From the archive, 1 Dec 1998

THE FAUJI MEMSAHIB : A MORE THAN COSMETIC CHANGE

Published in USI Journal 

The army officer is bigamous.  He marries the army on commission,

and,  later,  marries for love, if lucky.  Both wives,  he  finds

have a greedy claim on his time, attention and energy.  The first

wife  - the army - demands optimum performance,  as  contribution

towards enhancing combat efficiency.  The second wife - the lady-

wife  -  is  relegated to a junior partnership, for  she  too  is

expected  to contribute to enhancing the officer's optimum,  and,

thereby, to higher combat efficiency.  In effect the army is  the

more  demanding  spouse, its demands being ministered to  by  the

couple - one member paid and the other unpaid.  This throws up on

another interpretation of this triangle, it being that the  lady-

wife  weds not only the officer, but also the army.   In  effect,

each of the three has a bigamous relationship with the other two,

albeit  one mediated by  the officer. However, the army is  prone

more to behaving as a mother-in-law, than a jealous co-spouse. 
 

 

The  problem arises when the officer emphasises one  relationship

at  the  cost of the other.  Neglect of the army by  the  officer

erodes  combat efficiency.  Neglect of the wife  also  eventually

detracts  from  combat efficiency by creating dissonance  in  his

mind  and friction in the house.  Thus, the army,  whose  primary

purpose  of  maintaining a relationship with the officer  is  the

generation of combat efficiency, has to admit, if grudgingly, the

demands of the junior spouse.  The army must recognise that these

are getting acute and are multiplying. In fact it must facilitate

their articulation and accommodation.
 

 

The  army has thus far managed to keep the junior wife  happy  in

her  asymmetric relationship.  The community life on that  island

in  society  - the cantonment- has been self contained.   It  has

been  fulfiling for the wife, in so far, as her  expectations  on

joining  the  fauji extended family were met,  and  socialisation

into  military  mores complete.  Thus, her role was to  keep  the

hearth  warm, while the officer's first wife remained central  to

his existence.
 

 

This  cocoon  of existence is under the threat  of  change.   The

army,  being the custodian of security of society, has to  manage

the change, so that it furthers its social purpose.  A  prerequi­

site  to controlling change is to recognise and understand  these

trends,  channelise and direct them.  In short, in military  par­

lance, to `sieze the initiative'. 
 

 

These  trends are `threats', in so far, as they are  directed  at

the  status-quo.  But reinforcing and reproducing the  status-quo

is  not a considered reaction.  Their inevitability  demands  the

army  make  an  ally of `change'.  For its part  in  this  triple

alliance, it must change it self, thereby making change benign  -

both,  desired  and for the better.  Reacting to change,  on  the

other  hand, would leave the army with fewer options,  less  con­

trol, and more unstable; while rendering `change'  unpredicatable

in its eventual consequence on combat effectiveness. 
 

 

What then are these trends? They emanate, firstly, in the  chang­

ing character of the military as a profession, and, secondly,  in

the changing social milieu - of which the army is but a part.
 

 

The  army  is moving from being and  `institution'  to  acquiring

`occupational' characteristics.  There is now a shift to it being

`just  another  job'.  But the possibility of a call  for  laying

down  one's life in the line of duty will always ensure that  the

army is `more than just a job'. 
 

 

The increasing horizontal identification of the army officer with

his peers in society has occasioned this shift. The narrowing  of

skill  differential between the civil and military - a result  of

specialisation; change of locus in organisational authority  from 

authoritarian to persuasion; cross-fertilisation; and  self-defi­

nition  of the officer from a `war leader' to a  technocrat-mana­

ger,  are  indicators of the shift.  The army is  achanging,  and

this will, of necessity, impact on the family. For instance,  the
 

officer is now more inclined to identify with a briefcase  carry­

ing  excutive, and, in his winter dress, even sports a tie.   The

image  of such excutives is completed not by sati-savitri  wifes,

but  by forward bhartiya naris of the X-generation - at  home  in

both  jeans and saris, in the bedroom and the boardroom.   There­

fore, the officer-excutive will likewise prospect for such a wife

- the `new' wife. 
 

 

But  the impact on the family of the  on-going social  change  is

more dramatic.  Society, particularly the middle class, in  which

officer recruitment is anchored, is in the vortex of this change. 

The  spouses,  and prospective army brides, are subject  to  this

trend.   They cannot be expected to be `junior'  wives,  deriving

fulfillment from a dependent identity - that of an  army  `wife'. 

Individuality now finds self-expression in work.  Satisfaction is

no  longer  in being a `wife' alone, but also in a  career  -  in

being a `whole woman'.  Feminism now at an ascendent, precludes a

unilateral supportive role of a husband, and expects mutuality in

need-fulfillment.   It  is moot therefore,  whether,  the  army's

`cocoon-model' can be  hospitable to the `new' wife.
 

 

The  status-quoist  would prefer  exclusion of  the  `new'  wife. 

Spouse  recruitment  would be required to confine  itself  to  an

`adaptable'  spouse.   This is evident from  the  increasing  in­

cidence  of marriage of officers to working women, whose  job  is

transferable - officer's commitments assuming precedence.   While

working  wives  are an economic imperative, stereotyping  of  the

wives  job  (eg. teaching at lower grades), makes  for  a  narrow

social base of bride hunting; disproportion between income levels

and  aspiration within the couple; and, possible,  saturation  of

the  job/spouse market.  Thus, it is likely  that,  increasingly,

officers  will  marry women with higher paying,  career  oriented

and,  therefore, static job.  The influence of media  visuals  on

choice cannot be understimated.   The lissome lasses, that media-

carted,  with  the  luggage, from one duty  station  to  another. 

Being  a `wife' is now only a part of an identity.    The  future

army  will, therefore, no longer be the dominant source  of  emo­

tional  sustenance;  need gratification;  value  orientation  and

identification. In short, the army will lose its pre-eminence  in

a post-modern conjugal bond.
 

 

This  would be a `threat', should it impact adversely  on  combat

effectiveness,  of individuals and of the officer fraternity.  In

order to assess the need for change, a look at the status quo  is

in  order.  Does it contribute to combat efficiency on a  modern-  

day battle-field?  
 

 

The `cocoon-model' was relevent in isolated, cantonmented, commu­

nities.   Transplantation from one to another did not then  cause

dissonance,  far, while the  geography changed,  the  environment

did  not.  But the model is obsolescent.  No longer can the  can­

tonment, itself under pressure from civil intrusion, provide  the

ambience  of  yore.   The environs, and  consequent  standard  of

living, were themselves a result of troop labour, hardly conscie­

nable  in  an  egalitarian society.   The  partimonial,  possibly

feudal,  and the increasing preception of a patronising  officer-

man, and by extention the lady wife-OR family relationship, is no

longer  tenable. Corruption of the system (eg; abuse of  the  sa­

hayak facility and 'pokora-eating binges of memsahibs' at welfare

centres) has further eroded its legitimacy.  Thus, the status-quo

is vulnerable to a bottom-up change.  Since such a deaneument  is

unacceptable,  it  is  best that the ineviatable  be  ushered  in

piecemeal.  For this the  army must take to the rudder.
 

 

Ingredients of the alternative model would include a less demand­

ing  army,  in  so far as the personal life of  the  officers  is

concerned.   Only the professional input of the officer  need  be

sought.  Even this has to be regulated - especially for  the  up­

wardhy  mobile, as the long hours, to keep up with  a  workaholic
 

boss,  has a  corresponding impact on family life.  The boss  may

be fighting mid-life blues, and his subordinate to assure  career

progression, but for both it is at the cost of martial  harmoney. 

Absentee  fatherhood, in an era of nuclear families  and  working

mothers,  is an  unremarked fall out of the escalator syndrome  -

its  'up  or  out'. Cohesion at the work  place,  through  family

interaction  (as through the `calling-on' procedure or  parties),

is  at  times counter-productive.  Broad-baseing of  officer  and

spouse  recruitment  has made these procedures  archaic,  if  not

problematic.   Furthermore, if the `new' wife is  to  demonstrate

her commitment to the force, as of now, to what extent would  the

army  be  permissive of a reciprocal commitment  by  the  officer

husband in the social demands of his spouses job?  After all,  in

a modern marital adventure both partners are equal.
 

 

This  reduction  of  institutional demands on  the  spouse  would

permit   her personal pursuit of self-actualisation in  demanding

careers.   Thus, would the family unit be happier, and,  thereby,

the officer's professional involvement enhanced.  A fallout would

be increase in output,  owing to the officer's ego-based need  to

keep up with his wife.  This contribution to growth of the  offi­

cer is the foremost advantage the `new' wife confers on the army.
 

 

Contrast  this with the `house-wife' of yore.  While the  officer

`grew' as a person and a professional all through his career, the

wife  often   stagnated.   Though these days they hold  down  low

paying, minimally satisfying jobs, their attention to the job  at

the  cost  of the home, is compensated by army  input  in  family

regulation,  in  terms  of diversion  of  military  resources  to

`family welfare'.  This is both rationally and ethically  untena­

ble.   In a liberalised markeplace, a double-income lifestyle  is

facilitated by consumer durables designed for the same.  Besides,

these  are now affordable, owing to a higher  income  level,  ad­

justed  for inflation, and, middle-class enticing brand  pricing. 

Therefore, the cantonments must be redesigned as  self-sustaining

cooperatives - models of which exist in Indian suburbia.   
 

 

To attract such co-spouses for its officers, the army would  need

to  package them attractively.  Today they are at the  bottom  of

the groom-market.  Monetary compensation for leading  `separated-

family'  existences is a must. Competitive pay scale is  a  self-

evident necessity that has been addressed to a limited extent  in

the  recent pay Commission.  The likely reduction in spouse  par­

ticipation in institutional life, can be balanced by the  equally

necessary  (for  other equally compelling reasons)  reduction  in

army   support   of  the  family  (eg.  through   provisions   of

`sahayaks').  Thus, the army would be relying more on society for

anchoring  families.   This in itself would erode  the  `institu­

tion', for out of olive  green, the officer will be more at  ease

with,  absorbtive, and linked to civil society.   
 

 

This  deepening connection with society is in keeping in a  demo­

cratic  military  ethic.  Isolation  by the British  of  military

communities was then a political necessity.  Today it may even be

dangerous,  should the isolation from the society, of  the  mili­

tary, lead it to view  the social and political marketplace  with

a  typically conservative military lens.  Thus, it is not  combat

effectiveness  alone that is a determinant of a  military's  com­

petence,  but  also it permeation with  the  democratic  military

ethic - the latter being enhanced by the social anchoring provid­

ed by the `new' wife.
 

 

The army, just as any organism,  has to adapt to its environment. 

It  does   so  more readily to technological advance,  but  is  a

generation behind societal change.  Whereas this may have been  a

prudent  and  professional   requirement earlier, in  an  era  of

telescoped  change, the army may end up as a social  anachronism. 
 

That  it  is aware of the direction it must  venture  is  evident

from its pre-Pay Commission campaign, that included allusions  to

the  officer  placement at the bottom of the  groom-ladder.   Its

leadership's  present  emphasis  on proper  troop  employment  is 

another  pointer.   Clearly,  we have an army  sensitive  to  the

symbolic  importance  of  the impending turn  of  the  millenium. 

However, in its drive to modernise hardware and update  software,

it would be prescient for it to reappraise, as done here, a facet

of its humanware - form memsahib to ma'am.
 

 

 Download the PhD text from https://www.dropbox.com/s/p3qe0obnat22iac/full%20text.pdf?dl=0

of which the abstract submitted with the PhD is below: 

ABSTRACT: Ph.D. THESIS

 

INDIA’S LIMITED WAR DOCTRINE:

STRUCTURAL, POLITICAL AND ORGANISATIONAL FACTORS

Introduction

 

In the wake of the Kargil War, India developed a Limited War doctrine.  The doctrine has evolved from preceding military developments going back over four decades. The study set out to examine the impetus behind India’s conventional doctrines in light of nuclearisation. The puzzle that this dissertation has set out to address has been: Why has India gone in for a proactive offensive doctrine despite nuclearisation? The understanding prior to nuclearisation was that deterrence in light of the nuclear backdrop would make conventional contest obsolescent. Strategic stability would result in conflict resolution and an outbreak of peace. India’s formidable power indices in the region and its status as a power without any extra-territorial ambitions could have reasonably been expected to have combined to make for a deterrent military doctrine. Instead, there has been a turn to a more offensive conventional doctrine by India, redolent with compellence. This departure of reality from expectations prompted the research question: ‘What accounts for the change to an offensive conventional doctrine?’ Thus, the aim of the dissertation was to understand the impetus behind development of India’s Limited War doctrine

 

In the chronological narrative, inception of the doctrine is at a conference at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) in wake of the Kargil War. The Kargil War had brought home to the Indian military that there was a conventional space between the subconventional and nuclear threshold for military exploitation. Even as conceptualisation of the change was underway, the ‘twin peaks’ crisis intervened. The limitations of India’s ‘all or nothing’ approach that had hither to been dependent on strike corps being launched after mobilisation was found wanting. The 2004 document was an outcome of the ‘lessons learnt’. It would appear from such a reading that structural level factors, principally threat perception, were responsible for the change. However, there is a need to go investigate further given that during the period of development of the doctrine certain changes in India’s strategic culture were occurring, informed in the main by the advent of cultural nationalism. The nationalist impulse favoured an assertive India at home in the creation of power and exercise of force. The impact has been in an offensive turn to doctrine when mediated by a military organisational predisposed to the offensive. There is also the need to look ‘into the box’. At the organisational level is the military as part of the wider the national security establishment. Overt nuclearisation of 1998 had transformed the verities of this complex. The doctrinal output in the aftermath of outbreak of the nuclear age in the subcontinent can therefore equally legitimately be explicated as a result of organisational impulse at self-preservation in first place and secondly, of extension in terms role expansion. Given the coincidence of three possible explanations, the dissertation adopted a ‘multi-level and multidimensional approach’ to understand the factors behind change.

 

India’s Limited War doctrine

 

The doctrine, in nutshell, countenances a quick mobilisation followed by multiple offensives across a wide front. The doctrine caters for the changed nuclear reality by envisaging that military advances would be to limited depth in light of possible nuclear thresholds. This study examines the nuclear dangers that attend even such limitation. These escalatory possibilities give rise to the questioning of the doctrine and consequently as to how and why it has been arrived at. Limitation has been brought about by the need to avoid triggering the envisaged nuclear thresholds of Pakistan. These are taken to be along four dimensions: military attrition, territorial losses, economic viability and internal stability. Concerted offensive action by the Indian military would simultaneously nudge all four thresholds directly and indirectly. The cumulative physical and psychological impact could unhinge and lower the nuclear retaliation threshold. To obviate such breakdown in nuclear deterrence, India’s nuclear deterrence is based on ‘assured retaliation’, with the proviso that such reaction could well be of higher order or ‘massive’ levels. It would appear that the promise of ‘unacceptable damage’ is to heighten the adversary’s nuclear threshold in order to provide space for the offensive posture of Cold Start. This explains India’s adaptation of the nuclear deterrence concept to its purpose and circumstance. India believes nuclear weapons deter nuclear weapons and not war. Thus, there appears scope for war, albeit a Limited War. Nevertheless, learning and reflection have contributed to a move away from Limited War towards the end of the last decade. This recent distancing from Cold Start indicates that there has finally been an intellectual adaptation to the imperatives of the nuclear age.  

 

Research question and hypothesis

 

The answer to the key question (‘What accounts for the change to an offensive conventional doctrine?’) can be discerned at the separate ‘levels of analysis’. These are systemic level, state level, of the organisation and that of the individual decision maker. Adopting this approach to strategic analysis, the dissertation attempts to find the impulse for doctrinal change in India at three levels, the individual level being excluded. The study follows the inductive approach.

 

At the structural level, the regional security situation has impacted India’s strategic posture. At this level, primarily was the threat posed by Pakistan, India’s revisionist neighbour. Given its revisionist aims and weak power status, Pakistan went nuclear covertly. This has accounted for its venturesome in prosecuting proxy war. India was consequently forced to respond with restraint, both at Kargil and during Operation Parakram. Emulating Pakistan, it reworked its doctrine to exploit the space between sub-conventional level and the nuclear threshold for conventional operations. This was in accord with the tenets of Limited War concept. The expectation is that an offensive posture would reinforce deterrence.

 

The second level of analysis is the ‘unit’ level. At the national level, there has been a change towards an assertive strategic culture in India. Political developments, particularly advent of ‘cultural nationalism’ more sensitive to national security, has been consequential for this change. Concurrent developments in terms of growing power capabilities through economic liberalization, acquisition of nuclear capability and positioning of India as an Asian power and potential global player, have led to evolution in strategic culture. The link between the national level political developments and changes in doctrine is provided by the intervening organisational culture. The culture permeating the organisation is a professional one, valuing the warrior ethic. It privileges conventional war fighting and preparedness. Together, the change in strategic culture and a pre-existing offensive organisational culture account for the proactive offensive doctrine. 

 

At the next lower level, that of the organisation, nuclearisation rendered conventional operations problematic due to prospects of escalation. The general understanding is that utility of conventional force is threatened by obsolescence in a nuclear age. Limited War thinking has helped keep the armed forces relevant into the nuclear age. It has enabled all three Services to seek a fresh mandate in light of the nuclearised backdrop. This has benefits for institutional interest such as maintaining respective self-image, relative salience in the nuclearised context and autonomy from intrusive civilian control. This perspective looks ‘inside the box’, at the interaction between Service culture, inter-Service rivalry and organisational processes giving rise to the new doctrine.

 

The hypotheses that emerge at the three levels of analysis are:

 

• The structural level: The change in India’s military doctrine has been due to continuing external security threats.

 

• The unit level: The change in India’s military doctrine owes to evolution of Indian strategic culture. 

 

• The organisational level: The change in India’s military doctrine has been to preserve the military’s institutional interest.

 

Layout of the study

 

The conceptual layout of the dissertation is as per the levels of analysis. This has dictated its chapterisation. Chapter 2 is analytical in dealing with the doctrines in question, the Cold Start doctrine in particular. It is descriptive in tracing doctrinal change over the past four decades in a historical look at the evolution of Indian conventional and nuclear doctrine. It seeks to establish the shift from a defensive strategic doctrine to a proactive one. It also discusses processes of doctrine formulation and change in the Services. It reflects on the conventional-nuclear interface that is at the heart of Limited War concept and doctrine. In Chapter 3 on the ‘Structural Factor’, India’s regional strategic predicament is dealt with to bring out how land warfare doctrine in particular has adapted. The change in threat perceptions over time, brought on largely due to Pakistan’s proxy war, is discussed. The effects of the nuclearisation in emboldening Pakistan are studied in their impact on Indian doctrine, both strategic and military. Chapter 4 is on the ‘political factor’ at the unit level. It draws on cultural theory to argue that strategic culture has evolved under influence of changes in the regional security environment and internal political developments in India. Since it is difficult to trace impact of strategic culture on doctrine directly, the intervening variable of organisational culture has been incorporated. An organisational culture that privileges an offensive warrior ethic lends itself to strategic assertion. This is found reflected in the more expansive doctrines the military has engaged with over the past decade.  The fifth chapter on the organisational factor draws on organisational process and bureaucratic politics models to account for the change in doctrine. The concluding chapter carries an assessment of the relative validity of the three hypotheses based on the three drivers of doctrine at differing levels – structural, unit and organisational. The chapter seeks the primary impetus behind doctrinal change in India.

 

Parameters

 

The study restricts the scope to the India-Pakistan equation. The ‘Cold Start’ doctrine is not applicable to China, even though the Limited War concept has applicability to that front. It is inconceivable that either state would engage in a wider conflict in light of potential of war to derail their very promising economic trajectories. Discussions on airpower doctrine, naval doctrine and sub-conventional doctrine are included to make this a study one of military doctrine, as against more narrowly focussed on land warfare doctrine. ‘Cold Start’, though an Army doctrine, serves as a peg for the discussion. The period covered is from 1971 War to bring out the doctrinal changes from a defensive doctrine of the seventies to a deterrent doctrine in the eighties. The quasi compellent doctrine of developed over the last decade is thus placed in the context of its evolution.

 

The case study method has been adopted so as to provide scope for an elaborate - ‘thick’ - description of doctrinal change. A multi-disciplinary approach straddling strategic studies, international relations, domestic politics and military sociology is inescapable. This entails studying strategic literature, particularly in-service publications for thinking on Limited War and its justification, and corresponding commentary output of the strategic community. The Cold Start doctrine is traced elliptically through well-publicised exercises with troops and the plethora of commentaries on it since. Illuminating thinking within the Services has been done through access to dissertations of officers on courses at the Army War College (AWC), Mhow, and National Defence College (NDC), New Delhi. The War College Journal (earlier Combat Journal) and the USI Journal have also served to access Service opinion. The interview technique for data collection has not been used since the thesis is concerned with doctrine that is currently operational in the Services. It is for this reason that the individual level that is taken as the lowest level of analysis, has not been touched on in this dissertation.

 

Reviewing the drivers

 

The structural factor

 

In realist theory, the world order is taken anarchic and power balancing is the manner states ensure their survival and security. This is in the form of internal balancing, in which the internal potential of the state is leveraged, and external balancing, in which alignments amounting at times to alliances are forged to offset threats. Military power is consequential in such balancing. Strategic doctrine lends the power orientation to a state by determining its external posture. This places the state along a defensive-compellence continuum. The location of the state on this shapes the creation, deployment and employment of military power. The function of military doctrine is to lend coherence to the military instrument of power. In effect, strategic doctrine of a state determines its military doctrine, with strategic doctrine being the political level approach to power and its instrumentality. The independent variable is at the structural level in terms of the prevalent power equations and corresponding threat perception. Strategic doctrine is the intervening variable and military doctrine is the dependent variable.

 

The threat posed by Pakistan has been manifest at the subconventional level over the last three decades.  In the eighties there was also the apprehension that Pakistan could follow up its subconventional proxy war with conventional war. In response, India’s strategic doctrine moved from defensive in the seventies to deterrence in the eighties with mechanisation. India’s military doctrine was increasingly in favour of the offensive to the extent by the first edition of the written doctrine in 1998, it discoursed on an intention to fight the war on enemy territory. By the end of the eighties recessed deterrence was in place. This made India’s mechanised advantage recede, though military doctrine did not move correspondingly. This lack of movement in military doctrine owed to the military being out of the nuclear loop, the assumption that nuclear deterrence based on counter value targeting would hold and an internal fixation with counter insurgency over the nineties. It was only with over nuclearisation and the Kargil War that the military was forced to contend with an obsolescent military doctrine. This was impelled by a movement in strategic posture from deterrence to coercion and quasi-compellence as demonstrated by Operation Parakram. It was only in wake of Operation Parakram that the military formulated the Limited War doctrine, discerning a window below the nuclear threshold to bring conventional advantages to bear. The current strategic doctrine goes by the term strategy of deterrence. This implies a reversion to deterrence, but one refurbished by heightening defence budgets over the decade. The direction of the future is a movement away from Limited War doctrine, since this is seen as potentially disruptive of the national economic trajectory. The military is therefore contemplating contingency operations, with Limited War as a possibility brought on by Pakistani reaction.

 

The political factor

 

The next lower level of analysis is the unit level. Cultural theory has it that there are three cultures to be contended with at this level: political culture, strategic culture and organisational culture. Political culture is a site of ideological and intellectual competition between strategic elites. It determines control over the levers of the state. 
This considerably involved concept has not been gone into in this dissertation from point of view of retention of focus.  Instead, strategic culture has been taken as the independent variable, organisational culture the intervening variable and military doctrine as the dependent variable.

 

The George Tanham thesis (1992, 1996) had it that India lacked a strategic culture and to the extent it did have one it was defensive. Kanti Bajpai (2002) characterizes Indian strategic culture as collage-like in subsuming multiple strategic subcultures: Nehruvian, neoliberal and hyper-nationalist. India’s early post-independence period was of ascendance of the Nehruvian paradigm that relied on internationalism and diplomacy rather than self-interest narrowly defined and military power. It was followed by a turn to a more assertive and pragmatic strategic culture in the form of the Indira doctrine. The strategic culture privileged self-interest defined in terms of power. Changes in India’s political culture can be traced to the early eighties with the advent of cultural nationalism. The political ascendance of the conservative nationalist forces enabled India’s overt nuclearisation. A cultural theoretical interpretation would have it that this has less to do with strategic appreciation but equally if not more to do with a sense of identity, concept of the national self and prestige. Even as political culture has witnessed the shift in centre of gravity of politics from the left to the right in the transition from the socialist to the liberalization era, the strategic culture too has been under change. There has been a movement to greater assertion of power. This was clearly visible in the eighties and accounted for India’s seeming overreach. In the nineties, the assertiveness of strategic culture was less externally directed and more internally directed in India’s military predominant tackling of internal problems. Nuclearisation was a result in part of an assertive strategic culture, unwilling to subordinate itself to imposition of a global non-proliferation regime. Persistence of the Pakistani challenge in face of this assertive turn to strategic culture resulted in an offensive strategic culture. This explains the strategic doctrine of quasi compellence to cope with the Pakistan challenge over the turn of the century.

 

Organisational culture in the Indian case has all along been receptive to an assertive strategic culture. This can be seen in the civil-military tensions surrounding the Nehruvian doctrine even as it unfolded prior to the 1962 War. The loss in the war only deepened organisational cultural proclivities in favour of use of force purposefully and forcefully. The 1971 War was the climax and its validation. An offensive bias has therefore been a cultural trait of the military, even in face of the static, defensive mindset brought on by the notion that no loss of territory was politically acceptable. Therefore, when political level changes impacted strategic culture, the military made the conventional option usable despite nuclearisation since there was a congruence between strategic culture and organisational culture. It helped end the impunity enjoyed by Pakistan’s recourse to the stability/instability paradox. This resulted in the Limited War doctrine countenancing proactive offensives. Therefore it can be said that change in strategic culture towards a more assertive one over the past three decades, mediated by an amenable organisational culture, has led to the offensive doctrine. This has validated the hypothesis, limited to noting the correspondence.

 

The Organisational factor

 

The independent variable in the case study has been taken as organisational interest with the dependent variable being doctrine. Organisational or institutional interests include survival, autonomy, scope of role, budgets, prestige, relative salience, control of environment etc. Organisational process is geared to facilitating these for the organisation. The processes and the internal disharmony have been reflected on in detail to draw up a more accurate picture of the internal reality of the military. This has been a necessary filling of the gap in literature. The fact that the military has professional autonomy in the doctrinal function is evident from the deficiencies in higher defence organisation as also the ministry’s traditionally hands-off policy. This means that the organisation sets its own terms. That organisational interests would then have wider play is axiomatic, even if the rationale is taken as fulfilment as an organisationally defined national obligation.

 

Bureaucratic fights that result of organisational pursuit of institutional interests with other organisations similarly engaged, is explained by bureaucratic politics. This is amply brought out in India’s case in terms of turf war between the military and the civilian bureaucracy and the intra-military, between the Army and Air Force. This has been attributed here to essentially being a face-off over doctrine. The civil-military divide, absence of Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) and lack of articulation of strategic doctrine make the organisational defence of self-conceived doctrine more compelling. This results in bureaucratic fights of greater severity since each organisation is not necessarily pursuing ‘parochial’ interests, but is engaged in persuading the environment of the efficacy of its doctrinal position and its follow on implications such as for higher defence organisation, war strategy etc. 

 

 

The finding is that the explanation at this level has greater salience than is generally attributed to it in strategic literature. In effect the neglect of this factor and level of analysis is unjustified. Given the lack of focus on this in literature, it has been possible only to reveal a correspondence rather than arrive at a causal link. But future research in terms of accessing the individual level on availability later of memoirs of those who have participated in doctrine generation will be able to uncover more significant links.

 

Prioritisation of drivers

 

The foregoing brings out that there is reasonable and sufficient evidence for the three factors to be considered as drivers. The impetus to Indian doctrine is at all three levels. In this case study on the Limited War doctrine, the finding is that at the structural level, doctrine has been a response to India’s Pakistan predicament. At the unit level, the political factor involving a shift in strategic culture accounts for the Limited War doctrine. Lastly, at the organisational level, as expected from theory, perceived failure of conventional deterrence in the outbreak of Kargil War and an inability to react appropriately to the parliament attack, led to doctrinal evolution. This was further prompted by existing inter-Service doctrinal competition to determine India’s military doctrine for the nuclear age. Overall, it can be said that the primary impetus from among the three is difficult to discern. Instead, all three are complementary factors responsible for doctrine.

 

Major findings

 

Policy relevance:  The foremost policy relevant conclusion is that India needs to arrive at an explicit Limited War doctrine. This must be cognizant of the nuclear-conventional interface. It needs as a prerequisite to first make the structural changes necessary, in particular the creation of the CDS. Even so, it must be mindful that Limited War has its limitations and the nascent impulse distancing the military from a default resort to Limited War, as the term ‘Cold Start’ suggests, should be taken to its logical conclusion.

 

Case study relevance: Objectively, it is difficult to determine, which of the three drivers was most prominent. However, it can be said that crediting the structural factor is, as is the wont in Indian strategic writings, is not sustainable. The explanation in cultural theory has been found to be more consequential than is admitted to.

 

Theory relevance: From a single case study, it is not possible to generalise as to which of the three theories, namely, ‘balance of power’, cultural theory and organisational theory, has comparative merit. The research design has not catered for judging this. Suffice it to maintain that all are relevant and cannot be discounted. This makes doctrine generation multi-causal. Given that realism remains the dominant paradigm, development of the latter two theories helps as their comparative relevance stands demonstrated in this case study. In particular, the comparative weight of cultural theory and realism appears in favour of the former in this case.

 

Conclusion

 

The study has focused on what drives military doctrine development in India. It has looked at the three levels of analysis – structural, unit and organisational - for answers. The three theories – realism, cultural theory and organisational theory - have been employed to arrive at the drivers. The finding has been that all three have explanatory value and that the drivers exist at the three levels, making doctrine making a case of equi-finality. Its examination of conventional doctrine has been of an under-studied area in India. While nuclear doctrine and counter insurgency doctrine, that have aura of urgency, have had attention, conventional doctrine has remained elusive. The study has historical significance in tracing the formulation and eclipse of India’s Cold Start doctrine over the century’s first decade. The doctrine was conceptualized as brought out in January 2000 and the military is currently in the process of moving away from the doctrine towards one that is more adapted to the defining reality of the periods – the nuclear dimension. The study has engaged with a problem of contemporary relevance in its being pitched at the conventional-nuclear interface. The limitation parameters have therefore been highlighted with the policy relevant finding being that limitation needs to attend both the conventional and nuclear realms of military application. India needs therefore to reset its strategic doctrine to defensive realism.  An implication of reliance on defensive realism is for a return to deterrence with a defensive bias on the Pakistan front. Military doctrine would move further into making military power less usable. This would be in keeping with the principal dictate of the nuclear age.

 

VOLUME XLV NUMBER 6 JUNE 2021

An Archive of India’s Military History

MILITARY MUSINGS: 150 YEARS OF INDIAN MILITARY THOUGHT FROM THE JOURNAL OF THE UNITED SERVICE INSTITUTION OF INDIA

Edited by Sqn. Ldr. Rana T.S. Chhina, MBE

Speaking Tiger, New Delhi, 2021, pp. 439,

`899.00

The United Service Institution (USI) describes itself as the oldest think tank in Asia. Set up by the British, it opened in Simla in late nineteenth century. Soon after Independence, it moved to New Delhi. Though under considerable pressure from lack of resources in the early years, it managed to nurture successive generations of Indian military leaders into military matters and mores. Its journal, the USI Journal, claiming to be the oldest military affairs journal in Asia, has been a ubiquitous presence in military stations across the country, with this reviewer once spotting it in a tent of the company commander at a remote United Nations peacekeeping operating base in Gumruk, Pibor County, Jonglei State, South Sudan. (As an aside, the company commander received a paralysing wound in a rebel ambush the following day but recovered enough to command his infantry battalion, though propped up by two crutches.)

This is only to illustrate the USI Journalas a popular professional journal, supplementing the USI’s efforts at imparting professional military education, a military culture and a more widely, a strategic culture. A collection of articles from the Journal at its 150^th anniversary is thus a thoughtful commemoration of its sesquicentennial year.

The USI sensibly chose Squadron Leader Rana TS Chhina (Retired), head of the Center of Armed Forces Historical Research, that is lodged in the USI, to undertake the mammoth task of sifting through the 150 years of the quarterly publication (monthly for a brief period some 125 years ago) to cull out the articles that best captured their respective age and its concerns. Rana as an expert on colonial military history, with an award of an Honorary Member of British Empire to boot, was best placed to pick out the articles in the pre-independence era. Having been a crack helicopter pilot with the Indian Air Force (‘crack’ because in the mid-eighties he held the world record for the highest landing for his class of helicopter, probably in Siachen),he was also well placed to spot articles that shaped the post-independence period.

Rana has put together a historical volume, a collector’s item as such, covering 150 momentous years of military history in South Asia. His was a challenging task, since there is so much that has happened in the years the journal has kept a meticulous watch on affairs military in the region. Not only did the army get institutionalised in the early part of the period but is sister services joined it soon thereafter. Not only did Indian military fight in the two world wars, but has participated in four wars, two high intensity military engagements (the Indian Peace Keeping Force and Kargil War), UN peacekeeping and several counter insurgency operations since. Rightly, Rana does not restrict his collation to the operational part, but defining military history widely, he also includes a sociological picture of the manner the services have evolved, embedded in the wider flow of national security. Capturing the grand sweep of history witnessed by the USI in 439 pages has been remarkably done. Alongside, he has taken care to reproduce in an unexpurgated form the articles as originally published to convey the essence of a particular period.

Some articles resonate through the years. For instance, the second article in the anthology, written in 1972, talks of the strategic value of Kashmir declaiming: “’Cashmere’ then may perhaps be regarded as the great N.W (North West) bastion of India; and, lying, as it does within the general frontiers of Hindustan, its defensive resources should, I hold, be absolutely subordinated to those of the state in any grand imperial scheme of defence for India (p. 20).” In the question and answer session at a talk by Captain Francis Younghusband, the legendary traveller who surveyed routes into Tibet from India, Younghusband talked of find Russian goods at all the towns he visited in China during a 7000 km long journey. His testimony that “Russian goods had even been brought into Leh, Ladak and Kashmir (99),” suggest potential for revival of the old Silk Route connections across what is currently a rather troubled Line of Actual Control.

The credibility of the journal is evident from Captain Liddell Hart sending it the paper, ‘A re-definition of strategy’, in 1929. The paper lays out his famous strategy of indirect approach and is a marvel in strategic writing. Presciently he anticipates developments over the coming decades, writing: “The civil conditions give the strategist not only an alternative channel for action but an additional lever towards his military aims. By threatening economic objectives, he may…  dislocate the enemy’s military dispositions… slip past the military shield and strike at them with decisive results. This potential development of strategy is greatly favoured by the development of the air weapon… (p. 187).”

Included is a lecture by Sardar KM Panikkar, as the chair referred to him, in which the great strategist dilates on the nature of war changing in the twentieth century to Total War, thereby making peacemaking an impossible task. The question and answer session at the end of his talk is a must read on the quality of the strategic discussion in the mid-fifties and has insights into the manner India approached security in the years leading up to the infamous debacle in 1962. The 2018 national security lecture delivered by Amb. Shivshankar Menon while bringing the reader up to date, also bespeaks of the continuity in India’s security concerns through the decades.

The military emphasizing jointness these days, the growth and concerns of all three services are evenly represented. The journal had way back in 1912 highlighted the importance of the air planeinvention. Two further articles on air power punctuate the anthology, one of which was authored by the legendary Field Marshal Arjan Singh early in his retirement. For even handedness, maritime history has an equal place, with three articles enabling a rough sketch of the navy as it developed, including one by its former chief, Tahiliani. The only war covered explicitly is 1971 War, while articles on campaigns such as in West Asia in World War II and the Naxal problem are included. 

Perhaps the most significant theme of the anthology is on the moral element. A British officer leaving for home after service in World War II, pays tribute to Indian soldiers he served with, writing: “I remember a Sikh sepoy plucking a drowning P.M. (Punjabi Musalman) out of the mud in a large pond in Bihar, Pathans carrying Sikh wounded to the Regimental Aid Post on the bullet swept slopes of Kohima, P.M.’s bringing in a wounded Pathan in the Arakan, Sikhs of the 1/11 Sikh Regiment giving their all to break a Jap block in Sittang Bend to aid the hard-pressed Battalion of the 8^th Gorkhas… In a first class battalion, a man’s religion is his private affair, but he fights and dies a proud member of the Indian Army. What an example to others!” The last perhaps in reference to the Partition clouds that were then building up. The baton of legacy is passed on by Brigadier HS Yadav in his ‘Tips from a Subedar Major’, by Brigadier NB Grant on the soldier’s honour code in his ‘An Officer and Gentleman’ and Brigadier Sardeshpande, in his ‘Passing it on’, passes on ethics and the joy of soldiering. 

Finally, it can only be said that Rana has succeeded in his aim of presenting the reader with a “flavour” of the contents of the journal. The journal is indeed an archive of India’s military history and record of its security consciousness. Rana’s is a but sampler, with only illustrative examples, that should serve to lead readers to the rest of the corpus in the USI’s Pyaralal library, where this reviewer for one has spent his most absorbing time. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.newsclick.in/why-pak-spin-doctors-are-zooming-gen-rawat

Why Pak Spin Doctors are Zooming in on Gen Rawat

UNEDITED VERSION 

The ISPR gets it almost right

The Inter Services Public Relations has gone overboard in its taking down of India’s army chief by a peg or two. They attribute three infra-dig issues to General Bipin Rawat: one, provoking war by overhyping fire assaults as surgical strikes; two, acting with an eye for the electioneering advantage of his political masters; and, three, damaging the professionalism of India’s military which they term as gone ‘rogue’ under Rawat.

Their invective was prompted by Rawat wading into a developing media story last weekend on the results of a fire assaults on Pakistani terror launch pads. The media influenced by ruling party spin doctors on election-day blew up the fire assaults as a ‘surgical strike 3’ as Maharashtra and Haryana went to polls.

Rawat’s weighing in on the casualties inflicted, prompted an otherwise sympathetic scribe in a quasi-nationalist website, The Print, to caution against the army aping the Pakistan army’s ‘lying’ ISPR. The reporter in his opinion piece goes on to make the link between polling and Rawat’s intervention, which was not lost on anyone following Indian security affairs over Rawat’s tenure.

It appears that the ISPR and attentive observers share two of the ISPR’s observations: firstly, the timing and overhyping of the latest round of fire assaults suggests an election-related agenda; and, secondly, this is not professionally edifying for the Indian army.

The ISPR goes a step further in apprehending a personal motive for the army chief’s behavior in implying that in aligning his political antenna to the prevailing political winds, he is auditioning for the vacancy opened up by the prime minister from the ramparts of the Red Fort, that of Chief of Defence Staff (CDS).

Whereas the ISPR’s earlier response to the fire assaults of 20 October was the registering of mild disappointment, they upped the rhetoric a few days down the line, provoked perhaps by the army chief’s reference in the week to Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) being controlled by terrorists.

PoK has become one of the army chief’s  favoured themes, considering the his last reference to the area was when he boasted that only a word from its political masters held the army back from seizing the area. Clearly, the army chief has gotten under the skin of the ISPR leading to it getting personal in its rhetoric.

There is a plausible explanation for the army chief’s periodic forays in the media against Pakistan. Such a strategy has roots in the army’s new doctrine, released in an understated form late last year and lodged in a nondescript corner of the army’s web pages. It dwells on hybrid war, characterizing even peace time – such as now between India and Pakistan - as a time of ‘hybrid war’. It takes the fabled military thinker, Clausewitz’s dictum ‘war being politics by other means’ rather seriously to mean politics is war by other means.

Under its tenets, Pakistan’s proxy war amounts to its hybrid war which India must respond to appropriately. The shift from the earlier strategic restraint to strategic proactivism under the Modi regime enables the army to use the interregnum of peace to condition, deter and degrade Pakistan as necessary. Psychological warfare or information operations constitute the main ‘line of operations’ in peace time.

The army chief’s utterances in relation to Pakistan could – at a stretch - be sympathetically rationalized in this light. It cannot be that the army chief takes himself seriously on PoK though. 

The assumption that Indian army can militarily take over PoK is easy to concede. Besides the reserves meant for the northern theater, it has additional forces available having just put its mountain strike corps through its paces in the eastern sector. It has the requisite air lift – thanks to the easier foreign military sales route with the United States - to bring the integrated battle groups meant for the China front to bear on the Pakistan front. One of its divisions is close at hand, at Pathankot. Alongside, to keep Pakistan from reinforcing PoK, it can credibly threaten a reprise of 1965 War - when it threatened Lahore by opening up the Punjab front in response to Pakistan’s armoured thrust towards Akhnoor. It has, through test bed exercises this year, also created two integrated battle groups in the border sector of southern Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), presumably poised to prise off Pakistan’s Sialkot bulge.  Assuming it manages surprise, it can be taken at its word that it can bite off a chunk of PoK.

However, Bipin Rawat should know that the moot question is whether it can digest it. If Indian security forces find Kashmiri stone throwers a problem – prompting an unprecedented now three month long lock down - after thirty years of countering insurgency in Kashmir, it can be surmised that PoK will prove indigestible. India noted at the non-alignment forum recently that Pakistan is the ‘contemporary epicenter of terrorism’. Extrapolating from what terrorism backlash did to the forces of the respective coalitions in Afghanistan and Iraq, it can be inferred that PoK will be inhospitable, necessitating reeling back of Indian forces. This will buoy the terrorists; quite like the Hezbullah’s – if pyrrhic – victory claim on departure of the Israelis after their venturing into southern Lebanon in 2006.

Consequently, as in 1965, a war initially confined to PoK may require escalating horizontally southwards along the border. India came close to doing so on the two other occasions it fought on the western front – in 1947-48 and the Kargil War. A recent report on denial of access to the relevant papers regarding the first war with Pakistan which cover India’s deliberations over attacking mainland Pakistan in 1947-48 is evidence. At the twentieth anniversary of Kargil War, the then army chief, General Ved Malik, revealed that he had remonstrated with Prime Minister Vajpayee against openly saying India would limit the war to Kargil sector, lest if and when it became necessary to expand the war due to possible difficulties in Kargil, India might have foreclosed its option of escalation.

The army may indeed have limited objectives in PoK, restricted to some shallow objectives along the Line of Control (LC). These could be enemy posts that are so sited as to provide infiltration and observation advantages to Pakistan. The army’s intent may be take-over these in the next surgical strike. Since the other surgical strike forms – raids and aerial strike – have already been tried out, salami slicing on the LC could be tried next. The aerial strike turned out escalatory as Pakistan struck back and the Pakistani army is perhaps ready to beat back raids. Missiles – that were readied for firing off in their aftermath – do not provide the necessary asymmetry with Pakistan, since Pakistan is no push over in that field. That leaves land operations – more than a raid but less than an invasion.

The army’s repeated references to PoK could be to not only prepare the domestic space for a border skirmish, but also to spell out to Pakistan that the intent is not quite a border war. In case of Pakistani counter attacks succeeding and riposte attacks elsewhere, scope for escalation remains. Even so, it is not easy to see how the redrawn LC will be stabilized. If merely with a lockdown the Security Council met informally behind closed doors on the Kashmir question for the first time in fifty years, a border war that threatens at some step of the escalation ladder to go nuclear will entail a Security Council return to where the Council left off sometime in the late fifties in its mediation role on the Kashmir issue. An operational level gain end up a strategic level disaster.

By keeping up the din over the year on Pakistani villainy, the army chief – perhaps knowing better - may be indulging in information war of sorts. But in doing so he opens himself to credibility of the third accusation of the ISPR – of compromising Indian military professionalism, specifically its advisory function.

The fallout of the army chief’s bellicosity is in conditioning Indians into a war mania, potentially spiraling war pressures at the next crisis. Besides, if he does indeed believe his rhetoric, he would be misleading his political masters on the advisability of a PoK caper by Indian forces. The defence minister and the minister belonging to Jammu in the prime minister’s office have already bought into that line. The prime minister in his Diwali foray to Rajauri also appears persuaded.

The by-now well-known propensity of the national security honcho, Ajit Doval, and his boss, Narendra Modi, for unbridled haste in action (remember demonetization, surgical strikes, Balakot etc), indicates they may lend an ear. A repeat of Ranjit Singh Dyal’s late August 1965 taking over Haji Pir is of course possible, if the Doval-Modi duo is willing to risk (nuclear) war. Their running of the risk early this August through backing Amit Shah’s constitutional shenanigans over Kashmir does not lend confidence over war avoidance. Having chimed up on PoK so many times, India has laid for itself a commitment trap.

Finally, is the ISPR right on the army chief’s personal motives? The thought cannot be disregarded in light of the political utility to the government’s strong on defence image of the periodic grandstanding by its army chief. The ruling party has all through its tenure capitalized on military actions, best evidenced by the surgical strikes and the aerial strike figuring extensively in electoral campaigning. The danger is in an ambitious generals catering to its political need by lending the credibility of his uniform and office to its claims. The ISPR spots such a general in India’s army chief. It is best left to the general to himself introspect. Perhaps, for the benefit of all, including the general and of national security, it might be best for the general to be kicked upstairs into to the CDS chair, where as a general without an army he could serve his political masters best without compromising the army.

Even so, the ISPR must be called out for what it is up to. It is an equal participant in ‘grey zone’ warfare of today. The verbal jousts over PoK are information operations by both sides testifying that both have read the 2014 book, Peter Pomerantsev’s  This is Not Propaganda. For its part, the ISPR is trying to provoke a loss of confidence in the army chief, the prospective CDS. For credibility, such (dis)information efforts partially approximate truth. While being clear eyed of the ISPR’s motives, it must be acknowledged that the ISPR has unfortunately got it somewhat right.

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https://www.newsclick.in/rewarding-army-chief-political-assistance

Rewarding Army Chief for Political Assistance?

The chapter on reduction of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) to a Union Territory is not quite closed, considering the extent of suppression of an impending revolt by Kashmiris. There could even be a fifth Indo-Pak war and there is already brinkmanship over the nuclear status, evident in the remarks of defence minister Rajnath Singh on the No First Use (NFU) policy. The possibility of nuclear involvement grows if war breaks out first.

In short, there are no guarantees. Around 45,000 paramilitary troops were pushed into Kashmir post haste, before the Constitution was trampled upon earlier this month. These troops are unlikely to feel any affinity or affiliation with the Kashmiris. They would, in fact, blame the Kashmiris for their inconveniences during deployment.

Despite the media blackout, ominous reports have come of young boys blinded by pellet guns and arbitrary detentions. A video clip of a crowd being dispersed while automatic weapons are heard being fired has gone viral. That all possibilities exist is confirmed by the fact that the National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval was camping out in Kashmir.

Eventually, the emergency measures taken in Kashmir will need to be loosened. There is talk of phone lines being reopened (some landlines were opened today). Thereafter, the security analysis that preceded this clampdown will be put to its real test. The analysis had concluded that India could handle the aftermath of its meddling with the Constitution. This is the advice that the military, which is in charge of security, can be expected to have given the political establishment. This is what would have emboldened the political apparatus to politically demolish J&K.

Immediately after its J&K adventure, the Army seems to be getting an ‘appropriate’ reward for its politically useful inputs regarding the state. Media accounts say that the Army Chief is the front-runner for the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) position that the Prime Minister said would soon be cleared, from the ramparts of Red Fort during his Independence Day speech.

It is likely that the military advice to the government covered all its bases: The action and reaction, the expected immediate aftermath in which a civilian uprising could not be ruled out and the potential for a long-term insurgency to be inevitably sparked off after an initial phase of unrest.

It would have dealt with the ongoing proxy war waged by Pakistan in the region and chances that it will intensify. But, more significantly, it would have had to allay any fears of a military reaction against India from Pakistan. On all these counts, it is clear from the decision taken by the government in J&K and the manner in which it was executed—the template of suppression across the Valley—that the Army’s input indicated that it felt capable of dealing with the situation.

This goes back to the basic question of whether the Army provided an input the political level wished to hear; and if the CDS post is indeed a kind of reward for it. The other question is whether the possibility of such a post finally being created influenced the Army’s position on the threat perception that would naturally inform any decision-making on Article 370.

Neither is an idle question. The post of CDS finally clearing all hurdles of the past is such that makes these questions inescapable. In the coming weeks and months, it will become clear whether the Army was right in its assessment that the security forces—under its operational control—are up to the task of handling a renewed insurgency and proxy war alongside the threat of war, even nuclear escalation.

For the moment, things do appear under control. But this is no cause for self-congratulation. Already Pakistan has claimed an incident on the Line of Control (LoC). Even if such claims are tailored to influence the United Nations Security Council into holding a closed-door meeting on Kashmir, as requested by Pakistan and backed by China, it may take the military route. If Pakistan’s diplomatic offensive does not gain traction, it would consider that route open.

Military action would have the advantage of getting the UN Security Council to refocus on Kashmir. The top body to deal with threats to peace and international security would quite possibly regard a face-off between two nuclear armed neighbours as a call for its attention.

Pakistan will also use the opportunity of a flare up on the LoC to pump in its ‘good terrorists’ to give its proxy war a fresh boost. Of late Pakistan has been relatively reticent. This has given the Indian military an indubitably upper hand. Now, the changed political conditions—after the scrapping of J&K’s special status—would make Pakistan consider the proxy war ripe for rejuvenation.

No doubt India’s Army can handle the insurgency, the proxy war and military action by Pakistan. It is on the alert in any case, and the paramilitary is already in position in the Valley in case it confronts a conventional threat. India also has deterrence measures in place—having replied with a Balakot to a Pulwama.

Nevertheless, a military capability is not the sole criteria worth considering. It remains to be speculated whether the worsening of the situation in J&K and along the LoC, for the next few years, should also have been emphasised. The situation created in the Valley after Hizbul commander Burhan Wani’s killing in 2016 had somewhat stabilised. After the Kargil War, during which Pakistan had sneaked in militants trained in the new tactic of fidayeen attacks, took some four years to wrap up. This included the continuous operational deployment after Operation Parakram. Now, one wonders—did the Army sufficiently sensitise the government to the heightened security threat that arise from its moves in J&K?

Now that the government has rationalised and attempted to legitimise its actions in J&K by making promises of better governance and more development in the region, it would appear that this was not the case. It does not require military expertise to comprehend that good governance and development are impossible in an aggravated security situation. The early nineties are India’s precedent. Even Central control exercised over the region over large phases of this period did little to aid progress in Kashmir.

Even the possibility of handling the military threat posed by Pakistan can prove to be wishful thinking. So far, the conundrum posed by Pakistani tactical nuclear weapons has not been answered doctrinally. There have been test-bed exercises this year of integrated battle groups that—presumably small but lethal—would be able to operate under the nuclear threshold. However, these have not been operationalised so far. Only two will be on road by the end of the year; one defensive and one offensive and only covering the Sialkot Bulge.

For this reason, there is no guarantee that war with Pakistan would not go nuclear. Pakistan has every reason to project its nuclear deterrence in order to cover its conventional inferiority and crystallise external political intervention. It is with reason the defence minister made his intervention on the NFU policy on Friday.

In light of these self-evident factors that surely ought to figure in any threat analysis, how did the Army’s inputs ignore these in its advice? If the advice it tendered was to not proceed with the political re-engineering of Kashmir’s status, why has no one resigned? Consequently, the question arises of the government considering the elevation to CDS as a reward for the Army Chief for his politically astute advice.  

The situation is a fait accompli: there are no calls for reticence in the manner in which support for the Army and the military as a whole are being expressed. The military, perhaps, needs all the support it can get since a challenging series of events loom in the distance. It would likely serve as the bastion, as it always has. However, once the dust settles, any post- mortem done in the future must place these questions on the table. The starting point should be who will shoulder the responsibility for any civilian deaths that take place as events unfold, one way or another.