The thesis proposal in 2008 and its outcome in 2012: 

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

THESIS PROPOSAL FOR DIRECT PHD AT CIPOD, SIS, JNU : ALI AHMED - Jul 2008

Title : Strategic doctrines of India and Pakistan: 1998-2006.

Thesis Statement : Realist inspired strategic doctrines in India and Pakistan have adversely impacted state security and regional stability.

Period of the Study: 1998-2006

The period 1998-2006 covers the considerable developments in both states post overt nuclearisation and the accelerated changes in the aftermath of Operation Parakram.

Doctrinal development in India has been prompted by India’s regional aspirations and as a response to its military predicament brought on by Pakistan exercising its prerogative as a weak and revisionist power. These doctrines at the sub-conventional plane range from a strategy of exhaustion to one of ‘velvet glove – iron fist’. On the conventional level there has been the pincer offensives of the Surdarji era through Limited War to today’s ‘cold start’. On the nuclear level, the move has been from recessed and existential deterrence through ‘massive retaliation’ of the Draft Nuclear Doctrine to one probably more nuanced in light of developments in the nuclear field of command and control, survivability, delivery and miniaturisation.

Pakistan for its part has not explicitly stated its doctrine, but the reliance on irregulars to supplement its conventional capabilities has been hinted at. To constrain the conventional space that India perceives as existing below the nuclear threshold, Pakistan has not outlined its nuclear doctrine, but it is believed to be a ‘high’ nuclear threshold. However, its strategic doctrine is one of war avoidance, forced on it due to India’s changed doctrine to a pro-active strategic posture, as also the preoccupation with the GWOT and the blowback in its own backyard.  There is a greater intermeshing of doctrines in the three planes, posing a considerable challenge to its regional foe and making for a rewarding theoretical study.   

Scope of Study

The central questions required to be addressed are as under:

What constitutes regional stability? What are implications for state security?

What are core aims and objectives of national security policies? How and in what measure are these provisioned by strategic doctrines?

How are strategic and military doctrines formulated in democratic and dictatorial regimes and what are the influences?

How does a realist paradigm render askew strategic and military doctrines in relation to rational national security policy aims and objectives?

What are the alternative paradigms and how would their adoption mitigate the doctrinal competition?

The study would require theoretical anchoring in a discussion of realism and its dominance in South Asia. It would require to be proven that realism inspires competitive doctrine formulation and these impact regional stability and national security adversely. The outcome would be a critique of realism and an assessment of the alternative paradigms thereby expanding the scope for peace in the region and providing a national security perspective that lends itself better to national security in the South Asian context.

 The manner of development of doctrine in terms of mechanisms, internal and external influences, impact of adversary’s doctrine and behavior can be charted through this study with fruitful academic fallout. The inter-linkages with the overarching national security doctrine and relationship with sister doctrines such as in the economic, diplomatic and internal security fields would find brief mention. It would look at actors, interrelations among these, external influence of foreign powers and doctrines originating elsewhere, higher defence organizations, military organizational developments such as creation of additional commands in both states, and democratic control.

Methodology

The need for the two states to appear responsible nuclear powers, prodded by the international community led by the US, has resulted in their being relatively more effusive in terms of their nuclear thinking.

India in taking its democratic traditions seriously has indulged in not only a wider media debate within its strategic community but has also published some of its doctrines, such as the Draft Nuclear doctrine, the services doctrines, MOD reports, parliamentary debates etc. Therefore there is not only the basic material available but also secondary material in terms of commentary. Interviews would be required to bring to fore aspects requiring closer scrutiny.  

Pakistan’s think tank and university based strategic community is very visible and vocal. Its retired fraternity is active and accessible, especially in championing the Pakistani perspective. With fresh democratic winds blowing access may be an easier proposition. Commentary in strategic journals, interaction with think tanks, interviews with decision makers and strategists and  commentaries of western and Indian observers would be the manner of accessing the Pakistani viewpoint. Thus balance in the dissertation can be maintained and sustainable conclusions for the study can be drawn.

Necessity

The periodically strained relations between protagonist states in South Asia make it a region prone to crisis. It is therefore necessary to probe for underlying propensity towards crisis and conflict. While most have been studied in greater detail, the role of competitive doctrine formulation has escaped adequate scrutiny, inexcusable on account of doctrine driving organizational changes, equipping policies and training that consume a high percentage of the defence budget – itself a major proportion of government expenditure. Therefore, if stability in regional security, and, thereby enhanced state security, is to be brought about, a start point is in examining the role of doctrinal development. An illustration is that the space India seeks below the nuclear threshold is curbed by Pakistan through its ‘first use’ philosophy, and resulting Indian uncertainty is exploited by Pakistan to further its sub-conventional proxy war.

Conclusion

Doctrinal development has been taken as the domain of the military owing to its expertise. True to its mandate for providing security to the state, the military in both states has adapted its doctrinal response to its national security ends. This accounts for the rich doctrinal evolution witnessed in South Asia in the nuclear and conventional fields. That this evolution has been furthered by a series of crisis, testifies in part to the failure of the preceding doctrines in providing the necessary security. The resulting evolution has set the stage for the next crisis, virtually leading to a notional cycle. This indicates that regional instability has origin, inter alia, in the doctrines adopted by both states to defend and further national security. Academic scrutiny can bring to fore the nature of impact of dysfunctional doctrines on state security and regional stability.

(Words – 1038)

REPRESENTATIVE READINGS

Abraham, I., The Making of the Indian Atomic Bomb: Science, Secrecy and the Postcolonial State; London, Zed Press, 1998

Bajpai, K., Cohen, S., Cheema, P., and Ganguly, S., Brasstacks and Beyond: Perception and Management of Crisis in South Asia; New Delhi, Manohar, 1995

Bajpai, K., Karim, A. and Mattoo, A. (eds) Kargil and After: Challenges for Indian Policy; New Delhi, Har Anand, 2001

Chari, P., Cheema, P., and Cohen, S., Perception, Politics and Security in South Asia: The compound crisis of 1990; London, RoutledgeCurzon, 2003

Chengappa, R., Weapons of peace: The Secret Story of India’s Quest to be Nuclear Power; New Delhi, Harper Collins, 2000

Cohen, S., The Pakistan Army; Berkeley, University of California Press, 1998

Dixit, JN., India and Pakistan in War and Peace; New York, Routledge, 2002

Ganguly, S., Conflict Unending: India-Pakistan Tensions Since 1947; New York, Columbia Unversity Press, 2001

Ganguly, S., and Hagerty, D., Fearful Symmetry: India-Pakistan Crisis in the Shadow of Nuclear Weapons; New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2004

Hagerty, D., The Consequences of Nuclear Proliferation: The Lessons from South Asia; Cambridge, MIT Press, 1998

Joeck, N., Strategic Consequences of Nuclear Proliferation in South Asia; London, Frank Cass, 1996

Jones, O., Pakistan: Eye of the Storm; New Haven, Yale University Press, 2002

Krepon, M., The Stability-Instability Paradox, Misperception and Escalation Control in South Asia; Washington DC, Henry L Stimson Center, 2003

Krishna, A., and Chari., P., (eds), Kargil: The Tables Turned; New Delhi, Manohar, 2001

Malik, VP., Kargil: From Surprise to Victory, New Delhi, Harper Collins, 2006

Perkovich, G., India’s Nuclear Bomb: The Impact of Global Proliferation; Berkeley, University of California Press, 1999

Rajagopalan, R., Second Strike: Arguments of Nuclear War in South Asia, New Delhi, Penguin Books, 2005

Rajagopalan, R., Fighting Like a Guerilla: Indian Army and Counterinsurgency; New Delhi, Routeledge, 2007

Subrahmanyam, K., From Surprise to Reckoning: The Kargil Review Committee Report, New Delhi, Sage Publications, 1999

Swahney, P., and Sood, VK., Operation Parakram: The War Unfinished; New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2003

Tellis, A., India’s Emerging Nuclear Posture: Between Deterrence and Ready Arsenal; Santa Monica, California, RAND Corpn., 2001

Wirsing, R., Kashmir in the Shadow of Nuclear War: Regional Rivalries in the Nuclear Age; Armonk, New York, 2003

Wirsing, R., Pakistani Security Under Zia, 1977-88: The Policy Imperatives of a Peripheral Asian State; New York, St Martin’s Press, 1991

Indian Army Doctrine; HQ ARTRAC, 2004