regime’s political project or merely lax. The former is not unlikely, given his - soundly criticized - move of replacing the painting in his office on the 1971 victory with one depicting a fantasy battlefield, the notable feature of which is a saffron-clad figure directing military forces.

Distressingly, the figure has since been reproduced elsewhere, most strikingly in the headquarters of the more consequential of operational commands. At the photo-op site at its headquarters – that lately witnessed the American ambassador pose - the backdrop has a looming statue in precisely the same commanding posture as the one in the painting, overshadowing the Chakra and the full-length profiles of the nation’s two field marshals. The figure depicts Chanakya, with the hall bearing his name.

It is to invoke an imagining that the armed forces go to battle along lines thought up by a strategically-minded national security establishment. It indicates the fusionism the military desires, in which a whole-of-nation approach to national security is directed by a political body with access to Chanakyan counsel: materializing the motto of the defence staff college: ‘to war with wisdom.’

Notwithstanding this, the symbol can well instigate an alternate imagining in light of a caste-infused social reality, in which a brahmin orders kshatriyas about. The military cannot be party to the conditioning that goes into social reordering, through making such symbols unremarkable. If an unwitting participant, the military is still liable to be called out – as here.

In salute

To be sure, both generals were reputedly fine human beings. General Chauhan also lived simply, going by the manner his cottage gate at the center of Lutyen’s Delhi has not been ‘done up’ with public monies as that of other brass-hats. This is not a factor to be dismissed lightly in a milieu that has decidedly coarsened. Both retained and demonstrated character qualities instilled by their common alma-mater, the academies. General Dwivedi just made his last visit to his squadron, proudly handing it the academy banner for topping the league table.

It bears reminding that they have weathered the most challenging era in terms of civil-military relations, geopolitical quakes and regional conflict outbreaks. It cannot be said with any conviction that anyone else could have done any better. The nation owes the two much for managing their political masters while keeping the family silver relatively intact.  

 https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/general-dwivedi-deepens-the-subcontinents?r=i1fws

General Dwivedi deepens the subcontinent’s nuclear pathology

The last time Pakistan was warned off just as sprightly as by General Dwivedi recently – “Decide whether want to be part of geography, history, or not” - was when General ‘Paddy’ Padmanabhan replied to a question at a press conference a quarter century back. Asked after the nuclear factor, he warned that should Pakistan dare to reach for the nuclear button, “the perpetrator of that particular outrage shall be punished so severely that their continuation thereafter in any form of fray will be doubtful.”

Operation (Op) Parakram was into its third week and the Indian military was in full gear to strike Pakistan for its temerity in sponsoring an attack on the Indian parliament. Photogenic and articulate, Paddy through his press conference pre-empted Musharraf’s landmark speech, made the following day at American behest. Musharraf craftily promised to stand down his terroristic advanced guard.

This defused the first half of what Americans call the ‘Twin Peaks’ crisis. The second ‘peak’ was in peak summer, when dastardly terrorists stormed a garrison at Kalu Chak. Infuriated, Paddy readied his three strike corps to launch from the line of march, which were then exercising in close proximity of each other in the Rajasthani desert. In the event, the Americans - having an axe to grind in not wanting Pakistan distracted from what went on to be the American ‘forever war’ in Afghanistan - sent a peace ‘mission’ to the region.

Self-deterrence as a virtue

A few years down the line, the Manmohan government too was reluctant to go to war over an equally horrendous provocation on Pakistan’s part – Mumbai 26/11. It’s clear both governments were resolved to not be deflected from India’s economic trajectory. Manmohan Singh, for his part, was also aware of the onset of the global economic downturn. Equally significantly, both were also self-deterred, given the nuclear portents of conflict.

The possibility of nuclear exchanges prompted by India’s conventional strides and, further, such exchanges getting out of hand lead to self-deterrence. The latter amounts to a certainty in doctrinal circles, with advocacy for a splendid second strike capability and intention basing on the assumption of uncontrolled escalation: the capability be expended to decisively end nuclear exchange(s) started by the other side.

Pakistan has over time acquired a second strike capability of sorts, even if not in the orthodox terms of boomers. It has instead gone for vertical proliferation, diverse hides, a bid to create a ‘missile gap’ and for innovative sub-surface platforms. This gives it confidence to declare that a MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) situation exists. India acceded to the possibility of ‘mutual destruction’ only once; otherwise mostly preening that India would survive, while Pakistan would not. India’s advantage of depth on all scores in comparison to Pakistan prompts such hubris.

However, the accuracy with which India took out Nur Khan air base when combined with a certainty of a Dhurandhar-style penetration of the Strategic Plans Division alone can generate the notion that Pakistan can be written off easily in a nuclear war. And everyone knows Dhurandhar is fantasy. When the fusillades of the United States and Israel launched twice-over only nine months apart have not been able to defang Iran conventionally, taking out Pakistan’s nuclear capability in so substantial manner as to not receive a telling counter strike – even if broken backed - is either a tricky deception or self-deception.

The good part

Indeed, General Dwivedi as army chief should really be saying quite the opposite. His tenure will be known for (other than for the pony-tailed figure in an office painting) the creation - finally and at long last - of forces for limited operations on the lines of integrated battle groups. With such forces on hand, the potential threat of crossing of nuclear redlines recedes; enabling prosecution of limited operations with greater conviction in line with the tenets of the ‘new normal’.

Deterrence of subconventional provocation by Pakistan requires the Chief to emphasise the efficacy of the new forces. Dragging in the nuclear factor, the Chief betrays under-confidence on keeping a war limited. Reference to the nuclear factor is egregious since nuclear sabre rattling is best left to Pakistanis who may wish to alert their friends, the Americans.

Does his nuclear threat signal that escalatory possibilities persist, even with the employment of the new-fangled forces? Does the contingency of Op Sindoor 2 escalating rapidly necessitate such rhetoric to warn off Pakistan against escalation? If so, is the strategic posture of constant preparedness the right one, accentuating as it does the nuclear overhang?

General Dwivedi failed to complete his scenario building. He is entirely right in envisaging Pakistan’s passage into history. For Indians that is less consequential than where does that leave us. By not engaging with that, General Dwivedi indulges in a half-truth. Pakistan claims it will ‘take half the world down with it.’ Since this was spoken on American soil, it can be set aside as Pakistan’s scare mongering. But, does India risk proportionate nuclear damage?

The question must induce restraint. Deterrence of subconventional assault cannot justify nuclear risk. The nuclear factor confirmed by the Chief as significant, implies, firstly, that Op Sindoor 2 ought not to be embarked upon with the alacrity demanded by the new doctrine. And, secondly, it must be prosecuted with operational gusto reined in. Op Sindoor 2 must be allowed to fizzle out as yet another set of surgical strikes with an admixture of landward attacks. If and since, only political milage is sought then perception management can well do the rest, as has been the case in Op Sindoor.

The invoking of general nuclear deterrence by the Chief to supplement conventional deterrence of subconventional provocation means the ‘new normal’ is not robust just yet. Now that yet another train stands targeted in Pakistan’s western badlands by terrorists, expect another Baisaran. Is this dawning of reality, the impetus behind the refreshing idea: ‘talk to Pakistan’?

The bad part

Another bout as futile but as tame as the previous ones is tolerable. However, two factors – one operational and the other political – could conspire to make things worse.

The operational factor is a combine of two technological thrusts. The first is attention to air defence. Perhaps the reticence of the general on damage received by India owes to being sanguine on the showing of air defence in Op Sindoor and its tightening up since. Ensuring tolerably few nukes get through in a bedraggled nuclear counter strike by Pakistan can help with effectively calling Pakistan’s nuclear bluff. The second of the two is hinted by the Chief: annihilation. It is proof of preparedness for a splendid first strike levels of nuclear retaliation on India’s part. Together, the two - defensive and offensive measures - incentivize nuclear use and in the sense the Chief’s quip best conveys.

The second factor, pitched at the political level, is far more germane. Strategic discussions are liable to miss the influence of ideology. Where majoritarian ideology suffuses thinking, how it impinges on nuclear rationality is a valid question, seldom asked. How does the animus at the heart of the dominant ideology against The Muslim of Akhand Bharat impact?

The nuclear command authority (NCA) is peopled by ideologically minded members and serviced by an ideologically committed national security adviser (NSA). The regime has taken care to successively appoint an ideologically vetted chief of defence staff, whose functions include being military adviser to the NCA. It can reasonably be inferred that the prior billet under the NSA serves to socialize incumbents.

Importantly, ideology shapes notions on Indian resilience. With the majoritarian ideology’s thirty year-long creep across the land, now engulfing even Bengal, the expectation is that a shared national spirit will hold Bharat together. Gone is the framework in which dominant ethnic groups across the land forged a constitutional contract with the Union, that could have served to instill self-deterrence. Self-regarding ethnic groups that make up India would not allow the Center such power as to compromise their security. That interregnum in the national narrative is now long past.

The two aspects taken together – one, a political belief in Indian resilience enhanced by an ideology nationally subscribed to; and, two, operational confidence – if misplaced - in nuclear first strike and an incipient sudarshan chakra, can swing nuclear use decisions in a dangerous direction.

This is compounded by a mirroring on the other side. A jihadist general has decluttered decision making there. He has taken care to sift the nuclear delivery forces, aiming for greater certainty on nuclear ordnance getting through.

By highlighting escalatory possibilities, the soon-to-retire army chief has inadvertently put India wise to the nuclear risks embedded in the ‘new normal.’ The viral clip featuring the General at ease with the thought of genocide is his unintended legacy.

A timely rehearsing of General Sundarji’s principal contribution to strategic thought

https://thewire.in/security/general-sundarjis-ideas-on-nuclear-conflagration-remain-relevant-to-the-india-pakistan-military-situation

 I was one of three Indian Military Academy gentlemen cadets selected to attend the Army Day events as the army chief’s guests in January 1987. At the traditional reception at Army House, General Sundarji personally introduced us to the president and the prime minister. We had a group photo taken, a portion of which has made its way into the selection that graces the new biography of General Sundarji, Probal Dasgupta’s General Brasstacks, with two of us, including me, edited out!

Understandably, the general spending a longer-than-necessary portion of the evening with us left a lasting impression. It is no wonder then that a couple of decades later I wrote an article in tribute of the late general. The atypical conclusion of that article - that finds mention in the book – was that the General would be known to history not so much for aspects of his life well covered in the book - his commendable work on mechanization of the army and his spooking of the Chinese at Sumdorong Chu, or the less praiseworthy stewardship of two subconventional operations (Op) (Op Blue Star and Op Pawan) - but for his thoughts on nuclear use.

The fraught situation

The general’s thinking bears reiteration in the current regional security environment, that has a ‘forever war’, Op Sindoor 2, on ‘pause’. A prominent strategic commentator, General Panag, reckons that if not sooner when prompted by a black-swan terror event, the next round of Op Sindoor is due within five years, by when both sides would be well up-gunned.

Rightly, Panag notes that, “There is no scope for decisive wars among nuclear-weapon-armed states. Conflict must remain below the nuclear threshold….” He had earlier held that, “India, and Pakistan are modern armies that have to wage conflict below the nuclear threshold. Keeping in view the nuclear threshold, there are obvious constraints in the way conflict will manifest.”

Though he expects “a high-end conventional air, missile, and drone campaign with each side trying to do all it did in 2025 with higher tempo, depth, and lethality,” and can also “foresee limited ground operations in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K),” he nevertheless holds that, “(T)he echoes of a limited war, without major ground operations, can be heard loud and clear.”

However, Panag bases his case on the popularly held juncture of where the two sides left off in round one: “(T)he measure of victory is to create psychological paralysis…up the escalatory ladder, as a result of which the adversary, despite its military potential, cannot respond.” This, he believes, “was achieved in the early hours of 10 May, when the Indian Air Force (IAF) could strike at will…and the adversary’s air force and air defence could not respond or retaliate.”

Two problems with the popular version

One problem with a clipped reading of the conflict is in the significance of a news report not registering adequately. The report had it that the Pakistanis had convened their national command authority (NCA) that controls nuclear use. Overtaken by events the preceding night – the last night of Op Sindoor - the Pakistanis distanced themselves from the report.

That the matter is graver was clearer from one of the Pakistani airfields hit being the Nur Khan airfield. Apparently, it is proximate to the Chaklala cantonment where Pakistan’s nuclear hub, the Strategic Plans Division, is located. There was also considerable disinformation surrounding whether nearby Kairana hills had also been hit, allegedly a nuclear storage site. Such egregious targeting could have trigger nuclear-related misperceptions: that nuclear facilities are under a degrading attack. Consequently, it can reasonably be surmised that a nuclear dimension to the crisis might have materialised.

The second problem is the assumption that the Pakistanis succumbed to military force application. On his part, the raksha mantri takes to hyperbole on this: “Op Sindoor as a short-duration, deep-penetration, high-intensity, and high-impact operation which showcased India’s ability to compel its adversary to surrender.” The prime minister goes a step further, holding that India ‘forced Pakistan to its knees,’ whereupon Pakistan ‘pleaded’ to be let off. Even if theatrics and rhetoric are discounted, analysis that speaks truth to power cannot be wholly blind to such delusions.

From Pakistan catapulting to brokering of a ceasefire in the Iran-US conflict, it is clear Pakistan was playing for higher stakes. Munir forewent the opportunity for getting even, playing to get into Trump’s good books as his ‘favourite field marshal.’ Further, that there have been no images of like damage on the Indian side does not mean there was none. Pakistan, reassured by its performance on the first night, thought it could replicate the same with interest in future iterations.

The nuclear factor

Indian reticence to concede that the Americans had anything to do with the pause would likely make them less enthusiastic next time. Absent a line of communication between two parties increases the premium on third party intervention; which will be less than forthcoming. Therefore, Pakistan will likely holdout longer. Its principal takeaway from the Iran War II can only be that a weaker side must sustain in a fight. The field marshal is already attempting build resilience by reiterating his belief that a ‘battle of ideologies’ is on.

Pakistan has taken care to centralise military authority and authority over its nuclear structure under one chair, that of the newly-created Chief of Defence Forces; occupied by the army chief promoted to five-star rank. It has also divorced its conventional and nuclear missile forces, for prosecuting either type of war. An assessment has it that it has given itself a velocity upgrade, enabling a head start in the next round. Not only are Chinese J35s in the pipeline of procurement, but there is a half-a-billion dollars F-16 upgrade also on.

Even so, its budgetary increase of some 20 per cent is outpaced by India’s increase of 24 per cent of a budget eight-to-nine times larger than that of Pakistan. India is also on the cusp of theaterisation, allowing it to take on the western front with greater coherence. In the interim, there is movement towards operationalising a a joint operations and coordination center for greater synergy at the apex military level. Not only is convergence of outcomes in multi-domain operations sought by the out-going chief of defence staff (CDS), but the raksha mantri discerns a “new military ethos.”

Pakistan – even if back-stopped by China - may wish to preserve itself from greater punishment. With India fully capable of matching escalatory step, Pakistan reach for nuclear signalling. An American analyst warns: “They (India and Pakistan) also appear increasingly convinced that, should the conflict erupt again, more intense conventional fighting would not risk nuclear escalation.”

That such recourse that should worry has not figured in the deafening din from the one-year-on discussions owes to multiple reasons. First, is that there has been a clampdown on nuclear doctrinal discourse; in contrast to the appreciative buzz around missile tests. Two is that the political level may not wish to obscure the dangerous backdrop to India’s forever war, hastily and impulsively embarked on. Third, it wishes to avoid the corollary: that dialogue channels are necessary to keep open, if not for conflict resolution but merely for crisis management.

How will it manifest?

One measure has already found mention: activity of Pakistan’s nuclear decision-making body, duly advertised to make an impression. The second is movements of its nuclear-related weapons, such as a Nasr or two visible to Indian peeking systems. The third is activating well-intentioned third party diplomacy, by mutual interlocutors as Gulf states or concerned neighbours. Fourth could be activation of its nuclear test sites for a demonstration test. Fifth could be a greenfield test of its nuclear weapon in, for instance, the Kharan desert. Sixth could be information operations to generate a ‘no smoke without fire’ panic. Seventh, as has been seen earlier, the firing of nuclear-capable missiles. Eighthly, intelligence operations; and, finally, a ‘shot across the bow’, at no military target in particular, such as in the Cholistan desert.

Likewise, the introduction of nuclear weapons into the conflict can be decidedly at the lowest possible level of provocation. This could be in the desert along the border or on an enclave captured prior, or, indeed, on the seas.

Under the circumstance, the rationality exhibited by both sides in Op Sindoor, would hopefully continue. By the yardstick of strategic rationality, it would not be irrational on Pakistan’s part to bandy nuclear weapons. Since the escalatory tendency inherent in war - observed some two hundred years ago by Clausewitz - could take hold, it would be irrational for Pakistan not to reach for its nuclear card.

It could be forced by Indian reinforcing of failure by progressively larger scale conventional operations. For instance, while Panag’s reference to operations in J&K was in respect to operations to tidy up the LC; however, some chicken-hawks in the regime and its right wing support formations or a misinformed public may wish for taking Pakistan Occupied Kashmir.

Heeding Sundarji

It is at such a juncture that Sundarji becomes posthumously most relevant. He left behind the Sundarji nuclear doctrine, that has not received traction in Indian doctrinal discussion. He posited that any introduction of nuclear weapons into a conflict must prompt not only an immediate termination of the exchange(s) at the lowest possible level of opprobrium of nuclear use, but also an early cessation of hostilities itself, if necessary by easing up on the matter that led to outbreak of the conflict in first place.

As is evident, this is diametrically opposite the tenet of India’s nuclear doctrine that calls for an annihilating nuclear attack of the nuclear taboo breaking party; ‘unacceptable damage’ being code for counter-value targeting, itself jargon for city-busting. It also goes against the new Pakistan-centric policy of ‘no talks with terror.’

The conclusions that emerge are as follows: the pursuit of escalation dominance is to chase a receding horizon; it is best to pull punches at every level to keep from ascending the escalatory ladder, even if matching the other side punch for punch (tit-for-tat has deterrence value as Axelrod found in his experiment at game theory); minimally a crisis management mechanism must be in place prior; and maximally, incompatibilities must be engaged with in a dialogue.

Though the incoming CDS General Subramani is advantaged by his current proximity to the nuclear strategy staff, he would unlikely have had his knowledge base for his forthcoming duties as military adviser to the nuclear command authority expanded with this bit of wisdom. He would do well to read up Sundarji on what nuclear armed states owe their citizens, a duty to preserve them from harm.