My presentation at the FSI on UN Peacekeeping
Tuesday 20 December 2022
Sunday 18 December 2022
https://www.thebookreviewindia.org/books-in-brief-11/
THE 24TH MILE: AN INDIAN DOCTOR’S HEROISM IN WAR-TORN BURMA by Tehmton S. Mistry HarperCollins, 2021, 323 pp., 599.00
ESCAPE FROM PAKISTAN: THE UNTOLD STORY OF JACK SHEAby Debora Ann Shea Penguin, 2021, 224 pp., 599.00
DECEMBER IN DACCA: THE INDIAN ARMED FORCES AND THE 1971 BANGLADESH LIBERATION WARby KS Nair HarperCollins, 2022, 264 pp., 699.00
Rajpal Punia & Damini Punia, Operation Khukri: The True Story Behind Indian Army’s Most Successful Mission as part of the United Nations, Penguin Random House, India, 2021, ISBN (hardcover): 9780143453369
Anuj Nayyar, The Tiger of Dras
Hisila: From revolutionary to first lady
DECEMBER 2022, VOLUME 46, NO 12
There is much in common between these six books. They all carry a subtitle, are inexpensive and light reading, though about a rather heavy topic; are tales simply told; and are about the lesser remarked aspects of war. Other than the one by Hisila, they have been penned by people other than the respective protagonists, with Punia having his daughter along as co-author. All are of stories in southern Asia, other than Punia’s which is situated in West Africa.
However, the most significant factor that compels clubbing them together here is that they are stories of high, pulsating adventure. Consequently, they are recommended reading for youth, who in times of internet have lost the yen for reading. The six can leave behind a constructive hobby for in their coverage of war time settings of the adventures they narrate, they help educate. The adventures themselves serve to inspire, since all the central characters are memorable, having distinguishing character traits that not only mark them out but also help them cope with the adventures that befall each.
Reviewing them chronologically here, we begin with Mistry’s portrayal of the adventures of his uncle by marriage, Dr. Jehangir Anklesaria. The good doctor was posted as port medical officer in Rangoon when the Japanese struck at Pearl Harbour. The Japanese—‘runts’ in the racist prototype held before they overran South East Asia—were at Rangoon’s doors within six months. The British empire’s outpost there scrambled to get out of the way along with the retreating armies of the empire over which the sun never set. The book follows Jehangir as his familiar world crashes about him and his family. He hastily dispatches his family to Kolkata and readies to help 50,000 refugees, mostly Indian, making their way via the land route back to India. Jehangir’s challenge was to prevent cholera outbreak at a major transit point, lest it spread to the 30,000 British, Indian, Chinese and Burmese troops and sap morale. The book follows him from Rangoon, across the Irrawaddy and the Chindwin, through the refugee transit camp at Monywa and, finally, in the last leg of the arduous journey through the malarial 24th Mile. Just when you thought it couldn’t get worse, the monsoon hits the serrated edges of the Arakan Yoma ranges as the good doctor struggles alone over the leech-infested and snake-lined pass between Tamu on the Burma border and Palel in Manipur: a 24 Mile eternity-long gap. The author rightly brings out that we owe our second language English to the likes of Dr. Anklesaria, else it could well have been Japanese.
The second book finds us in the independent era with India in the midst of yet another war, its second with Pakistan. The 1965 War finds the family of Jack Shea in Karachi, then capital of Pakistan. Jack is the naval attaché at the High Commission. The author—daughter of Jack Shea—writes of the carefree days before the war, with fishing in the Arabian Sea as Jack’s way not merely to spend time, but to keep an eye on the maritime happenings around Karachi port. The book reveals how Jack was central to the ‘escape from Pakistan’ of an undercover police officer. The agent had spied on Pakistan, resulting in—among other factors—Pakistan losing the war. Since Pakistan’s army wanted revenge for being tripped up, they were narrowing down on the agent. Jack stepped up his plan to send him back to India. The cloak-and-dagger stuff and the adventure of the police officer as he trudges on camel back through the southern Sindh desert to the India border makes for fascinating reading. Clearly, his cool head and valiantly facing up to the undiplomatic consequence were rightly rewarded with a distinguished service medal, a rare award at his rank.
The third book is about India’s next war, the 1971 War. The book, released to coincide with the year-long observation of the fiftieth anniversary of the war, appears intended to transmit tales of derring-do in the war to the next generation. This book is different from the others in that it is not about one individual’s adventure, as much a collage of a set of individuals. Nair is a self-confessed war aficionado, who puts his school-boy enthusiasm to good use in communicating the exploits of soldiers, airmen and sailors to the younger generation that has not seen war. Nair intends the book to recapture the empathy with which India intervened in East Pakistan. His penchant for details, particularly of air battles and technology, however, leave him word space only for making his point, more as an assertion than as a refutation of the argument that India had other motives, principally strategic, that prompted its intervention. Whereas India did end genocide as Nair records, Nair neglects the possibility that India’s interference partially precipitated the genocide in the first place. Since he believes India’s altruistic reason, he is severe on the United States for being double-faced. The book is a good start point for young enthusiasts to explore not only this war, but also move on to India’s military history–that is increasingly in nationalism-charged times coming in for much revision.
The fourth book is about an interesting, if not controversial episode, in India’s UN peacekeeping experience. Punia was the senior company commander of two subunits–his infantry company and one mechanized one–deployed in a remote corner of an anarchic country, Sierra Leone. The book follows Punia inducting into the country and deploying at the location. How he uses the Indian Army’s well known tools of counter insurgency to ‘Win Hearts And Minds’, WHAM, is well described. Lucky for him, the period was in the era of peacekeeping amateurism; else if done today, he’d have an inquiry sitting on how he distributed UN provisioned food for WHAM. But what is most striking in the book is the self-confession of sorts by him of what could be possible violations of international humanitarian law or war crimes. The Indian contingent was entrapped in a hostage situation by the rebels. The author reveals how he arrived at a plan to shoot his way out of a hostage situation. Its implementation in Operation Khukri arguably amounts to war crimes. While shooting their way out of their encirclement, they leveled the village they were located in, killing civilians in the process. From the narration, it is uncertain if civilians were collateral damage. From this narration though, it is clear that instead of a highpoint in Indian peacekeeping success, the book only succeeds in bringing the operation under a cloud.
The fifth book is of a war hero, Captain Anuj Nayyar, authored by his mother and assisted by a well-meaning member of civil society and a biker group that went around the country felicitating families of departed war heroes. The war heroes from the Kargil War have acquired a national profile already, some have had films made on them or figured in films on the war. The book fills out the spirited youth Anuj, showing what goes into the making of heroism. Take his stewardship of the boxing team at the academy. Though not a known boxer himself, since there were no takers for the task, he took it up. Anuj was no spit-and-polish soldier either, who smoked and kept a motorcycle while at the academy. Though not a swashbuckler, he had a girlfriend. On the book cover, showing him with captain’s stars on his shoulder, it is clear he was no budding martinet. The book follows him through the tempering of the steel at the two academies and its being unleashed on an equally redoubtable enemy high on the Kargil ridgeline. Since Anuj’s action is taken as ‘all in a day’s work’ for India’s young officers, it should also prompt the question, what then is the role of the junior leadership in the other ranks. Perhaps, the non-officer leaders build the teams that at the cusp of the moment allow such award winning heroism. The book does well to include 15 pages of mention of such junior leaders, who carried Anuj to immortality on the back of their invisible contribution in wars.
The last book reviewed here is very different from the others. It is about a war alright, but a civil war in India’s vicinity, Nepal. It’s a memoir of Hisila Yami. That she has retained her name shows that she cannot be reduced to merely being wife of Baburam Bhattarai–revolutionary Prime Minister of Nepal. The book shows her in her various identities as a feminist, revolutionary, architect, mother, wife and politician at various times. Yami’s has been a full life, well compressed in a simply told 300 plus pages. What makes the book interesting is also the description of ten years she spent as a revolutionary in a people’s war. The book captures the innocence of a revolution, with participants ready to die and kill for causes such as equality, federalism, socialism and fraternity. Though Nepal is an intimate neighbour and Nepalis are very evident in our neighbourhoods, there is much we are unaware of about their lives and concerns. The book is a good read, introducing us not only to a very sprightly lady, Hisila, but also to a significant part of our region. Together the books can make younger readers not only take to reading as a hobby but to a life of adventure beyond known confines and comforts.
Tuesday 29 November 2022
https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/in-defence-of-richa-chadha?utm_source=twitter&sd=pf
In defence of Richa Chadha
Hindutva had to deploy its big guns as Akshay Kumar and a former army chief to subdue Richa Chadha and her supporting artillery that included Prakash Raj. She was peremptorily tried by the godi media and held guilty of insulting the sacrifice of the Galwan Gallants. All she did was remind our brasshats that the sacrifice of these brave men should henceforth serve to ensure all military planning and operations be done with due diligence.
Chadha was entirely right in her concern. The Galwan incident was prompted by ill considered orders on part of the chain of command. Rashly ordered, the commanding officer valiantly led his men into what turned out to be an ambush. That two months into the crisis and the brasshats were unable to make out its nature speaks for itself. To Chadha, any future military actions must bear the impression of the lesson from Galwan: due diligence.
Chadha was reacting to the northern army commander’s indication that the military is ready and capable of taking Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) when ordered by the government. He was only reiterating what his corps commander in Srinagar had said only a few days earlier. Both were queried on the defence minister’s statement that India aimed to take POK.
So long as the military leadership remembered the chief lesson from Galwan, there is no second guessing them as to whether they can or should go about fulfilling the defence minister’s desire. Chadha’s was only a timely reminder – if colourfully put due to the nature of the means of communication used and the nature of those in showbiz.
Her antagonists trolled her for assuming that the brasshats would be unable to deliver on what they had publicly taken on. They assumed that she was calling out the military for incompetence and pointing out that the military couldn’t take POK. Since the military has been toast of multiple seasons lately, it is understandable if the Hindutva troll army unthinkingly rises to its defence.
That the military needs defending by trolls itself suggests that it is on a sticky wicket. Its boast cannot be allowed to pass uncontested. Whereas Chadha perhaps guessed that the brass might be biting off more than they can chew, it is worth querying if the military can indeed be gung-ho about taking POK.
Without doubt, POK, as hitherto, will figure in any future military tryst. The 1947 War is famous for its battles for Poonch, Uri, Tithwal and Zoji La. The 1965 War is famous for the victory at Haji Pir. In 1971 War, the active front was in Kargil, that turned out stage setting for the subsequent information age war.
That there are plausible military plans to take POK can be expected since that’s what militaries do: make and practice war plans. If ordered to take POK, the military operations branch will dust up the most suitable one and its strike formations will be put to it. Plans can be expected to be cognisant of the lesson from Galwan – due diligence.
However, it is not so pat. Confidence in the military has withered lately. It has visibly traded professional high ground for political approbation. Its leadership has allowed itself to be enticed by foregrounding of military in the political scheme of things. Dalliance with politics exacts a price off professionalism.
Theory has it that professionalism – a characteristic of the officer corps - is a mix of expertise, responsibility and representation. The military brass has military expertise, based on which it performs representative and advisory roles. At the political-military interface or the grand strategic-strategic interstices, the military has to input national security policy and decisions. It is not a mere receptacle of orders.
Therefore, for the two commanders to successively highlight obedience to orders is to skip over the more consequential question implicit: whether such orders received the benefit of the military’s intellectual rigour in first place? Their wilful distracting from the meat of the issue begs the question: Why?
Today, the shadow of Ladakh looms over the military. The army was caught napping, albeit not wholly on its own, but along with the diplomats and the intelligence establishment. Its listless showing in wake of the Chinese intrusions cannot be laid at Covid’s door alone. That it was let of the hook was only self-serving on part of the security establishment. Accountability would have required also asking questions of blue-eyed Doval and Jaishankar.
To compensate, the army has since indulged in an illusion of activity over two winters in the high Himalayas, that has witnessed it all dressed up with nowhere to go. The excuse that Chinese, similarly arrayed, compel our weathering the weather is useful. It bears reminding as we head into the third winter the situation on own side is not as conducive to sitting out multiple winters. Tales from Ladakhi herders denied access to grazing areas do not help justify the deployment.
Is lassitude on the China front being compensated for by breathing fire and brimstone on the lesser neighbour, Pakistan? It makes sense to bully Pakistan, and be seen to be tough, than push back China and be exposed.
Neglected is the aspect that revealing our hand prematurely on POK we deny ourselves the opportunity for a quick grab in the next India-Pakistan joust. Pakistan, alerted to a potential objective, will have locked the barn door. This is of a piece with India’s tentative grab of Kailash Range during the crisis in Ladakh. Had we rolled down then to Rudok and Moldo, we could’ve pulled off a coup. With Chinese coming up with a bridge across Pangong Tso to help reinforce the area, it is now denied us in perpetuity.
What Rajnath Singh had in mind is uncertain. While POK surely figures in his thinking, by his reference to India marching ‘north’, he perhaps also meant Northern Areas (NA). While POK has the underside of having a Punjabised population, that can only spell trouble for any occupying power, Indians perhaps believe – for no discernible reason - that the largely Shia populace further north might be more welcoming.
Going northwards, rather than westwards, from the Kashmir Valley would be to go for the jugular – of both Pakistan and its army. With Indian Navy locking down Karachi and the Makran coast and the land route to China nipped, Pakistan would be on the mat soon enough – or goes the reasoning.
That it would upturn the China Pakistan Economic Corridor and what that might mean for riling China appears not to deter India. It could provoke the ‘two-front’ war, with China using its launchpad at Depsang to push westwards – threatening India’s east flank resting on Siachen as India bites away northwards. Indian information warriors are blissfully unconcerned.
As for going westwards, to complete what Indian military heroes - Harbaksh, Thimayya and Cariappa - didn’t get to, the logic that kicked in some 75 years ago only stands reinforced today. Back then, the argument for stopping India’s military action was that the area, being largely Punjabi-oriented, was outside the reach of political persuasion of the pro-India Kashmiri political elite. Even if taking it was doable militarily, it would be hard to swallow and digest politically. Today, it would be impossible to retain for the simple reason that if keeping Kashmir down after 30 years of counter insurgency is a bother, taking on additional demographic terrain would be imbecility.
This begs the question, what then was the purpose of Rajnath Singh piping up and having two of his senior military commanders lend the authority of their uniform to justify his tilting at the windmills.
It is easy to see the reason in the political perspective at which he – a political bigwig – operates. As a full-time Hindutva busybody and part-time defence minister, he is only voicing what Hindutva ideologues are wont to – complete the unfinished business of Partition.
Superficially, this involves only taking territory encompassed by calendar art, that has Bharat Mata in the foreground to Akhand Bharat as background. This explains the cultural claim to Pakistan occupied areas using motifs as Sharada Peeth. Thus, Singh’s was a political performance.
Did the military necessarily need to follow? Did it think through its participation in an essentially political caper? Did the push back when the information operation was thought up?
That the military did not do so suggests either its politically ingenuous or politically inclined. The former can no longer serve as excuse since the latter is not so far-fetched anymore. The military has also started speaking political gobbledegook. As per the retiree recently elevated to its top post, General Anil Chauhan, the Indian military is now seeing itself as defending ‘the ideology on which the state is based and the values it promotes.’
On the face of it, military objectives following political aims is explicable. However, political aims deriving from a partisan political ideology – in this case Hindutva – cannot merely be received by the military. A military must exercise its right of input in formulation of political aims, basing such input on strategic factors.
If taking Northern Areas is important to tearing asunder a relationship between the antagonist allies in a two-front situation, then it makes military sense to ‘go for it’. Even so, war gaming this shows that attempting to do so will create a two-front threat where none necessarily exists.
Advances must then have limits, for instance, up till the Neelum riverline. Expansive military objectives as an advance down the Jhelum, or, in the south of the Pir Panjal, till the Jhelum riverline, need leavening with strategic sense.
At the strategic level – the level at which an army commander is located – conversation between the political and strategic levels should ensue. The military’s is a duty of obedience to the political level, but not as an uncritical cadet to a drill ustad. It must demand such a conversation. Institutions must be geared to facilitating such a conversation. Its expertise-based input must be welcomed by the political leadership. Obedience to orders is predicated on participation in their formulation.
There is no dearth of examples on military commanders being more than merely obedient cogs:
· Legendary Field Marshal Ervin Rommel routinely trashed Nazi instructions on mistreating non-Aryan ethnic groups or prisoners of war.
· As commander in East Pakistan, Sahibzada Yakub Khan’s refusal to follow orders from Karachi is a stellar example of resignation on the right course to take on disagreeing with an operational directive.
· General John Hyten, when commander of the United States’ Strategic Forces Command, gave out the appropriate response to illegal orders. Assuming that these had emanated out of ignorance, he said that he would advise the president on the right course and revised await orders.
· General Mark Milley once said that orders received after remonstration can be complied with, without recourse to resignation. The political head has ‘the right to be wrong’. For the military level to press beyond a point is to usurp the political level’s privilege to overrule the military and being accountable for any adverse results.
· After Operation Parakram’s mobilisation phase, General Rustam Nanavatty provided his input on the Northern Command’s readiness to execute operations in snow bound POK. In the event, his expert input apparently was consequential in the manner the operation unfolded.
· The back and forth between Calcutta and Delhi on the military objectives of the 1971 operation in East Pakistan is instructive. There was the staff channel between Jacob and Inder Gill and the command channel between Aurora and Manekshaw. Military history has it that the former pressed for an expansive interpretation of the political directive. However, at the political-military interface, it is uncertain if military commanders were given the flexibility to choose between an expansive and restrictive interpretation or did they bottom-up seize it wilfully.
Presuming that General Dwivedi, the northern army commander, has had the benefit of his advice on POK being pondered upon, he has little recourse but to obey – as he affirmed. That he has given away his hand, however, indicates that the exercise in the context of the situation in Kashmir is one of psychological coercion of Pakistan.
It only makes sense as a information war exercise with India is preparing to rig an outcome of the forthcoming elections in Kashmir palatable to Hindutva. India would prefer continuing dormancy of Pakistan’s proxy war. Rather than have the new Pakistan Army chief, Asim Munir, depart from the Bajwa doctrine that well-served mutual interests (even if it turned out from leaked income tax returns, the doctrine did serve Bajwa’s personal interest too), India has chosen to deter him by psychological operations at the very outset of his innings.
It could also well be strategic deception, in that, knowing that taking POK would be rather a mouthful, India is pretending to be prepared to open its mouth wide. The deception could tie down Pakistani army in anticipatory defence of POK, while, instead, India went about, for instance, a ‘Sialkot grab’.
That other possibilities suggest themselves owes to strategic disarray in the regime. Impetus, otherwise outlandish, cannot be rejected outright. For instance, it is not impossible to visualise the regime taking home a lesson from the Ukraine war that if Russia can leisurely help itself to mouthfuls off Ukraine, why cannot India salami slice its pound of flesh off Pakistan? As a wit has it: If Ukraine can wish to retake Crimea, why cannot India take POK? What China can get away with doing to India, why can't India with Pakistan?
Richa Chadha perhaps intuited that the military needs cautioning. Granddaughter of a military man, she is no doubt part of the attentive public that follows military matters. Since the full story of Galwan will not be written on the watch of this regime, dismissively tweeting that a ‘little-known actor’ said something ‘stupid’ is disservice to India’s success in forging a strategic culture wherein citizens’ are sensitive to the military’s concerns. A thriving strategic culture holds the military – and the political hand on the military rudder – accountable. The military better get used to it.
Monday 14 November 2022
https://southasianvoices.org/agni-prime-and-the-two-front-war/
Agni Prime and the Two-Front War
The Agni Prime (also known as the Agni-P and Agni-IP) has been tested thrice off the Odisha coast in under two years, with its first test in June 2021. The third, most recent test on October 21 came during India’s defense expo in Gujarat, allowing India to demonstrate the Agni Prime as the sixth successful missile from the Agni series.
The Agni Prime is a step up for the Agni series: it is canisterized, road-mobile,
and has multiple reentry vehicle capability. With a range of 1000-2000 km, it
is geared to target
Pakistan and may supplement or substitute the Prithvi II, Agni I and Agni II missiles.
The accuracy of Agni Prime – reportedly in the
lower two digits – has created speculation that it confers a counterforce
capability and reenergized discussion over whether India has counterforce
intentions. Analysts discerned as much from the technological
trajectory of India’s deterrent, fearing that this renders India’s “No First Use” (NFU) pledge shaky.
One can expect India to profit from the debate
generated. India’s nuclear doctrinal movement of ambiguity lately builds uncertainty on
India’s intentions and action. In the current context of the two-front war threat, nuclear ambiguity helps
India leverage its nuclear deterrent – without actually resorting to nuclear
weapons. The Agni Prime launch and the subsequent debate it generated
compensate for India’s challenges in coping with the two-front threat posed by China and Pakistan.
The Catalyzing Two-Front War Factor
Over the last two years, India has already
taken diplomatic steps to confront its vulnerability to a two-front war
scenario. After the 2020 Galwan clashes, India has managed to partially roll back Chinese intrusions in Ladakh through military-level discussions
and quiet diplomacy. India also agreed to a ceasefire on the Line of Control with
Pakistan in secret, third-party facilitated talks.
India has taken steps at the conventional level,
including a pivot of its conventional forces from its western to
its northern borders. It has also started to reorganize its forces on both
fronts into integrated battle groups (IBG). It is appraising
reorganization with front-specific Integrated Theatre Commands.
On the nuclear level, India continues to incrementally
put together the earlier envisaged elements of its triad. But its
seaborne leg would not be potent until the K-4 ballistic missile, which had two back-to-back
test firings from a submerged platform in January 2020, is fired from either
nuclear submarine, the INS Arihant or soon-to-be-commissioned INS Arighat.
The Air Force’s concentration on winning the air
war under two-front war conditions places a premium on air-delivered nuclear ordinance, since such
operations divert a high number of aircraft from its primary
role.
India’s nuclear triad places greater emphasis
on land-based systems due to the sea leg being a work-in-progress and its air-leg’s
availability only at a premium. The technological edge in the Agni IV and Agni V missiles,
meant to deter China, has been transferred to Pakistan-centric Agni Prime. India
has also substituted the Pakistan-specific Prithvi series with the Prahaar, Pralay, and Shaurya missiles, which all have varying ranges.
Agni Prime in the Two-Front War Scenario
In a worst-case scenario of a two-front war, the Indian military would find itself stretched with its current
capabilities. Consequently, India may have to compensate by leveraging its
nuclear-level to deter and, if need be, redress potential conventional imbalances
and quandaries. The nuclear signaling between Russia and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) at multiple junctures in the
ongoing Ukraine war has loosened the constraints on nuclear posturing, allowing
India to leverage its prevailing doctrinal ambiguity to good effect in a short
timeframe.
The Agni Prime missile was under development before
the Ladakh crisis, with its conceptual inception beginning sometime mid-last decade. However,
even at the time, the two-front war thinking in India was over half a decade old. Whereas technological advance
has taken their course, doctrinal thinking has not been far behind.
An accurate, canisterized, road-mobile missile has the
advantage of speed of response against point targets. This development has
fueled apprehensions of a destabilizing shift in India’s nuclear posture, given
that it is now able to take out hardened targets housing Pakistan’s strategic
systems comprising Pakistan’s second strike capability.
India has done little to forestall the fears,
with successive defense ministers making loose statements on NFU. India has thus used the
fears generated to cover its nuclear intentions with ambiguity. The Agni Prime has validated the perspective on
India’s nuclear capability that it is shifting away from traditional moorings towards
jettisoning NFU and contemplating counter-force options; this helps India’s shift towards deterrence leveraging ambiguity over its earlier preference for
transparency.
Prosecuting a Two-Front War
Indian strategists would designate a priority front (also referred to as the primary front) and a secondary front, fighting to stabilize
or generate a favorable outcome on the priority front while keeping the secondary
front as dormant as possible. India could subsequently switch the designation
once the primary front has stabilized or if, in the interim, developments on
the secondary front compel greater attention and devotion of resources.
If Pakistan is designated initially as the priority
front, then India’s new-fangled IBGs could be unleashed on the border to keep
it in check. The popular scenario has it that a conventionally-disadvantaged Pakistan
could resort to nuclear weapons as part of its full spectrum deterrence doctrine, by way of either signaling with or introducing tactical nuclear weapons into the conflict.
Even if Pakistan is initially not the primary
front, since India would be keeping up a holding action, it could complement
its hard-put conventional forces efforts with nuclear warnings, thereby deterring
Pakistan from taking advantage of its psychological ascendancy.
In a two-front war scenario, Pakistan, as one
part of a collusive alliance, will be fairly confident
of taking on India. However, it is unlikely that nuclear weapons will likely
figure in its war repertoire. Besides, with considerable dilution in India’s
Pakistan-specific forces after the Chinese intrusion, Pakistan may be better
positioned conventionally than India.
Consequently, India might require leveraging
nuclear weapons to stabilize the front quickly before it could revert its
attention to the China front. Bringing nuclear weapons into the foreground
through nuclear signaling will help concentrate minds. India has already set
the stage by building in ambiguity and generating nuclear fears in third parties, incentivizing them to
intervene with de-escalatory initiatives.
Nuclear
signaling on the Pakistan front will also put China on notice: cautioning it against crossing
Indian redlines, slowing operations by necessitating protective measures, and
forcing a reevaluation of its war aims in light of nuclear dynamics. Agni
Prime’s utility is not without relevance on the China front with its range encompassing
portions of the Tibetan plateau, allowing for counter military options in the worst case of conventional asymmetry with
China and Chinese military break throughs, necessitating Indian reconsideration of its NFU.
Conclusion
The configuration of Agni Prime and the
subsequent discussion it has instigated on nuclear dangers helps India with
navigating the challenges it might face in a two-front war scenario. In war,
national security concerns dictate the use of all instruments, including the appropriate
employment of nuclear weapons. The appropriate use for nuclear weapons is to
strengthen in-conflict deterrence. Escalation prevention is made possible by brinkmanship,
the instigating and deploying of a fear of a war going nuclear.
Pre-conflict ambiguity surrounding the
deterrent posture enables shifting the nuclear goalposts in war. India’s intent
to stay in Pakistan’s nuclear hand will be better met by conveying its
abandonment of nuclear sobriety. The Agni Prime lends credibility to India’s
shift to nuclear brinkmanship in case confronted with the worst-case scenario
of a two-front war.
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