A national security doctrine in one word: ‘Revenge’
Speaking at a youth summit in Delhi, National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval called on his young listeners to nurse revenge as part of their mindset. His address was timed with his boss, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, turning up playing the damru at the millenary commemorative function of the raid on Somnath temple.
Another introductory dot that needs connecting is the hype around Vande Mataram, at the 150th anniversary of its composition. That the song was later inserted into the Anandamath, that called for revenge against the then - Muslim - rulers in Bengal. That revenge is the flavor of the season is clear from the selfie-points at the book fair in Delhi with Modi’s cut-out handing out the book. Vande Mataram is also theme of this year’s Republic Day parade cultural flotillas.
That the NSA elevates revenge as guiding light for youth implies that he also holds the sentiment in tight embrace. Surely, it impacts his mandate of input to national security policy. Operation (Op) Sindoor has been described as a retaliatory or retributive action, showing the influence of revenge as an ideological lodestar on national security.
To be sure, retribution has a place in strategic repertoire. It is mainstay of the doctrine of ‘deterrence by punishment,’ which has it that any uncalled-for maneuver by an adversary will be met with a firm response, the surety of which is expected to deter. Op Sindoor instilled such confidence that deterrence by punishment is now explicitly India’s strategic doctrine – against Pakistan at any rate.
The caveat is that since the national security doctrine is a differentiated one – against a stronger and a weaker adversary – it is such only against the weaker one, Pakistan. Against China, it is deterrence by denial, with India presenting the certainty of a prickly response in case of Chinese incursions.
India now has a national security doctrine with ‘revenge’ as leitmotif. Does an instinct for revenge secure India? Here I probe three national security concerns – Pakistan, Kashmir and internal security - to see if this is indeed the case.
Against Pakistan
India disregards President Trump’s repeated boast that the United States’ good offices had anything to do with the pause in operations. To India, Pakistan’s chief of operations was brought to the phone by a combination of messages sent in Op Sindoor. While the air force through its last salvo indicated an ability to interdict any Pakistani upping of the ante, the army postured on land and the navy at sea in such a manner as to pose an unmanageable threat.
What was in the works for the last quarter-century has now been officially adopted in the Pakistan-specific strategic doctrine. Not only was a military doctrine – colloquially called cold start – in place, but earlier ‘surgical strikes’ had taken it a step further, from articulation to practice.
The danger is in learning cultural lessons from Op Sindoor: that revenge works. Now on, since India has owned up to a strategic doctrine, it would be held to it. Deterrence dissipates if there is no follow through on what’s promised. In such a case, it shouldn’t find itself instead hoisted by its own petard.
Revenge is not necessarily an unreasonable response for a prior wrong by the other side. However, in the case of India-Pakistan equations, the hand of intelligence actors and non-state actors on both sides stretches as far back as Partition. Consequently, what came first – the egg or the hen – can only remain uncertain. Such a doctrine can also set the stage for a covert black-flag operation to serve as trigger for a premeditated launch of war.
Getting even can also go quite wrong. In Op Sindoor 2, if the Pakistanis hold out for longer, India would require to unleash its coiled fist, referred to by the army chief in the traditional Army Day self-congratulatory press conference. It does not make much sense to rely on the good sense of someone like then-General Asim Munir.
Now it’s a field marshal we have to deal with. He as the newly-minted chief of defence force (CDF) heads the nuclear force, freshly combined and conveniently placed under him. Pakistan has also given itself a rocket force, while we are step behind. The CDF is an empowered chief of defence staff, a matter we have not come around to discussing as the slovenly debate on theaterisation is yet to get there. Op Sindoor has evidently provoked Pakistan down a route that can only prove more lethal.
If General Vij’s perspective (he is as close as it gets to the regime, having headed Doval’s think tank) in his latest book is to be taken at face value (p. 141), theaterisation may end up involving four levels of headquarters for tackling Pakistan – the CDS’, the services’, the integrated theater command and the respective service commands. In contrast, Pakistan will have Pindi with hardliner, if not quite jihadist, Munir, in charge.
India’s revenge doctrine will rely on Munir – till 2030 for now – to take the hint and back off. If Munir does not, then India expects to use its new-fangled Rudras and Bhairaavs. As next step, India would be constrained to up the ante, which means using more persuasive military force on hand. Such progression is inevitable if longer wars are ruled-in. Recall too, for once even PM Modi faced a backlash for calling off Op Sindoor, and that too from his own constituency.
The step up from deterrence by punishment to compellence might prove a short and swift one. Doval says the point of war is to get the other side to concur with our will i.e., compellence. This would bring up the nuclear factor unmistakably.
If General Vij’s book is anything to go by – and there are no other pointers since there is an across-the-board clamp-down on nuclear related articulation – the usual nuclear nonsense prevails that India can survive a nuclear exchange while Pakistan cannot. However, Vij – perhaps for the first time for an Indian - also admits that a situation of mutual assured destruction prevails in South Asia, admitting to Pakistan having a second-strike capability (p. 126). It is incomprehensible how acknowledging this does not lead to precluding massive retaliation the only option. The revenge doctrine – implicit in the nuclear doctrine of ‘massive’ retaliation - might kick in at absolutely the wrong moment.
The problem with Doval as NSA is that his proximity to the seat of power and an inflated reputation conspires towards reticence in interlocutors to speak truth to power. Therefore, the dangers of the new-found strategic doctrine will unlikely find resonance where it should.
In Kashmir
That revenge is at the heart of Indian security thinking is clearer in the regime’s Kashmir policy. Reputedly, Doval has been central to security thinking on Kashmir all through the troubles. Prior to their outbreak he was our intelligence hand within Pakistan, presumably seething to give it back to the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence.
Peace possibilities over the years were spiked by hawks on both sides, with Doval in retirement as the doyen on this side. Retrospect suggests that the outreach early in the Modi years was a cosmetic exercise to allow an alibi for the regime to switch to what it wished to all along: be tough with Pakistan and its internal proxies within Kashmir. This collapsing of the internal and external foes into one explains the dragnet continuing.
No measures are in place to assure a dignified return of displaced Kashmiri Pandits. Their displacement is a plausible reason – if perversely so - for vengeance; along with perhaps a constituency aligned with Pakistan. Kashmir continues to simmer despite the ministrations of Kashmir-cum-terrorism expert Doval. It also remains vulnerable sans a government of empowered indigenes. It is potentially open to further indignities. These by keep it simmering complete the circle by legitimating a heavy hand.
The results are already apparent. ‘White collar’ terror has made an advent. Of those neutralized in operations last year, over a third are locals. That India did not go to war on the latest terror instance in Delhi indicates India is sensitive to limitations of a default doctrine of revenge. Its preferred option a trifle unusable, dangers mount when an intelligence game continues across borders.
In internal security
Since Doval was goading on a civilian audience, he cannot but have been privy to effect of revenge already wrought across the land, be it against Muslims or, more recently, Christians. Doval twice-over mentions ‘our temples’ being demolished, while underlining ‘our’ contrasting peaceable instincts. Doval compounded his provocation by alluding to the Jewish intent to never allow succeeding generations to forget their ‘promised land.’ Does he need reminding that a recently-witnessed genocide is the result of such kind of myth-making? Or is this a cryptic reference to an akhand bharat?
Not taking cudgels on his historical understanding, but surely Doval knows the benefits of polarization resulting from such thinking for his political masters. If he speaks from conviction, it raises issues of conflict of interest: is he leveraging his political utility for longevity in office? He makes it easy to avoid a charge of ageism when calling him out as but another WhatsApp uncle.
Doval could have defined revenge as a dish eaten cold, as satisfaction from seeing adversaries look down, shamed by India outdistancing them in progress. But there is no reason to put words into Doval’s mouth. He knew what he was doing: to divert youth – who’ve may take the wrong cues from their neighbouring Gen ‘Z’ cohorts – from the twinned economic and democratic backslide at home. Doval – in competition with Amit Shah for the title of Chanakya – has the omnibus national security rationale to practice the fine art of displacement.
The key national security outcome of Doval’s speech is in the creation of an anarchical environment within, with the State liable to lose the monopoly of violence to right-wing hordes. Doval, the longest serving NSA in his legacy term, will not be around to right things. From the looks of things, nor indeed will be the last bastion, the army, if a recent unedifying scrummage by constitutional functionaries and their hangers-on - who will rule in a world without a Doval - is anything to go by.
At last, at least we have it
A rather condensed one, but India now has a national security doctrine: revenge. The problem with this doctrine is that it does not provide for resolution, but only band-aids with an ever-shortening expiry date. Indeed, it precludes search for common space and lost ground. Doval has delivered a perfect fit for a majoritarian philosophy.
But what it sets up is the potential for India to be waylaid by war. Deterrence by punishment has the underside of projecting a ‘bring it on’ posture. Being overly reliant on the good sense – a suspect commodity at the best of times – of the other side is not fail-safe. In a nuclearized space, it could fail-deadly.
