https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/nukes-and-thermo-nukes-in-a-two-front
Nukes and Thermo-Nukes in a Two Front Conflict
Bharat Karnad recently updated his blog, Security Wise, putting up his article, ‘Getting Serious About Thermonuclear Security: Need for New Tests, Augmented Capability and First Use Doctrine & Posture’, written for the last winter’s issue of the flagship journal of the Army’s think tank, Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS).
He argues that India’s nuclear capability must be upgraded, principally by introduction of thermonuclear weapons (thermo-nukes). Alongside, the nuclear doctrine must be made realistic and nuclear soft-infrastructure be toned up.
He has long been votary of renewing nuclear testing for reassurance on the workability of the thermonuclear capability; the test of which he has long since pointed out as a ‘fizzle’.
On doctrine, he outlines a ‘differentiated’ doctrine: a different nuclear doctrine and corresponding posture for each front, against China and Pakistan (and, if Karnad had his way, the third against the United States (US)!).
For strategic forces, he urges the military to get nuclear war-savvy officers into place rather than, as presently, have conventional war experts rotate through assignments at the Strategic Forces Command (SFC) and at the ‘Strategic Programs Staff’.
Nukes and thermo-nukes
There is no gainsaying that nuclear weapons - being of a different order altogether – render nuclear war as warfare of its very own kind. The longevity of the nuclear taboo and the world’s non-proliferation exertions provide evidence of nuclear level being a distinct and forbidding – if not quite forbidden – territory.
Even votaries of usability of nuclear weapons rely on the unthinkability of such use – for purposes of deterrence. For them, while resulting doctrine has nuclear first use, the purpose is to allay such requirement.
Therefore, if nuclear weapons are not quite usable, the more terrifying of these – thermo-nukes – appear even less so.
Is it that nuclear deterrence only works with such weapons in the arsenal? Does only thermonuclear weapons capability deter thermonuclear weapons use?
An Indian nuclear expert, Manpreet Sethi, examining whether India needs a thermonuclear capability arrived at an answer to the contrary: these are not essential for deterrence.
Those more mindful of with the difference nuclear weapons make, such as Rajesh Basrur, have it that existential deterrence is good enough: their very possession has a deterring effect, thermo-nukes making no further difference.
Common sense says that in the Cold War mentality more – either in numbers or in yield - can never satisfy those hankering after it. Even if thermo-nukes are on hand, their numbers will be then next grouse. Their delivery modes will also consume attention and resources. Mere possession incentivises arms races.
Even so, the nuclear capability continues to remain under review, depending on geopolitical developments. The US puts out a Nuclear Posture Review at every presidential term, contemporising their role by mostly reaffirming much and changing little.
For India, the altered national security circumstance in India-China relations and the materialisation of the adversarial context of a Two Front conflict is a good juncture as any to see if nukes and thermo-nukes are answers to India’s resulting strategic predicament.
A Two Front conflict
The professorial former Army Chief, General MM Naravane, outlined how the military intended to address a Two Front conflict situation. While one front would be designated the Primary front, the other would be the Secondary one. He elaborated: ““Most of our aggression will be concentrated on the primary front and we will adopt more deterrent posturing on secondary front.”
The Primary front could be taken as one in which a political decision is sought in a particular phase of the conflict, privileging it for the nation’s ‘all of government’ attention and resources, even as a holding action proceeds on the other, Secondary, front.
Two interpretations are possible.
One is that the designations – Primary and Secondary - hold through the conflict; and, second, is that these could switch between the two fronts, depending on the political aims, strategic design and operational circumstance.
In World War I, the Western front was the primary front for the Germans, while for Hitler in World War II, the Eastern front was the primary front. Hitler’s eye on Russia led to the neutralisation of the threat towards the Secondary front to the West, prior to his turning to the Primary front, Russia.
Alternatively, in the second interpretation, in World War II, for the Germans the Primary front was to the West and once that was disposed-off in 1940, the Primary front was to the East where Operation Barbarossa unfolded in 1941.
The second interpretation could be applied to the US in World War II. For them, the Pacific was the Primary front. However, the Pacific temporarily played second fiddle for the duration between the Normandy invasion and the fall of Germany, which for the duration was the Primary front.
Between the two interpretations, a designation holding true for the duration of the Two Front conflict appears to be more likely for India.
Caught in a Two Front conflict situation, the Primary front could be the one against China or Pakistan, depending on political aims sought. While a decision is obtained on the Primary front, a holding action proceeds on the other.
A shift in strategic weight and effort from one front to the other - say, to either force a decision or gain strategic advantage or to prevent the other side from similar dividend - is possible.
An overstretched India is unlikely to be able to take out either foe. Pakistan, that can be expected to be kept afloat by co-belligerent, China – quite like the US has thrown Ukraine a lifeline in the war there – will also cock a snook at the Indian military.
Therefore, India could designate a front across either foe – flowing from political aims – as Primary front - for the first call on its resources - while keeping the second foe at bay across the Secondary front.
An example can be drawn from the 1971 War.
The Eastern front was the designated Primary front, with General KP Candeth, commanding on the Western theatre tasked to mark time initially, which he proceeded to do with the adoption of an offensive defence posture. Similar action was on part of his counterpart, General GG Bewoor, in the southern sector.
Once the conditions were set for unconditional surrender on the Eastern front, the Army proceeded with switching its strategic reserves. (One infantry unit was airlifted out of the Eastern theatre for the Western front. In the bargain, unit members received both the Poorvi Star and Paschimi Star!)
Implications for nuclear use
Given the designation - Primary or Secondary - it can be reasonably surmised that the premium on any role for nuclear weapons is less on the Secondary front than on the Primary front, though nuclear deterrence would be operational on both fronts.
Whereas India reckons nuclear weapons are for deterrence only, it may require leaning on these for compensating its conventional over-stretch. Nuclear posturing might result – through for instance signalling by their movement, manipulating the alert status and tweaking doctrine (for example by public rescinding of No First Use (NFU)) or through heightened rhetoric.
However, India shouldn’t be digging itself out of a conventional hole by nuclear resort. Nuclear asymmetry being enhanced in favour of the collusive foes, they may – taken together – command escalation dominance.
While the capability is doubled when twinned, it is unlikely the two - China and Pakistan - would collude on nuclear use. Instead, each will be wary of the other’s nuclear moves, tending each towards restraining the other.
Each is in any case capable of individually giving it back in the same coin, so does not need a leg up from the other. The independent deterrent of each is credible. While China’s is self-evidently so, the one of Pakistan has vertical proliferation, missile diversity and a better unity of command (than India’s) making for credibility.
It is with reason that the drafters of India’s draft nuclear doctrine inserted the line on necessity to keep the conventional capability honed, so that there is no compulsion to go nuclear. They of course had in mind NFU.
Even Pakistan might not require to reach for nuclear weapons by default to negate India’s conventional advantage. After India’s recent ‘rebalancing’ to the north, it might have the self-confidence to remain at the conventional level to neutralise Indian operations. It no longer needs an escalate-to-deescalate asymmetric strategy.
As for China - by all accounts - conventional asymmetry exists. It’s escalation dominance at the conventional level – Tibetan topography allowing it inner lines and a better infrastructure – prevented India from escalating the border incident into a localised, border war. China has little reason for reaching for nuclear weapons, allowing it to hold true to its No First Use (NFU) pledge.
In a Two Front situation, China would also not like Pakistan reaching for nuclear weapons either, given that their introduction into the conflict would complicate the conflict for itself immeasurably. To that extent, it might exercise influence over Pakistani military moves in favour of nuclear restraint.
Thus, while India’s two foes appear not to have any incentive for proceeding to the nuclear level, it is India that might instead be leveraging the threat of use or use of nuclear weapons – nuclear weapons being the proverbial ‘great leveller’.
How might India work nukes?
Besides advocacy for pursuing a thermonuclear capability by rekindling efficacy of warheads and delivery vectors – such as through acquisition of strategic bombers - Karnad pitches for ditching NFU in respect of China and a shift to a ‘flexible’ doctrine. Further, he wants emplacing of atomic demolition munitions on avenues of ingress, easily identified mountain passes that tend to channelise invaders.
For the Pakistan front, Karnad has always been more sanguine, holding that a war of annihilation is not likely between ethnic cousins sharing the subcontinent. All he requires is a distancing from the imbecile massive retaliation formulation in the nuclear doctrine in favour of ‘flexible response’. The ‘response’ is since the NFU could be retained to disincentivise Pakistan from going nuclear.
By all means, Karnad’s measures for nuclear modernisation must be apace.
One such could be streamlined command and control by removal of the SFC from under a civilian adviser, the National Security Adviser (NSA). (Karnad informs of an eminent scientist sneering at the nuclear comprehension levels of an NSA. Since yet another intelligence czar has followed in the footsteps of that predecessor, arguably little has changed.)
On the Pakistan front
Karnad’s posture in respect of Pakistan has much to commend it. Massive retaliation is indeed incredible. There are also environmental reasons to keep clear of such genocidal thinking.
However, the phrase ‘massive retaliation’ is in itself expressive of what Indian security planners seek. It reflects the ‘visceral hatred’ that General Prakash Menon, once Military Adviser in the National Security Council Secretariat - a nuclear expert to boot – informs on that exists between the national security establishments of the two States.
Contra Karnad, wars of annihilation aren’t unknown in South Asia. Take for instance the fratricidal one at Kurukshetra or the genocidal one in Kalinga.
This accentuates calls for greater circumspection in nuclear use thinking, which lends itself to a posture informed by a flexible response doctrine – as Karnad advocates but with different reasoning.
In a Two Front circumstance in which Pakistan is across the designated Secondary front, nuclear exchanges are, firstly, avoidable, and if it does come to it, measures need to be in place prior for an early termination of these - if not of the conflict itself.
The Army’s foremost nuclear expert, General K Sundarji, had advised as much some thirty years ago. With Pakistan matching India nuke for nuke, he appears even more prescient. (Unfortunately, his sage view got eclipsed since he lay medically indisposed even as the draft nuclear doctrine was being written up.)
Thankfully, the preliminaries in the direction of his thinking are already in hand. Though relations between the two states have been estranged for long, they have had channels going even at the worst of times. This time round, their engagement has witnessed mutual friends act as midwife.
Thus, when and if nuclear clouds do get to dot the Indus-Ganga basin, there is no longer the earlier fear of implacable escalation. Just as a succession of crises have been managed, so is a nuclear crisis also amenable to a de-escalation impulse.
The rush to de-escalate will be equally ascendant in the circumstance, as much as the feared calls to hit back harder. Pre-existing channels of engagement facilitate de-escalation.
Third parties – as the traditional one, US, and new found ones, the Gulf States - are in any case available, counter-intuitively including even in a Two Front situation, China.
On the China front
Karnad believes more needs doing for deterrence credibility. That might be so if the threat from China is existential. There are no indicators of such threat.
Geopolitically, China minimally wants India to stay out of the US orbit. Maximally, it might wish for a subordinate India.
The dictum ‘intentions can change, its capabilities that matter’ is usually trotted out to show China may exercise military muscle to intimidate India. Its growing nuclear complex – seen from newly discovered tunnelled sites – is taken as evidence.
Firstly, the additional nuclear forces are not India-specific.
Secondly, it is not self-evident how going nuclear helps India ward off salami slicing or, worse, a 1962 redux.
Salami slicing is reportedly ongoing in any case, though India is a nuclear power. As for bigger territorial bites - such as of Depsang or Tawang - these will set off a conventional war. Such a war could go nuclear.
Will either side trade mainland cities for either dispute? Does face-saving – that might get enmeshed and provoke escalation - require slicing off one’s nose?
The Indian military is categorical that it can hold its own, even if more needs doing on the infrastructure and logistics front. They have comparative advantages in human resources, training and experience (though the Agniveer scheme will not inconsiderably whittle).
Critics, as Praveen Sawhney, have it that the military is prepared for the last war. Assuming Sawhney is proved right, would Indian military setbacks incentivise it going nuclear and does doing so extricate it any?
Going the Karnad route has the advantage of telling off China not to go beyond a point. Karnad’s maximalism negates escalation dominance by China, that might otherwise embolden it to be expansive in its conflict aims – take South Tibet or assist Pakistan in helping itself to the Valley.
Assuming China has ambitious aims – unseen in any previous Chinese conflict indulgence be it in Korea, in 1962, at Ussuri or against Vietnam - this is expected to deter China from, say, heading for the Chickens’ Neck or opening up the much-feared Half Front in North East. (The Manipur happenings today show how delicate that front really is.)
In other words, it is an insurance policy against the worst – but most unlikely - case.
Besides, the opportunity cost of creating such capability – that can only detract from conventional musclebuilding - the cost of leveraging such capability at a crunch is prohibitive. Self-deterrence must and should – and, very likely, shall - kick in at the juncture.
It’s difficult to countenance trade-off between the periphery and the heartland. While nationalist sentiment will be aroused, it would only be willing to suffer pain at the periphery, not in its very midst.
To be fair to Karnad, he takes care to suggest neutralisation of the Chinese advantage of proximity to Indian heartland by shifting Indian nuclear-tipped missile deployments accordingly.
However, instructive on this might be the reaction in Calcutta in World War II, and, later in 1971 in Madras, when the USS Enterprise sailed into the Indian Ocean – which General Vijay Oberoi just reminded of.
It’s better to keep the exposed Indian heartland from being tested for resilience of its nationalism. It’s been rather inflated lately, a survey registering some two-thirds believing India can whip China.
While air and missile strikes have been known to steel the nationalist instinct, much is conjectured on what nuclear strikes do to social cohesion. The migration at the onset of the Covid lockdown might have some clues.
What is certain is that the Half Front might willy-nilly become an all-consuming Primary front.
Nuclear maximalism has the advantage of being difficult to disprove. In respect of the Cold War, the argument goes that it such extreme precautions are what kept it cold. However, revisionist Cold War history has it that the Soviets did not require being deterred, since they never quite had any intention of going down that route to begin with.
China should not be built up as the villain in the Soviet mould, that then requires Cold War levels of arming to deter.
The days of colonisation long gone, there is no existential threat that requires nukes to counter. Instead, its nukes that generate an existential threat.
The border problem, amenable to a negotiated settlement, is being kept alive by both in their geopolitical face off.
A recent article in Foreign Affairs by noted India watcher – a nuclear expert himself - Ashley Tellis should gladden Chinese hearts. He says India not getting to be a US stooge anytime soon, though it will tug its coattails for any benefits, milking their mutual concerns on China.
If Ashley Tellis is right, India has no intention of joining the supposedly impending wars of global hegemony. China, even if victor would be duly whittled in such a war, making it easier to manage by an intact India.
The Indian policy for the interim is very clear in maintaining status quo on the border zone. Notwithstanding Dr. S Jaishankar’s Jai-speak and Jai-isms on YouTube, India is long reconciled that status quo ante of May 2020 is ruled out.
Consequently, there is no reason to up the nuclear ante, other than moving to flexible doctrine (in keeping with Karnad), with the NFU kept under scrutiny for revision (a step short of Karnad).
Rescinding the NFU would in itself be potent messaging. If it comes to it, First Use would per force have to steer clear of strategic use, kept restricted to preventing operational setbacks. Cities must be kept hostage.
There are absolutely no issues – including the improbable one of being reduced to a tributary by the Middle Kingdom – that require India to run the risk to its cities.
China is of itself not going down the route of city exchange(s). To hold that only thermo-nukes will deter it from doing so is to be negate deterrence value of non-thermo-nuke nukes.
China has no reason to get to that level – knowing that receiving such a strike from India would set it back in its race with the US. Vicarious learning from Russian experience for it is that should prevent India from serving as proxy for the US.
For its part, India has no reason to provoke China to such levels of anger, fear or opprobrium.
To be sure, thermo-nukes have their uses: more bang for the buck and best use of delivery vehicles getting through to the Chinese heartland of megalopolises.
The alternative of multiple warhead-carrying missiles is however available for an inventory that does not have thermo-nukes. The same number of missiles require getting through and the damage is arguably more wide spread.
Even so, no harm in testing the capability yet again to bring it up to speed, if and when opportunity as resumed testing by any of the Permanent Five presents itself.
Karnad presents no pressing reason to jump the gun for now. The moratorium on testing being unilateral is liable for a unilateral jettison.
Deterrence by punishment of the levels Karnad wishes can wait.
Not the last word
Karnad might be right and ahead of his times, but for clinching his argument he needs taking nuclear deterrence theory further.
Deterrence theory has it that nuclear weapons deter nuclear weapons. For some of the nuclear first use school, nuclear weapons deter war itself.
There is no line in deterrence theology books that reads: Only thermo-nukes deter thermo-nukes.
For now, this requires proving.
