SVI International Webinar on “Nuclear Deterrence and Strategic Stability in South Asia” on December 20, 2022
3. Second Session: Crisis Escalation, Nuclear Deterrence and Doctrinal Shifts in South Asia.
3.1 Crisis Escalation and Drivers of Instability
The first speaker of the second session was Dr Ali Ahmed (Independent Security Analyst, India) who shared his views on “Crisis Escalation and Drivers of Instability”. He started by saying that the focus of his presentation would be the element of “stability” instead of instability. He said that crisis is not a situation of pre-violence alone. It can be said that crisis would also play out during conflict while violence is ongoing. Therefore, his presentation focused not so much on the nuclear aspect of crisis, but on crises that occur in other non-violent or pre-violence phases. The second point of his presentation was “the drivers of instability”. He said that though there are drivers of instability but states should also remember that there are dirvers of stability too, and they need to be reinforced, and we need to also factor-in, when we take into account the holistic picture. As a methodology Dr Ali Ahmed used “levels of war” and “levels of analysis” to see what kind of cycle develops. Before going into details of his presentation, he said that his views entail a little bit of subjectivity.
He explained levels of war, sub-conventional, conventional and nuclear; he also showed a slide on levels of analyses, which included international, national, sub-national, regional, organizational and personality/individual. He said the complexity in this equation is at which level the crisis has been pitched. The actors at various levels of analyses will be forming and influencing the crisis, which will resultantly impact the crisis outcome. He went on and explained the drivers of instability at the international level. According to him, Ukraine War and Sino-US conflict act as drivers of instability at the international level. At the regional level, Dr Ahmed highlighted three drivers of instability from the Indian perspective, which were two-front war, Chinese factor and extremism. The next level explained by the speaker was “inter-state level”, where drivers of instability were “Indo-Pakistan relations”, the military balance between forces of both states and political dynamics. At the “national level” in India, economic downturn, political Hindutva and social polarization were considered drivers of instability. At the “organizational level”, Dr Ali Ahmed considered aggressive doctrines, the politicization of issues at an organizational level and restructuring at military organizations as a source of instability. At the “personality level”, three personalities can influence the situation: political leadership, advisors and military leadership (Brass hats). These personalities and their actions determine how the national and organizational levels play out.
Following on, the speaker merged the identified drivers of instability at levels of war and analyzed the impacts of such a situation. First of all, while analyzing international-level drivers of instability with levels of war, he said that there is very little efficacy of international-level drivers to affect what happens at the sub-conventional/conventional level of conflict in South Asia. However, if India and Pakistan go up on the escalation ladder, then international concerns will be heightened, which speaker believed is good. At a regional level, South Asian nuclear rivals will be left to deal with each other. He said that there is exhaustion at the international level due to the periodic recurrences of crises at the regional level in South Asia. Hence, both countries will be left alone to fight it out at the conventional level of war until we start touching the nuclear threshold. At the inter-state level between India and Pakistan, what whole cycle of drivers of instability at different levels of war churn out is difficult to determine. At the National level, Hindutva is here to stay; therefore, at the lower levels of war India might wish to present a muscular image but as we go higher, it would like to disengage to dissipate crises. At an organizational level, we might expect a little bit more pushing and shoving, but there is recognition of the fact that nuclear level is not to be ventured into, which is valid for both states.
In his conclusion, he said that as states climb up the escalatory ladder along those levels of War, the cycle is mostly negative, the drivers of instability might become more cautious, they may decelerate, and the drivers of stability kick in. But that’s the conundrum, when it is hunky-dory at the lower levels we indulge ourselves in crisis and during this constant struggle both states could move towards the upper levels. Therefore, the two states shouldn’t really be complacent that nothing was going to happen at that level.
