https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/the-doval-score-card-at-its-fag-end?sd=pf

The Doval Scorecard at its fag end

Five years back, toting up National Security Adviser Ajit Doval’s score card as custodian of national security, I said that his principal contribution has been to shore up the electoral chances of Narendra Modi. I had no inkling that as the situation became grimmer in an economy unable to revive after Modi’s midnight brainwave, demonetization, Ajit Doval’s mastery of his craft would help pull Hindutva’s chestnuts out of the fire.

Pulwama happened timely, giving Modi a shy at Balakot. That the Air Force missed the target didn’t really matter. A military history tome now records a Mig shooting down an F16, to the chagrin of Americans music to the Russians.

Elections are coming up sometime early next year, unless, as Arundhati Roy reckons, these are preponed Modi made wary of his prospects by the back-to-back successes of the Bharat Jodo Yatra and Pathaan and the coincident triple-blow by the proverbial ‘foreign hand’: Straw, Hindenberg and Soros.

Taking cue, the pandits (as defined by Mohan Bhagwat) are out ratcheting up Ajit Doval’s national security score card. One strategic hand has it that he has institutionalized national security.  Wonder if firming in the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) spells national security coming to bail Modi out yet again?

Prior to the 2014 elections, communal polarization was initiated in Muzaffarnagar so as to wrest the western Gangetic belt for Hindutva. Whereas Hindutva has the vile resources to commit such crimes unbidden, the atmosphere of impunity it enjoyed owed to the preceding decade-long vilification of Muslims prior.

The hand of India’s Deep State is visible through that decade. As to Doval’s location in relation to the Deep State, contemporary history writing will no doubt throw more light on someday. However, that the Deep State’s instruments – its foot soldiers as Pragya, Purohit, Aseemanand, Vanzara and Kodnani - were let off in Modi’s first term holds a clue.

Come the 2019 elections, Modi rode the coat tails of the military, inflated by the information campaign accompanying the Balakot episode. How some 80 kg of explosive ended up with the Pulwama bomber has yet to be revealed.

So what does the upcoming year hold?

Now that the NSCS has the reins – or so we are told by its spin masters – to what extent it participates in furnishing Modi with an election hattrick - or forestalls it with institutionally mandated action - will be the ultimate test of whether Doval marches to a national security drumbeat or otherwise.

A direct participation by the national security apparatus in shoring up Modi’s chances in 2024 – as in 2019 - is not on the cards.

Whereas Pakistan is on the ropes, having China hold its back, it cannot serve as a punching bag. Alluding to the power asymmetry, Foreign Minister Jaishankar has made clear that it’s common sense not to rile China. No wonder India only very gingerly got on to Kailash Range and very sprightly vacated it at the first opportunity.

Instead, to ensure national security deficits do not trip-up Modi, India has gone out on a limb projecting its disinterestedness in the military, for instance, by disemboweling it with the Agnipath scheme.

Indeed, there is nary a mention of India’s nuclear capability in the assiduously covered alleged institutionalisation of national security structures that answer to Doval. This bespeaks of India’s ditching of deterrence in favour of appeasement.

The national security implications of this are debatable. While it buys India time for getting its missiles, aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines in place, it is questionable if those are the instruments India should at all use against China. 

What’s clear is the dividend for Hindutva’s next shot at the hustings. The idea is that national interest – by the government’s own admission China continues to sit on two parcels of Indian land - must take a back seat at least up until Hindutva’s Champion is back for the third term.

Modi’s lame duck year provides Doval an alibi. With India stewarding the G20 and Shanghai Cooperation Organisation this year, it can do without national security clutter. It is a separate matter that a routine rotation of presidency is being made much of, to project India’s arrival as Vishwaguru. India privileges multilateralism making Modi look a global statesman in election year, in the bargain fetching Jaishankar brownie points (though his regime-pleasing one liners on Youtube show him coming into his own).

Even so, Doval needs cautioning that even any indirect participation in influencing voter choice through acts of omission and commission would be laid at his door. Should Hindutva adopt other gambits – such as, say, a Muzaffarnagar elsewhere – he would be responsible.

Portents today from places as diverse as Nuh, Ajnala and from eviction sites in Assam are indicative. The supposed institutionalization of the NSCS should rightly result in nipping such excesses in the bud or tamping down on overzealous chief ministers.

The recent observance of the third anniversary of the North East Delhi pogrom threw up the lesson-learnt that the law-and-order machinery, including additional forces, not only turned up late, but were partisan when they did. While Nellie could be covered up forty years ago, that history cannot easily be rewritten these days is evident from Modi’s use of emergency powers to clamp down on an offending documentary on Gujarat.

Over the past nine years, Doval has acquiesced with Modi’s de-institutionalisation of the Republic, though knowing of national security implications of this. The intention of Hindutva progenitors is opening up India to a Constitutional reset. The under-fire Basic Structure doctrine should have had the national security apparatus tacitly shoring its defences. Doval’s inaction has made Constitutional rejig within reach.

Another mandate for Modi will be willfully read as a majoritarian blank cheque. The last time in the run up to elections, Doval had publicly pitched for Modi. Another iteration of such unwarranted advocacy must be taken as unconscionable.

Doval’s score card is being written-up, presumably because his age and limitations might not allow him to continue into the next Modi administration. With Jaishankar already breathing down his neck, Doval might be set to pasture. Therefore, interrogating his nine years at the national security helm is warranted.

On the touted institutionalization, the dismantling of India’s military strength is stark. Not only was the appointment of the second Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) held in abeyance for long, but the Military Adviser’s (MA) chair, left vacant with its last incumbent moving post-retirement as CDS, continues to be empty. This despite there being no shortage of brass hats shamelessly auditioning for it through their tweets and regime-endorsing writings.

The CDS – the MA at NSCS and current MA to the defence minister – has his predecessor MA at the NSCS having the ear of the defence minister as principal adviser to the defence minister. Ever wonder where that places the defence secretary’s advisory role, which in any case stands now extended past his time to hit the pasture?

As for institutionalization in the defence sector, the major signifier could have been jointness and theaterisation. That is not on the horizon owes to it being left to the military. The military - through its veterans - has long pushed back, pointing to the absence of a guiding national security doctrine. The doctrine has not been signed off on, though Doval heads the Defence Planning Committee mandated to churn out one.

Absent doctrinal advance at the national and joint levels, did the Air Force just preempt regime-favourite late General Rawat envisaged theaterisation with a unilateral decadal update to its own doctrine? Can an army bogged down with whether horse drawn buggies are a discard-worthy colonial legacy be really taken as seriously professional?

The only ‘happening’ sector is defence diplomacy and atmanirbharta. Both broadcast a postponing of any resort to military means for strategic ends. The up-front message is that strategic partnerships are being forged and military wherewithal being acquired in the interim before a reckoning with Chinese power and ambition.

Military diplomacy can alternatively be read as another information war track, since the Ukraine War shows no other military will step up at the crunch. As a strategic observer put it: When India won’t act in Ladakh, why would it over South China Sea or Taiwan?

As for military self-sufficiency, it’s yet another conduit for crony capitalism to play out, making Indian Chaebols out of Gujarati companies. However, remember Reliance Jr that sequestered offsets on Rafale and promptly went bankrupt. As for the Adani juggernaut - that per an opposition politician bid for two strategic projects - will yet be steadied by the Indian state, testifying to the depth of the Modi-Adani connect.

What of the traditional security preoccupations: Kashmir, Pakistan and China?

In Kashmir, Doval can be credited with selecting General Rawat to do the dirty job of wrapping up the youth who were the backbone of the insurgency. This set the stage for the vacation of Article 370 of meaning under an unprecedented dragnet. Though Jaishankar rightly credited fewer deaths to this strategy, its continuing application means the problem has been kicked down the road.

The anticipated explosion in the pent-up alienation of people on their unceasing humiliation by Hindutva - fearlessly tallied in Anuradha Bhasin's new book - will likely be faced by Doval’s successor. That’s the time Doval’s report card needs to be wrapped up, not now when the indices of violence are low enough to have the spin masters plant the idea that Kashmir can do without army deployment and Rashtriya Rifles can be mothballed.

As for Pakistan, advocacy is extant on Modi bailing it out of its dire circumstance, thereby, in some wishful illusions, preponing Akhanda Bharat. As to the extent some of Pakistan’s troubles are an intelligence handiwork is unknown, but the factor cannot be dismissed given Doval’s reputation as intelligence czar.

A new book by Doval a senior in the trade, AS Dulat, laments the hardline policy towards Pakistan, though he informs that Doval once also fancied himself as being able to usher in peace too if he so wanted. The hardline has bought some respite in Kashmir, such as a manageable Line of Control, allowing India leeway in Kashmir. Yet, neither the problem of and in Kashmir has gone away, which doesn’t say much for an old Pakistan and Kashmir hand, Doval.

The cost has been insertion of a third party into the conflict, the Gulf acting as handmaiden of the United States. Instead of a strategy, it appears yet another anti-Muslim Partition predating Hindutva approach. Doval created conditions for a strategic initiative to have meaningfully addressed Kashmir, but has instead lent his expertise to Hindutva. When concessions and promises made in the back channel are called in by the third parties and Pakistan-back-from-the-ashes is when Doval’s report needs to be in the ‘In’ tray.

India perhaps counts on its indispensability to the management of the challenge posed by China. That it has counted itself out is clear from trade booming amidst working level diplomatic and military talks grinding on. That Modi wishes to have Xi over to Delhi twice-over in the run-up year to elections is priority. The ostensible reason is that India will not be distracted by war talk as it transits Amrit Kaal to developed state by 2047.

That inaction is intended to give Hindutva the run of the place, even as it posits a strong on defence image, is left unsaid. Legitimate as strategy, only its compromised by its impulse and the regime not owning up to it. This perhaps explains the lack of a national security doctrine/strategy, since this elevation of Hindutva to being the national interest cannot legitimately be put into words till the Constitution is overturned. Doval’s strategic stupefaction allows speculation such as this to bite.

It is possible to be more sympathetic to Doval. He might have bitten off more than he could chew.

It is uncertain if he, as part of India’s Deep State of a hidden elite comprising corporate bigwigs, intelligence honchos and Hindutva gadflies, chose Narendra Modi as mascot, or whether it was the other way round: Hindutva picking Doval for its purposes. Even if the latter, Doval cannot be absolved, since he advertised his availability from his think tank perch in Chanakyapuri.

In either case, he has proved unable to tame the instincts of Hindutva working through, for instance, Amit Shah, whose only training in institutional control of the police, central armed police and paramilitary is in phone calls to DIG Vanzara when the latter busied disposing off mortal remains of Sohrabuddin and wife.

This presupposes any interest in playing to the straight and narrow, a delusional proposition, given what is known of the heightened budget of the NSCS and surmised workings of Pegasus, including its role in cornering a Chief Justice to hand Modi the card to clinch the elections: a glittering temple in Ayodhya just as India goes to polls.

Doval will be judged on what he has done for Hindutva: readied India for Hindutva by dismantling its institutional defences from within. Luckily for Doval and sadly for Accountability, whether that is a good thing or bad might not be known in his lifetime.

A whats app message from an ADC to Chinar Corps Commander of early 90s

Those days, opening arty fire was Army Commander powers. Every time Pakis opened fire on LC with their arty, GOC 15 Corps had to call GOC-in-C Northern Command to open retaliatory fire. Later, this got delegated to Company Commander in 1999-2000. 

On several occasions, Army Commander refused permission. So old man would call BGS Brig Sharma and ask him to take his orders in writing and order firing of arty. Next day, SitRep would show arty exchange and furious Army Commander would call to find out why his orders were countermanded. Old man would say something like, 'I am exercising my military judgement and if my decision is wrong in the eyes of Chief, I will be happy to tender my resignation.' Or things to that effect. 

The Army Commander fumed and fumed but could do nothing.

 https://usiofindia.org/publication/usi-journal/short-wars-creating-tomorrows-reality-2/?_sfm_volume=CXXXVII

Short Wars – Creating Tomorrow’s Reality  2008 USI Journal

Introduction Conventional wars have historically been resorted to with the intention of being kept short.  Military history proves that as often as not, this is not how wars have turned out.  The expectation that tomorrow’s wars will be short arises from the transition of South Asia  into the Nuclear Age. However, if tomorrow’s wars are to be short, two aspects will need to be kept in mind. The first is regards the elements which keep conflict duration limited, and,  secondly, are the factors that militate against this. Most studies on Limited War suggest a deliberate limitation to politico-strategic aims,  geographic spread, weapons and forces involved. Keeping conflict ‘limited’ is easier said on  account of factors that stoke the conflict spiral. This article dwells on the drivers of conflict,  through a look at military history and by analysing the current strategic reality in South Asia.  The concluding recommendations are for working on the pre-requisites of a Short War during  peace and in future conflict; these being, paradoxically, moderation of national passions, war  aims and military means. The lessons of military history The key impetus to conflict initiation has been the expectation of victory. Strategic sense  decrees that victory be obtained at the earliest and at minimum cost and risk. Political masters  considering war initiation in an inter-state setting have historically been persuaded of war as  an option only in case of a short duration war. Other than the nuclear factor, factors that  lend themselves to Short Wars have been present earlier. These include the role of international  organisations; international opinion and pressures; tacit understanding between adversaries;  sensitivity of leaderships to the underside of conflict, such as escalation and extension; and  finite military capabilities at the outset of war. But these have not proven consistently effective  in keeping wars short. Recourse to military history would help identify factors that bring about   a reality contrary to expectation. A review of military history reveals that most wars in the modern age dating to the Napoleonic  Wars have been long. Napoleon spent the better part of two decades at war prior to meeting  his Waterloo. The inspired manoeuvres of the revolutionary French armies led to his opponents  joining in concert, thereby prolonging the war1. The American civil war is taken as the first war  in which modern military systems, weapons and tactics made their rudimentary appearance. It  was a long war with Lincoln preserving the Union through a time-consuming strategy of  bringing the industrial might of the North to bear. The relatively brief campaigns of the Bismarck-Moltke era were on account of Prussia having  perfected the general staff system. Such momentary asymmetry can bring about quicker  victory; however, German triumph led to French revanchism culminating in the Great War2.  The First World War was embarked on by all sides with the expectation that, troops would be home for Christmas3. The static front owed to Moltke the Younger losing his nerve in carrying through the Schlieffen plan, evidence that the art in war can confound any science in it. The limitations of operational brilliance in the industrial age are revealed once again in the  next war. Blitzkrieg heralded joint-manship of a high order that won campaigns, but could  not withstand the test of war in the industrial age. Industrial capacity in case of Albert Speer’s  Germany was not of the order required to impose Hitler’s will4. Likewise in the East, Admiral  Yamamoto, who struck at Pearl Harbor, is quoted as saying: “In the first six to twelve months  of a war with the US and Great Britain, I will run wild and win victory upon victory. But then, if war continues after that, I have no expectation of success.”5 Ultimately, the Total War doctrine of ‘unconditional surrender’ ensured a prolonged contest eventuating in the nuclear age. The nearly half-century long Cold War, curiously dubbed ‘the long peace’,6 witnessed the  Superpowers contending through proxies in the Third World, with individual conflicts lasting  for decades. The three year long Korean War, energised ‘Limited War’ and escalation control  theories.7 The wars of colonial liberation were also long duration ones in Africa and South  East Asia. The Vietnam War, sustained in the belief that incremental application of force would  ensure its early conclusion, was a decade long. So was the Afghan war. In the post Cold War  era, wars, both conventional and sub-conventional, have largely been of long duration, be they  in central Africa, the Balkans and, indeed, counter intuitively, the Gulf. The Iran-Iraq War that  consumed half a million lives lasted seven years, being fuelled by all the Great Powers  interested in its extension for strategic and commercial reasons. The two Iraq Wars are taken as Short Wars and seen as heralding wars of the future.  However, this case is based on the interim between the two Gulf Wars being taken as a  period of ‘peace’- an arguable proposition in face of a decade long blockade, sanctions,  air space restrictions and episodic intervention using missiles and proxies leading up to an  assessed toll of half-a-million.8 Besides, the second Iraq War has self-evidently not quite  ended. The latest Israeli month-long incursion into Lebanon against the Hezbollah was a  short foray. That it cost the Army chief, General Dan Halutz, his job, indicates the limitations  of Short Wars in gaining war aims.9 The only gain has been avoidance of the earlier outcome  of intervention under Begin and Sharon of 1982; but the jury is still out as to whether Israel  is more secure today on account of this military self assertion. From the foregoing brief survey, certain lessons help identify the drivers of conflict.  The first is that, aims that do not brook compromise, such as ‘unconditional surrender’, ending secession and regime change, presage a long haul. Keeping aims limited through a conflict is at best a difficult proposition. Second, from Napoleon through Guderian to Petraeus, the lesson is that operational level advantages cannot make up for strategic shortcomings. Thirdly, in the Age of Nationalism, political forces in society push for longer wars, thereby constraining autonomy of decision makers and impacting strategic rationality. Fourth, the form of the conflict embarked on could change, such as from conventional to sub-conventional. This would require viewing the conflict as one and its duration as a continuum. Periods of ‘phony war’, howsoever normalised in consciousness and discourse, also require being included as periods of conflict. Next, there is no guarantee that external interests would converge to end conflict.  International organisations, including the UN, are vulnerable to manipulation by the  Great Powers; therefore any expectations of these would have to be suitably tempered.  Lastly, the ‘stability-instability’ paradox is permissive of long duration LIC through which strategic aims other than the most desirable one of durable peace can be materialised.10  By this yardstick, even a conventional war can also be chanced in the stability afforded by nuclear deterrence, as Pakistani planners persuaded themselves to believe in the run up to the Kargil intrusion. The sub-continental experience An analysis of conflicts in South Asia does not unambiguously reveal an inherent propensity  towards limitation from which it can be confidently extrapolated that wars of the future will  be short. The Sino-Indian border war of 1962 was short, less due to the unilateral ceasefire by China than to India refraining from joining the contest in earnest. It need not have been so,  especially as Western aid was requisitioned. The War was kept short by Pandit Nehru taking  a considered political decision on not displacing India’s development trajectory, even if  non-alignment suffered a momentary eclipse. Earlier Indo-Pak wars have been taken as relatively gentlemanly affairs owing to shared legacy.  Of the wars against Pakistan, the first was a long duration one lasting over a year. Marshal  of the Air Force in hindsight reflects that the 1965 War ended prematurely as the full weight  of air power could not be brought to bear.11 It was restricted to the three weeks of intensive  fighting. However, in case the Kutch incident of April, Operation Gibraltar of August, and  subsequent violations of the ceasefire till the Tashkent Agreement of the subsequent January are included, then the conflict duration qualifies as long. Likewise, the duration of the 1971 War need not be restricted to the two week ‘lightening  campaign’. It should instead be dated to April that year when Sam Bahadur famously  withstood political pressure for an early campaign. The Mukti Bahini period, migration of  10 million people, killings of hundreds of thousands within East Bengal and local border  violations can be subsumed in the period of conflict.12 Even the short campaign was  fortuitous, in that, the view of Generals Jacob, Nagra, Sagat Singh and Inder Gill of going  for Dacca prevailed in the last stages of run up to war, as against the original intent of  salami slicing and time consuming capture of towns enroute’.13 The Kargil War, called a ‘short, sharp war’ by the Kargil Review Committee, is usually taken  as forerunner of short duration wars of the future fought in the nuclear backdrop.  According to the suspect Pakistani perspective,14 a long campaign of attrition was  preempted through US intervention. President Musharraf’s claims in his autobiography  have been credibly disputed on this score by former Chief, General VP Malik.15 However,  a time-continuum can be discerned with Low Intensity Conflict across the Line of Control  abutting either end of the mid-intensity Kargil Conflict. Conflating the two kinds of conflict  into one would make the conflict a long duration one and part of the wider proxy war. The lesson to be drawn is that India’s conflicts, like conflicts elsewhere, have an equal, if  not greater chance, to be of long duration rather than short. Political heads took decisions to  cease the conflict at a great personal and political cost on both sides of the border. The  development of rival nationalisms and resulting politicisation of issues since, would impinge  on future ease of settlement of issues. Secondly, these wars have not always yielded a  meaningful result in terms of settlement of issues. A Short War in the future may also leave core issues unaddressed, begging the question of its utility. The ‘push’ for resolving issues  militarily ‘once and for all’ may then make an appearance. Precautions require to be built into  the preparation for and conduct of war to ensure a Short War. An analysis of the present Understandably, none of India’s sub-conventional conflicts have been short duration ones:  Operation Pawan, Operation Rakshak, Operation Rhino and the LIC in Siachen.16 This trend  is likely to persist into the future. To escape this strategic cul-de-sac, Short War thinking has  arisen in which space in the conflict spectrum can be opened up for a conventional ‘Limited  War’, with limitation being exercised in duration as against other parameters as extent of  theater of engagement, weaponry used and targets engaged. The tendency of conflict towards escalation, leading up to the ‘ideal’ state of Absolute War,  has been conceptualised by Clausewitz in his discussion of the reciprocal actions between  opponents.17 This tendency is accentuated by nationalism, intrinsic to modern nation states,  that yields ground to hyper nationalism in times of crisis. Historical memories also impact  the creation of the ‘Other’, resulting in stereotyping and dehumanisation of the opponent.  This tendency can be exploited by fringe political formations to tie down the government to  less palatable options. These factors conspire to dispel rationality. The expectation that external powers, valuing stability and fearful of the nuclear genie, would  intervene early for conflict termination is also shaky. Pakistan has persistently defended its  untenable position on Kashmir in defiance even of the US. India mobilised its troops in  response to the Parliament attack irrespective of the effect on the US led GWOT. The impact  of external pressure is limited to what states are willing to tolerate. International organisations also have their own limitations, hidden agendas and a case history of  limited efficacy in sub-continental disputes. Lastly, a look at the nuclear question on conflict duration is in order. General VP Malik  has it that there exists a window in the conflict spectrum below the nuclear threshold for  conventional operations.18 This is elastic so long as the perceived ‘nuclear reaction  threshold’ is not pushed. It is assessed that a threat to the threshold is more likely in a  longer war in which comprehensive national power is brought to bear. However, the  vulnerable state is also in a position to mobilise its national resources so as to preclude  a lowering of the threshold. Against extant wisdom, it can be posited that a high intensity  war, intended as a short one at the outset, poses the threat of stampeding the vulnerable  side into premature nuclearisation to redress some or other emergent asymmetry. Therefore,  the argument, based on the existence of a nuclear backdrop, is not entirely persuasive. War termination would be dependent on like-mindedness of the adversary. In the Indo-Pakistan i context, this may not be possible until Pakistan is able to pull off some gains either tangibly  or psychologically. Its Army would require some face-saving action for holding onto power  post-conflict within Pakistani political structure. This would likely result in Pakistan extending  the war till its purposes – not amounting to ‘winning’ the war, but merely preserving itself  from ‘losing’ abjectly – are achieved. Such a long war is in Pakistani interests for it will  enable resort to external balancing and ‘extended depth’. Besides, it may ‘do an Iraq’ on  an advancing India. In the event, India may end up with a partner unwilling to Tango. India, on its part, would not like to be left strategically exposed lest a Short War not serve  up its original aims. In trying to pull off a politically viable, strategically sustainable and militarily ‘decisive’ outcome, it may over-extend. Mission creep’ and ‘surge’ would then transpire, with uncertain outcome. Given the move of the discourse from Limited War19 to Short War,20 the premium on duration would necessitate a corresponding compensation through leveraging national and military power along other dimensions and levels in which India would be deemed to enjoy escalation dominance. This would compromise the resulting peace in leaving a bitter aftermath and an unrequited enemy. Concluding reflections Short Wars are desirable as against long duration wars, in that they imply limited war aims;  keep damage limited comparatively; do not deflect the national economy overly; do not  providing enough time for passions to overtake rationality; and, resultantly, do not permit  these to impinge unreasonably any future peace settlement. However, as seen here, the term  Short War verges on an oxymoron. Therefore, measures need to be identified and  implemented to bring about such an outcome. A few pointers to this end are recommended  in conclusion. At the political level, firstly, there requires to be a political consensus on the requirement,  nature and aims of the war embarked on. In case this is not there, then self-interested  political elements could whip up public passions forcing the leadership in unpredictable  ways. Secondly, demonisation resorted to generally in peace needs to be tempered to the  extent of permitting the adversary a locus standi on a vexed issue. This would enable easier  assimilation by the polity and populace of the necessity for early war termination through  compromise on mutually agreed terms. On the military level, the first Principle of War, namely, ‘selection and maintenance of aim’  requires constant foregrounding. Second, the threat of escalation would require monitoring,  particularly as the demonstration a capacity for ‘escalation dominance’, so as to influence  enemy thinking towards conflict termination, may go awry. Thirdly, it must be borne in mind that operational brilliance may beget victory, but, paradoxically, victory is not usually a necessary and sufficient condition for subsequent peace. Lastly, the military would require conditioning to a half-fought war. Air power theory of ‘infrastructure busting’; land warfare concept of ‘decisive victory’; and the naval apprehension of ‘sitting out the war’ may require muting. War is the least predictable social activity and the least controllable political act, and on  outbreak is liable to truncate rational aims and pious intentions. Short Wars have to be brought  about by creating the context and circumstance conducive to early war termination; best  achieved, ironically, through war aims that belie the necessity of war. The purpose of  military power in our context today is not to compel the enemy to one’s purpose; but to  nudge the enemy to a mutually beneficial end.