https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/nanavatty-of-a-different-mould

https://www.thecitizen.in/opinion/the-general-of-a-different-mould-1120696

Nanavatty: Of a different mould

A mould of radical professionalism

Arjun Subramaniam’s Shooting Straight introduces a wider audience to someone the army has long looked up to, General Nanavatty. The general’s conduct set the standard of soldiering and military leadership for successive generations of officers.

Nanavatty caught Arjun’s eye in his avatar as a military historian. Accessing Nanavatty’s trove of notes and papers for the second volume of his commendable narrative on India’s post-independence strategic engagements, Arjun determined to preserve the ‘contents of Nanavatty’s satchels’, that were ‘surreal in their neatness, compactness and honesty.’

For this ‘gift and treasure’, readers should be thankful to both: to Nanavatty for following his passion and to Arjun for bringing these to light. A fighter pilot writing about an army general shows jointness is attaining maturity!

The honing

Nanavatty must rue missing out on the three wars that many contemporaries were fortunate to participate in.

Bagging the Sword of Honour at the military academy, Nanavatty joined his unit just as it completed the long march down from the upper Himalayas as part of the army’s infamous retreat in 1962.

That the aftermath had a formative effect on Nanavatty is clear from an essay he wrote at the behest of the formation on the lessons of that war, which an appendix thoughtfully reproduces in a photocopy of the original long hand.

The capriciousness of fate prevented Nanavatty from joining action in the subsequent two wars on different fronts. To his credit, he applied ‘pull’ for a crack at the opponent but had to defer to the usually unjustly maligned Military Secretary’s branch.

He passed up an offer to serve as Sam Bahadur’s aide-de-camp to be with troops, enabling a baptism by fire in his share of action against hostiles in the North East. The Naga hostiles are well regarded within the army as a gallant opposition. Such encounters with the smoke and smell of cordite have a significant shaping influence on character, universally seen as a prerequisite for military leadership.

A reading of Nanavatty’s years as a middle piece officer shows the preparation that goes into forging a credible military leader. Not only does it take an enlightened officer management policy but also an abiding investment by individuals of self-belief and an aspiration not so much in career progression, as in professional excellence.

Nanavatty’s ‘Delta’ at the platoon weapons course and instructor gradings on the commando and junior command courses landed him in the United States (US) on a nine-month long infantry course. Later, after unit command, he had another three years abroad, liaising at the infantry hub in the United Kingdom. After his year-long staff course was an exposure to mechanized forces as an operations officer at the tactical level, atypical then for an infantry officer.

Professional excellence demands strict self-regulation as a life-long habit. My father (similarly cast in a different mould and figuring in Arjun’s last book) recounts when an instructor at the Staff College, he would chance on Nanavatty similarly engaged in morning runs along forested tracks in Wellington. It takes iron self-discipline to be up that early and to plod along unbidden in a fog.

Fitness was a defining feature of Nanavatty, who at Fort Benning voluntarily joined US army physical tests. It no doubt stood him in good stead later when he had to foot it across Siachen as brigade commander of ‘102’. Though unbeknown to him, his brief stint with the Royal Marines at a winter exercise Norway’s arctic while on liaison duty in Warminster also perhaps proved useful.

An active interest in all things professional, in particular, realistic training, is amply evidenced by Nanavatty’s several initiatives: to keep the unit from being idle through winter snows at Tawang; water-manship during his first command tenure at Ferozepur; while on joint training with the Royal Bhutan Army; invigorating of the Siachen Battle School; as commander of the platoon commanders’ wing of infantry school in Belgaum; and, in selecting a special forces volunteer to head the battle school of Chinar Corps.

As the book proceeds, we see Nanavatty rising through service, without cutting corners. Twice over, when threatened with obscurity on falling short on a quantitative promotion scale, he refuses to ‘represent’ – the term the army uses for officers to challenge the judgment on their performance of their superiors which they disagree with. In the event, he is bailed out by enlightened reporting officers higher up in the food chain.

As an immodest aside, this writer too didn’t take up a suggestion by a well-meaning superior to contest a performance report written by his predecessor on this writer’s command, opting for premature retirement instead! From such instances, it might seem competence is not enough to get to higher rank. The army would do well to prune the proportion of luck needed, since this prompts some - even the professionally sound - to supplement with ji huzoori, the death knell of professionalism.

Nanavatty’s engaging with the depth and breadth of the profession of arms is clear from his firing off professional papers through his service, culminating in a holistic consideration on tackling Pakistan’s proxy war in Kashmir. This was expanded in his post-retirement output at a strategic affairs faculty of a well-received, if much-ignored, book on taming internal conflict.

This passion for observation, implementation and record led to him being tapped by Sundarji to join Subrahmanyam’s team at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, an opportunity he turned down to persist with the mainstream. This penchant to stay the course also surfaced when propositioned to join the army marksmanship team during his time at infantry school.

From the tactical to operational level

At Perspective Plans, he got to further an interest developed while keeping tabs on the British Special Air Service when in Britain. Nanavatty had undertaken a basic free fall course as part of that army’s adventure course, adventure being defined as ‘recreational activities that pose a threat to life and limb.’ As a young officer, his bid for joining the commandos (one made by my father too, indicating a feature of the ‘mould’) had been turned down by a commanding officer having the best interests of the unit at heart.

Such motivation positioned him well to take on an operational assignment with the Para Commandos in Sri Lanka, deploying to Jaffna as a task force commander, initiating, coordinating and overseeing commando operations.

On gaining his first star, he opted for the Siachen brigade. It bears recall that back then the challenges were formidable, be it from the height, the climate, the enemy or seemingly more mundane, disposal of waste. Nanavatty - and commanders of that era such as his predecessor Chandan Nugyal - must be credited with successively handing over a more comfortable billets and a better trained outfit than when they took over, progressively reducing the wastage rate in lives. The principle take away from Nanavatty’s tenure is on the ‘overthink’ that attends threat perceptions. To him, ‘(T)he Siachen area is a limited military significance.’ Whether that holds good in light of the Chinese threat and presence in the Depsang is moot.

Though he volunteered for a two-star command in the Valley which was rather ‘hot’ in those days, he was not initially slated for one. Providence had it that an incumbent commander rushing into an encounter site in true Indian army officer style - arguably avoidable at two-star level - had to be evacuated, creating a vacancy for Nanavatty.

The highlight of the tenure was the smooth evacuation of the heavily built-up area of Old Baramulla of all terrorists, in contrast to the fireworks that went into reclaiming Sopore immediately prior by a neighbouring formation. At that highest rung of tactical level command, he encouraged innovation, such as the interdiction of incoming tanzeems under ‘turned guides’. This writer recalls Nanavatty’s visit to the formation he was on staff of in which Nanavatty voiced his displeasure to a unit that had induced militants back with the promise of amnesty, only to have them stock up their tally of ‘kills’.

For his first three-star command he returned to the North East, to the Spear Corps, but one only partially in active operations, the Naga ceasefire having kicked in just prior to Nanavatty’s taking over. Notable was his bearing ‘down hard on military incompetence, ethical violations and negligence in dealing with human rights violations,’ put in his words as,

I was very particular about human rights aberrations and ethical and moral misconduct in operations in the public glare. Some of my toughest administrative decisions were made during my tenure as GOC 3 Corps. These included the removal from command of a much-decorated brigade commander and commanding officers of three battalions.

This is especially pertinent in light of a Supreme Court mandated probe finding evidence of extra-judicial killings in Manipur from that era in the four figures. This writer recalls his predecessor suggesting the unit’s officers over a lunch during the working visit that a few civilian killings on the side might help restore the credibility of the army, that had just been airlifted into Tripura at the onset of the notorious Armed Forces Special Powers Act.

The final Command assignment

It is his second three-star command, of Northern Command, that we see Nanavatty truly coming into his own, with the book’s preceding narration serving to show how the army (characteristically!?) got the proverbial ‘right man at the right place at the right time.’

Of the most demanding moment during this tenure, Arjun writes: ‘Even today, looking back, Nanavatty often wonders whether, at the very apex level, a deliberate decision ‘not to go to war unless forced to do so by the adversary’ was the best-kept secret of Op PARAKRAM.’ Nanavatty well might.

At the moment of reckoning, when the army looked to crossing the Line of Control (LC) and border in response to the parliament attack, Nanavatty put forth his view that it might be premature to launch an attack in the mountains from the ‘line of march’ as it were, requesting for ‘the minimum essential time for preparation for an offensive by an ad-hoc strike corps.’

This despite Nanavatty preparing his command for just such a moment in the aborted launch of Operation Kabaddi, in which earmarked reserves were to selectively realign the LC to India’s advantage. In the event, the aftermath of 9/11 breathtakingly unfolding in the region, put paid to any designs India might have had in decisively evening the score with the Pakistan Army for its constant needling in Kashmir.

A couple of months down the line saw the nation looking to retribution for the parliament attack. Nanavatty’s signaling of a pause under the circumstance of an aroused polity called for an infinite level of self-confidence and moral courage. Nothing less was expected from Nanavatty at that juncture, and, boy, did he deliver!

Consequently, credit for the war-that-wasn’t must be laid at Nanavatty’s door. If Prime Minister Vajpayee never did intend a war, that amounts to a ‘masterstroke that helped save many lives and enormous financial costs for both sides,’ the credit for this must lie with Nanavatty, his broad shoulders bearing the burden of strategic restraint.

Nanavatty’s swan song was with the deliberate siege of Hil Kaka in Op Sarp Vinash. It succeeded in dispersing the terrorists holed up there, some of whom were eliminated by neighbouring formations alerted for the purpose. This writer footed in Hil Kaka bowl often in the immediate aftermath and can vouch for the den being positively vacated for posterity.

In his final operation Nanavatty cemented his operational approach that led ‘Paddy’, his Chief in Op Parakram, to exasperatedly remark: “Who does he think he is? Monty?”

Adding a dash of conspiracy theory

It cannot be expected of a self-regarding military historian and an Air Vice Marshal to boot, that Arjun is, to throw in a conspiracy theory. But then, this being the most significant episode in Nanavatty’s professional life, a conspiracy theory could spice up the narration, and if the conspiracy theory holds water, be closer to the truth.

From unexplained intelligence fingerprints on the parliament attack case, such as roles of the mysterious ‘Tariq’, Afzal Guru, Davinder Singh, Rajbir Singh et al, the possibility that the parliament attack was a black operation, in all fairness to history, cannot be ruled out.

If this line of thought holds water, Op Parakram can be taken as intended from the very outset as coercive diplomacy, as rightly characterized back then by strategic doyen, Subrahmanyam. Afterall, a black operation can be expected to at best herald strategic coercion, not general war.

Regarding Operation Kabaddi, Nanavatty rightly speculates that ‘a very provocative trigger initiated by Pakistan may have convinced the Vajpayee government to ‘go for it’.’ This trigger can be said to have been furnished almost as if on cue by the legislative assembly attack in Srinagar. Such coincidence with the slated D-Day for Op Kabaddi raises the suspicion that it was to serve as India’s very own ‘Gulf of Tonkin incident’. It intrigues that the D-Day proposed by Northern Command, 1 November, was preponed by army headquarters to 1 October, and the attack was on 1 October.

If not quite Vajpayee, but India’s intelligence deep state – that has long been preyed upon by the right wing - was chafing at Musharraf’s stab-in-the-back at Kargil. Wanting to give it back, it had first to accommodate the moderate predilections in Vajpayee. This explains the stalling of the peace overture to Kashmiri militancy in the Non-Initiation of Combat Operations and, indeed, also the Agra summit, sabotaged in full view by right wing icon, Advani.

Giving itself an alibi of having tried all doors to peace, India then proceeded with Op Kabaddi preparation in the north and strategic messaging in the form of Ex Purna Vijay (Total Victory) in the plains. Stymied by 9/11, India’s deep state nevertheless replayed its hand in the close-on-the-heels parliament attack, prompting Op Parakram.

Is the mould broken?

Nanavatty’s contemporariness lies in his cautioning against the line Jaishankar plugged most recently, that peace lies in Pakistan’s return of ‘stolen’ lands. In his famous seminar address at the cusp of Op Parakram, Nanavatty held forth, “The reclamation of occupied territories… is… achievable but would demand extraordinary synergy of political, diplomatic, economic, intelligence and military effort, and uncharacteristic single-mindedness of purpose.”

The key word is ‘uncharacteristic’, with no evidence in sight that Indian strategic culture has improved any of late on ‘synergy’ and ‘single-mindedness’. The surgical strikes were not quite 1971, nor is Modi, Indira. Adept perception management is not quite all there is to strategy.

Post-abrogation of Kashmiri statehood, he opines that the policy “could suck the oxygen out of Pakistan’s covert war strategy if followed through in letter and spirit with electoral legitimacy, good governance and sustained vigilance… (italics added).” The ‘if’ must be taken not as endorsement but soto-voce, given that ‘electoral legitimacy’ that can only be through a revert to statehood and that ‘terrorism to tourism’ (to quote the Chief) manifestly does not constitute ‘good governance’, even if it is conceded ‘sustained vigilance’ is in place.

On China, his conservative word is in distinguishing between areas to ‘defend’ and areas to ‘police’, and preparing infrastructure accordingly. The departures in practice, stemming from an inflated self-delusion dating to Doklam that India has arrived as a peer competitor of China, have all been too self-evident ever since.

It is uncertain if the current-day regime has the benefit of such sagacious advice in-house. That there has been no dissent, even though the military has been subject to outrages as Agniveer, suggests that the proverbial mould might be in disrepair.

Perhaps as with other institutional leaderships, the military too is pragmatically lilting with the wind. The tragedy is there would be no time for redemption once this regime bites the dust, as it inevitably must. Consequently, the military must adopt Rommel’s attitude to the swirl of Nazification about him: bash on regardless.

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[i] Arjun Subramaniam, Shooting Straight: A military biography of Lt Gen. Rostum K. Nanavatty, Gurugram: HarperCollins Publishers India, 2025, P-ISBN 978-93-6569-761-2, pp. 384, Rs. 699.

http://thebookreviewindia.org/illuminating-past-patterns-and-future-challenges/

Book review
Book Name: THE MOST DANGEROUS PLACE: A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES IN SOUTH ASIA
Author name: By Srinath Raghavan
Book Year: 2019
Publisher Name: Penguin Random House, Gurgaon, India
The Book Review, January 2019

Lawrence Freedman, the leading British strategic thinker and Head of Department of War Studies at King’s College London, once mentioned to this reviewer that Srinath Raghavan was the best student he ever had. He was his doctoral student and later a colleague at the department. He has written some of the best books on military cum diplomatic history on South Asia; to name a couple: War and Peace in Modern India: A Strategic History of the Nehru years (Palgrave 2010) and India’s War: The Making of Modern South Asia, 1939-45 (Penguin 2017). Formerly a short service commissioned officer of the infantry, he went on to complete his higher studies under Freedman as an Inlaks scholar. In deference to his guru as ‘a mark of lasting gratitude, affection and esteem’, he dedicates the book under review to him.


In the words of Raghavan, the book is, ‘in many ways a culmination of my research over the past fifteen years on international history of modern South Asia. It is also a product of my close engagement with the international politics of the region during the same period’ (p. 378). He has over the period worked at the Center for Policy Research and has also been a member of the National Security Advisory Board. From the perch of a leading member of Delhi’s strategic and academic communities, Raghavan had a ring-side view of the period that witnessed the simultaneous drawing closer of India and the United States (US) and the US’s intimate involvement in Af-Pak in the aftermath of 9/11. The latter part of the book—laid out chronologically–deals with these years.


Raghavan covers the new century in a mere 35 pages, somewhat sparse when compared with some 65 pages of the preceding two decades beginning with the Soviet misadventure in Afghanistan. The two periods are separated by the intervening one of the end of the Cold War and the US’s relative distancing from events in the region in the Clinton years. It is perhaps this distancing that led up to its return yet again and this time in full strength.

There are two conjoined themes which kept the US to the till in the region and that permeate the narrative of the years. The first is the events­—dating back to the early seventies–of incremental gravity and portents that prompted the US’s continuing engagement with South Asia, that by themselves would not have otherwise attracted the US. The second is its co-extensive nuclearization of the rivalry of the South Asian protagonists, India and Pakistan, again dating back to the early seventies and picking up pace through the eighties.


The eighties witnessed Pakistan as a ‘frontline’ state, even as the US looked the other way when its key partner forced the pace of nuclearization in the eighties. Rajiv Gandhi, left with little choice, with his disarmament initiative failing to gain traction, ordered the last screws to be turned on India’s nuclear capability. With the departure of the Soviets, the US, stepping back from the region, alongside brought its nonproliferation lobby to bear. While in Afghanistan, it looked to access Central Asia and its oil by seemingly backing the Pakistan-supported Taliban, alongside its squeezing of India’s nuclear hand forced the nuclear break out of South Asia by the end of the decade. Needing to change tack from a cap-and-roll-back policy to accommodation, a major shift was forced on the US as it embarked on its ‘global war on terror’. Developments in the period—that included the nuclear tests, two crises and the US intervention in Afghanistan—lent the region the ‘most dangerous place on earth’ tag and the book its name.


In the Cold War years, the US has been implicated—almost to the levels of a participant—in the strategic history of South Asia, the highwater mark being the 1971 War in which it threw in its lot with its Cold War partner, Pakistan. Raghavan is particularly lucid in bringing this out, highlighting the Nixon-Kissinger attitudes to India and its leadership in their references to ‘witch’ and ‘bitch’ caught on White House tapes. Even the famous ‘(Archer) Blood telegram’(a message from its Consul General giving the collective position of the consulate) from Dacca, calling the developments in East Pakistan ‘a selective genocide’ did not draw attention. The implicit dissent was instead ignored since the US was then using Pakistan as a springboard for an outreach to China. The US followed up the sending in of USS Enterprise into the Bay of Bengal with trying to box in India’s nuclear quest soon thereafter. The framework of two estranged democracies’ was set in the early Cold War as India embarked on nonalignment, while Pakistan used its proximity with the US as a Cold War partner for external balancing in relation to India and its revisionist garb for Kashmir.


The book uses more than a hundred pages to cover a less known ground, on the relations of the US with British India prior to Independence. Raghavan has elsewhere, in his monumental history of World War II as it engulfed the region, covered the US’s military presence and role in South Asia then. He assays an economic history in his coverage of the lend-lease relationship and the American war aim of displacing colonial empires, including that of their British ally, with an open capitalist international order. In this part of the book he enlightens by showing up how racism formed early opinions within the US of the region and shaped the US’s engagement. The influential role of missionaries in purveying to Americans that the subcontinent was a heathen land is well brought out. Swami Vivekananda in his famous address at Chicago dispelled the notion, besides imparting a sense of high Hindu philosophy to the American audience. To Raghavan, the missionaries appeared better disposed to the Muslims.


The book is well laid out, covering the notable junctures in a political, diplomatic and strategic history, even while not neglecting the economic and social interface between the superpower and the region. Its forty-nine pages of notes would prove useful for late entrants into the story. Though titled South Asia, it mainly concentrates on the US’s relations with India, Pakistan (that once included East Pakistan) and Afghanistan. He covers US interventions—its earlier proxy war and its current and ongoing longest war—as also the US’s role in defusing regional crises. Raghavan resists the temptation to dwell overly on the crises and distract from his overview of the relations, perhaps since these junctures have been mostly been dissected threadbare elsewhere. In doing so, he justifies his aim of not only dwelling on South Asia, but also showing US’s role as a global power from a South Asian prism. A vantage point in South Asia covers a gap in regarding the US as it has thus far been, mostly through the more strategically critical regions of the Cold War: Europe, West Asia and East Asia.


Lately, China has increasingly become a presence in South Asia and has come to define the US’s approach to South Asia. This has made India more relevant to the US, with the US giving voice early this century to its aim of making India a great power. Pakistan for its part has displaced the US with China as an evergreen benefactor. How the future pans out would no longer be a triadic story but will feature China more prominently. It appears that an additional layer of potential rivalry—that of a global hegemon and its challenger—shall make the region continue as the most dangerous place.

Nuclear doctrine review: NRRC

NRRC: For the nuclear doctrine review

http://www.indiandefencereview.com/nrrc-for-the-nuclear-doctrine-review/


A

With the Bharatiya Janata Party in power in India a nuclear doctrine review is in the offing. Since the issue found controversial mention in the elections, it will likely figure high in the ‘to do’ list of the new government. Praveen Swami informs that the prime minister has been briefed by the outgoing National Security Adviser and the chief of the Strategic Forces Command early this month. Now that an intelligence czar has been placed as NSA, the government would likely either appoint a nuclear expert to head a committee to revise the nuclear doctrine or it could task the National Security Advisory Board for this.

Among the ideas up for discussion are NFU, ‘massive’ and ‘flexible’ nuclear retaliation, the inter-se relationship between ‘credible’ and ‘minimum’, the degree of operationalization necessary in keeping within India’s  unique civil-military relations and structural matters such as appointment of a fulltime four star general to, inter-alia, oversee the SFC. This article advances the idea of Nuclear Risk Reduction Center as one whose time has come.

A nuclear review itself is long overdue, the last in 2003 resulting in adoption of the official nuclear doctrine. Though the Congress neglected to revise it in its ten years in power, this does not mean that the government did not keep the doctrine under review. It is known that its National Security Advisory Board, that has a lifespan of two years, is charged with reviewing national security. The Executive Council of India’s Nuclear Command Authority, that includes military brass, also meets every six months in a meeting chaired by the prime minister, who heads the Political Council. India has also created a strategic programs staff in its National Security Council Secretariat that no doubt has mild resemblance to Pakistan’s famous Strategic Plans Division of its National Command Authority. Therefore, while the nuclear doctrine is kept under watch, it is likely stayed unchanged since there has been little reason to change it.

The commentary in the aftermath of the mention of the review in election time suggests that No First Use, a cardinal pillar, is seen as worth retaining in India’s security interest. India, having the advantage in conventional forces, does not need to resort to nuclear first use to further any strategic ends. Besides, it is useful from projecting India as a responsible nuclear power, particularly when contrasted to Pakistan which has studiously avoided an NFU commitment. Therefore, it is unlikely NFU would be unhinged in any review, particularly with the incoming Prime Minister, Mr. Modi, indicating as much.

However, it is the other facet of India’s doctrine, ‘credible minimum deterrence’ that may be reviewed.  Even though the BJP manifesto mentions ‘credible minimum deterrence’, ‘minimum’ has long since been superseded by ‘credible’. Credibility is predicated on capability, resolve and communication of both to the adversary. India has been putting into place a triad. The final piece in the form of a nuclear armed and powered submarine would likely be operational by the mid-term of the next government. This would confer on India an ‘invulnerable’ second strike capability. While credibility exists at the higher, level of nuclear exchange(s), Pakistan has with the induction of the tactical nuclear weapons system, Nasr, posed a dilemma for India.

Currently, India’s nuclear doctrine is one of ‘massive’ nuclear retaliation for any form of nuclear first use against it or its forces anywhere. The problem that Nasr poses is that in case of its use against an advancing Indian military in Pakistani territory, India would under the tenets of its current doctrine have to retaliate against counter value targets in Pakistan: counter value being strategic short hand for urban centers. Since Pakistan now has nuclear weapons in the lower three digits, its counter strike would likely be equally damaging for India; resulting in an escalatory spiral. Therefore, India may have to rethink its nuclear doctrine for lower order levels of Pakistani nuclear first use, symbolized by the Nasr. It may then have to go from ‘massive’ to ‘flexible’ nuclear retaliation.

The current debate therefore revolves around the votaries of ‘flexible’ insisting that going ‘massive’ is incredible and the votaries of ‘massive’ believing that ‘flexible’ is a move away from a deterrence to a war fighting doctrine. Since escalation control is not assured, a ‘war fighting’ doctrine is to go down the Cold War route, especially since this is but a short step short of a ‘war winning’ doctrine.

On account of this impasse, a third model has suggested itself: the Sundarji doctrine, named after the famous Indian general, known more for his conventional war doctrine on mechanised warfare. Sundarji’s nuclear doctrine has it that a nuclear exchange, signifying onset of nuclear conflict, must be terminated through appropriate political and diplomatic means at the lowest threshold of nuclear use. Explicitly acknowledging this intention to end the nuclear exchange(s) earliest gives the other side an assurance against escalation, thereby enabling escalation control, even as political measures including appropriate mutual concessions are made by both sides.

Since escalation control is a two way street it implies an element of cooperation. In the midst of a nuclear conflict, it would be counter intuitive to suggest cooperation. However, Nobel prize winning nuclear deterrence theorist, Thomas Schelling, has posited cooperation in conflict stating: ‘Still some kind of cooperation with the Russians or mutual restraint, formal or informal, tacit or explicit, may prove to make a significant difference in the stability of the balance of terror…’ (The Strategy of Conflict, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980. p. 251).

Therefore, it appears that deterrence requires being complemented by reassurance. It is not only the threat of great damage in store that  deters but reassurance that such punishment would not be resorted to if some conditions are fulfilled also stays the nuclear hand. Therefore, given the shared interest in national and regime survival, the two states would require to engage with each other when most needed and when seemingly least possible. The international community, energised by the conflict going nuclear, can step in to facilitate this.

Reassuring the sceptical enemy of limited conflict aims would be required in a time critical manner. Likewise, the enemy looking for a way out of a nuclear escalatory spiral would also be interested in a reassuring political exchange. Bernard Brodie’s sage counsel will be relevant at this juncture:  ‘Clausewitz’s classical definition must be modified, at least for any opponent who has a substantial nuclear capability behind him. Against such an opponent one’s terms must be modest enough to permit him to accept them, without his being pushed by desperation into rejecting both those terms and the limitations in war fighting (Strategy in the Missile Age. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1959: 313).’

These can be diplomatically conveyed. However, there would be clutter in communication, particularly those messages sent through even well meaning intermediary states that are friendly to both countries. What is additionally needed to supplement diplomatic efforts is a direct mechanism of interface. This is the role of the proposed nuclear risk reduction center in conflict. However, it cannot be a creation at the cusp of conflict in case it is to withstand the test of conflict. It would require being in existence prior and its staff from both countries practiced in networking each other.

To develop the ethos and habits that would stand it in good stead in conflict, it may require being the hub of nuclear confidence building during peace, involved in issues such as missile test information exchange, mutual nuclear accident intimation etc. Tasked with nuclear risk avoidance, escalation control and de-escalation, this would supplement hotlines already in place. The two states can take their nuclear confidence building talks further to the nuclear risk reduction level through this. Currently, these desultorily dwell on doctrines and status of nuclear CBMs in place. Ten years since their start, taking them a step ahead is necessary.

Since it would tacitly imply a lack of faith deterrence, contingency plans can be drawn up during the talks, even if a mechanism is not created right away. It could be placed outside the region or within the region in either a third country or in either of the two countries. However, it bears reckoning that while nuclear war prevention is important, how to react in case it does break out must also be in the reckoning. Putting all the eggs in the deterrence basket may lead to retrospective judgment of strategic imprudence if deterrence does break down.

How is this in India’s interests? Conflict in the nuclear age can at best be in the limited war tradition. Preventing the tendency in war towards ‘Absolute War’, as conceptualized by Clausewitz, is through exercise of political control. Political aims in conflict being limited, any outbreak of nuclear war therefore would upturn original political aims, requiring reconfiguring of political and military aims and objectives for the nuclear conflict. Nevertheless, limitation will be an overriding necessity. NRRC can serve to convey this mutually shared aim to each other by the nuclear belligerents, especially when both have second strike capability and have ‘assured destruction’ levels of arsenal.

Hypothetically, in case India wishes to punish Pakistan conventionally for subconventional provocation in future, its limited war doctrine is designed to keep this conflict from going nuclear. However, that the nuclear decision would be Pakistan’s to make, a limited conventional war cannot be guaranteed. India’s counter, irrespective of its declaratory nuclear doctrine, may well be in accordance with an operational nuclear doctrine that rules in limited nuclear operations. ‘Flexible’ nuclear retaliation in this manner may entail taking prior precautions against escalation. This is where NRRC comes in and is in India’s interest.

Will Pakistan bite? Pakistan’s interest is clearly in ensuring against conflict outbreak and its earliest end at the lowest threshold. Failing attempts at conflict avoidance, Pakistan would like to deny India its conventional advantage. It would certainly not like to be the first to go nuclear. In case it is indeed pushed past the threshold it may consider lower order nuclear strike so as to enable de-escalation and early conflict termination. This will ensure that Pakistan is preserved from nuclear damage to maximum extent possible for post conflict stability and early recovery. While its nuclear weapons would enable deterrence at all levels of the conflict, including in-conflict deterrence, it would nevertheless require mechanisms for de-escalation and assurance. The latter is always to complement deterrence. A mechanism for interface even during conflict as proposed here enables reassurance.

Pakistan has expressed its interest in NRRMs for many years. Officers proceeding to Stimson Center on sabbatical from its Strategic Plans Division have written up their papers at that think tank along these lines. This indicates that there is scope for Indian to pursue the Lahore Memorandum of Understanding to its logical conclusion along the lines here through the formal channel of talks on nuclear CBMs when it reconvenes after the forming of a new government.

This would entail introducing the Sundarji nuclear doctrine into the discourse as an alternative to both ‘massive’ and ‘flexible’ nuclear retaliatory doctrines currently being discussed. Making the Sundarji doctrine workable would require establishing a Nuclear Risk Reduction Center. While the two Cold War adversaries waited till the end of the Cold War, to set this up, for the two South Asian states to wait till the end of their own Cold War may be to risk ‘hot war’ in the interim. Since there is no guarantee for conflict resolution in the subcontinent any time soon, the mechanism is a necessary mitigation measure for the risk.