https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/op-sindoor-2-india-must-not-hanker
In the immediate aftermath of Op Sindoor, India perhaps for the first time articulated a strategic doctrine, adopting as the ‘new normal,’ swift and sure retaliation to Pakistani terror provocations. Not only have pronouncements been aplenty since, but military activity has also picked up. On the face of it, it would appear that a radical disjuncture has been brought about by Op Sindoor.
Understandably then, a recent commentary , predicting an opportunity for peacemaker Trump to tote up his Nobel chances, cries ‘Wolf!.’ The author thinks that in the next round the Indians, believing that the nuclear card is Pakistan’s way of instigating American peace initiatives, are likely to go for objectives across the Line of Control (LC). To him, this could lead up to ‘uncontrolled escalation.’ How real is the danger?
The doctrinal shift
An imagined strategic continuum has a defensive segment at one end and compellence at the other, with deterrence in-between. The deterrence segment can be further split into two - defensive deterrence and offensive deterrence. Prevailing in war involves compellence.
Over the years, India has moved from the defensive segment, where it was in Nehruvian India, to defensive deterrence under his more combative daughter, Indira Gandhi. But, the hangover from General Sundarji’s days of mechanised warfare simulation is long over. Limited War thinking dawned close on the heels of nuclearisation, with the Kargil War. In its wake, the cold start doctrine was whistled up.
The wellsprings of the doctrinal makeover lay in three sources. At the external level, Pakistan - instrumentalising Kashmir - remained a problem. Tackling it in the nuclear era involved pulling one’s punches. Thus, the doctrine posited several limited-depth offensives from a ‘cold start’ across a wide front.
At the internal level, riding on the back of an economy unleashed by liberalisation, India saw itself as an emerging power. Cultural nationalism, in its shaping of Indian strategic culture, infused an offensive content into the doctrine. During the Manmohan years the offensive content provided cover for the parlays underway with Pakistan. Later, with the advent of the Modi, it was presented as the strategic shift, heralding rupture of his era with the past .
At the within-the-box organisational level, the military exerted to stay relevant in the nuclear era. It trimmed its sails, divining space below the nuclear threshold for use of force. It hoped to thereby deter Pakistani subconventional provocations, without itself provoking at the nuclear level.
India thus shifted from a strategic doctrine of defensive deterrence based on a combination of denial (defensive battle) and punishment (strike corps counter offensives) towards offensive deterrence (proactive offensive).
Over the three terms of this regime, the strategic shift appears to have run its course. Not only has India responded to terror provocations by military action thrice over, but after Op Sindoor, claims to have upped its act. Its newly minted strategic doctrine collapses terror perpetrators with state sponsors and promises reflexive retribution. Evidently the two previous reprisal surgical strikes did not work. It is moot whether this formulation would signify a transit into compellence.
The gingerly conduct of Op Sindoor itself has pointers on strategic restraint continuing: petitioning Pakistan in wake of the terror camp strike; keeping own air out of action for three crucial days; and throwing in a parting punch, after knowing the Americans had already corralled Pakistan. More recently, official reticence was visible in the two days it took to officially recognise the recent Delhi blast as a terror incident.
The next round
While India dallied for two decades over Cold Start-ordained Integrated Battle Group (IBG) activation, Pakistan went ahead with tactical nukes and nuclear doctrinal moves. Almost in acknowledgement, Op Sindoor was altogether kept a stand-off engagement. Further, post Op Sindoor, the move is towards a scaled down version of IBGs, comprising Bhairavs, Rudras and Shaktibaans. It is apparent, while earlier India stepped back from corps level offensives, now it has done so also from sub-divisional-sized IBGs, in favour of mini-IBGs.
Noteworthy is the critique of IBGs that they signify an inability to work with an Order of Battle. Formations and units are available for operational tasking as per the flow of a campaign. What then is the necessity for objective-specific IBGs answering to a chain of command through the threat of a confidential report? What happens to IBGs after first phase objectives? Do sanskritic nouns function as force multipliers? Aware of its limitations, India appears to have settled for bites instead of mouthfuls, nibbles instead of chunks of enemy territory and fighting capacity.
Fortuitously, this is all for the good since the nuclear factor has taken to looming larger. It has acquired formidable portents with President Trump’s ‘favourite field marshal’ taking control of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, one which Trump alleges continues to be polished up.
This year’s biggest military exercise was in wake of Raksha Mantri Rajnath Singh’s mentions of Karachi and Sindh. Anyone would believe that an exercise that featured a Rudra brigade being put through its paces and an amphibious landing must indicate intent to follow through on Singh’s threats. However, the exercise had no mention of any nuclear angle. Instead the usual desultory practice of decontamination drills, carrying a hint of the nuclear backdrop sensitivity, were instead practiced in another - multinational - exercise.
This can imply three things: one, the use of the Rudra brigade suggests India does not intend to trigger any redlines; two, a more ambitious capability demonstrated through the amphibious landing, is to deter Munir from upping the conventional ante; and, three, absence of the nuclear angle suggests a belief that Pakistani symmetric escalation is stayed by a strengthened Indian Triad.
Dangers arise if India finds itself wrong on any of the three counts. One, the escalatory quotient in use of Bhairavs and Rudras depends on the objectives set. If on the LC, the objectives are proxy war and defensive posture relevant, it would not be escalatory. However, those that lend an offensive advantage could lower the other’s redlines. Bhairav’s launched elsewhere across the border can also instigate escalation.
Two, the new Chief of Defence Forces Munir’s propensity to hold out may lead to components intended to signal escalation dominance - such as the amphibious elements - getting sucked into the fight. Also, mission creep, inadvertence and accidents do happen.
Finally, Munir’s bombast of taking ‘half the world down’ with him is plausible not only because of what Pakistan would do with its nuclear weapons, but equally in light of the promise in the Indian nuclear doctrine of massive retaliation.
These are unintended outcomes that India ought to avoid. It must be cautious against venturing past offensive deterrence into compellence. This is not a tall order for a regime that reckons its not an era of war. It must be receptive to third party off-ramps. With peace deals reckoning with underlying causes of war as much as proximate ones, it must know that Kashmir will figure on the negotiation table, especially in case of nuclear clouds.
Consequently, its best that where a teaser will do, don’t hanker after a trailer, and where a trailer is enough, just forget the movie.
