Thursday 20 October 2022

 

Viva Presentation – Ali Ahmed, 23 Feb 12

 PhD JNU - CIPOD, SIS

India’s Limited War doctrine: Structural, Political and Organisational Factors

The genesis of the dissertation was atop a canal obstacle where the battalion I was then commanding was deployed as exercise enemy, Nark force, in Exercise Sanghe Shakti in 2006. 1 Armoured Division of 2 Corps chose that site of the canal for the break in battle. It was fore ordained that they would have broken out by first light. In effect, my unit was cut to pieces in three hours. I did not have anything much to do thereafter and was able to from the vantage of an on-site bystander witness the proceedings over the next four days with exercise timings truncated. The strike corps ended up in its projection areas across the third obstacle, encompassing an airfield captured by a para-drop for substance and surge. I wondered as to what a nuclear armed enemy would make of all this. This experience has prompted the research question: Why has India gone in to an offensive doctrine despite nuclearisation?

 

It is fair to believe that 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 and later went way past the Indian threshold of tolerance in the terror attack on 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 US into the region, 26/11 would have been earlier and would not have witnessed a strategy of restraint on part of India. Given this offensive orientation by both states despite the nuclear backdrop, there is a case for believing that security is imperiled. There is therefore a need to investigate what impels offensive doctrines. Is this in response to threat perceptions? Is it instead originating in the body politic of the state? Or is this due to organizational 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 demonstrate 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, advertised as proactive and offensive, and discusses the conventional-nuclear interface.

 

Thereafter answering the three questions I posed, the dissertation in subsequent chapters tries to locate the drivers behind India’s conventional doctrine,. The search has consequently been located at the three levels of analysis: structural, unit and organizational. While the individual level is consequential for doctrine generation, it has been left out for some future doctoral study when the memoirs and records are available. Records are indeed scarce since that is the information policy or lack of it. The study therefore has attempted to compensate by forming a representative picture of military thinking. What was I looking for?

 

There is an extensive body of theoretical work connected to doctrine over the last two decades that has helped make this case study’s thick description a theoretically informed one. The well known realist theory served to provide the theoretical backdrop to the examination of the hypothesis at the structural level. The theory has it that 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, harnessing it is done through formulating doctrine. Therefore doctrine is a form of internal balancing by states since doctrine lends coherence to military power.

 

Since the realism looks at the system and not at the unit and the doctrine process occurs within a state, there is a need to look at the unit. The cultural theoretical lens lent itself for examination of the unit level. Cultural theory has it that while imbalance of power may exist in a system, whether these are treated as opportunities or threats would depend on how they are viewed. In other words, domestic politics matters. How states make sense of the world, how other state actions are interpreted and what states wish to do with the military instrument owes to political culture arising in the domestic sphere. There are three variants of culture: political culture, strategic culture and organizational culture. Cultural theory, developed in relation to doctrine by Elisabeth Kier in her work Imagining War, has it that strategic or political-military culture impacts doctrine. However, its influence is mediated by organisational culture of the military in question.

 

A look at organizational culture necessitates ‘looking into the box’ or at the organizational level. Here Graham Allison’s three models provided 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 remaining at this level are the Organisational Process models and the Bureacratic Politics model. The organizational 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, organizations cater for institutional interests such as budgets, role salience, prestige, autonomy etc. Militaries prefer offensive doctrines for these reasons. The Bureaucratic Politics model has it that 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.

 

I drew hypothesis from the theories – realism, cultural and organization theory - at the respective level studied and thereafter tried to make sense of the data gathered. The dependent variable at each level was doctrine. At the structural level, the threat perception was taken as the independent variable. The hypothesis at this level was: The change in India’s military doctrine has been due to continuing external security threats.

 

Doctrine being the depending variable, the independent variable at the unit level was strategic culture. Since the military as an organization reacts to its environment through the prism of organizational culture, organizational culture served as an intervening variable. The hypothesis at the unit level at which the political factor was studied, was: The change in India’s military doctrine owes to evolution of India’s strategic culture.

 

Lastly at the organizational level the hypothesis was: The change in India’s military doctrine has been to preserve the military’s institutional interest. The independent variable at this level was 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 and as a result it had to settle for coercive diplomacy instead of compellence in face of a heightening 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 exercise the military option furnished by the doctrine, at 26/11, India did not do so. This was due to the Limited War doctrine not having been credible on the question of nuclear thresholds and secondly, because 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, that was expected to give the imprimature to the doctrine but has carefully refrained from doing so in both its avatars. This suggests that the structural explanation while true is only partially so. There are other places also 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, the major aspect was the change in strategic culture through the preceding four decades. The ‘Indira doctrine’, with its emphasis on power, had displaced the Nehruvian world view. India thorugh the nineties had been challenged by the perspective, raised by for instance Tanham, that it lacked a will to 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 IIThe influence on strategic culture had been towards greater assertion. Viewing these changes at the national level through the prism of its organizational culture, the military opportunistically moved towards an offensive doctrine. The organizational culture of the military has been informed by the warrior ethic and a strong conventional war fighting tendency.

 

Taking the unit and the organization a dyad – state/organization – the next chapter examined the influence of institutional interest or organizational compulsions. Since the army was considerably embarrassed by the Kargil intrusion and by its inability to get into a position to exert military power in early enough a time frame, it sought to compensate by formulating an offensive doctrine. This enables it autonomy from its civilian masters, furnishes an offensive option by way of which it can shape the battle field and if the doctrine is to be operationalised legitimizes the budgets necessary. The bureaucratic politics framework is very useful in understanding the India 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 between the army and the air force. The doctrinal sphere is consequently very fertile.

 

What then are my findings?

 

Firstly, the case study is one of equifinality. Doctrine generation is multidimensional and with multiple causes. This is useful in terms of expanding the focus from threat perception to other factors.

 

Secondly, the finding is that doctrinal innovation occurs when all three factors are at play. The three independent variables need to be active in case there is to be movement in doctrine. In other words, not only does the threat needs to be coped with by doctrinal movement, but such movement is not only autonomously possible for the military to make. It needs an enabling environment at the unit level in terms of an amenable political factor. The organizational level factor must also be suitably positioned. This was the case with the Cold Start doctrine. The Pakistani threat had heightened; strategic culture was assertive and the organization wanted continued conventional relevance into the nuclear age.

 

What is the relevance of these findings?

 

The policy relevance is that the conundrum posed by the nuclear age has not been answered adequately well. While the Cold Start doctrine provides a blueprint for Limited War, there is currently no explicit doctrine for limited war. Only this month the Army Chief has indicated that a Limited War doctrine for the nuclear backdrop is under preparation. Secondly, since introduction of nuclear weapons into a conflict is a decision for the adversary to make, a nuclear war can yet occur. There is a need to stretch the limited war definition and concept to include Limited Nuclear War. The nuclear doctrine currently believes in ‘massive’ punitive retaliation for unacceptable damage. This is not only genocidal, but in the unmistakable equation of mutual assured destruction that the vertical proliferation resorted to by Pakistan has brought the situation to, it would also be suicidal. In effect, India needs moving towards limitation in both its conventional and nuclear doctrines.

 

However, equally importantly form point of view of the Division and Center, what are the implications for theory? The case study, by its very nature is not generalisable. Secondly, 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 realpolitic behaviour owes to socialization of states by the structural imperative, the reverse is possible truer depiction in that realpolitic behavior gives rise to the security dilemma that then forms the structural level environment for the state. This then leads to self-perpetuation and legitimates realism inspired behaviour. While finding suggests that states can choose to change the structural imperatives. This is in favour of the constructivist approaches.

 

My final point is in the policy feedback of this point. India’s carrot and stick policy towards Pakistan stands to be rejected because of Pakistan the carrot being relegated by the stick. If there is to be peace, then there has to be a mutually agreed stowing away of respective sticks. The thesis ends by suggesting a strategic dialogue towards this end.

 

I would like to end by thanking the faculty for this opportunity. Its inputs over my last five appearances before it over the past four years have made the thesis as it is. Of course the thesis would not have seen the light of the day but for my supervisor, Prof. Rajagopalan. Intellectually his suggestions of where to look and I believe more importantly the scholarly discipline he required of me were critical to the outcome. The shortcomings that remain are entirely mine.

 

Thank you for your patience.

 REPORT

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zizqpfdpgusbc2u/phd%20and%20report.pdf?dl=0

The Full Text of PhD

 https://www.dropbox.com/s/p3qe0obnat22iac/full%20text.pdf?dl=0