nuclear doctrinal revision for the china front

Nuclear Doctrinal Revision For The China Front

Col Ali Ahmed*

http://usiofindia.org/Article/?pub=Strategic%20Perspective&pubno=40&ano=2668
 

Missing in the ongoing debate on NFU, prompted by reference in the BJP manifesto to a revision of the nuclear doctrine, are the implications of any shift in doctrine for the China front. Nuclear analyst, WPS Sidhu, of Brookings India has indicated that the China factor is one among three factors that prompts revision. The other two are Pakistan’s induction of Nasr and the reconfiguration of the demated and dealerted status in light of nuclear submarines due to make their advent soon as the invulnerable leg of the triad.

The recent debate has alighted on two issues areas: one is the NFU and second is credibility of deterrence. While the discussion has confined itself mostly to the Pakistan front, no doubt with good reason, such as the volatility of relations with that state in light of long standing instability there, the China front has figured if at all in passing. Given that India has consistently privileged the China factor as motivating India’s nuclear developments, there appears a gap in analyses that this article will attempt to fill.

To Sidhu, the presence of DF 25, with a range of 3200km in Tibet and China’s surveillance capabilities together with increased border incidents must prompt rethinking in both conventional and nuclear dimensions. Conventional rethinking has already been initiated over half a decade ago and has resulted in the raising of two divisions in a defensive role and forming of a mountain strike corps. However, implications of the same on conventional-nuclear interface and on nuclear plane are of consequence for any impending revision of nuclear doctrine.

As a prelude to the discussion here, there are some mitigating factors on the China front that need noting. Firstly, China is embarked on an economy-first national endeavour that can do without buffeting by military distractions on a remote border that is not central to its more Pacific Ocean centered primary interests. Secondly, China is more attuned to global power play in which it is seen as a challenger. This means that in any stand-off with India it would only be able to muster and employ a proportion of its comprehensive national power since it would require to keep an eye out for the US and a post conflict rebalancing. Therefore, the seeming power asymmetry against India both conventional and nuclear needs moderating.

Thirdly, it is the sole nuclear power other than India that has an NFU in place. While some Indian analysts question whether this NFU is applicable to Chinese interpretation of its territory, that includes Arunachal Pradesh, to others this NFU is just as credible as any other unilateral declaration that a sovereign state can step away from at any time. Nevertheless, an NFU is in place, even if India were to take it for its planning purposes with a pinch of salt. Lastly, China and India are in a dialogue process that has gone through fifteen iterations so far. This indicates that an interface process is in place with potential for non-military conflict resolution.

With this in the background, what are implications of prospective areas of rethink, namely, NFU and credibility, for the China front? 

NFU is relatively easy to tackle. In keeping with the dictates of the Draft Nuclear Doctrine of 1999, India has taken care to build up its conventional capability in order to lift upwards any nuclear threshold or need to go nuclear in a conflict. In the nuclear field, a full-fledged second strike capability resting on nuclear powered submarines packing a ballistic missile punch is still half a decade away. Agni V is yet to get operational status and into production. Therefore, since, firstly, conventionally India can do without nuclear reinforcement, and, secondly, the nuclear capability is yet to mature, there is little reason for India to go nuclear first.

Sticking with NFU at least till end decade may be militarily necessary. The strategic sense in this is that NFU keeps the nuclear factor at bay and, furthermore, provides a buffer in the form of rescinding the NFU in crisis or conflict itself serving as a telling message of India’s stakes and commitment. Politically, there is little reason to heighten tensions with China and thereby falling into line with a side role in the ongoing ‘pivot’ towards Asia of the US.

As for the second aspect, credibility, there is a case to be made for movement. India’s leading nuclear analysts, Bharat Karnad and Vipin Narang, have both pointed out that ‘massive’ nuclear retaliation that is current Indian declaratory nuclear doctrine, is untenable in respect of China. In case of China’s introduction of nuclear weapons into a conflict in a higher order mode such as against India’s heartland, then India is fully justified in having the doctrine inform its nuclear strategy. However, in case of nuclear first use by China in India’s periphery or in Tibet, India could have an operational nuclear doctrine also countenancing limited nuclear operations. This would be necessary at least over the remainder of this decade till the capability to strike China’s eastern seaboard with equal impunity as it can target Indian heartland is built up by the operationalization of the triad, IRBMs and MIRV technology.

A shift from a declaratory doctrine that in this case lacks credibility to ‘flexible’ nuclear retaliation may be necessary. The question that needs answering is: Which serves deterrence better: a doctrine that cannot be worked, or a doctrine that envisages nuclear war-fighting at lower order levels of nuclear exchange in order to deter better? After all, given the stakes involved in a border dispute, lower order levels of nuclear first use are more likely in the hypothetical case of Chinese first use.

In case of a shift to flexible nuclear retaliation on the China front, what does it imply for India’s nuclear doctrine on the Pakistan front? Does it mean that India’s atypical strategic location lends itself to a ‘differentiated’ (B. Karnad) nuclear doctrine: one for each front? Any rethinking would require answering such questions. Consequently, the China front cannot possibly be ‘missing in action’.

Col Ali Ahmed is author of India’s Doctrine Puzzle: Limiting War in South Asia (Routledge, 2014). He blogs at www.ali-writings.blogspot.in. 

(Article uploaded on Apr. 29, 2014).

IDR Flexible nuclear retaliation

India-Pakistan: Distancing the spark from the nuclear tinderbox

http://www.indiandefencereview.com/india-pakistan-distancing-the-spark-from-the-nuclear-tinderbox/

IDR Blog

In a speech for the Subbu Forum Society for Policy Studies at the India International Center last April, Ambassador Shyam Saran, currently chair of India’s National Security Advisory Board, reiterated India’s nuclear doctrine stating: “…India will not be the first to use nuclear weapons, but that if it is attacked with such weapons, it would engage in nuclear retaliation which will be massive and designed to inflict unacceptable damage on the adversary.”[1]

There are two ways to take Shyam Saran’s views. One is that his public reinforcing of the official nuclear doctrine owed to his possible frustration with his views voiced in his advisory capacity not gaining the desired resonance within government. The second could be that his public voicing of the doctrine ten years after its first formulation was to remind putative adversaries, read Pakistan, of the nuclear worst case possibilities, and thereby reinforce deterrence. In either case it appears that there is movement in India’s operational nuclear doctrine, even as Shyam Saran’s speech maintains that there is little shift in the declaratory one.

The seeming divergence between operational and declaratory doctrine owes perhaps to the misconception that only massive punitive retaliation deters. Firstly, this is not so, owing to lack of credibility, and secondly, India risks a commitment trap that could deliver the worst case. Therefore, refurbishing Indian deterrence requires India to bring about a convergence between its operational and declaratory doctrine through a movement in its official doctrine.

What Saran wants is the obliteration of Pakistan and its people – massive punitive retaliation implies little else – in case it has the temerity to introduce nuclear weapons into a conflict. It is not understood how he insists on this in light of Pakistani nuclear inventory having crossed into three digits over the turn of the decade. India cannot hope to remain unscathed in fatally wounding Pakistan, not least because of the environmental catastrophe close at hand. Given this inevitability, the threat lacks credibility.

Realising the escalatory potential and genocidal/suicidal implications of ‘massive’ punitive retaliation, India may have quietly moved to a more appropriate operational nuclear doctrine. This can only be one that keeps the inherent impetus to escalation in any nuclear exchange under maximum check. The manner that this can be best done is in having a proportionate nuclear retaliation doctrine in which every nuclear blow is responded to by a like blow, at least in the initial few iterations.

The message conveyed would be that India has no interest in escalating, even though it can, but would exact a like nuclear price of Pakistan for each nuclear blow it receives. Pakistan, hurting proportionately more, would likely get the message that would also be piped in by other channels too such as diplomatic, political and media alongside.

Saran reasons that there is an inevitability to nuclear escalation. This was the position of the doyen of Indian strategists, K. Subrahmanyam, the one in whose honour Saran was speaking. Once the nuclear genii is released, it is impossible to put back into the bottle.  Therefore, in this reasoning it is best for India to go for the jugular right away. In any case threatening to do so would keep Pakistan’s nuclear finger off the nuclear button since it cannot be certain that India would not do as promised, even if in the process India will suffer dire consequences.

Stating alongside that India would nevertheless survive while Pakistan would be finished, as George Fernandes once famously, did is good strategy in the ‘irrational’ strategic actor mode. Projecting irrational behaviour, as once done by Ronald Reagan and sometimes a role subscribed to by Pakistan, is in theory expected to strengthen deterrence. Given this, it is not impossible that Saran is role playing, projecting an incredible and, therefore, irrational strategy.

His voicing this could be meant to indicate to Pakistan that there are divergences in opinion on nuclear strategy in India that could come to a head in case of Pakistani nuclear first use. Pakistan cannot thereafter be comfortable that India would only behave rationally and persist with proportionate nuclear retaliation instead. Indian hawks might just prevail leading to Pakistan being wiped off the map, even as India copes with the consequences of a Pakistani nuclear last gasp as a broken backed counter strike. Knowing that Indian hawks have commandeered the strategic space in India, Pakistan could in the event be reduced to being more circumspect in its nuclear moves.

If this is the case, then it is strategy of sorts, but rather a dangerous one. It pushes India into a commitment trap. Not following up with its promise detracts from Indian credibility. Pursuit of credibility, in such a case for in-conflict deterrence, may push India down the worst case road, in addition to the advocacy of the irrational by Indian hawks. If the chair person of the NSAB is itself of such persuasion then their stridency will be at a peak.

India can underplay the costs of such irrationality only for deterrence purposes, as Saran may well be doing. However, when push comes to shove, it would not do to believe India will survive, even as Pakistan bites the dust. Not only will India be subject to direct nuclear attack of indeterminate proportions, but the environmental and human aftermath in both India and in Pakistan, will overwhelm the leadership as it emerges from its nuclear command bunker. India as we know it will have ceased to exist as it has many times before in its history.

The problem with persisting with the ‘Subbu doctrine’ is that it does not take into account the water down the Yamuna in terms of India’s conventional doctrinal movement and is oblivious to the water down the Indus in terms of vertical proliferation. Together they compel a revision, not restatement as Saran does. Nuclear hawks are more interested in clobbering Pakistan than preserving India.

Saran’s could well be a preemptive attack on a policy shift underway. He lets on that there is a new Strategy Programmes Staff in the Nuclear Command Authority (that he erroneously refers to as National Command Authority, the term Pakistan uses for its nuclear decision making body). This Staff works on the operational doctrine and the nuclear strategy that emerges there from. Given the irrationality inherent in the official, declaratory doctrine, India can be expected to have moved to a more ‘rational’ nuclear doctrine over the decade since it was adopted in 2004. This movement need not be kept secret but released into the public domain; a call Saran makes in ending his speech possibly to help mobilise support against the shift that appears underway. However, going public helps with transparency, a requirement for healthy deterrence. Pakistan realising that India is not without options can be expected to take the appropriate nuclear counsel.

However, Pakistan’s problem is compounded by the inherent threat in Saran’s parting advice:

A limited nuclear war is a contradiction in terms. Any nuclear exchange, once initiated, would swiftly and inexorably escalate to the strategic level. Pakistan would be prudent not to assume otherwise as it sometimes appears to do, most recently by developing and perhaps deploying theatre nuclear weapons. It would be far better for Pakistan to finally and irreversibly abandon the long-standing policy of using cross-border terrorism as an instrument of state policy…[2]

This suggests that India’s declaratory nuclear doctrine along with its conventional doctrine of proactive offensive designed to coerce a change in Pakistan’s offensive posture at the subconventional level. The threat of being wiped off the map for this continuing with the temerity of periodic terrorist provocations is held out in the formulation that limited nuclear war, forced by Pakistani introduction of nuclear weapons in a non-strategic way into a conventional conflict, is impossible. Even if this proposition is found in the event to be true; it would be somewhat late for India too since it too would be grievously, if not fatally, wounded. Therefore, if the threat is taken credibly then it puts India in nuclear harms’ way.

The next steps suggested by Saran that Pakistan ‘pursue nuclear and conventional confidence building measures’ and ‘an agreement on no first use of nuclear weapons’ are simply not enough, since Pakistan, seeing the incredibility of Indian threat in light of its capability to inflict nuclear harm on India (something it best knows), will not oblige. Therefore, the logic of ‘mutual assured destruction’ that India and Pakistan are in, when not defined in the Cold War terms but in terms more appropriate to the regional predicament, brings up the option of a doctrinal turn away from ‘massive nuclear retaliation’, as currently, to towards ‘flexible nuclear retaliation’.

In case India wishes to remain on the conventional and nuclear track it is on, then it needs to ensure limitation not only in conventional doctrine, that it is already apparently pursuing, but also in attempting to limit nuclear war in case, in the event of conventional conflict, it does not succeed in preventing its going nuclear. It has to in this case abandon the understanding that nuclear use inevitably triggers a spasmic nuclear exchange. Its belief that a ‘limited nuclear war’ is a contradiction in terms only plays into Pakistani hands in that it promotes self-deterrence. With flexible nuclear retaliation made possible operationally through an appropriate doctrine, Pakistan will be more suitably deterred. On the China front, there is little nuclear incentive and there is a mutual commitment to NFU.

A flexible nuclear retaliation declaratory and operational doctrine and a nuclear strategy in the event of nuclear first use by the adversary will be in India’s supreme national interest of national survival. The supreme national interest then will be to ensure that the nuclear war is brought to a speedy close at the lowest levels of nuclear use by either side, as posited by the wise thinking general, Sundarji. India needs moving beyond the ‘Subrahmanyam doctrine’, something the strategist in Subrahmanyam himself would no doubt have approved. He would have recognised that Saran’s answer to the question he poses himself and goes on to answer – ‘Is India’s nuclear deterrent credible?’ – cannot have deterrence orthodoxy cripple its continuous evaluation.

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[1] Shyam Saran, ‘Is India’s nuclear deterrent credible?’, Lecture for the Subbu Forum Society for Policy Studies at India International Center on 24 April 2014, http://krepon.armscontrolwonk.com/files/2013/05/Final-Is-Indias-Nuclear-Deterrent-Credible-rev1-2-1-3.pdf (accessed 15 March 2014)

[2] Ibid, pp. 16-17