https://www.epw.in/journal/2020/9/strategic-affairs/portentous-india%E2%80%93pakistan-escalation-dynamic.html

The portentuous India-Pakistan escalation dynamic

On his first official trip to Pakistan as secretary-general the United Nations (UN), Secretary-General António Guterres, at press stakeout in Islamabad, said, “I have repeatedly stressed the importance of exercising maximum restraint and taking steps to de-escalate, both militarily and verbally, while reiterating my offer to exercise my good offices, should both sides ask. Diplomacy and dialogue remain the only tools that guarantee peace and stability... (Guterres 2020).” In response, India’s foreign ministry swiftly reiterated India's position that, “There is no role or scope for third party mediation (Ministry of External Affairs).”

Such exchanges evoke a sense of déjà vu, India having similarly rebutted similar offers from the United States’ (US) President Donald Trump twice earlier. Nevertheless, the international community does have a stake in the regional security situation since fallout of it going awry potentially has global consequences. Two recent studies highlight nuclear dangers. While one talks of climate effects on the global ecosystem accounting for 125 million dead (Toon et al. 2019), the second is on implications on the marine domain (Lovenduski et al. 2020). 

The secretary-general’s foregrounding the delicate state of regional security in exercise of his early warning and conflict prevention function are borne out in the pre-conference report of the Munich Security Conference 2020. It expresses the predicament thus: “In this strained situation, any attack committed by the Kashmiri insurgency bears the risk of escalation, including into military confrontation between the two nuclear-armed powers. Increasing ethno-religious nationalism and anti-Muslim sentiment in India heighten this risk, as they might induce Indian authorities to respond with particular force (Munich Security Report 2020: 50).” The international community cannot but take the rhetorical exchanges between India and Pakistan seriously.

Take the latest warning by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who speaking at the annual the National Cadet Corps’(NCC) Republic Day rally, said, “We know that our neighboring country has lost three wars. It does not take more than ten days a week for our forces to defeat it. In such a situation, it has been fighting proxy-war against India for decades (Modi 2020).”

Aware of the ruling party’s propensity on display over the past five years to parlay its decision-making on national security issues for electioneering purposes, Indian analysts are not be amiss to discount the remarks as political rhetoric, citing the then-forthcoming Delhi elections as a possible rationale (Joshi 2020).

Even so, the prime minister’s reference to proxy war amounts to India’s messaging Pakistan that its continuance could lead up to war, albeit a limited one. Thus the prime minister’s statement can be taken as signaling with a deterrence rationale. Conveying a readiness to up-the-ante from surgical strikes to limited war helps deter Pakistan, firstly, from any terror provocation that can bring on a crisis, and, significantly, from any subsequent reaction by it to India’s surgical strikes that could confound a crisis into a war.

The policy of ending Pakistani impunity through surgical strikes was reiterated by the new army chief, General MM Naravane, at his first press conference on taking over (Pandit 2020). Pakistan has demonstrated its intent and capability to respond in kind, hoping to deter Indian surgical strikes.  Against this backdrop, Narendra Modi’s warning of a limited war appears to be directed at influencing Pakistani against a robust response to future surgical strikes with an to open up the space for such strikes continuing.

As part of its deterrence communication and interest in catalyzing external intervention, Pakistan has taken care to keep fears of escalation alive. Within days after the Indian prime minister’s statement, it deployed its former long-serving head of the Strategic Plans Division and currently Adviser in the National Command Authority, retired Lt Gen Khalid Kidwai, to stoke the fire (Kidwai 2020). In his keynote address at a joint conference in London of the International Institute for Strategic Studies and a Pakistani think tank, Kidwai underlined that, “Pakistan has ensured seamless integration between nuclear strategy and conventional military strategy (Kidwai 2020: 5).”

To him, this reminder is, “especially relevant today post-Pulwama and Balakot, because there are people in important places in India’s strategic circles who have drawn dangerously wrong conclusions about what they are referring to as Pakistan’s nuclear bluff (Kidwai 2020: 5).” He seems to be trying to close the door on India’s advertised intent of limited war by pointing to a “seamless” transition between conventional and nuclear doctrine in Pakistan.

What does this peacetime doctrinal tussle between the two sides spell for the next crisis?

In the last crisis, escalation was sensibly avoided by both sides. This is in keeping with what appears to be a new turn in military escalation dynamics encompassed by the phrase: ‘escalate to de-escalate’. Its inception was in the alleged Russian intention to resort to nuclear weapons in case of a western attack since its conventional preparedness was relatively low (Krepon 2018). Conceptually, this amounts to a step-up the proverbial escalation ladder by a side not so much in order to prevail as much as to trigger uncertainty associated with escalation so as to mutually de-escalate a conflict.

The example is the recent US-Iran face-off. A preceding spiral witnessed a US drone strike on an active-duty Iranian general, the popular Qasem Soleimani. The Iranians, left with little option than perforce to shoot themselves out of the corner boxed into by the unexpected US strike, responded with missile strikes on two US bases. They apparently took care to tacitly warn the Americans targeted. Though Trump later claimed that there were no casualties, some 150 US soldiers suffered brain concussion. Even as the escalatory step was taken, the intent to limit the exchange was broadcast to evoke reciprocity in the other side.

Both India and Pakistan through their rhetoric are signaling intent to ‘escalate to de-escalate’: India with its surgical strikes and Pakistan with its determination to counter India tooth-for-tooth. Credibility of deterrence rests on capability and its communication to the other side. Rhetoric is communication of sorts.  Both sides seek to leverage the delicacy of deterrence - in that it can break down - with an aim to reinforce it – so the other side does not test it. 

In case of India, on the very day the prime minister alluded to India’s ten-day war preparedness, General MM Naravane revealed that earlier shortages of ammunition for a ten-day war at intensive rates of ammunition expenditure had been redressed (India Today 2020). In the aftermath of the surgical strikes by land in retaliation to the Uri terror attack of late 2016 had been replenished by thirty contracts amounting to Rs. 30000 crore. This explains the prime minister’s timeline of seven to ten days to bring Pakistan to its knees.

For its part, Pakistan, through Kidwai’s speech warns that, “Pakistan’s nuclear capability operationalised under the well-articulated policy of Full Spectrum Deterrence (FSD) comprises of a large variety of strategic, operational and tactical nuclear weapons, on land, air and sea, which are designed to comprehensively deter large-scale aggression against mainland Pakistan (Kidwai 2020: 5-6) (italics added).” The use of the term “large-scale” implies that short of a “large-scale” attack Pakistan may not resort to nuclear first use even under conditions of “relative conventional asymmetry (Kidwai 2020: 5)”.

Its confidence of taking on India conventionally appears emboldened by Indian defence budget figures. In wake of the prime minister’s threat of a short, sharp war, Shekhar Gupta pointed out that, “India had to have a decisive, deterrent conventional edge over Pakistan. If that is built in the years to come, it might even be possible to defeat Pakistan in less than a week (Gupta 2020).” Other analysts have referred to the defence budget, criticized over successive years as the lowest since the 1962 War in terms of a proportion of the gross national product, as insufficient to cover the modernization necessary to defeat Pakistan (Panag 2019).

From their deterrence pitch, it appears both sides believe that each has called the other side’s bluff: India thinking it has called Pakistan’s nuclear bluff (Unnithan 2020) and Pakistan believing that it has told India off. This posture of nonchalance in face of the other’s deterrence messaging is liable to be further complicated by the danger in India taking Khalid Kidwai literally: that an attack short of a “large-scale” attack would not trigger Pakistan’s Full Scale Deterrence (FSD). FSD is Pakistan’s drawing of a nuclear awning over its conventional forces to compensate for their comparative weakness.

Such an interpretation of Kidwai’s remarks is incentivized by his second reference to “large-scale” in his downplaying India’s conventional doctrinal make-over with its turn to proactive strategy or Cold Start. He claimed “Pakistan took corresponding operational, doctrinal and force developmental measures both in the conventional as well as nuclear fields, including the establishment of a Full Spectrum Deterrence regime…. As a consequence, the Cold Start Doctrine stayed neutralised, nuclear deterrence holds, and informed strategists consider large-scale wars (italics added) on the international borders as a thing of the past (Kidwai 2020: 7).”

What Kidwai misses is that Cold Start does not envisage a “large scale” conventional show-down. Limited war therefore remains possible even in Kidwai’s logic. India’s Cold Start doctrine, that guides the employment of IBGs for punishing Pakistani military for terror provocations, is predicated on not crossing Pakistani nuclear thresholds. India has readied two integrated battle groups (IBG) on the western front after test-bed exercises last year.

Kidwai’s useful visualization of an India-Pakistan escalation ladder is as follows:, “while it may be easy to climb thefirst rung on the escalatory ladder (surgical strikes), the second rung would always belong to Pakistan (its response), and that India’s choice to move to the third rung would invariablybe dangerously problematic in anticipation of the fourth rung response by Pakistan (Kidwai 2020: 7) (parenthesis added).” The rub is in Kidwai’s revelation of Pakistani policy of going “quid pro quo plus” (Kidwai 2020: 8) at the second rung. Both sides appear to be relying on escalation control to compensate for respective ‘escalate to de-escalate’ choices at diverse rungs of a proverbial escalation ladder: India at the first and third rungs and Pakistan at the second rung.

On the threat of escalation, the prime minister’s NCC rally speech has a clue. He claims that, “Today there is young thinking, the country is moving forward with a young mind, so it performs surgical strikes, air strikes and teaches the lesson to the terrorists in their home (Modi 2020).” This implies political responsiveness to pressures from the street, pressures that such speeh-making only serves to engender.

A crisis can turn into conflict if India ventures on to the third rung. Its limited war strategy has the disadvantage of being checked by Pakistan’s conventional counter since, by definition of limited war, India would not be throwing its full weight behind it. In order to prevail owing to pressures in domestic politics may force India to up the ante, forcing Pakistan to bring FSD into play.

Kidwai takes fear mongering further, saying, “that the escalatory rung climbing could not be so neatly choreographed, but could quickly get out of hand and morph into a major war which perhaps nobody wanted but whose outcomes would be disastrous for the region and the globe (Kidwai 2020: 7-8).” Candidness lets Kidwai’s real intent out of the bag as he goes on to state: “(it is) the Full Spectrum Deterrence capability of Pakistan (that) brings the international community rushing into South Asia to prevent a wider conflagration (Kidwai 2020: 6).” Even as Pakistan seeks to draw the international community in – such as urging intercession by President Trump - India persists in fobbing it off - as the UN secretary-general’s offer of his good-offices. This can be taken as part of messaging to Pakistan that India will not countenance a third party scrambling to save Pakistan from defeat.

Under a circumstance, the two sides are unwarrantedly sanguine. India thinks that there would be no further terror provocation to prompt its stepping on the first rung; that its limited war preparedness will deter a Pakistani “quid pro quo plus” counter at the second rung; and that its operationalisation of Cold Start will limit the war to the third rung. For its part, Pakistan appears to believe that its promise of “quid pro quo plus” at the second rung will prevent Indian surgical strikes at the first rung; and its FSD at the fourth rung will prevent India’s operations at the third rung from going “large-scale” onto the fourth rung.

Both want to escalate to de-escalate, knowing how to do the former better than the latter. Both can do with being bailed out by the international community stepping up when the conflict transitions between third and fourth rungs. However, staying apart till the crunch would be to leave it to the next crisis to test deterrence. Instead, the international community must follow through with its good offices’ initiative, under the logic that if the two sides do not negotiate, it behooves on the international community – that stands to suffer the consequences - to attempt conciliate the two (Bondevik 2020). 

References:

Bondevik, KjellMagne (2020): “The UN Must Take the Lead in Kashmir,” 3 February, https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/united-nations-must-mediate-political-solution-in-kashmir-by-kjell-magne-bondevik-2020-02

Gupta, Shekhar (2020): “How Indian armed forces can defeat Pakistan in less than a week,” The Print, 1 February, https://theprint.in/national-interest/how-indian-armed-forces-can-defeat-pakistan-in-less-than-a-week/357701/

Guterres, António (2020): “Opening remarks at joint press briefing with the Foreign Minister of Pakistan and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees,” 17 February, https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/speeches/2020-02-17/press-remarks-pakistan-foreign-minister-and-unhcr

India Today (2020): “Ammo reserves full, stocks high: Army chief says preparedness not dependent on budget allocations,” 28 January, https://www.indiatoday.in/business/budget-2020/story/ammo-reserves-full-stocks-high-army-chief-says-preparedness-not-dependent-on-budget-allocations-1641027-2020-01-28

Joshi, Manoj (2020): “A balance of forces: The very meaning of ‘victory’ and ‘defeat’ in a war has changed. Ask the Americans,” The Times of India, 1 February, https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/toi-edit-page/a-balance-of-forces-pms-claim-of-being-able-to-defeat-pakistan-within-ten-days-cannot-be-borne-out/

Kidwai, Khalid (2020): “Keynote Address and Discussion Session withLieutenant General (Retd) Khalid Kidwai, Advisor,National Command Authority; and formerDirector-General, Strategic Plans Division, Pakistan,” London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 6 February, https://www.iiss.org/events/2020/02/7th-iiss-and-ciss-south-asian-strategic-stability-workshop

Krepon, Martin (2018): “Escalating to de-escalate,” Arms Control Wonk, https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1204755/escalating-to-de-escalate/

Lovenduski, NS et al (2020): “The Potential Impact of Nuclear Conflict on Ocean Acidification,” Geophysical Research Letters, Volume47, Issue3.

Ministry of External Affairs (2020): “Official Spokesperson's response to a media query regarding comments made by UNSG in Islamabad,” 16 February, https://mea.gov.in/response-to-queries.htm?dtl/32398/Official_Spokespersons_response_to_a_media_query_regarding_comments_made_by_UNSG_in_Islamabad

Modi, Narendra (2020): “PM’s speech at National Cadet Corps rally,” 28 January, https://www.pmindia.gov.in/en/news_updates/pms-speech-at-national-cadet-corps-rally/?comment=disable&tag_term=pmspeech

Munich Security Report 2020 (2020): “Westlessness,” https://securityconference.org/assets/user_upload/MunichSecurityReport2020.pdf

Panag, HS (2019): “Narendra Modi govt wants a strong military, but its defence budget can’t guarantee that.” 14 February, https://theprint.in/opinion/narendra-modi-govt-wants-a-strong-military-but-its-defence-budget-cant-guarantee-that/192760/

Pandit, Rajat (2020): “Surgical strikes sent Pakistan a message, says Army chief,” The Times of India, 4 January, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/73090750.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

Toon, Owen B. et al., “Rapidly Expanding Nuclear Arsenals in Pakistan and India Portend Regional and Global Catastrophe,” Science Advances, Vol. 5, No. 10, 2019, https://advances.sciencemag.org /content/5/10/eaay5478

Unnithan, Sandeep (2020): “We have called Pakistan's nuclear bluff: Army chief General Manoj Mukund Naravane,” India Today, 4 January, https://www.indiatoday.in/mail-today/story/we-have-called-nuclear-bluff-of-pakistan-army-chief-general-manoj-mukund-naravane-1633816-2020-01-04

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https://www.dropbox.com/s/pzqy5wy3btp9cxm/ali%20book%20-%20doctrine%20puzzle.pdf?dl=0
India's doctrine puzzle: Limiting war in South Asia

https://books.google.co.in/books?id=zIubBAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

Preface
The genesis of this book was atop a canal obstacle in Punjab in 2006. I was then commanding a battalion that was deployed as exercise enemy, or the Nark force, in Exercise Sanghe Shakti. 1 Armoured Division of 2 Corps chose the canal site for the break in battle. It was fore ordained that they were to break out by first light. In effect, my unit was to be cut to pieces in a heavy breakthrough within three hours. I did not have much to do thereafter, and was able to witness the proceedings of the exercise as a bystander. Over the next four days the exercise timings were truncated to depict ten days or so. The strike corps ended up in its projection areas across the third obstacle, encompassing an airfield captured by a drop of a paratrooper force for subsistence and surge. I wondered as to what a nuclear armed enemy would make of all this. This experience prompted the question: Why has India gone in for an offensive conventional doctrine despite nuclearisation?
Ideally, the investment in nuclearisation should have made India secure. It was even advertised that now that both states, India and Pakistan, have the bomb, they could sit down and talk their differences through. Neither state has taken cue from this understanding. Instead, Pakistan launched Operation Badr in Kargil.Later,it went way past the Indian threshold of tolerance with the terror attack on the Parliament. India, for its part, has moved to a Limited War doctrine, dubbed colloquially as Cold Start. A counter-factual can be hazarded that in case 9/11 had not drawn the United States into the region, 26/11 would have taken place earlier and would not have witnessed a strategy of restraint by India. Given this offensive orientation by both states despite the nuclear backdrop, there is a case for believing that security is imperilled. There is, therefore, a need to investigate what impels offensive doctrines. Are these in response to threat perceptions? Do these originate in the body politic of the state? Or are these due to organisational compulsions?
But, first I needed to demonstrate that there has indeed been a change in India’s military doctrine. In the first chapter, I do an interpretive history since the 1971 War to show that there has been a movement in India’s strategic posture and in its military doctrine. The strategic posture has moved from defensive to offensive deterrence bordering on compellence, while the military doctrine has moved from defensive to offensive. This agenda-setting chapter also carries a description of the Limited War doctrine, which is proactive and offensive, and discusses the conventional nuclear interface.
Thereafter in an attempt to answer the three questions that I posed above, the book in the succeeding chapters tries to locate the drivers behind India’s conventional doctrine. The search has been located at the three levels of analysis: structural, unit (state) and organisational. The last level - individual level – though consequential for doctrine generation, has been left for future doctoral study when the memoirs and records of individuals are available. Since the records are scarce due to the stringent information policy, the study is largely based on information available in military journals and research done by the strategic community.
What was I looking for?
A lot of theoretical work connected with doctrines has been produced over the last two decades. This research material has helped to make my case study a theoretically-informed one. The well-known ‘realist theory’ provided the theoretical backdrop to examine the
hypothesis at the structural level. According to this theory, the anarchical international system prompts self-help on part of states. The states attempt to create and leverage power against threats in the environment through internal and external balancing. Since military capability is a significant element of national power, it is harnessed by formulating a doctrine. Therefore, doctrine formulation is a form of internal balancing done by the states. A doctrine lends coherence to military power.
However, realism looks at the system and not at the unit (state), while the doctrine process occurs within the state. Therefore, there is a need to look at the unit (state) too. The unit level may be examined with the help of the cultural theoretical lens. According to the Cultural Theory, imbalance of power may exist in a system. The interpretation of this imbalance by the state, whether it is seen as an opportunity or a threat, is important. In other words, domestic politics matters. How states make sense of the world, how the other state’s actions are interpreted and what states wish to do with the military instrument depends on the political culture arising in the domestic sphere. There are three variants of culture: political culture, strategic culture and organisational culture. Cultural theory maintains that strategic or political-military culture impacts the state’s doctrine. However, its influence is mediated by organisational culture of the military in question.
A look at organisational culture necessitates ‘looking into the box’ or at the organisational level. The three famous models of Graham Allison provide a conceptual handle at this level. The rational actor model involving reasoned responses to external stimuli in the form of threats is equivalent to the realist response studied at the structural level. Therefore, the organisational process models and the bureaucratic politics models remain at this level. The organisational process model posits that doctrine, being a mandate of the military, is something that the military would generate as part of discharging its social obligation. In the process, organisations cater for institutional interests such as budgets, role salience, prestige, autonomy etc. Militaries prefer offensive doctrines for these reasons. According to the bureaucratic politics model organisations compete with each other. Since the military is not a monolith, the doctrinal sphere becomes a battle space for bureaucratic fights. Doctrine, therefore, becomes a weapon and doctrine-making a strategy in this contest.
The hypotheses drawn from the theories – realism, cultural theory and organisation theory – were respectively salient at the structural, unit (state) and organisational levels. The dependent variable at each level was the doctrine. At the structural level, the threat perception was taken as the independent variable. The hypothesis at this level therefore was: The change in India’s military doctrine has been due to continuing external security threats. The independent variable at the unit level was strategic culture. Since the military as an organisation reacts to its environment through the prism of organisational culture, the organisational culture serves as an intervening variable. The hypothesis at the unit level,which studied the political factor, was: The change in India’s military doctrine owes to evolution of India’s strategic culture. Lastly, at the organisational level the independent variable was the institutional interest. The hypothesis was: The change in India’s military doctrine has been to preserve the military’s institutional interest.
What did I find?
The chronology places the Cold Start doctrine as emerging after Operation Parakram. As we know, India was unable to leverage its military might in real time.As a result, it had to settle for coercive diplomacy instead of compellence in the face of Pakistan’s proxy war in
Kashmir and its spread elsewhere. The doctrine was apparently cognizant of Pakistan’s nuclear thresholds and therefore, appeared as a suitable answer to India’s strategic predicament. Yet, when the time came to exercise the military option furnished by the doctrine, after 26/11, India did not do so. This was due to several reasons. Firstly, the Limited War doctrine lacked credibility on the question of nuclear thresholds. Secondly, the political complexion of the regime had changed in the interim from an NDA one, in which the doctrine was formulated, to the UPA one, which was expected to give the imprimatur to the doctrine but carefully refrained from doing so in both its avatars. This suggests that the structural explanation while true is only partially so. There are other issues that need to be looked at for an explanation. This has implications for realism in that its paradigm dominance is perhaps unwarranted.
Looking at the political factor at the unit level, the major aspect was the change in strategic culture over the last four decades. The ‘Indira doctrine’, with its emphasis on power, had displaced the Nehruvian world view. India through the 1990s had been challenged by the perspective, raised by Tanham, for instance, that it lacked a will to exert power. The rise of India’s economy and its middle class led to a greater push for strategic assertion as India left the difficult nineties behind. The NDA regime, inspired by cultural nationalism, had a self-image of being strong on defence, best demonstrated by Pokhran II. The influence on strategic culture had been towards greater assertion. Viewing these changes at the national level through the prism of its organisational culture, the military opportunistically moved towards an offensive doctrine. The organisational culture of the military has been informed by the warrior ethic and a strong conventional war fighting tendency.
Taking the unit and the organisation a dyad – i.e. state/organisation – the next chapter examines the influence of institutional interest or organisational compulsions. Since the army was considerably embarrassed by the Kargil intrusion and by its inability to get into a position to exert timely military power, it sought to compensate by formulating an offensive doctrine. This enables it autonomy from its civilian masters, provides it with an offensive option through which it can shape the battle field and legitimize the budgets for operationalisation of the doctrine, if necessary. The bureaucratic politics framework was very useful in understanding the Indian situation since the military is not only pitched against the civilian bureaucracy but is also split within. The doctrinal issue is not so much a turf war but, I believe, a genuine and valid disagreement on how war is to be approached by the Army and the Air Force. The doctrinal sphere is consequently very fertile.
My conclusions?
Firstly, doctrine generation is multidimensional and has its origin in multiple causes. This is useful in terms of expanding the focus, usually fixated on threat perception, to other factors at the other two understudied levels, such as domestic politics and institutional interest. Secondly, doctrinal innovation occurs when there is an impetus at the three levels simultaneously– structural, political and organisational. The three independent variables need to be active in case there is to be a movement in the doctrine. In other words, a threat needs to be dealt with doctrinal movement as well as an enabling environment at the domestic level in terms of an amenable political factor. At the organisational level, the element of institutional interest must also be active. This was the case in the turn to an offensive, proactive doctrine, dubbed ‘Cold Start’ since the turn of the century, the Pakistani threat had heightened, the strategic culture was assertive under the National Democratic Alliance regime, and, military self-interest laid emphasis on the continued relevance of conventional forces into the nuclear age.
So what?
The policy relevance of these findings is that the conundrum posed by the nuclear age has not been answered adequately. While the Cold Start doctrine provides a blueprint for limited war, there is currently no explicit doctrine for limited war. Secondly, since introduction of nuclear weapons into a conflict is a decision for the adversary to make, a nuclear war can yet occur. Therefore, there is a need to stretch the limited war definition and concept to include Limited Nuclear War. The nuclear doctrine currently advocates ‘massive’ punitive retaliation to create unacceptable damage. In the unmistakable equation of mutual assured destruction that the vertical proliferation resorted to by Pakistan has brought the situation to, this is not only genocidal but also suicidal. In effect, India needs to move towards limitation in both its conventional and nuclear doctrines.
What else?
The case study, by its very nature cannot be generalised. It was not designed to test the theories in terms of deriving hypothesis and testing these for validity in a comparative case study. The aim was not theoretically ambitious but limited to seeking an explanation to the puzzle. The finding is that theories can only partially claim to answer the complex phenomena observed in strategic studies. War is a social activity with multiple dimensions that cannot be explicated by a single theory. The case study, however, suggests that the cultural explanation has value. While a view has it that cultural realpolitik behaviour owes to socialization of states by the structural imperative, the reverse is possibly a truer depiction in that realpolitik behavior gives rise to the security dilemma that then forms the structural level environment for the state. This then leads to self-perpetuation and legitimises realism inspired behaviour. The finding suggests that states can choose to change the structural imperatives and this favours constructivist approaches.
Any last words?
My final and perhaps the most significant point is a policy feedback. If there is to be peace, then there has to be a mutually agreed stowing away of respective sticks by India and Pakistan. The book ends by suggesting a strategic dialogue towards this end. While a tenuous peace process is in place, the dialogue can bring about a convergence in strategic thinking. This can spread an appreciation of the sub-continent really being a single strategic space, crying out for a shared security approach. Deterrence being a false god, this is the only way to preserve us from its inevitable breakdown.
This is the message I pass on from a military exercise atop a canal obstacle somewhere in the western sector.

Acknowledgments

The book is based on my doctoral dissertation. I take this opportunity to thank the Jawaharlal Nehru University, the School of International Relations and the Center for International Politics, Disarmament and Organisation for permission to publish it as a book. I must thank the examiners for their comments that have enhanced my work. I regret I have not been able to accommodate some of their many meaningful insights, no doubt at the cost of the book.
Foremost among my many obligations is to acknowledge my debt to my supervisor, Professor Rajesh Rajagopalan. Without his encouragement, neither the dissertation nor the book would have seen the light of day. The strengths of the book owe to him.
The book has drawn on the work of several eminent scholars and military practitioners. It is based on many conversations I had with my colleagues, both in the military and in academic life. I thank all those who shared their ideas, in particular, generals VR Raghavan, Shamsher Mehta, Arjun Ray, Vijay Oberoi and Prakash Menon. Many of my dear friends cannot be mentioned by name but to them must go the credit for any sense in the book. I must also acknowledge that the works of the stalwarts in the field, evident from the references to this volume, have informed my thinking. I hasten to add that he responsibility for the inevitable shortcomings in the book is entirely mine!
I also would like to pay tribute foremost to late Maj Gen SC Sinha and Maj Gen D Bannerji for their abiding interest in and unstinting support for my academic pursuits. I pay my respects to my teacher at the National Defence Academy, Khadakvasla, late Mr. P.R. Patra, whose painstaking efforts made even cadets sleepy in class like me acquire an interest in the subject! I thank Dr. Kanti Bajpai for his guidance over the years; and late Mr. K Subrahmanyam and Lt Gen Satish Nambiar for their indulgence along the route. Mr. N.S. Sisodia, former Director General, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), New Delhi, generously permitted me to work on my dissertation while employed at the Institute. I thank the staff of the libraries at the IDSA, United Services Institution of India and the National Defence College for their ready assistance.
My gratitude also goes to my colleagues, students and staff at the Nelson Mandela Center for Peace and Conflict Resolution at Jamia Millia Islamia for their looking the other way while I moonlighted in getting this to print. Thanks to Radha Joshi for making the text readable!
My family has not only tolerated my inattention but sustained me over the years. The retirement abode of my parents has provided a ready refuge. The book would not have been completed but for Farah’s prodding, no doubt also so that we could get on with the rest of our lives! I thank Faiz for sparing the computer!
Finally, I pay homage to former Rashtrapati, Dr. Shankar Dayal Sharma, in whose service as Aide-de-Camp, I started out on this intellectual journey two decades back

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/indias-habituation-with-the-bomb-nuclear-learning-in-south-asia-9780190701390?cc=in&lang=en&

India’s nuclear doctrine: Stasis or dynamism?

India’s official nuclear doctrine, adopted by the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) on January 4, 2003, has an expansive intent of inflicting unacceptable retaliatory damage of levels characterized in the doctrine as ‘massive’ to any form of nuclear first use against India or its forces anywhere.[2]The doctrinal tenet in full is: ‘Nuclear retaliation to a first strike will be massive and designed to inflict unacceptable damage.’[3]The primary argument for this formulation is that India believes nuclear weapons are a ‘political instrument of deterrence.’[4]Admittedly, the intent to go ‘massive’ in retaliation should ordinarily deter. As against this, the critique has it that the threat of retaliation at massive levelslacks credibility,[5] particularly if the provocation for retaliation is of a lower order using tactical nuclear weapons (TNW). To buttress the critique, the usual illustration is intruding Indian forces being met by a Pakistani TNW attack. In light of Pakistan’s higher number of nuclear weapons, it could retaliate in kind. Critics have it that India would be hard put to follow through with its retaliatory intent as declared, as to do so would be disproportionate and escalatory.[6]In light of continuing India-Pakistan hostility, this is no longer an unlikely scenario. The critique therefore requires a plausible doctrinal answer.

However, there has been no change in the official nuclear doctrine of India over the past decade and half. This is puzzling, reflecting as it does either a deficit in nuclear learning or that even as India’s declaratory nuclear doctrine remains stagnant overtly and nuclear doctrinal change hasbeen kept outside the open domain.Nuclear ambiguity has overtaken India’s nuclear doctrinal glasnost of the turn of the century. In this chapter, nuclear opacity[7] notwithstanding, the finding is that India’s official nuclear doctrine of 2003 stands superseded by doctrinal innovation. There is apparentlya move towards a warfighting nuclear doctrine and posture, albeit one to cover the deterrence deficit identified. Since secrecy attends India’s operational doctrine,[8] a definitive answer is precluded. This is reason enough to interrogate India’s nuclear doctrine.

The chapter tries to answer the questions: Has there been a change in India’s nuclear doctrine? If not, why not? If it has changed, why has not India changed its declaratory nuclear doctrine? The chapter is laid out in two parts. The first part takes a look through a ‘levels of analysis’ framework.Kenneth Waltz posited the ‘levels of analyses’ in his doctoral thesis on the causes of war, published as, Man, the State and War.[9] He delineated three ‘images’: systemic or structural, dealing with the distribution of power among states; the nation-state or unit level; and lastly, that of the individual or decision maker. Following Graham Allison, this chapter posits an additional bureaucratic level between the unit and individual levels.

In the first part, a mini-case study on India’s ‘cold start’ doctrine – the army’s conventional war doctrine predicated on limited war theory[10]–demonstrates how change can be viewed through the levels of analysis framework. The following sections look atimpetus to doctrinal change at the structural, state and institutional levels. The first deals with the global and regional threat environment; the second covers the developments in political and strategic culture; and the institutional level covers turf wars and parochial organizational interests.

In the second part, the chapter returns to the mini-case study on India’s cold start doctrine with an intent to see what separates doctrinal innovation from stagnation. The finding is that where drivers are present at all three levels, doctrinal innovation results. Absent driver(s) at any level doctrinal stagnation results. For a look for drivers the duration since Pokhran II is divided into three periods: the National Democratic Alliance’s (NDA’s) two stints in power (1998-2004 and 2014 onwards) and of the United Alliance (UPA) period (2004-2014). In the UPA period, the strategy of restraint at the political level prevented the UPA from acknowledging the change in nuclear doctrine, even as a divergence emerged between the declaratory nuclear doctrine and operational nuclear doctrine. Whereas the NDA II’s initial willingness to review the declaratory nuclear doctrine suggested that it could have acknowledged this shift, in the event it has not done so for fear of drawing attention to its nuclear posture at a time when it is getting closer to the United States (US) and Japan. The need to own up to the change is also not critical since it can easily be analytically arrived at, that change has indeed taken place and the declaratory doctrine is history.

The chapter arrives at the conclusion that India’s declaratory nuclear doctrine is implausible. Acknowledging the shift in owning up to an operational nuclear doctrine at variance with its declaratory doctrine is the need of the hour. Persisting with the declaratory doctrine does nothing to add to Indian security under peacetime conditions when deterrence is in play or in nuclear conflict when nuclear use is contemplated. India would do well to depart from its policy of stasis on nuclear doctrine and acknowledge the dynamism of its operational nuclear doctrine. This would help with firming up nuclear risk prevention and reduction measures, necessary to emplace in peacetime some assurance of escalatory control and de-escalation in conflict, especially since the two sides – India and Pakistan – rightly appear to contemplate limited nuclear war as better than devastating their mutual homeland, the subcontinent.

Part I –From doctrinal transparency to ambiguity

India’s official nuclear doctrine adopted by the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) in January 2003[11] largely adopted the draft nuclear doctrine put out by the National Security Advisory Board (NSAB) in August 1999 (NSAB 1999). In its summation of India’s nuclear doctrine, the CCS press release collated eight doctrinal precepts. These are: credible minimum deterrent; No First Use (NFU); ‘massive’ retaliation; command and control arrangements; negative security assurance; possibility of a nuclear counter to a major attack by other weapons of mass destruction(chemical and biological); adherence to nuclear non-proliferation tenets; and advocacy for a nuclear weapons free world). Not all of these doctrinal elements need mention in a doctrine, such as for instance approach to non-proliferation and elimination of nuclear weapons. In the main, the key tenets are NFU and the scope of nuclear use, whether higher order attacks or lower order. Higher order is defined here as counter value and lower order is restricted to counter military and limited counter force targeting.[12] If retaliation is restricted to higher order nuclear use, then it is easier to maintain nuclear warhead numbers at a minimum.[13]

Change can be along any of the precepts: abandoning minimum in the minimum credible deterrent; distancing from NFU; shifting from higher order nuclear attacks to also contemplating lower order attacks; moving from a reflective command and control status to a high alert one; withdrawal of or caveating negative security guarantees; excluding non-nuclear weapons of mass destruction as triggers for nuclear retaliation; and leaving out nuclear policy tenets from doctrine, such as approach to nuclear non-proliferation and elimination of nuclear weapons.

Though there are also other directions along which India’s nuclear doctrine is potentially liable to change, specifically, the NFU[14]and arsenal size (minimal), this chapter limits its discussion to the levels of nuclear retaliation. These are currently pegged at ‘massive’ or higher order levels of nuclear attack. India believes nuclear weapons are political weapons and not for military use. Its nuclear doctrine is thus based on higher order nuclear retaliation, usually depicted as city busting. This puts a premium on the deterrence function of its nuclear arsenal. It retains the formulation of ‘massive’ retaliatory intent in its nuclear doctrine.

The levels of analysis framework

An illustrative case: Cold Start

Doctrine development, and in turn doctrinal change, is not confined to the military sphere. Doctrine is the foundation of decisions ranging from acquisitions of assets to deployment and employment of military resources. Consequently, to view impulses to doctrinal change, a look through the levels of analysis framework bears recompense. An illustration is in order.

The Indian army’s conventional war doctrine underwent a shift over this century. The conventional war doctrine dates to the inability of India’s strike corps to rise to the occasion when confronted with mobilization in wake of the terror attack on India’s parliament in December 2001.[15] Their slowness off-the-blocks led to rethinking on readiness and an offensive addition to the conventional punch. The shift is better known colloquially as ‘Cold Start’, otherwise called ‘proactive operations’ doctrine. After a long while, ownership of the doctrine was admitted to by the Indian army chief, General Bipin Rawat, early in his tenure.[16]

In the earlier land warfare doctrine the role of strike corps was one of undertaking countervailing deployments and counteroffensives. This was predicated on the Pakistanis being proactive in taking to the offensiveas part of their doctrine of offensive defence.[17] However, the terror attack on parliament required India to be proactive in order todeter and suitably retaliate to Pakistani pro-activism at the sub-conventional level. The shift itself involved a transformation of ‘holding’ corps in a defensive, border-holding, role to ‘pivot’ corps, with offensive assets. Additionally, the strike corps would deploy ‘integrated battle groups’ to launch operations in an earlier timeframe. These are to create conditions for strike corps coup-de-main operations.[18] This shift can be explained by a look through the levels of analysis framework.[19]

Over the nineties, at the structural level, India’s threat perception was complicated by the resort to proxy war and terrorism by Pakistan. This was attributed to an ossification in India’s conventional deterrence. India therefore needed to refurbish its conventional deterrence.[20] This it proceeded to do by building in, a readiness in itsoffensive formations for conventional retaliation in real time. At the next level is the ‘unit’ level. The principal movement at this level has been in India’s politics, the shift towards the right side of the political spectrum brought about by rise of cultural nationalism, espoused by India’s leading conservative party, the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP). The effect on national security has been in building in a turn to self-assertion - if not aggression - in strategic culture.[21]This contrasts with the earlier question on whether India had a strategic culture at all.[22] The nuclear tests at Pokhran in May 1998 are an example. The shift to cold start is an outcome of the hardening in strategic culture.

Peering within the ‘box’, at the institutional level is the military itself. The army had to come up with a doctrinal product of its own in face of doctrinal effervescence in the other two services. The air force had got off the doctrinal blocks early with its doctrine in the mid-nineties. The navy was also readying to launch a maritime doctrine. Affected by discussion on continuing utility of military force in the nuclear age, the army quickly staked out its role in conflict. Within the army, the extensive Kashmir engagement had brought to fore the infantry lobby riding on the counter insurgency commitment. The mechanized forces used the opportunity of Operation Parakram – the mobilization in wake of the attack on the parliament – to break out of their relegation by reworking the conventional doctrine.

Peering through the framework

This brief survey of change in Indian army’s conventional doctrine indicates scope for a similar analysis in relation to its nuclear doctrine. Upfront, the nuclear doctrine has not changed. However, the doctrinal debate has grappled with the challenge posed by Pakistani acquisition and advertisement of a TNW capability,[23] it is inconceivable that the change and the debate has not influenced nuclear doctrine. This section attempts to discern if and to what extent has nuclear doctrine been affected.

The structural level

When India went overtly nuclear in 1998 it had cited the nuclear asymmetry with China and Chinese nexus with Pakistan as informing its decision. It has attempted to link its nuclear capability to the threat from China,[24] as part of its de-hyphenation from Pakistan. However, adversarial relations with Pakistan ensure that Pakistan cannot be wished away. This is especially so because Pakistan has not abjured from first use of nuclear weapons and India’s reliance on conventional retaliation for deterring a sub-conventional threat by Pakistan.

Since both states abide by NFU, the significance of nuclear weapons in the India-China equation stands considerably receded. The two have a quarter-century long experience of managing their relationship through confidence building measures and agreements on managing the 4000 km long border. Their mutual stand down from a potential confrontation at Doklam, on the tri-junction of the India-China-Bhutan border, is a case in point.[25] Not a single soldier has died on either side defending the border nor has a shot been fired either in panic or fear or anger, over the past fifty years since 1967, their last military confrontation was close to Doklam, at Nathula.

This is not the case with the India-Pakistan relationship. The two have not only fought a border war on the Kargil heights in 1999, but have been engaged in sub-conventional operations along the Line of Control (LC);within Kashmir;and, if Pakistani allegations are to be believed, in proxy wars within Afghanistan and in Pakistan. India stepped up its sub-conventional operations with the launch of trans-LC ‘surgical strikes’,responding to a terror attack in its Uri sector in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K).[26]For its part, Pakistan denied the raids took place, reducing the onus on it to retaliate.[27] The rocking of the unwritten ceasefire agreement along the LC that dates to 2003 is indicative of the escalatory dangers. These have been subsumed lately in India’s ‘two front war’ formulation, a conflict in which India sees itself hemmed in byits two collusive adversaries.[28]

The usual scenario has a trajectory of events, sparked-off by a terror attack. Indiais depicted as launching cold start. Pakistan, fearing worse could follow, resorts to TNW(s). India’s nuclear doctrine posits massive nuclear retaliation. Pakistan,having taken care to build up its nuclear arsenal into three digits, appears to have enough nuclear ordnance to hurl back.To Khalid Kidwai, a former head of Pakistan’s Strategic Plans Division, this implies that South Asia is in its era of mutual assured destruction (MAD).[29]The declaratory doctrine does not provide an adequate answer to this critique.[30]Some strategists from the military school argue that this can be done by continuing with delivering unacceptable damage.[31] Others have argued that going in for unacceptable damage may lead to self-deterrence in a situation of MAD.[32]

One answer, attempted by the head of the National Security Advisory Board in 2013, was in insisting on the declaratory doctrine, arguing that there is no guarantee, the escalation would not reach such levels eventually.[33]A former chief of India’s Strategic Forces Command(SFC) also favours status quo.[34]In a recent book of reminiscences, former National Security Adviser, Shivshankar Menon, informs that India contemplated resort to first strike levels ofattack in case of Pakistani resort to TNW, and even when readying to do so in a pre-emptive mode.[35]This suggests two lines of Indian response: status quo and change. There is a third possibility, of change in terms of proportionate response.[36] A TNW attack could be met with requisite levels of retaliation, quid pro quo or quid pro quo plus.[37]

Of the three options, the first two have an underside. Retaliating massively or with first strike imply a large arsenal, in order to ensure against like counter strike by Pakistan. The numbers of Indian warheads are marginally less than those of Pakistan.[38] India is not markedly ahead of Pakistan in delivery capability in terms of missiles. It has advantages in air delivery and is working on a missile defence shield of dubitable efficacy.[39] Thus,even first strike levels of nuclear ordnance cannot prevent a Pakistani counter of unacceptable proportions, enough to invoke self-deterrence in regard tohigher order nuclear retaliation. This would not be the case in relation to the third option: proportionate response. Having detonated three sub-kiloton warheads of the five explosions during Pokhran II, India has the warheads, and in its air vectors, the delivery capability. The option preserves against default escalation and, on that count, is credible.

India is hard put to acknowledge this logic since it provides Pakistan a window to go for nuclear first use with an assurance against escalation, debilitating Indian nuclear deterrence. The nuclear cloud putspaid to India’s conventional operations, depriving India of its conventional advantage. India would also be unable to deter Pakistanat the sub-conventional level. Thus, Indian deterrence would suffer across the three levels of conflict: nuclear, conventional and sub-conventional. India requires denying Pakistan any sense of impunity. At the structural level, the unwillingness to incentivize Pakistani TNW use accounts for India’s reticence in acknowledging doctrinal change.

The structural explanation intermeshes with the political level (more in the following section). Besides, induction of TNW into the arsenal negates the ‘minimum’tenet.[40]Since it has two nuclear armed adversaries to cater for, one reckoninghas it that India needs 600 strategic nuclear weapons and 300 TNWs.[41]The elasticity is permitted by India’s argument that weapons numbers are contingent on those of its two adversaries. Paying lip service to minimum is required for political reasons to depict India as a responsible nuclear power not engaging in an arms race. Therefore, even if India has the wherewithal for proportionate response for structural reasons, it cannot own up to this for political reasons at the next level.

The political level

Over the past thirty years the primary political shift in India has been towards the right side of the political spectrum. The conservative party, the BJP, representing cultural nationalism,[42] strode onto the national stage, beginning with the demolition of the Babri Masjid in the early nineties. It has since led the coalition in power between 1998 and 2004 and is currently the ruling party with a majority in parliament, a first for some three decades. In its first stint in power in 1996 - that lasted for 13 days - it had authorized the nuclear tests. When in power next at the head of the NDA coalition, it conducted the nuclear tests in May 1998. The nuclear doctrine had NDA imprimatur.[43] It was also in the BJP-led NDA term in 1998-2004 that the cold start doctrine was conceptualized, though released early in the tenure of its successor UPA government. Other influences such as steady economic growth, increasing political salience of the middle class and influence of the influential diaspora have also been incidental.

These factors haveaffected India’s strategic culture. Under their cumulative influence, Indian strategic culture has shifted from being defensive and reactive to self-regarding assertion. India’s national power indices have grown in the period. Its military investment has steadily increased, with itsbudget expanding on higher growth rates. Correspondingly,India’s strategic doctrine – approach to the use of force – has shifted towards the offensive segment, with strategic doctrine imagined as located along an appeasing-defensive-deterrent, offensive-compellence continuum.

The term ‘massive’ in the doctrine was a step ahead of the formulation in the draft nuclear doctrine that restricted such retaliation to being of sufficient levels to cause unacceptable damage.[44]The official doctrine, adopted in January 2003 in the immediate wake of ending of Operation Parakram, incorporated the term for political messaging directed at Pakistan. An Indian analyst suggests its political origin and political utility,[45] implying that it isnot quite a strategic yardstick.

With a self-image of a regional power and an aspiring great power, India does not prefer to be boxed in with Pakistan into South Asian confines. Pakistan’s going in for TNWs implies asymmetric escalation.[46] This is to extend nuclear deterrence to cover the conventional level, as part of ‘full spectrum deterrence’.[47] India in rebound projects disdain, relying instead on escalatory nuclear retaliation. It has simultaneously taken care to configure its conventional doctrine to be limited war compliant, cognizant of possible nuclear thresholds. This would put the onus of nuclear escalation onto Pakistan, seemingly legitimizing an Indian counter strike of an overwhelming order. India believes it would survive owing to its size, governmental reach and national coherence. Pakistan lacks depth and taking out a few cities could set it back inordinately.[48]

India hopes to release itself from Pakistani shackles thus, but disregards the vulnerability of India’s economic rise to counter retaliation. India gambles on its evolving missile shield, at a minimum to cover its economic and political hub centers, Mumbai and Delhi respectively. To cope with a nuclear exchange aftermath, it also has the National Disaster Response Force, a vast central police and a paramilitary reserve, to include the army’s Rashtriya Rifles and Assam Rifles. This provides the reassurance to India to continue with an unchanged nuclear doctrine, in seeming disregard to the advent of MAD.

As regards China, India has over the past decade been conventionally minded, creating the border infrastructure and raising mountain divisions. Two mountain divisions in a defensive role and one mountain strike corps of two divisions and armoured brigades[49] are in place. It is not reliant on nuclear weapons.But it needs to stare down China’s Rocket Forces, elements of which are deployed close to India’s heartland, on the Tibetan plateau. India is ensuring a second strikecapability based on nuclear armed submarines, long range missiles,multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles, and thermonuclear warheads.[50]In the context of India’s nuclear direction of holding Chinese cities on its eastern seaboard hostage, ‘massive’ is not inapt. It has political dividend in enabling India to play in its preferredleague, equated with China.

Though, the nuclear doctrine dates to the last NDA stint in government, the continuity in its nuclear doctrine through the UPA period, calls for an explanation. The UPA was apprehensive of being outflanked by the BJP on security issues. It felt vulnerable to BJP’s charge of being ‘soft’ on security and - unwilling to pay an electoral price for this - was continually looking over its shoulder on security issues. Under the UPA, the military firmed up the cold start doctrine through successive large scale military exercises. Riding on a high Gross Domestic Product, the defence budget expanded, enabling acquisitions to operationalize the doctrine such as filling of voids in night fighting capability of mechanized forces. Even so, the UPA was unable to follow through with cold start when faced with the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks.[51] The reason was that the makeover was not quite complete.

On the nuclear doctrinal front, the UPA weighed in for declaratory continuity, keeping a lid on the military’s thrust for operationalization. Even so, India’s SFC evolved on its watch. Its successive chiefs on demitting office have been voluble on the direction of the military deterrent.[52] In its second five years, the UPA IIreeled from political setbacks. Though the Pakistanis demonstrated their TNW capability[53] the government did not undertake a review. The thinking within the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS)was voiced by Shyam Saran and Shivshankar Menon.[54] The Naresh Chandra Task Force deliberations - did not cover the nuclear gamut,[55] eventhough Naresh Chandra, a former bureaucrat, was intimately associated with the development of India’s nuclear deterrent. The task force did not go beyond recommending a permanent chairman for the chiefs of staff committee, the military superior of the head of the SFC.[56]Since the National Security Adviser (NSA) is also in the reporting line and is charged with the operational side as head of the executive council of the National Security Council, it is unclear if the military reporting channel of the SFC is only for administrative matters. The last nuclear related initiative of the Manmohan Singh government was a proposal for an international norm on NFU.[57] The internal political angle to this is that it was a last-ditch attempt to bolster the NFU under threat from within Indian strategic community.[58] In the political context of 2014 it was feared that the NDA could return to power and had an agenda to review India’s nuclear doctrine, beginning with jettisoning NFU.

As apprehended the NDA did return to power, promising a doctrinal change. The BJP manifesto for the 2014 elections referred to the BJP intent to review the nuclear doctrine. In the event, the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, when on the campaign trail, put a lid on the controversy. He feared it would impact the BJP’s developmental plank,[59] opining that the nuclear ‘cultural inheritance’ would hold. The aim was to reassure prospective economic partners in development and strategic partners such as Japan and the US. Consequently, India retains its official nuclear doctrine despite developments in the strategic environment and nuclear weapons field that suggest an operational nuclear doctrine could well be different.

The institutional level

There are three significant lobbies at play: the scientific enclave; the national security bureaucracy and the military. Political decision makers are notable for their absence;[60] the hurly burly of Indian politics keeping them away for most part and their interests seldom including national security. The bureaucrats see their role as balancers and facilitators. It is not known to what extent the prickly relationship between the lobbies has been ironed out with the evolution of the national security bureaucracy.

The scientific lobby is required to furnish the technology for operationalising the doctrine. Between the two possible demands on it – conferring a capability for inflicting unacceptable damage versus enabling warfighting at lower order levels of nuclear exchanges – the scientific lobby may find the former easier to deliver. The latter involves intricacy in command and control; miniaturization; and multiple delivery means including short range missiles and air power. This is alongside a capability for higher order exchanges. Consequently, the scientific lobby is engaged with every dimension of nuclear weapons related technology.[61] The level of its grasp over each is however debatable since it is often criticized for promising more than it delivers.[62] Its concern with ‘turf’ springs from prospects of empire building; increased budgets; a relative salience in decision making; access to decision makers; and engagement with emerging technologies. Externally, technology demonstrators help politically burnishing India’s great power aspirations, and, internally bring political dividends for technologists in terms of bureaucratic salience. An infamous instance is in its claim that one of the Pokhran II tests was of the hydrogen bomb, revealed later to be a fizzle.[63]

There is also a controller-custodian divergence in the Indian system,[64] in which, while the custodian is the military, the controller is civilian. The technologists would prefer the de-mated format of Indian readiness, with the warheads kept separate from delivery systems. This suggests that the scientific lobby would be in favour of stasis in nuclear doctrine, even as it forges ahead with operationalisation of a variegated nuclear capability. This plausibly accounts for continuity in declaratory doctrine and, alongside, caters for the possibility of a divergence in operational doctrine.

For its part, the military would prefer operationalisation of a doctrine cognizant of the conventional dimension and insists on effectiveness of the weapon systems.[65]Civil-military relations have affected the pace of operationalisation of India’s nuclear deterrent by keeping the military out of the loop.[66]The military’s conventional role impacts nuclearisation by way of two connotations. One is to thrust upwards the low nuclear threshold projected by Pakistan so as to create the space for conventional retribution. The second is the military’s push for operationalisation of the deterrent and variegation of the nuclear capability is largely to provide options for the decision maker.[67] Scope for declaratory doctrine being distinct from operational doctrine exists. Absence of change in the declaratory doctrine does not imply operational status-quo.

Bureaucratic politics can be expected in the national security establishment vested with nuclear thinking. The pulls and pressures of institutions in the nuclear field require arbitration, enabling bureaucratic intervention, if not usurpation of the field. Bureaucrats self-selecting to be national security minders have carved out a significant role,intervening between the technologists and the military on the one hand and the political level on the other. Their mastery of governmental processes, in particular financing of projects, accounts for their power. The influence of the bureaucrats is non-trivial. An illustration of their being at the apex of the policy loop is the case of the national security adviser cum principal secretary, Brajesh Mishra, attempting to adjudicate on the controversy within the scientific community on whether the hydrogen bomb test was a dud.[68]K Subrahmanyam, a bureaucrat, who had self-selected to study national security issues in the sixties and the nuclear aspect in particular was the head of the NSAB which drafted the 1999 nuclear doctrine.

The national security bureaucrats then at the helm of the NSCS included the controversial term ‘massive’. Since a change would imply reversion to the 1999 formulation and amount to an acknowledgement of a gaffe, there is an incentive to stick with the phrase. Also, most of the people working on nuclear doctrine have been influenced by Subrahmanyam, since he was the long standing doyen of the strategic community. Subrahmanyam was for counter value targeting in order to ensure that numbers remained at a minimum and to accentuate the political aspect. The inflection ‘massive’ appearsan overenthusiasm, meant for overawing Pakistan.

Such errors recur too often for comfort that deterrence is in safe hands.[69]‘Massive’ retaliation is promised in response to ‘first strike’. The drafters apparently meant ‘first use’, not ‘first strike’.[70] ‘Massive’ is itself a misapplied lift from the US doctrine of early cold war vintage, massive retaliation. While India wishes others to believe its NFU pledge, in the draft nuclear doctrine, NFU was qualified by, and confused with, the negative security guarantee.[71] NFU was not taken as applicable for states aligned to the state that resorted to nuclear first use. This phrasing was deleted from the 2003 official doctrine.

Nevertheless, confusion between NFU and negative security guarantees continued. The NFU is a guarantee to states with nuclear capability and the ability to resort to nuclear first use should they so choose. On the other hand, negative security guarantees are applicable to non-nuclear states. To the NFU policy, the official doctrine quite unnecessarily added: ‘Non-use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states.’ Further, it ended up introducing another caveat to its NFU pledge, this time over major attack by the other two weapons of mass destruction.At the golden jubilee of theNational Defence College in 2010, the otherwise erudite NSA, Shivshankar Menon, made a gratuitous error in referring to NFU as, ‘no first use against non-nuclear weapon states’.[72]

A self-awareness perhaps accounts for lack of bureaucratic confidence in taking doctrinal thinking further. This explains why the doctrinal field at the conventional level is left wholly to the military. The joint doctrine of the armed forces, released in April 2017, also appears to be a unilateral work of the military.[73] By staying out, of what they consider military turf at the conventional level, the bureaucrats have appropriated the nuclear level and kept the military out. This is reinforced by the well-known antipathy between the bureaucrats and the brass.[74] The bureaucrats would unlikely weigh-in easily in favour of operationalisation that gives the military control and, with it, greater institutional power.

Even in case of operationalisation, the chain of command continues to vest with the bureaucrats. Militaries report to elected civilian heads, not to bureaucrats. The current command and control arrangement has the military head of the SFC reporting to both the NSA and the Chairman Chiefs of Staff Committee (COSC). The latter is double-hatted as the head of his service and, privileging his service, ordinarily has little time for his additional role.[75] There is no support staff within the Headquarters Integrated Defence Staff - that serve the COSC - having a nuclear decision-making support role. The headquarters SFC cannot substitute for this since it would amount to writing out their own orders. In contrast, the NSA has a strategic and defence division in the NSCS for support. Thus, an inexplicable situation arises in which the uniformed SFC ends up taking his primary cue not from his uniformed superior, the Chairman COSC, but from the NSA, a bureaucrat with histenure co-extensive with that of the prime ministerwho appoints him.[76]

Any doctrinal shift towards proportionate response would involve a greater military engagement with the conflict strategy and, in turn, nuclear strategy. This would entail reworking the command and control arrangements for greater inclusivity of the military.[77] The war strategy, military strategy and the nuclear strategy need being intertwined. This perhaps accounts for a command and control arrangement unsustainable in organizational theory and military culture. Declaratory stasis therefore overshadows the dynamism in operational nuclear doctrine.

Part II – Innovation versus stagnation

Explaining doctrinal change

The illustration of cold start in the last part brings out thatfactors for change (or status quo)in India’s nuclear doctrine can be located at all three levels. It can be said that the primary impetus is difficult to discern. Instead, factors at all three levels appear complementary and responsible for doctrinal change or otherwise. To find out the relative salience of the factors, a reversion to the mini-case study on cold start is in order. 

Cold startand drivers of doctrinal change

The antecedents of the cold start doctrine can be traced to the 1971 War. The duration elapsed since then can be divided as follows. First is the period of operation of the ‘Indira doctrine’that includes the regimes of Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi; second is the coalition governments of the nineties; third is the onset of cultural nationalism in the NDA I period; fourth, the UPA decade; and finally the ongoing NDA II period. The periods are contrasted in respect of innovation and vice-versa in doctrinal thinking in the conventional sphere.

The period of the Indira doctrine – India’s Monroe doctrine - was one of doctrinal innovation. The army shifted to mechanization. The second period,covering the nineties,witnessed India being bogged down in counter insurgency operations, resulting in ossification of its conventional deterrent based on unwieldy strike corps. The following period - NDA I - was one of doctrinal innovation in India forging a limited war doctrine. In the UPA period, doctrinal dissonance prevailed, since the military continued down the cold start path, putting it at odds with the strategic doctrine of strategic restraint. The NDA II period is one of doctrinal innovation, with the army taking public ownership of cold start and introducing aggression such as trans-LC surgical strikes.

In periods of doctrinal innovation, it is seen that factors at the three levels – structural, political and organizational – are in operation. In the Indira-Rajiv period, at the structural level,the twinned nuclear and sub-conventional threat from Pakistan, led to India leveraging its conventional advantage through a shift to mechanisation. The Indira doctrine shifted Indian strategic culture away from Nehruvianism of the preceding era. The Pokhran I nuclear test; viewing the Indian Ocean as an Indian lake; intervention in Sri Lanka, etc. are expressions, and evidence, of this.Organisational impetus to doctrinal change was provided by the dynamism injected by the likes of the thinking general, K. Sundarji.[78]

Likewise, in the period of innovation under the NDA I, drivers at the three levels can be seen at work and in sync. At the structural level, the threat from Pakistan peaked in the Kargil War and terrorist provocation under nuclear conditions thereafter. At the political level, strategic culture was impacted by changes in politics brought on by mainstreaming of cultural nationalism. At the organizational level, coping with the new nuclear reality and stepped-up inter-Services competition over changes in the character of war brought on by the Revolution in Military Affairs, led to articulation of doctrines by all three services.

Conversely, doctrinal stagnation is a product of lack of impetus at any level – structural, political or organizational. For instance, if there is lack of threat, there is little incentive to innovate. At the political level, the strategic culture must be receptive to change. This may not be so in case of weak polities. At organizational level, stagnation can result from complacency, lack of budgets, concentration in non-core areas and absence of doctrinal entrepreneurs.

In the case of India, in the two periods – the coalition era of the nineties and the UPA decade – there was a lack of a driver at some levels. In the nineties, the political level exhibited a deficit in political cohesion, while at the organizational levelthe army privileged a counter insurgency focus. This led to doctrinal stasis. In the nineties, forceful articulation of a critique on India’s lack of strategic culture was witnessed giving rise to an aggressive inflection in strategic culture over the succeeding NDA I period. In the second instance of doctrinal stagnation –the UPA decade - the threat at the structural level was dormant. India was engaged in the composite dialogue and there was a ‘healing touch’operational in J&K. At the political level, the inflexion of cultural nationalism accounting for aggression in strategic culture was reined in, by a strategic doctrine of strategic restraint. At the organizational level, while cold start firmed in, it remained without imprimatur and unacknowledged. The survey above suggests that in case drivers are deficient or absent at any one or more of the three levels, doctrinal stagnation results.

The nuclear doctrine: Innovation or stagnation?

As with cold start above, a periodization for examining nuclear doctrine can be briefly done beginning with India’s nuclear quest dating to the mid-sixties. This line of inquiry is in the tradition of Scott Sagan’s work. Scott Sagan identified three ‘models’ as to why states build or refrain from nuclear weapons: the ‘security’ model is self-explanatory, and is useful as justification or rationalization; the ‘domestic politics’ model, in which nuclear weapons are tools used to advance parochial political and bureaucratic interests; and the ‘norms’ model, in which pursuit of the nuclear program is an important symbol of a state’s modernity and identity.[79]Sagan’s first – security - model is located at the structural level; his second – domestic politics –encompasses the political and organizational level, rooted as it is in political culture and bureaucratic politics; and the third – the norms model – is equivalent to the political level.

The Chinese nuclear test in October 1964 concentrated minds and commentary on whether India could and should go nuclear.[80] The next highpoint is in 1974 when in wake of the Pokhran I nuclear test, the debate centered on whether India should go nuclear.[81] The debate continued in the late eighties informed by reported developments in relation to Pakistani acquisition of nuclear weapons.[82]The discourse was not only on advisability ofgoing nuclear, but also reflected on a putative nuclear doctrine predicated on a small nuclear arsenal. Naturally, in light of low numbers of warheads and limited technology of delivery, the doctrine was predicated on counter value targeting.India’s political aversion to nuclear weapons and conventional advantages led to NFU acquiring the status as a doctrinal pillar in this incipient nuclear doctrinal thinking.

In the early part of NDA I, Pokhran IIcompelled the articulation of a doctrine. The Kargil War impelled its articulation by the Nuclear Doctrine-drafting Group of the NSAB in 1999 that was in 2003 adopted by the government. Though the driver of India’s nuclearization was projected as the long term threat from China, the key factor at the structural level was the threat from Pakistan. Pakistan had taken recourse to proxy war under cover of its going nuclear in late eighties. India’s nuclear breakout was to reposition India as an indubitable power with nuclear weapons, shaking it away from its earlier position of non-weaponized ‘recessed deterrence’, a term its votary in the period, Jasjit Singh, used to rationalize against going overtly nuclear.[83] The NFU was privileged to project India as a reluctant nuclear adherent and, in light of the NFUa ‘retaliation only’ strategy was predicated on higher order targeting. The heightening of the Pakistani threat over the NDA term - that witnessed a near year-long standoff with Pakistan with the military fully mobilized - led to a hardening of the promise of higher order nuclear retaliation reflected in the term, massive. Implicit was a preference for a ‘minimum’ deterrent, reliant on a small nuclear arsenal,in keeping with India’s dismissive attitude to cold war nuclear theology and its characteristic, the arms race. The political level witnessed the advent of cultural nationalism into political respectability, impacting in the form of an assertive strategic culture. At the organizational level, the three services were keenly positioning for custody of the nuclear deterrent. The 2003 doctrine empowered the military to raise the SFC and gain joint control over the nuclear assetswith the technologists.

The UPA years were of continuity. At the structural level, there was an opening to Pakistan,a legacy of the NDA I period. The UPA was also lobbying for a nuclear deal with the US and wanting to get into the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group. This necessitated being reticent and not drawing attention to nuclear developments. At the organizational level, there was considerable development in regard to the NSCS and the SFC, and, likewise, on the technological front. The strategic doctrine of restraint was the tool used to police the two. Prodded by India’s continuing firming up of the cold start doctrine, Pakistan went on to introduce TNW into its arsenal. Though this put India’s declaratory doctrine under scan and nuclear operationalization enabled a shift, the UPA did not budge. Karnad characterizes this as ‘confusion’ and the government ‘seriously conflicted’ between idealism and strategic imperatives.[84]

The NDA II period has seen the structural level factor - threat perception - resurface with a dive in India-Pakistan relations. The political level has witnessed the ‘Doval doctrine’, named after the NSA, with strategic assertion at its core.[85]At the organizational level, the military has been at the forefront with public articulation of national concerns such as the army chief’s ‘two and half front war’ formulation.[86] In short, the dynamism in the drivers at the three levels suggests a fertile period for doctrinal innovation. However, that the declaratory nuclear doctrine remains static needs explaining. This can be attributed to Mr. Modi, then prime ministerial candidate, putting a lid on the thrust in the strategic discourse for a change in nuclear doctrine calling it a ‘cultural inheritance’.[87] The thrustline has mainly been on rethinking NFU.[88] The doctrinal reticence regarding arsenal variegation needs an accounting.

The brakes are applied at the political level. India wishes to be in the big league. The global power equations are witnessing a tryst between a hyper-power, the US, and an emerging power, China. India is leaning towards the US, given its proximity with China and the border dispute. Wary of provoking Chinese counter containment, India is nevertheless in strategic relationships with balancing powers, the US and Japan. Neither wishes to see India proactive on the nuclear front, doctrinally. India also does not want its nuclear doctrine to be seen as responsive to Pakistani provocations, preferring declaratory continuity to obfuscate over the changed reality. Therefore, India’s reticence cannot be read as doctrinal stagnation. The stasis depicted by declaratory doctrine is to serve as fig leaf for closed-domain doctrinal innovation.

Conclusion

India’s tryst with nuclear doctrine started off on the right note. Transparency was the watchword, the deterrence value being in the communication of a determination and intent to the adversaries. India was also under pressure to indicate its position on nuclear weapons use after it went nuclear in May 1998. By coming out with a doctrine predicated on NFU and assured retaliation, India hoped to put Pakistan on the back foot. Pakistan wanted to extend its nuclear cover to the conventional level and could not match India’s NFU. In the event, Pakistan chose nuclear ambiguity, preferring not to state its doctrine. From its doctrine related pronouncements and technology developments,Pakistan has a first use doctrine and a low threshold. This has complicated India’s declaratory nuclear doctrine in that it cannot credibly continue to project that it would retaliate with higher order strikes to any form of nuclear first use against it. Despite this conundrum, India has chosen to stick with its declaratory doctrine. Its technological developments suggest that it has other options. This brings to fore the possibility that even if declaratory nuclear doctrine is unchanged, the operational nuclear doctrine diverges.

This chapter has shown that there are drivers for change and also that there are present factors favouring retention of declaratory doctrine, but only as a cover for such change. At the structural level, India wishes to use its conventional advantage. The best cover for this is not an incredible declaratory doctrine, but an operational doctrine countenancing flexibility. The political level cannot but be cognizant of the MAD situation prevailing in the subcontinent. Consequently, self-deterrence will stay the nuclear hand. At the organizational level, the technological developments have expanded retaliation options. The conclusion here is that India’s declaratory doctrine is no longer applicable. India has a different operational doctrine that it must own up to.

Nuclear opacity provides cover but not security. The gains of transparency have been made in projecting India as a responsible nuclear power. It has not forced Pakistan to follow suit with adoption of an overt nuclear doctrine of its own. Ambiguity has a deterrent function in that Pakistan cannot be sure of India’s nuclear actions. The constant sniping at NFU within India and indication that India even considered first strike as an option informs of Indian options kept open. Pakistan’s nuclear stance, based on TNW, is thus put on notice. It enables space to India for its cold start operations. In so far as these deter sub-conventional level adventurism by Pakistan – visible in the absence of mega terror attacks for the past decade –the doctrinal shift is strategically sustainable.

However, since terror can yet act as trigger for eventual nuclear exchange(s), the two sides remain insecure. The new nuclear doctrine must acknowledge the MAD circumstance. Security entails doctrinal exchanges and creation of a nuclear conflict management mechanism. The mandate would be to enable mutual escalation control and de-escalation in case of a conflict gone nuclear. The first step towards this is for India to jettison its declaratory doctrine. Its replacement must enable entering into a tacit arrangement with Pakistan that can bring about immediate nuclear exchange termination and early conflict termination.

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[1]The author is grateful to a former colleague for comments on the draft of this chapter. 

[2]Prime Minister’s Office, ‘Cabinet Committee on Security Reviews Progress in Operationalizing India’s Nuclear Doctrine’, 2003, Accessed August 8, 2017. http://pib.nic.in/archieve/lreleng/lyr2003/rjan2003/04012003/r040120033.html

[3]Ibid.

[4]Manpreet Sethi,Nuclear Strategy: India’s March Towards Credible Deterrence,Knowledge World, New Delhi, 2009, p. 126.

[5]Sethi, 2009, xxii, p. 125.

[6]Ali Ahmed,India’s Doctrine Puzzle: Limiting War in South Asia, Routledge, New Delhi, 2014, p. 158.

[7]Arun Prakash, ‘India’s Nuclear Deterrent: The more things change…’, Policy Report, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore, March 2014, p. 6-7.

[8]Kampani, Gaurav. 2014. “New Delhi's Long Nuclear Journey: How Secrecy and Institutional Roadblocks Delayed India's Weaponization.” International Security 38, no. 4 (Spring): 79-114.

[9]Kenneth Waltz, Man, the State and War: A Theoretical Analysis, Colombia University Press, New York, 1957.

[10]Walter Ladwig III,‘A Cold Start for Hot Wars? The Indian Army’s new Limited War Doctrine’,International Security, Vol. 32, No. 3, pp.158-190.

[11]Prime Minister’s Office, op. cit.

[12] Rajesh Rajagopalan and Atul Mishra, Nuclear South Asia: Keywords and concepts, Routledge, New Delhi, 2014, p. 106-07.

[13]ShivshankarMenon,Choices: Inside the making of India’s foreign policy, The Brookings Institution Press, Washington DC, 2016, p. 108.

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[15]JasjitSingh,‘Doctrine and Strategy Under the Nuclear Overhang’, Financial Express, June 4, 2004.

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[17] GurmeetKanwal, Indian Army Vision 2020, Harper CollinsNew Delhi, 2008, p. 68.

[18]Ibid. pp. 85-86.

[19]Ali Ahmed, 2014, op. cit., pp. 5-7.

[20]Shankar Roychowdhury, Officially at Peace, Viking, New Delhi, 2002, pp. 27, 38-39.

[21]Tobias Engelmeier, Nation Building and Foreign Policy in India: An Identity-Strategy Conflict. Cambridge University Press India Ltd, New Delhi, 2009, pp 57-71.

[22] Gurmeet Kanwal,Nuclear Defence: Shaping the Arsenal. Knowledge World, New Delhi, 2001, pp. 39-41.

[23]Peter Lavoy, A Conversation with Gen. Khalid Kidwai, Carnegie International Nuclear Policy Conference 2015 March 23, 2015, pp. 4-5.

[24]George Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb: The Impact on Global Proliferation, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2002, p. 417.

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[27]Inter Services Public Relations, ‘Press release’, September 29, 2016, Accessed on August 5, 2017. https://www.ispr.gov.pk/front/main.asp?o=t-press_release&id=3483&cat=army. 

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[29]Lavoy, 2015, op. cit. p. 4.

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[34]Nagal, 2015, op. cit. p. 14.

[35]Menon, 2016, op. cit. p. 117.

[36]Ali Ahmed, ‘Political decision making and nuclear retaliation’, Strategic Analysis, Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis (IDSA), New Delhi, Vol. 36, No. 4: 511-526. July-August 2012, p. 519.

[37]KrishnaswamiSundarji, Vision 2010: A Strategy for the Twenty First Century, Konark PublicationNew Delhi, 2003, p. 146-53.

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[39] Bharat Karnad, Why India is not a great power (yet), Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2015, p. 387.

[40]Vipin Narang, ‘Five Myths about India’s Nuclear Posture,’The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 36, no. 3, Summer 2013: 143-57, p. 144. https://csis-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/legacy_files/files/publication/TWQ_13Summer_Narang.pdf

[41]Karnad, op. cit. p. 369.

[42] Ali Ahmed, ‘Indian strategic culture: The Pakistan dimension’, in Kanti Bajpai, SairaBasit and V. Krishnappaeds., India’s Grand Strategy: History, Theory, Cases, Routledge, New Delhi, 2014, p. 298.

[43]P. R. Chari, P.R, ‘India’s nuclear doctrine: Confused ambitions,’ The Nonproliferation Review, Fall-Winter 2000: 123-35, p. 123, Accessed on September 1, 2017. https://www.nonproliferation.org/wp-content/uploads/npr/73chari.pdf

[44] Sethi, 2009, op. cit. p. 142.

[45]Rajesh Rajagopalan,Second Strike: Arguments about Nuclear War in South Asia, Viking-Penguin Books India, New Delhi, 2005, p. 22.

[46]Vipin Narang, ‘Posturing for Peace? Pakistan’s Nuclear Postures and South Asian Stability,’International Security, Vol. 34, No. 3 (Winter 2009/10): 38-78, http://belfercenter.org/publication/19882

[47]Lavoy 2015, op. cit. p. 8.

[48]Sethi, 2009, op. cit. p. 251.

[49]Sunil Dasgupta, ‘The Indian Army: Challenges in the age of nuclear weapons and terrorism’, in Harsh V. Pant ed. Handbook of Indian Defence Policy: Themes, Structures and Doctrine, Routledge: Oxon:129-44, p. 136.

[50]Karnad, 2015, op. cit. pp. 366-74.

[51]ManojJoshi, ‘Govt Should Not Delay Reforms in the Armed Forces’,Mail Today, January 29, 2009.

[52]Vijay Shankar, ‘India-Pakistan-China: Nuclear Policy and Deterrence Stability.” The Strategist. Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies. March 10, 2014, Accessed on September 1, 2017, http://www.ipcs.org/article/india/india-pakistan-china-nuclear-policy-and-deterrence-stability-4331.html;BalrajNagal, ‘Strategic Stability – Conundrum, Challenge and Dilemma: The Case of India, China and Pakistan,’Center for Land Warfare Studies Journal, Summer 2015: 1-22, p. 11,http://www.claws.in/images/journals_doc/1190813178_BalrajNagal.pdf

[53]Inter-Services Public Relations,‘Press release’, April 19, 2011. Accessed July 15, 2017. https://www.ispr.gov.pk/front/main.asp?id=1721&o=t-press_release.

[54]Rajesh Rajagopalan, ‘Expanding India’s nuclear options,’ January 10, 2017, Accessed on July 5, 2017. http://www.orfonline.org/expert-speaks/expanding-indias-nuclear-options/

[55]Manoj Joshi,‘Policy Report: The Unending Quest to Reform India’s National Security System’, S Rajaratnam School of International Studies. March 2014, p. 2, Accessed on July 27, 2017. https://www.rsis.edu.sg/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/PR140301_The_Unending_Quest_to_Reform_India_National_Security_System.pdf

[56]Joshi, 2014, op. cit. p. 7.

[57]Manmohan Singh, ‘Inaugural Address by Dr Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India on A Nuclear Weapon-Free World: From Conception to Reality, IDSA, April 2. 2014,http://www.idsa.in/keyspeeches/InauguralAddressShriManmohanSingh

[58]P.R. Chari, 2014, op. cit.

[59]Douglas Busvine, ‘Modi says committed to no first use of nuclear weapons’, Reuters. April 16, 2014, Accessed on August 8, 2017. http://in.reuters.com/article/uk-india-election-nuclear/modi-says-committed-to-no-first-use-of-nuclear-weapons-idINKBN0D20QB20140416.

[60]HappymonJacob, ‘The role of nuclear weapons’ (pp. 315-38),in Happymon Jacob ed. Does India Think Strategically: Institutions, Strategic Culture and Security Policies, Manohar, New Delhi, 2014, p. 332.

[61]DinshawMistry, ‘Military technology, national power and regional security,’ in Lowell Dittmar ed. In South Asia’s Nuclear Security Dilemma: India, Pakistan and China,49-72, ME Sharpe, New York, p. 70-72.

[62]Narang, 2013, op. cit. p. 152.

[63]K. Santhanam and Ashok Parthasarathy, ‘Pokhran-II: an H-bomb disaster.” Business Standard. January 21, 2013, Accessed on July 31, 2017, http://www.business-standard.com/article/opinion/k-santhanam-ashok-parthasarathi-pokhran-ii-an-h-bomb-disaster-109121100016_1.html. 

[64]Vipin Narang,Nuclear Strategy in the Modern Era: Regional Powers and International Conflict. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2014, p. 116.

[65]Varghese Koithara, Managing India’s Nuclear Forces, Brookings Institution Press, Washington DC, 2012, p. 9.

[66]AnitMukherjee, ‘Correspondence: Secrecy, Civil-Military Relations, and India’s Nuclear Weapons Program’,International Security,Vol. 39, no. 3, Winter 2014/15: 202-14, pp. 202-3.

[67]Prakash, 2014, op. cit. p. 1.

[68]Karnad, 2015, op. cit. p. 370.

[69] Firdaus Ahmed, ‘Nuclear doctrine: One gaffe too many’, India Together, March 14, 2014,  Accessed on July 17, 2017. http://indiatogether.org/gaffes-in-india-s-nuclear-doctrine-op-ed

[70]Rajagopalan, 2005, op. cit. p. 57.

[71]P. R. Chari, 2000, op. cit. p. 132.

[72]Vipin Narang, ‘Did India Change its Nuclear Doctrine?: Much Ado about Nothing’, IDSA,  March 1, 2011, Accessed on July 30, 2017,http://www.idsa.in/idsacomments/DidIndiaChangeitsNuclearDoctrine_vnarang_010311

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[74]Joshi, 2014, op. cit. p. 8.

[75]S. Padmanabhan,A General Speaks,Manas Publications, New Delhi, 2005.

[76]Ali Ahmed,‘A disjointed doctrine: Reviewing the military’s joint doctrine’,Economic and Political WeeklyVol. LII, No. 21: 10-12, May 27, 2017, p. 11.

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[78]Sundarji, 2003, op. cit.

[79]D. Scott Sagan, ‘Why do states build nuclear weapons?’,International Security, Vol. 21, No. 3,Winter 1996/97: 54-86, p. 55.

[80]Bharat Karnad, Nuclear Weapons and Indian Security: The Realist Foundations of Strategy, MacMillan, New Delhi, 2002, pp. 281-445.

[81]AabhaDixit, ‘Status quo: Maintaining nuclear ambiguity,’in David Cortright and Amitabh Mattoo eds.India and the Bomb: Public opinion and nuclear options,Bahri Sons, New Delhi, 1996, 53-68, p. 61-64.

[82]K. Subrahmanyam, ‘Role of national power’, in K. Subrahmanyam ed. India and the Nuclear Challenge, Lancers: New Delhi, 1986, 241-71, pp. 256-57

[83] K. Subrahmanyam, ‘An equal opportunity NPT’,The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Vol. 49, No. 5: 37-39, June 1993, p. 39.

[84]Karnad, 2015, op. cit. pp. 379, 385.

[85]Abdul Ghafoor Noorani,‘The Doval doctrine’, Frontline, November 13, 2015,http://www.frontline.in/the-nation/the-doval-doctrine/article7800194.ece.

[86]Rajat Pandit, ‘India cannot rule out possibility of two-front war with China and Pakistan, Army chief General Bipin Rawat says’,The Times of India, September 6, 2017, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/india-cannot-rule-out-possibility-of-two-front-war-with-china-and-pakistan-army-chief-general-bipin-rawat-says/articleshow/60395986.cms

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