https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/russo-ukrainian-war-implications

Russo-Ukrainian War: Implications for India's Cold Start doctrine

Does the Russo-Ukrainian War bury Cold Start?

Does the Russo-Ukrainian War bury Cold Start?

Cold Start is the colloquial term by which Indian strategic analysts term India’s conventional war options against Pakistan. The term, as does the concept it denotes, has had a chequered history. It made an appearance sometime in early 2000s. General ‘Paddy’ Padmanabhan when being interviewed post retirement on his experience of Operation Parakram, the Indian mobilization against Pakistan in face of the terror attack on the Indian parliament in December 2001, had used it first. He was referring to the move afoot that he initiated to get offensive formations on an operational footing in quick time from a ‘cold start’. The lesson learnt from early days of Operation Parakram was that these took longer to mobilize than could be militarily useful in a crisis. Since crises brought on by terror attacks were unpredictable, they would have to be agile enough to take to the offensive from a ‘cold start’.

The term soon acquired the status of a doctrine with the then army’s public information chief in a briefing to journalists on a publicly released official doctrine of the army used the term, thereby making in stick in unofficial lexicon to the 2004 doctrine. That the doctrine envisaged a speedy start to proactive offensive operations remained unacknowledged in its early years, since its release coincided with the onset of the United Progressive Alliance government which professed restraint as a strategic doctrine and was in the midst of an outreach to Pakistan over the 2000s.

When an opportunity to test the doctrine came by in 2008, at Mumbai 26/11, the army passed up the opportunity, averring it was unable to give a guarantee that Pakistan’s nuclear threshold would not be crossed in case it went on the offensive in reprisal for the terror attack. The army then jettisoned Cold Start, though working towards cutting down mobilization schedules from a week to less than 72 hours. It shifted to proactive contingency operations which in retrospect can be taken as forerunner to surgical strikes, credit for which has been appropriated by the successor government of Narendra Modi.

Modi upped the scale of surgical strikes, besides going public with these for their electoral benefit, something his self-effacing predecessor had not done, though having undertaken some surgical strikes on a lower scale of his own. With surgical strikes having revealed the hand, the new Modi-appointed chief, General Bipin Rawat, went public with the badly kept secret that Cold Start was to be resurrected from its cold storage. The doctrine was to be given teeth with integrated battle groups (IBG) formed, with an objective-specific all arms structure. Jointness would provide the airpower heft to their firepower.

This was an adaptation to the nuclear age in South Asia, indubitably on since 1998. The Kargil War, merely a year after the two states, India and Pakistan, went nuclear that May, signified that to the Pakistani army going nuclear did not make war obsolete. Borrowing a page from the Pakistanis, the Indian army chief, Ved Malik, opined that there was space for a limited war below the nuclear threshold. This was the genesis of Cold Start, which is some 20 years down the line being followed through to fruition. Over these years, Indian army was ambivalent on the what to do with its offensive strike formations and followed the precepts dating to the World War II, modified for nuclear conditions in the Cold War doctrinal thinking on operational maneuver groups and AirLand Battle of the respective sides then. Since strike corps continue to exist, it is not certain where Cold Start and IBGs are at the moment. The ongoing efforts at taking forward jointness in terms of conjuring up theatre commands may finesse this matter. Till then, strike corps and nascent IBGs – combat commands equivalent strike forces controlled by offensive corps headquarters – appear to be India’s conventional crown jewels.

That the national security establishment remains as unimpressed by such doctrinal shifts as was the Manmohan Singh government when contemplating its options post 26/11, is clear from National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval at a speaking engagement last year at Pune ruling that wars as we know it are passé. Now Doval also has the Russo-Ukrainian war to inform his judgment. He would be even less liable to buy into a conventional military operation, howsoever nuanced by IBG employment buttressed by surgical air and missile strikes, given that the primary difference between the Russo-Ukrainian dyad and the India-Pakistan one is that both putative belligerents in the latter case are nuclear powers. In fact, one of the significant insights from the ongoing war in Europe is that Ukraine would not have been in its present position, had it retained nuclear weapons. The guarantees that allowed it to give up nuclear weapons - those from it backers to its west and those of its invader to its east – did not quite work. Despite this difference, it may be worthwhile to see if there are any lessons that India could take away from the conflict.

A major similarity is the extended frontage, shallow depth attacks. Cold Start was also visualized as being conducted along an extended front but only to operational depth, so as to not trigger any nuclear red lines that Pakistan might have. The Russians have attacked from three sides – Kiev in the north, along Ukraine’s eastern border till its southern portions in the Donbass and along the south to capture the Black Sea coast.

A departure is the Russian bid for an early investment of Kiev in order to, from the line-of-march, trigger a capitulation or internal coup in Ukraine, sparing them the bother they are now subject to, not having succeeded in their coup de main operation. Avoiding nuclear red lines might have kept Cold Start offensives from threatening such value objectives.

Whereas Cold Start presumes an early start to operations, truncating crisis timelines, this was not the case with the Russian invasion. It was predicted by the United States (US) weeks before the event, giving the Ukrainians enough time to prepare militarily, including by stocking up defensive weapons helpfully sent in by the US and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). Even so, the unreality of a conventional war in the 21st century was such that when the Russians did invade, their egregious violation of international law was somewhat of a surprise. 

The invasion itself has similarities with the Cold Start script. It was with limited aims and with limited forces in terms of numbers and the use of force. They set about the invasion with less than 200000 soldiers, part of several battalion battle groups.  Not wanting to alienate the populace of kin ethnicity, they were initially mindful of the firepower employed. They had two sets of aims: some rhetorical such as denazification, and, a second set, political and substantial, such as the taking over of the Ukrainian separatist region of Donbass, demilitarization to levels assuring Russian security interest and that Ukraine remain out of NATO. Accordingly, their offensive was caliberated to take over Donbass, open up a land corridor between the sliced off Crimea and Donbass, thereby also restricting Ukrainian access to the Black Sea coast. Operations elsewhere, such as along Ukraine’s eastern border were to tie down Ukrainian forces lest they interfere with the main thrusts in the  south east and south and the operations aimed at Kiev were to either trigger a regime change, failing which they were to pressurize Kiev into conceding.

As things have turned out, Russia has bogged down to an extent. Its Kiev operation has been counter-productive in strengthening Ukrainian resolve, also ascendant with the support it has elicited for Ukrainian war effort. It is possible that the investment of Kiev has drawn away forces that could have been used elsewhere to wrap up by now. Russia seems to have messed up with its political aim of intimidating the Ukrainian government distracting from its military objective of making territorial gains rapidly.

This summary of the war so far has lessons for any Cold Start-based conventional operations India might undertake. Cold Start would have the political aim of reeducating the Pakistanis on the virtues of temperance. Since Pakistan is largely controlled by its military, the military aim would be to give it a knock, hoping that doing so displaces it from atop the Pakistani hierarchy, or , at worst, the punitive action makes it rethink its India strategy.

The foremost lesson has already found mention: that Pakistan is a nuclear power and Cold Start may not be an appropriate instrument to address India’s Pakistan problem. That said, India would do well to follow the China model. China in its 1962 War on India and its 1979 War on Vietnam was politically sensible enough to declare victory and retrieve to its start line, even though in the latter, unlike in the former, it had received a bloody nose. Therefore, India will do well not to get its regional power gander up and ego ensnared.

This is easier said than done. The successor strategy to Cold Start - proactive operations strategy – has it that IBGs would make a run for it at war outbreak. It bears reminding that the Pakistani having followed the Indian discourse have wargamed the contingencies and prepositioned forces accordingly. They would prove difficult customers. Consequently, India – not wanting the IBGs to be shown up – might have to release reserves to get the better of the Pakistanis. This would up the ante into the No-Go nuclear terrain. In short, the political leaders must be willing to lose face.

There is a lobby that thinks Pakistan Occupied Kashmir could be a Donbass equivalent for India and that gains made across the LC are gains kept. This misses the fact that the terrain there is apt for irregular war. India would be hard put to retain gains.

The take away from the humanitarian consequences of the Russian invasion is that the suffering needs being multiplied manifold, since the population figures here are higher. This will not only hamper operations, but prove a CNN ambush.

The influx of foreign fighters into wars elsewhere, such as those in Iraq and Syria, has repeated itself in Ukraine, with Ukraine calling for a mercenary legion to join on its side. To the extent this is a right wing influx, it puts paid to Putin’s denazification cover story. In Pakistan, this will an irregular counter can be expected in real time, with Pakistani Punjabi numbers buttressed by Talibani and Islamist fighters. The political aim of mollifying Pakistan would be dead at birth itself.

While this might sell Pakistan down river to Islamist extremism, the political mirroring effect in India needs factoring in too. India, under a nationalist regime, might not see this as a problem, but a gain of sorts.

Therefore, it appears that the Russo-Ukrainian War has put the epitaph on Cold Start: a doctrine laid to rest since it was not worth chancing. This begs the question of India’s future doctrinal direction. On this NSA Doval may have set the ball rolling with his observations that conventional wars are obsolete. What takes the place of military-dominant wars is a mystery left for another post, since the Russo-Ukrainian War suggests that humankind is not done with wars as yet.

https://www.epw.in/journal/2020/9/strategic-affairs/portentous-india%E2%80%93pakistan-escalation-dynamic.html

The portentuous India-Pakistan escalation dynamic

On his first official trip to Pakistan as secretary-general the United Nations (UN), Secretary-General António Guterres, at press stakeout in Islamabad, said, “I have repeatedly stressed the importance of exercising maximum restraint and taking steps to de-escalate, both militarily and verbally, while reiterating my offer to exercise my good offices, should both sides ask. Diplomacy and dialogue remain the only tools that guarantee peace and stability... (Guterres 2020).” In response, India’s foreign ministry swiftly reiterated India's position that, “There is no role or scope for third party mediation (Ministry of External Affairs).”

Such exchanges evoke a sense of déjà vu, India having similarly rebutted similar offers from the United States’ (US) President Donald Trump twice earlier. Nevertheless, the international community does have a stake in the regional security situation since fallout of it going awry potentially has global consequences. Two recent studies highlight nuclear dangers. While one talks of climate effects on the global ecosystem accounting for 125 million dead (Toon et al. 2019), the second is on implications on the marine domain (Lovenduski et al. 2020). 

The secretary-general’s foregrounding the delicate state of regional security in exercise of his early warning and conflict prevention function are borne out in the pre-conference report of the Munich Security Conference 2020. It expresses the predicament thus: “In this strained situation, any attack committed by the Kashmiri insurgency bears the risk of escalation, including into military confrontation between the two nuclear-armed powers. Increasing ethno-religious nationalism and anti-Muslim sentiment in India heighten this risk, as they might induce Indian authorities to respond with particular force (Munich Security Report 2020: 50).” The international community cannot but take the rhetorical exchanges between India and Pakistan seriously.

Take the latest warning by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who speaking at the annual the National Cadet Corps’(NCC) Republic Day rally, said, “We know that our neighboring country has lost three wars. It does not take more than ten days a week for our forces to defeat it. In such a situation, it has been fighting proxy-war against India for decades (Modi 2020).”

Aware of the ruling party’s propensity on display over the past five years to parlay its decision-making on national security issues for electioneering purposes, Indian analysts are not be amiss to discount the remarks as political rhetoric, citing the then-forthcoming Delhi elections as a possible rationale (Joshi 2020).

Even so, the prime minister’s reference to proxy war amounts to India’s messaging Pakistan that its continuance could lead up to war, albeit a limited one. Thus the prime minister’s statement can be taken as signaling with a deterrence rationale. Conveying a readiness to up-the-ante from surgical strikes to limited war helps deter Pakistan, firstly, from any terror provocation that can bring on a crisis, and, significantly, from any subsequent reaction by it to India’s surgical strikes that could confound a crisis into a war.

The policy of ending Pakistani impunity through surgical strikes was reiterated by the new army chief, General MM Naravane, at his first press conference on taking over (Pandit 2020). Pakistan has demonstrated its intent and capability to respond in kind, hoping to deter Indian surgical strikes.  Against this backdrop, Narendra Modi’s warning of a limited war appears to be directed at influencing Pakistani against a robust response to future surgical strikes with an to open up the space for such strikes continuing.

As part of its deterrence communication and interest in catalyzing external intervention, Pakistan has taken care to keep fears of escalation alive. Within days after the Indian prime minister’s statement, it deployed its former long-serving head of the Strategic Plans Division and currently Adviser in the National Command Authority, retired Lt Gen Khalid Kidwai, to stoke the fire (Kidwai 2020). In his keynote address at a joint conference in London of the International Institute for Strategic Studies and a Pakistani think tank, Kidwai underlined that, “Pakistan has ensured seamless integration between nuclear strategy and conventional military strategy (Kidwai 2020: 5).”

To him, this reminder is, “especially relevant today post-Pulwama and Balakot, because there are people in important places in India’s strategic circles who have drawn dangerously wrong conclusions about what they are referring to as Pakistan’s nuclear bluff (Kidwai 2020: 5).” He seems to be trying to close the door on India’s advertised intent of limited war by pointing to a “seamless” transition between conventional and nuclear doctrine in Pakistan.

What does this peacetime doctrinal tussle between the two sides spell for the next crisis?

In the last crisis, escalation was sensibly avoided by both sides. This is in keeping with what appears to be a new turn in military escalation dynamics encompassed by the phrase: ‘escalate to de-escalate’. Its inception was in the alleged Russian intention to resort to nuclear weapons in case of a western attack since its conventional preparedness was relatively low (Krepon 2018). Conceptually, this amounts to a step-up the proverbial escalation ladder by a side not so much in order to prevail as much as to trigger uncertainty associated with escalation so as to mutually de-escalate a conflict.

The example is the recent US-Iran face-off. A preceding spiral witnessed a US drone strike on an active-duty Iranian general, the popular Qasem Soleimani. The Iranians, left with little option than perforce to shoot themselves out of the corner boxed into by the unexpected US strike, responded with missile strikes on two US bases. They apparently took care to tacitly warn the Americans targeted. Though Trump later claimed that there were no casualties, some 150 US soldiers suffered brain concussion. Even as the escalatory step was taken, the intent to limit the exchange was broadcast to evoke reciprocity in the other side.

Both India and Pakistan through their rhetoric are signaling intent to ‘escalate to de-escalate’: India with its surgical strikes and Pakistan with its determination to counter India tooth-for-tooth. Credibility of deterrence rests on capability and its communication to the other side. Rhetoric is communication of sorts.  Both sides seek to leverage the delicacy of deterrence - in that it can break down - with an aim to reinforce it – so the other side does not test it. 

In case of India, on the very day the prime minister alluded to India’s ten-day war preparedness, General MM Naravane revealed that earlier shortages of ammunition for a ten-day war at intensive rates of ammunition expenditure had been redressed (India Today 2020). In the aftermath of the surgical strikes by land in retaliation to the Uri terror attack of late 2016 had been replenished by thirty contracts amounting to Rs. 30000 crore. This explains the prime minister’s timeline of seven to ten days to bring Pakistan to its knees.

For its part, Pakistan, through Kidwai’s speech warns that, “Pakistan’s nuclear capability operationalised under the well-articulated policy of Full Spectrum Deterrence (FSD) comprises of a large variety of strategic, operational and tactical nuclear weapons, on land, air and sea, which are designed to comprehensively deter large-scale aggression against mainland Pakistan (Kidwai 2020: 5-6) (italics added).” The use of the term “large-scale” implies that short of a “large-scale” attack Pakistan may not resort to nuclear first use even under conditions of “relative conventional asymmetry (Kidwai 2020: 5)”.

Its confidence of taking on India conventionally appears emboldened by Indian defence budget figures. In wake of the prime minister’s threat of a short, sharp war, Shekhar Gupta pointed out that, “India had to have a decisive, deterrent conventional edge over Pakistan. If that is built in the years to come, it might even be possible to defeat Pakistan in less than a week (Gupta 2020).” Other analysts have referred to the defence budget, criticized over successive years as the lowest since the 1962 War in terms of a proportion of the gross national product, as insufficient to cover the modernization necessary to defeat Pakistan (Panag 2019).

From their deterrence pitch, it appears both sides believe that each has called the other side’s bluff: India thinking it has called Pakistan’s nuclear bluff (Unnithan 2020) and Pakistan believing that it has told India off. This posture of nonchalance in face of the other’s deterrence messaging is liable to be further complicated by the danger in India taking Khalid Kidwai literally: that an attack short of a “large-scale” attack would not trigger Pakistan’s Full Scale Deterrence (FSD). FSD is Pakistan’s drawing of a nuclear awning over its conventional forces to compensate for their comparative weakness.

Such an interpretation of Kidwai’s remarks is incentivized by his second reference to “large-scale” in his downplaying India’s conventional doctrinal make-over with its turn to proactive strategy or Cold Start. He claimed “Pakistan took corresponding operational, doctrinal and force developmental measures both in the conventional as well as nuclear fields, including the establishment of a Full Spectrum Deterrence regime…. As a consequence, the Cold Start Doctrine stayed neutralised, nuclear deterrence holds, and informed strategists consider large-scale wars (italics added) on the international borders as a thing of the past (Kidwai 2020: 7).”

What Kidwai misses is that Cold Start does not envisage a “large scale” conventional show-down. Limited war therefore remains possible even in Kidwai’s logic. India’s Cold Start doctrine, that guides the employment of IBGs for punishing Pakistani military for terror provocations, is predicated on not crossing Pakistani nuclear thresholds. India has readied two integrated battle groups (IBG) on the western front after test-bed exercises last year.

Kidwai’s useful visualization of an India-Pakistan escalation ladder is as follows:, “while it may be easy to climb thefirst rung on the escalatory ladder (surgical strikes), the second rung would always belong to Pakistan (its response), and that India’s choice to move to the third rung would invariablybe dangerously problematic in anticipation of the fourth rung response by Pakistan (Kidwai 2020: 7) (parenthesis added).” The rub is in Kidwai’s revelation of Pakistani policy of going “quid pro quo plus” (Kidwai 2020: 8) at the second rung. Both sides appear to be relying on escalation control to compensate for respective ‘escalate to de-escalate’ choices at diverse rungs of a proverbial escalation ladder: India at the first and third rungs and Pakistan at the second rung.

On the threat of escalation, the prime minister’s NCC rally speech has a clue. He claims that, “Today there is young thinking, the country is moving forward with a young mind, so it performs surgical strikes, air strikes and teaches the lesson to the terrorists in their home (Modi 2020).” This implies political responsiveness to pressures from the street, pressures that such speeh-making only serves to engender.

A crisis can turn into conflict if India ventures on to the third rung. Its limited war strategy has the disadvantage of being checked by Pakistan’s conventional counter since, by definition of limited war, India would not be throwing its full weight behind it. In order to prevail owing to pressures in domestic politics may force India to up the ante, forcing Pakistan to bring FSD into play.

Kidwai takes fear mongering further, saying, “that the escalatory rung climbing could not be so neatly choreographed, but could quickly get out of hand and morph into a major war which perhaps nobody wanted but whose outcomes would be disastrous for the region and the globe (Kidwai 2020: 7-8).” Candidness lets Kidwai’s real intent out of the bag as he goes on to state: “(it is) the Full Spectrum Deterrence capability of Pakistan (that) brings the international community rushing into South Asia to prevent a wider conflagration (Kidwai 2020: 6).” Even as Pakistan seeks to draw the international community in – such as urging intercession by President Trump - India persists in fobbing it off - as the UN secretary-general’s offer of his good-offices. This can be taken as part of messaging to Pakistan that India will not countenance a third party scrambling to save Pakistan from defeat.

Under a circumstance, the two sides are unwarrantedly sanguine. India thinks that there would be no further terror provocation to prompt its stepping on the first rung; that its limited war preparedness will deter a Pakistani “quid pro quo plus” counter at the second rung; and that its operationalisation of Cold Start will limit the war to the third rung. For its part, Pakistan appears to believe that its promise of “quid pro quo plus” at the second rung will prevent Indian surgical strikes at the first rung; and its FSD at the fourth rung will prevent India’s operations at the third rung from going “large-scale” onto the fourth rung.

Both want to escalate to de-escalate, knowing how to do the former better than the latter. Both can do with being bailed out by the international community stepping up when the conflict transitions between third and fourth rungs. However, staying apart till the crunch would be to leave it to the next crisis to test deterrence. Instead, the international community must follow through with its good offices’ initiative, under the logic that if the two sides do not negotiate, it behooves on the international community – that stands to suffer the consequences - to attempt conciliate the two (Bondevik 2020). 

References:

Bondevik, KjellMagne (2020): “The UN Must Take the Lead in Kashmir,” 3 February, https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/united-nations-must-mediate-political-solution-in-kashmir-by-kjell-magne-bondevik-2020-02

Gupta, Shekhar (2020): “How Indian armed forces can defeat Pakistan in less than a week,” The Print, 1 February, https://theprint.in/national-interest/how-indian-armed-forces-can-defeat-pakistan-in-less-than-a-week/357701/

Guterres, António (2020): “Opening remarks at joint press briefing with the Foreign Minister of Pakistan and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees,” 17 February, https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/speeches/2020-02-17/press-remarks-pakistan-foreign-minister-and-unhcr

India Today (2020): “Ammo reserves full, stocks high: Army chief says preparedness not dependent on budget allocations,” 28 January, https://www.indiatoday.in/business/budget-2020/story/ammo-reserves-full-stocks-high-army-chief-says-preparedness-not-dependent-on-budget-allocations-1641027-2020-01-28

Joshi, Manoj (2020): “A balance of forces: The very meaning of ‘victory’ and ‘defeat’ in a war has changed. Ask the Americans,” The Times of India, 1 February, https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/toi-edit-page/a-balance-of-forces-pms-claim-of-being-able-to-defeat-pakistan-within-ten-days-cannot-be-borne-out/

Kidwai, Khalid (2020): “Keynote Address and Discussion Session withLieutenant General (Retd) Khalid Kidwai, Advisor,National Command Authority; and formerDirector-General, Strategic Plans Division, Pakistan,” London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 6 February, https://www.iiss.org/events/2020/02/7th-iiss-and-ciss-south-asian-strategic-stability-workshop

Krepon, Martin (2018): “Escalating to de-escalate,” Arms Control Wonk, https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1204755/escalating-to-de-escalate/

Lovenduski, NS et al (2020): “The Potential Impact of Nuclear Conflict on Ocean Acidification,” Geophysical Research Letters, Volume47, Issue3.

Ministry of External Affairs (2020): “Official Spokesperson's response to a media query regarding comments made by UNSG in Islamabad,” 16 February, https://mea.gov.in/response-to-queries.htm?dtl/32398/Official_Spokespersons_response_to_a_media_query_regarding_comments_made_by_UNSG_in_Islamabad

Modi, Narendra (2020): “PM’s speech at National Cadet Corps rally,” 28 January, https://www.pmindia.gov.in/en/news_updates/pms-speech-at-national-cadet-corps-rally/?comment=disable&tag_term=pmspeech

Munich Security Report 2020 (2020): “Westlessness,” https://securityconference.org/assets/user_upload/MunichSecurityReport2020.pdf

Panag, HS (2019): “Narendra Modi govt wants a strong military, but its defence budget can’t guarantee that.” 14 February, https://theprint.in/opinion/narendra-modi-govt-wants-a-strong-military-but-its-defence-budget-cant-guarantee-that/192760/

Pandit, Rajat (2020): “Surgical strikes sent Pakistan a message, says Army chief,” The Times of India, 4 January, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/73090750.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

Toon, Owen B. et al., “Rapidly Expanding Nuclear Arsenals in Pakistan and India Portend Regional and Global Catastrophe,” Science Advances, Vol. 5, No. 10, 2019, https://advances.sciencemag.org /content/5/10/eaay5478

Unnithan, Sandeep (2020): “We have called Pakistan's nuclear bluff: Army chief General Manoj Mukund Naravane,” India Today, 4 January, https://www.indiatoday.in/mail-today/story/we-have-called-nuclear-bluff-of-pakistan-army-chief-general-manoj-mukund-naravane-1633816-2020-01-04

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https://thewire.in/security/kargil-vijay-diwas-indian-army-integrated-battle-groups

Kargil Vijay Diwas: 20 Years on, Has The Army Learnt its Lessons?

The Indian Army’s Cold Start doctrine is in large measure a product of the Kargil War and is only now getting its milk teeth. The concept of integrated battle groups (IBG) was finally tested 15 years after it was thought up, during military exercises this summer in the Exercise Kharga Prahar of 2 Corps, a strike corps of the Western Command. This was not without hiccups as the test bed exercise was postponed by a month, owing to the latest India-Pakistan crisis. 

Media reports have it that the exercise being successful, the Army now has a force made potent with higher degree of firepower and mobility to add to India’s response repertoire, without triggering nuclear redlines. More IBGs would be in the offing, with up to eight finding early mention in the strategic literature put out by the cottage industry that grew up around Cold Start over the past 15 years.

The Air Force having stolen a march over the Army with Operation Bandar, its aerial surgical strike at Balakot, the IBGs would enable the Army to get back into the reckoning of retaliatory options in Pulwama-like situations. The army’s option of surgical strikes along the Line of Control (LoC) had been exhausted in the wake of the Uriterror attack. 

The wheel appears to have come full circle since Kargil. The Army continues to make itself relevant to the nuclear age. 

At Kargil, the Army’s political masters had proved reluctant to unleash it across the LoC, let alone follow Lal Bahadur Shastri’s precedent of crossing the international border in the 1965 war. The Army was then organised into strike crops with war strategies dating to Exercise Brasstacks in the late eighties. The Kargil War revealed that the advent of nuclear weapons had rendered these war concepts dated.  

Sensing as much soon after the war, India’s then Army chief, General Ved Malik, spied a window between the sub-conventional level and the nuclear level in which the Army’s conventional advantage could be leveraged in limited war. Even as thinking got underway, India was stumped by the terror attack on the parliament, and deterred itself from chancing its strike corps in reprisal. 

Cold Start was thought up in wake of Operation Parakram, a coercive diplomacy after the parliament attack. A newly-minted Army doctrine, colloquially called “cold start”, was adopted. Even while the doctrine was put through the paces in Army manoeuvres over the following years, the political level did not feel confident enough to rely on it in response to the dastardly 26/11 Mumbai terror attack. 

Though the Army geared up structurally – including by raising a new corps and a command for the Pakistan front – it could not assure against escalation since the lumbering strike corps persisted as the mainstay of its organisation for the western front. Finally, with the elevation of Bipin Rawat as Army Chief, the Army took ownership of cold start and delivered on the promise of IBGs. 

It is not as if the Army lacked punching power in the interim. The Army took care to keep in readiness a combat command – an armoured or mechanised brigade – in rotation, ostensibly under training, in the desert sector. Others that had been staged forwardfrom bases in the hinterland closer towards the border as part of early Cold Start restructuring, were also held on a short fuse.  

It appears that the arrangement was unsuitable since the force on training was usually ad-hoc, comprising combat groups from different formations; thereby compromising cohesion. The other earmarked formations were mostly in peace time mode, resulting in invoking less confidence in a shifting of gears from cantonment soldiering to combat in short order. This is a perennial bane of the Indian military. 

Knowing its organisational culture best, the Army had taken its time readying itself in the prelude to both the 1965 and 1971 wars. In 1965, the summer was well spent in Operation Ablaze, triggered by Pakistan’s forays into Kutch at one end and into Kargil in the other, prior to the war. As for the 1971 war, the story of Manekshawseeking in his inimitable style time to prepare, using the then-impending monsoons as excuse, is by now folklore, though there is no documentary evidence to support the claim.

Assuming that it had. in 1971. exorcised the demons from its resounding defeat in the 1962 war, the Army went somnolent only to be rudely awakened in the early phases of the Indian Peace Keeping Force sojourn. Shifting gears into intense combat took time and casualties, leaving a few hundred civilians Tamil dead. 

History repeated itself in the Kargil War. The then Army chief Ved Malik, to his credit, accepts to being surprised by the occupation of the Kargil heights by the Gilgit Scouts by the end of winter. As the Army scrambled to ascertain the extent of the intrusion, it had the option of using reserve formations to evict the intruders. 

At a commemorative seminar by a service think-tank (attended by this author), the then military operations head, N.C. Vij, let on that they alighted on 8 Mountain Division, then deployed on the counter insurgency and counter infiltration grid in Kupwara sector, for the task. He gave out that the Division Commander, Mohinder Puri, inspired confidence. Presumably, the leader of Northern Command’s reserve formation, 6 Mountain Division, missed out on history for this lack.

This is a curious reason to give. 

Mohinder Puri had in a war game — made famous after the war for uncanny similarity to Pakistan’s plan then unfolding but unbeknownst to the war gamers — played the part of the enemy commander. He had, in his plans, bitten off the Kargil heights. The cost of choosing him over his counterpart for his perspicacity was reflected in the immense instability encountered in counter insurgency and in the anti-infiltration grid by the moving out of the 8 Mountain Division from the northern reaches of Kashmir. 

Pakistan was quick to exploit this gap by pumping in the jihadists, who then proceeded to launch fidayeen attacks over the next few years, till they were finally wrapped up by the additional troops deployed for Operation Parakram. 

Admittedly, 6 Mountain Division, being based in Bareilly with its brigades to Uttarakhand, would have had a delayed arrival. Yet the time taken for moving in, familiarising with, acclimatising to and the eventual launch from the region could have been profitably used for reconnoitring, prepositioning artillery, softening the ill-prepared Pakistani sangars with firepower and planning a concerted battle. 

In the event this was not done. The whole story of this critical decision remains untold, since two protagonists — the commanders of the Srinagar Corps and Northern Command — are no more. 

There is little accounting for the lives lost. Then prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, was lauded for the decision not to cross the LoC. The responsibility for loss of lives must also be his, especially since the military did not fully buy into the decision.

From the recollections that have surfaced so far, there is no record of political leadership pressuring for quick results. Such political pressure would have been plausible since Vajpayee’s was a caretaker government looking ahead to elections, having lost a parliamentary floor test by a single vote earlier in the year. If there was no pressure, the military leadership’s decision to destabilise the counter insurgency grid for quick results is missing an accounting. 

Looking ahead, if the reserve division was unready then, there are lessons for IBGs. 

The compulsion of delivering on the substantive side of the mandate is weighed down by frills that accompany peacetime soldiering. That these need pruning is evident from chiefs periodically riling against them; the naval Chief’s missive to his command on reduction of “unnecessary ostentation” being a recent example. 

This peace time culture is accentuated by its extensive engagement in low-intensity conflict operations, which – in light of Indian manpower advantages – are only intermittently challenging and in limited areas at that. It gives the Army a self-image of a well-blooded force. 

A limiting, tactical-level focus instead ossifies talent for other facets of professionalism. The commentary attending the Kargil War anniversary makes clear that the elements of operational art and strategic acumen – indicators of professionalism – were missing. 

The IBG initiative owes to a failure to work the cultural changes intrinsic to mechanisation dating to the eighties. Manoeuvre warfare is fluid, relying on Auftragstaktik or decentralised, mission-command tactics based on directive control. If the Army had measured up to mechanisation, there was little reason for shifting to preconfigured IBGs for periodic “mowing the grass” operations. 

Doctrinal and organisational changes are essential, but so is a cultural shift. The latter is not in evidence, with IBGs symbolising both the failure and its acknowledgement. Twenty years since Kargil, it remains true that the more things change the more they remain the same. 

What a short, swift war means for the Infantry

http://www.claws.in/1548/what-a-short-swift-war-means-for-the-infantry-ali-ahmed.html

India expects that the next war will be swift and short. It would be swift in not being a replay of Operation Parakram in which, as critics would have it, India took time to mobilise, thereby, risking losing the initiative. It would be a short in that the nuclear threshold would tend to loom larger as the war lengthens in duration and with added dangers of escalation. 
What does such a war imply for the Infantry? 
The infantry would be at its best in the mountains sector, leaving the fighting in the plains to its sister arms. Since the infantry deployed in J&K is already in field conditions, it would be easier for it to shift gears. The defensive formations are virtually in combat mode on the Line of Control. The immediate reserves meant for offensive are largely well practiced, though there may be requirement to shift from a counter insurgency mentality and profile to one that lends itself to conventional operations. 
In this, the Kargil War experience and its lesson learned would prove handy. The switch over from anti-terrorism to conventional mode was more difficult then, owing to a higher intensity of the former. Now, while this gear change would be smoother owing to negligible militancy, correspondingly the shock effect of outbreak of hostilities in short order can be expected to be starker.  
The second set of lessons learned date from the 2001 experience, with the then army commander, known for his moral courage, reportedly weighing in against an offensive without due preparation. Another factor then was the snowy weather in early 2002 rendering a prospective offensive considerably handicapped at the very outset. While neither  the army commander’s concern of equipment shortages nor snow could be expected to tie down infantry, in operations more demanding of ‘results’ and aversive to setbacks, the risk of non-performance is higher. 
Offensives in mountains are inherently fraught and the crust of defences on the Line of Control has been thickened over three score years of faceoff. Therefore, the going would be rather tough and consequently more reliant on firepower rather than bayonets. The higher reserves, such as the Mountain Strike Corps, may fetch up in a later time frame. They would be less relevant for making territorial gains and more for posturing and deterrence. 
Territory gained would unlikely be returned this time round, unlike it was fifty years back. Holding on by reconfiguring these in real time in face of enemy counter attacks would be the primary challenge. Alongside, preventing any enemy riposte or counter offensive succeeding elsewhere would be at a premium in light of the optics that would make it prohibitive for a visibly stronger power and an offensive one at that losing ground. This would yet again be an infantry heavy exercise, supplemented by Rashtriya Rifles, close at hand, in a reinforcing role. 
In comparison with the challenge facing the infantry in the plains, the showing in Northern Command would be relatively easy. The essential difference is in the plains and desert sector having infantry begin from a peace time mode. This degree of difficulty is accentuated by the cantonment mindset that is heavily manpower – read infantry – intensive. 
Infantry as part of defensive formations being closer to the border can be expected to manage to reach operations locations and undertake pin prick offensive tasks, particularly if the time differential exists in India’s favour as can be expected in a ‘cold start’ scenario. Such infantry would have sufficient time to adapt from a peace time culture to a war time one, since Pakistani reaction to India’s offensives will take time to materialise, if at all. However, that Pakistan has practiced reflexive response to the so-called ‘cold start’ scenario suggests any complacency could prove embarrassing, as was the case to cite an instance at Hussainiwala in 1971. 
The major question is whether the infantry undertaking an offensive role can at all shift gears by the time it races from its cantonment locations serving as concentration areas through assembly areas in launch pads. While it would not be the queen of the battles in this sector, leaving the privilege to armour assisted by mechanised infantry, it would be required for defensive tasks along shafts, flanks and in bridgeheads. Its showing would call for a high degree of psychological preparedness. Does cantonment soldiering today permit this? 
A dignified respite in a peace station is indeed a must for the infantry, recuperating as it would be from a preceding high altitude or counter insurgency tenure. However, providing for an easy life and one with family entails higher pressure in the form of ‘events’ and ‘institutes’. This implies an inordinate – perhaps inescapable - attention to fatigue details and ‘working parties’. The terror threat post the Pathankot airfield terror attack has presumably also heightened static guard details. In fact, it is no longer remarkable to see soldiers who ought to be in barracks, living in tents near gates. Anecdotal evidence indicates that soldiers with families get to sleep over for a full nights rest at their houses only every other night. The upshot of such commitment is mixed. While the hectic pace of life in visits, inspections and events keeps the infantry on its toes and the guard details keeps it camouflage-clad and helmeted, it does not afford the infantry the much-needed rest. 
The danger is in infantry outfits compensating through short cuts in training, physical fitness parades and battle efficiency – physical and firing - tests. To create time and breathing space, a unit could for instance do without inter-company games competitions. It might even club ‘langars’ together since manpower in barracks is scarce. The effect of such innovation can be in a deficit in subunit identity and cohesion. Absent horizontal bonding it is not certain such an infantry outfit would be able to carry the objective. 
This begs the question: What needs doing? 
Clearly, there is a case for reducing the weight of higher headquarters on infantry units. This means a cut in duties devolving on units by employing camp manpower suitably. The system of privileges with rank has to be reviewed in light of the top-heaviness of late in headquarters, since this invariably adds to demands on infantry. To reduce the pace of life, formations need to identify the ‘must do’ and restrict activity to these alone. Doing away with the ‘should do’ and ‘could also do’ at formation level will create the time, energy and attention spans at unit level to recreate the infantry ethos. Increasingly formations have resorted to inculcation of elitism, through celebrating formation days etc. Since there are only 24 hours to a day, this can only be at the expense of lower echelons, notably that of subunits. Company commanders are hardput today to instill company spirit. Assisting this crucial level of command must be priority, for this is the level at which fighting gets done. 
Whereas there have been considerable doctrinal, planning, equipment and training upgrades to fight a short, swift war, a conclusion from the brief appraisal above is that, even so, winning such a war requires a fresh look at the human element.  

The Strange Silence Surrounding an Indian Military Exercise

http://thediplomat.com/2015/11/the-strange-silence-surrounding-an-indian-military-exercise/

In late September, India’s media reported on a military exercise to be undertaken by one of the country’s three “strike” corps, 21 Corps. Since then, Indian military watchers have encountered only silence on the exercise. This is uncharacteristic of India, on two counts.

One, India has always undertaken such exercises with a flurry of publicity, even if the military details are necessarily kept under wraps. There is sense in publicity in that it reassures the public of a vigilant military; it is good for the government’s image as “strong on defense”; and it sends a deterrence message in the form of military readiness to India’s neighbor, Pakistan. Yet this autumn’s round of exercises is an interesting shift in India’s information strategy.

The silence could well be for a mundane reason: During October the formation moved into an exercise location in the desert sector and is undertaking preliminary training. The exercise proper could build up to its climax in the near future with the relevant publicity and the attendance of high-level officials such as the defense minister and Delhi-based military brass.

Nevertheless, thus far, all that is known is that 21 Corps is on exercise along with the remainder of Southern Command. Even the name of the exercise – usually a martial one and sometimes with mythological roots – has not reached the public domain yet; and therein is the mystery.

Two, this is the second exercise involving one of India’s strike corps in the same year; the earlier one being held in earlysummer, in which India exercised 2 Corps, alongside the “pivot” 10 Corps. In effect, two field armies have been exercised this year: South Western Command earlier, of which 10 Corps is part, and now the Southern Command.

Usually, India exercises one strike corps a year. This owes to reasons such as the cropping pattern in exercise areas only allowing a window in early summer along with budget limitations. To exercise a second strike corps in the second seasonal window in late autumn/early winter the same year is a departure that, while indicating more budget availability, also suggests urgency.

Why the silence and possible urgency attending this exercise?

It can plausibly be speculated that the lack of publicity so far owes to a statement made by Pakistan’s foreign secretary on the eve of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s visit to the U.S., namely that Pakistan’s tactical nuclear weapons (TNW) have been acquired to deter and if necessary respond to India’s conventional operations.

Since strike corps operations are offensive and have strategic ends, their employment can be expected to flirt with Pakistan’s nuclear thresholds. Pakistan has now publicly acknowledged a low nuclear threshold. Therefore, for strike corps operations it can no longer be business as usual.

From India’s conventional doctrine and exercises, it cannot easily be discerned if India is sufficiently cognizant of the nuclear reality. Its doctrine is of post-Kargil War vintage, though officially adopted after Operation Parakram in 2004. Much water has flown under the nuclear bridge since, including vertical proliferation and the addition of TNW to Pakistan’s arsenal in 2011.

India’s military, in exercising two field armies and two strike crops this year, is indicating that it can activate the border theater, from the semi-developed terrain abutting the northern part of Rajasthan to the desert terrain in the south. Strategically, it is projecting to Pakistan that it is not deterred by TNWs.

Such muscle flexing cannot be seen merely as going about what armies normally do in peace time: train. This could well imply that India has an answer to TNW that enables it to believe that it can persist with conventional operations.

Thus far, India’s declaratory nuclear doctrine has been of “retaliation only” and predicated on deterrence by punishment. However, since this would be a disproportionate response to TNW and could trigger a strategic exchange, it is possible that India’s operational nuclear doctrine has shifted to “proportionate” response or “graduated” deterrence. That way it can provide nuclear cover for conventional operations by employing TNW in retaliation. This has been the thrust of the recent strategic debate in India.

The urgency of two field armies exercising in the same year consequently derives from India’s conveying to Pakistan’s military unmistakably that it continues to have options, even when confronted by a lower nuclear threshold.

At the same time, the accompanying public silence (at the time of writing) surrounding the exercise appears to be intended to keep the focus of both strategic analysts and the international community away from this message intended for Pakistan’s military.

Strategic analysts skeptical of the so-called Cold Start doctrine of 2004 have pointed to the truncation of the crisis response window that quick-off-the-block conventional operations portend as well as the subsequent nuclear dangers. With India’s next edition of the conventional doctrine of 2010 not in the public domain it cannot be critiqued adequately. The manner in which the military exercises unfold will offer clues as to potential nuclear risks. Keeping the lid on this aspect enables the military to go about its business without external scrutiny.

If strategic analysts are unable to blow the whistle for want of evidence, the advantage for India is the lack of alarm in the international community. Even India’s public is kept ignorant of nuclear dangers, allowing its politicians to enjoy the limelight from military prowess while obscuring the dangers.

India’s belief that there is a conventional reply for any mega-terror action from across the border has one positive: It could help deter any Pakistani covert intelligence engagement in any such action. However, the flip side is that should rogue or autonomous elements undertake such action, the two states could be at blows before peace has a chance to intervene.

While both militaries apparently envisage few TNW mushroom clouds, they need to be forewarned that this will only be so if they mutually put in place de-escalatory measures.