POLITICAL LEVEL CONSIDERATIONS
AND NUCLEAR RETALIATION
This is a preprint of an article submitted for consideration in the Strategic Analysis 2012 [copyright Taylor & Francis]; Strategic Analysis is available online at:
http://www.tandfonline.com with the open URL
Strategic Analysis
Volume 36, Issue 4, 2012,
pages 511-526
Abstract
Currently,
India
INTRODUCTION
That
the political and strategic levels are separate is well known.[1]
It follows that political and strategic level considerations are different,[2]
though not entirely distinct since they share a semi-permeable boundary. In
their interconnection, political considerations are informed by strategic
imperatives but supersede the strategic level where warranted. The distinction
is reflected in the make up of India India
This
paper sets out to study political level considerations that would inform the
Political Council and the influence of these considerations on nuclear
retaliation strategy. Strategic studies theory is marshaled to bring out that the primary
political consideration in a conflict that has ‘gone nuclear’ is to preserve,
protect and sustain national way of life and society. Part
1 theoretically demonstrates that politics must continue to inform conflict aims
even in case of nuclear conflict. The nuclear strategy that best facilitates concluding
a nuclear conflict at the lowest possible level is arrived at.[11]
In the second part, the political considerations that will exercise India India
PART I – IN
THEORY
The political level considered
Clausewitz’s
most famous quote on war being an extension of politics is an appropriate start
point.[13]
His significant insight implied that war is not autonomous, but as ‘part of policy, policy will determine its
character.’[14]
This emerges from his conceptualisation of war as a Trinity - primordial
violence, play of chance and probability and subordination to policy.[15]
The third aspect of the Trinity - ‘its element of
subordination, as an instrument of policy, which makes it subject to reason
alone’[16]
- spells out the government’s domain of policy.
However, Clausewitz, drawing insight from Napoleonic wars in which he had first
hand experience, notes a possibility: ‘As policy becomes more ambitious and
vigorous, so will war, and this may reach the point where war attains its
absolute form.’[17]
The interaction between the three –
people, the military and the government – could drive war towards the
theoretical extreme of Absolute War, an ideal type.[18]
His theoretical ideal has come close to becoming technologically realizable in
the nuclear era. Taken alongside nationalism that has informed peoples passions
since his times, the two prongs of the Trinity – military (nuclear technology)
and people – tend towards Absolute War. This implies that the onus on the third
prong to keep the other two subordinate increases exponentially. He had warned
that war, ‘cannot be divorced from
political life - and whenever this occurs in our thinking about war…we are left
with something that is pointless and devoid of sense.’[19]
In classical
strategy model,[20]
identification of national interest and conflict objectives takes place at the
political level. The function of policy is to identify values and interests
that in turn determine the goals and the parameters. Arriving at and implementing security policy, understood as an enterprise
to cover the broader preparation for conflict as well as the waging of it, is a
collective function of actors at the political and grand strategic levels.[21] Those at the grand
strategic level civilian and military, offer advice based on expertise. They analyse the
threats, develop plans to cope with these and further objectives using all the
instruments of power. Ensconced in grand strategy is military strategy. It is
the purposeful application of military means to political ends. However, nuclear
strategy, relating to in-conflict deterrence and employment, is not entirely a
subset of military strategy. It is equally intermeshed with political and
diplomatic strategy. Consequently, ‘the military problem
is, even in its stark outlines, not only beyond the competence of any one
person or group of persons, but beyond the competence of any one profession.’[22]
In the nuclear
era, there is greater necessity for subordinating the military instrument owing
to the escalatory dynamic. This is so because the use of nuclear weapons does
not necessarily help political ends; and, instead, may well upturn these. Control
has become the ‘essence’ of policy and strategy.[23]
In the context of a conflict with a nuclear backdrop,
Michael Howard states, ‘(T)hese (nuclear
related polices and decisions), it was felt, were not questions to be dealt
with in profound secrecy by a small group of specialists in the Ministry of
Defence. They were not just military but, in the profoundest sense, political.
More, they were moral. And more even than that, they were existential.’[24] The need for political
control is therefore accentuated.
Defining political ends is only seemingly simple. ‘Winning’ does not
matter as much as the conditions of such an outcome. While the ‘object in war
is a better state of peace’,[25] the peace that results
must suit the post bellum national
interest. The corresponding strategy therefore requires taking into account what
Michael Howard called the ‘forgotten dimensions of strategy’, namely, the operational, the logistical, the social, and the
technological.[26]
Of these, the social dimension calls for political interpretation. Michael Howard describes the difficulty of the political function thus,
But the question insistently obtrudes itself: in
the terrible eventuality of deterrence failing… how will the peoples concerned
react, and how will their reactions affect the will and the capacity of their
governments to make decisions? And what form will military operations take?...
But it is not only the operational and logistical dimensions that have to be
taken into account; so also must the societal.[27]
Since nuclear conflict directly impacts the social
dimension in a decidedly greater magnitude than strategic bombing of the World
War II variety, this is the more consequential dimension of the four Howard lists.
Bernard Brodie also laments that, ‘some of the writings on military
technological affairs, took no account of inhibitory political and
psychological imponderables…’[28] The existential threat that nuclear weapons use poses to societies makes
it so. The national interest in such
circumstance becomes one of self-preservation or preservation of the way of
life. The consequence for grand strategy is to privilege conflict avoidance.
This was discerned early on by Bernard Brodie in the nuclear era.[29] In case a conflict is
contemplated or is forced by an adversary, then conflict limitation becomes
desirable. In case a conflict goes nuclear, then its early termination becomes
central. A nuclear strategy that exposes a society to receiving like punishment
is strategically suspect in light of the social dimension of strategy.
It is important therefore to bring politics, or the consideration of the
social dimension of strategy, back into the reckoning. Three aspects make this
necessary. Firstly, sensitivity to the Cold War experience with its ‘MAD’
(mutual assured destruction), escalation ladders, vertical proliferation,
launch on warning, prevailing and countervailing strategies etc[30] implies a greater need for
political control. Secondly, while it is widely
accepted that the military instrument is to be subservient to the political, in
a nuclear setting, the ‘nuclear complex’ that includes a non-military element,
needs also to be so subordinated.[31]
It is widely accepted that the incommensurability of nuclear means for military
purposes decisively negates positions such as that of Helmuth von Molke, that
war waging is exclusively a military domain.[32] The Moltkean approach
need not necessarily be restricted to the military, but can find reflection in
the approach of nuclear strategists influencing strategy in their advisory
capacity. Howard described strategic prescriptions that are best avoided, thus:
‘From (their) writings not
only the sociopolitical but the operational elements have quite disappeared…In their models, governments are treated as being as absolute in their
capacity to take and implement decisions, and the reaction of their societies
are taken as little into account.’[33]
Thirdly, political level considerations supersede strategic ones since the
government is ‘trustee’ of all interests existing within a political community.[34] It alone is authorised to
arrive at a balance. The exercise is seldom neat and therefore politics is
usually imagined negatively as ‘politicisation’. Formulation of national
interest is instead itself the site of contestation. Strategic writings take national
interest as a ‘given’ and that a national consensus prevails in the defence
sector. In reality, both are to be arrived at through the medium of politics. The
domestic environment interfaces with the external through foreign and security
policies. Constitutional constraints, procedures, norms, decentralisation,
federal polity, separation of powers and activity of lobbies are ‘checks and
balances’.[35]
While, ‘(S)trategic prescriptions presume courses of action that are concrete
and tangibly directed to a definable purpose…(T)he political milieu in which these
prescriptions are applied is not so simple.’[36] Nuclear
strategy requires consideration in light of ‘messy’ politics and its mechanisms
that together are at the heart of the strategic rationality.
Peter Feaver’s understanding of the agent-principal relationship
reinforces the Clausewitzian principle of political primacy. While
civil-military relations literature discusses control of the military, the
nuclear complex is much wider including as it does strategists, both within and
outside the government, technologists, civil servants in the national security
system and the military. Civil control of this requires a broader understanding
along the lines of civil-military literature that is narrowly confined to the
control of the military instrument.[37] Democratic theory
establishes the citizen as the ‘ultimate political principal’.[38] It follows
that the ultimate sovereign is the populace. Their physical security, protection
of social intercourse and continuation of polity are primary considerations. The
government also cannot endanger national values it is duty bound to protect.[39]
Security policy must deliver on this. These constitute the parameters on
strategy, including nuclear strategy.[40]
Consequence for nuclear strategy
Peter Feaver’s signal contribution to civil-military theory is that, ‘In
a democracy, civilians (the political head) have the right to be wrong...’[41] However, in the realm of
nuclear strategy, the political head cannot afford to get it wrong. Deterrence
is consequently the only recourse. In case of deterrence breakdown, the
question that confronts the political leadership is: ‘What should the political objective of the war be, and
how would nuclear devastation help to attain it?’[42] It is now a commonplace
that nuclear wars are ‘un-winnable.’[43]
A nuclear exchange makes ‘a mockery of the whole concept of “victory”.’[44]
The war-fighting school would dispute this in its argument that ‘prevailing’
provides genuine deterrence.[45]
However, winning a conflict is seldom as important as winning the peace; in
fact, the former may come in the way of the latter in case of nuclear conflict.
Consequently, ‘(i)t should be stressed that the
only objective served by the possession of a defensive deterrent capacity is
the preservation of the integrity of the homeland. No other objectives can be
secured under conditions of nuclear parity.’[46]
Whatever the preexisting aims of the conflict, these are subject to
modification in the changed circumstance of a conventional conflict turning a
nuclear one. The national interest is of preserving national integrity. Integrity
is usually associated with the term territorial, hence the term ‘territorial
integrity’. Here the term is employed to cover societal integrity. Large scale nuclear exchanges remove strategy from
the realm of rationality since ‘(I)t is self-evident that national objectives in war
cannot be consonant with national suicide’.[47] Even if a society ‘survives’, [48]
the undesirable political and social consequences could be in emergence of
‘inescapable authoritarianism’,[49]
and, worse, the peace of the grave described by Charles De Gaulle as, ‘two sides would have neither powers, nor laws, nor
cities, nor cultures, nor cradles, nor tombs.’[50] Even a little chance of
this is enough not to chance it.
Expansive nuclear exchanges are equivalent to a war
of annihilation,[51]
with conflict aims dictating political aims rather than vice versa.[52] Even if rational in deterrence
logic, expansive nuclear exchanges or nuclear war-fighting carry little conviction
in case of nuclear employment. It has been argued that trading in destruction,
‘which
may be all that some mean by “winning”… (is) a kind of desperation at the
moment of decision which rules out reason.’[53]
It may be useful from retribution point of view, but may not prove useful to control
future behavior since, ‘(p)ain does not automatically lead to submission.’[54]
Secondly, even from deterrence point of view, ‘one of the first things wrong with the doctrine of massive retaliation,
where it has been meant as a response to less than massive aggression, is that
the enemy with a nuclear capability of his own cannot believe that we mean it.’[55] A credibility
deficit can incentivize nuclear first use. In case of nuclear parity this amounts to a step towards ‘MAD’, but
further steps are dependent on the nature of the retaliation.
What then is
the answer to nuclear first use? That the answer has proved elusive led to
Michael Howard observing ruefully, ‘(I)t is
incidentally curious, and totally opposed to all the Clausewitzian canons, that
so far-reaching a military decision should escape any political input.’[56] Clausewitz
provides an opening to thinking through how to plan to avoid the worst case. He
had it that war’s aim is to overcome the enemy by destroying the enemy's armed
forces; occupying his country; and breaking his will to continue the struggle.[57]
However, this is for war in the abstract. In real war, ‘the aim of disarming
the enemy…is in fact not always encountered in reality, and need not be fully
achieved as a condition of peace.’[58]
This opens up ‘two grounds for making peace: the first is the
improbability of victory; the second is its unacceptable cost.’[59]
Conflict termination as early as possible is desirable on both counts.
The answer to
the question posed is thus quite simple: ‘The main war goal upon the beginning of a strategic nuclear exchange
should surely be to terminate it as quickly as possible and with the least
amount of damage possible - on both sides (italics added).’[60] The moral and rational
recourse is to end the conflict in light of the political imperative of
self-preservation of the society or nation. The objective of nuclear strategy, and of intra-conflict deterrence,
would then be ‘conflict termination’.[61] Since nuclear weapons do not readily provision
military goals,[62]
the costs-gains calculus has to be a political exercise considered in ‘broader’
terms.[63]
That this is
admittedly easier said than done leads to advocacy for exhibition of resolve
and will on part of the political head and calls for damage limiting strikes to
take out the enemy’s retaliatory capability before it is used.[64]
This can be refuted by the argument that an enemy with a second strike
capability can yet set the society back, even with ‘broken-backed’ retaliation.
In effect, an enemy with an assured second strike capability is very likely to
inflict unacceptable damage in a counter strike in case of nuclear retaliation
of unacceptable levels to lower order nuclear first use. This likelihood can
only go up in case there is a seeming disproportion in its first use and the
nuclear retaliation it provokes.
The problems in
nuclear conflict termination foreground the value of deterrence. Yet, the possible foregrounding of a nuclear backdrop in
conflict needs to be factored in ab initio. Heeding Herman Kahn is
in order, in that ‘to some extent we must try to
think a war right through to its termination’.[65] Ending a conflict needs to be planned for. There is a deficit in guidance on this.[66] Critically,
the nuclear strategy adopted must be facilitative. Additionally, at a minimum, conflict
termination in a nuclear setting requires national leaders to survive, communicate and in control, with pragmatists
dominating rather than zealots; the military to remain loyal and disciplined; offer
of generous conflict termination packages; and there is a convergence on
perceptions on outcomes on both sides.[67] Some stipulations include
having viable exit strategies; utilising pauses and thresholds for compromise; forging
mechanisms pre-conflict for such purposes; keeping communication channels open;
holding forces in reserve; making unilateral game changing gestures; modulating
the enemy image to keep peoples’ passions in check; and keeping the military,
and the nuclear complex, reined in.[68] If Thomas Schelling is to
be followed, ‘any preparations for closure would have to
be made before the war starts.’[69]
PART II –
THE INDIAN CASE
The political level imperative
In popular imagination articulated by
former president, Abdul Kalam ,
India India India India
Since
national security helps assure this, the linkage between defence and
development has been explicated thus: ‘India India
The
constitutional responsibility of the political leadership is given in Article
355 as, ‘(I)t shall be the duty of the
Union to protect every State against external
aggression and internal disturbance.’[77] Nuclear
strategy in its unfolding will have to be such that the duty imposed by Article
355 is not compromised. The duty to safeguard against internal disturbance is
also relevant, since nuclear attack on India India
That policy makers are currently cognizant
of the social dimension of strategy is evident from the NSA stating, ‘Ultimately
it is not just the logic of politics or technology but the values and purposes
of the state and society that determine the choices that we make of the uses
and nature of force.’[81]
To him the aspect of minimal deterrence suggests that the nuclear doctrine
reflects India India India
It is here that the discussion of subordination of
the nuclear complex[84]
to the political and the Trinity becomes relevant. The ‘minimum’ in India India
There is also a fear of politicisation of the
deterrent. The then prime minister, Vajpayee, took pains to dispel this notion around
the Shakti tests, arguing, ‘I was distressed to hear accusations of politicisation…
Elections are fought and lost, governments come and go but the nation’s
interests should be paramount.’[89]
Politicisation, interpreted as being narrowly parochial or responsive to
certain constituencies or ideological preferences alone, is fair to decry. But
to expect decisions on the nature of the retaliation to be arrived at without
use of a political and ideological lens is to substitute a political approach
with a technocratic one. Defining the national interest will inevitably be a
political act involving, at one level, balancing the past with the future, and, at another, the several forces subsumed in
India that lend it the appearance of a ‘million mutinies’.[90]
The operation of the ‘Trinity’ will be manifest in
pressures arising in the democratic involvement of the citizenry and from
professional obligations of the military. Clausewitz maintained that emotions,
passions and hatred cannot fail to be involved in conflict as an act of force.[91]
Passions will understandably be considerably stirred in case of nuclear
provocation. These may result in popular pressures forcing the hand of the
political leadership. The military, that may have suffered nuclear strike(s),
would be adamant on exemplary punishment. The strategists can be expected to keenly
project their earlier positions on punitive retaliation. The decision however is
a prerogative of the political leadership. It is at this juncture the principle
of subordination of conflict to policy and of the nuclear complex to the
political level comes under its severest test.
The
nuclear doctrine has it that nuclear retaliation will be ‘massive’ to assure the
enemy of ‘unacceptable damage’.[92]
That the term ‘massive’ carries
significance can be discerned from the former Chairman Chiefs of Staff
Committee describing India
The
term owes to the understanding that assurance of an escalatory response to this
level would deter even lower order attacks. K Subrahmanyam was sceptical of nuclear war-fighting.[96]
He argued that, ‘(T)hose who still argue that war-fighting with nuclear weapons
is feasible, with each side directing its weapons strictly on the adversary’s
military targets, appear to envisage an ability to impose such a rule on the
adversary… Such an expectation does not appear to be wholly realistic.’[97]
Dipankar Banerjee suggests that ‘dismemberment or destruction achieves no
particular goal’; therefore, ‘the best course might be to attempt only an
unacceptable level of damage.’[98]
This makes ‘unacceptable damage’ a half-way-house between spasmic response and nuclear
war-fighting. Deterrence is in the punitive response unmistakably escalating the
conflict to unacceptable levels, with the ‘threat that leaves something to
chance’ in the backdrop. The problem with this in case of higher nuclear weapons
numbers that now obtain is that the enemy in response would be able to inflict
‘unacceptable damage’ right back. This may lead to an undesirable spiral.[99]
Therefore, there is a case for revisiting the ‘unacceptable damage’ formulation
as default option.
General Sundarji pointed towards this
with his understanding that, ‘efforts will continue after nuclear use to
terminate hostilities after the lowest possible level of nuclear use.’[100]
This has been formally phrased by him as: ‘The desire to terminate the nuclear exchange at the lowest level with a
view to negotiating the best peace that is politically acceptable (italics
added).’[101] That
this commands a constituency is obvious with Jasjit Singh writing similarly:
‘In case of deterrence failure, an ability to conclude the war at the earliest
opportunity on terms most favourable to our national interests.’[102] How
to operationalise this is the challenge.
Nuclear retaliation
alternatives
A pertinent question is: How credible is India Pakistan India India Pakistan
The popular scenario is in the target being an
armoured formation operating in enemy territory up to operational depth. Pakistan has attempted to demonstrate a low
threshold mode with the intent of deterring a conventional attack by India Pakistan India Pakistan Pakistan Pakistan
the means to strike back would imply opening India India
would survive, while Pakistan
Even if India
proves physically and materially resilient, it could be at the cost of the
‘idea of India India India
This would require political resolve in face of the
popular interpretation of ‘resolve’ calling for ‘will’ to follow through on the
doctrinal promise of punishment.[115]
What starts off as a Limited War cannot be allowed to turn into a potentially
Total War, just because the enemy violates the nuclear taboo. The situation is
indeed dramatically altered and revision of conflict aims will occur. In this
circumstance, deterrence continues to be significant in terms of deterring
escalation. However, retaliation options must be examined in light of the
primary political level consideration, of preserving India
The moot question is how then to incentivise the
nuclear adversary. The operational translation of the ‘Sundarji doctrine’ into a
conflict termination strategy is in nuclear retaliation of quid pro quo
and quid pro quo plus levels.[116]
The deterrence value would be of higher credibility, since self-deterrence
would be ruled out.[117]
The advantage of this for lower levels of nuclear first use is in limiting
escalation. This understanding relies on deterrence by denial for lower level
nuclear use and persists with deterrence by punishment, as currently obtains,
for higher order nuclear use.[118]
In effect it is ‘flexible retaliation’. This enhances the potential for
discontinuing the nuclear exchange(s) and for conflict termination. Therefore, while
‘unacceptable damage’ is fair enough for deterrence; on its breakdown, a ‘tit-for-tat’
strategy is recommended.
Two problems arise. One is that by lowering the
surety of receiving retaliation of unacceptable levels incentivises nuclear first
use. Deterrence failure is seemingly more likely. A criticism could be that while
the tit-for-tat response cateres for the breakdown better, it does not help
deterrence. The argument here is that deterrence based on the threat
of unacceptable levels of retaliation is less than credible. It is not catering
for deterrence to the levels its votaries make out. Also, assured retaliation is
catered for by the tit-for-tat strategy, compensating for any deficit in
nuclear deterrence apprehended in the counter argument.[119]
The second is how to prevent a series of tit-for-tat exchanges.
Tacit bargaining through nuclear exchanges can be undercut by taking measures alongside
to enable termination positively.[120]
A joint mechanism comprising high level representation of both sides under respective
NSAs needs to be in place. It should be a standing body not subject to the
vagaries of interstate relations that is tasked in peacetime with the mandate
of the Lahore Memorandum of Understanding.[121]
The body could assist with crisis management and conflict escalation control
and be suitably equipped, empowered and staffed. It should have a formal
operations room with secure communication links, modelled on the lines of
Nuclear Risk Reduction Centres (NRRC).[122]
The body would be an ‘NRRC Plus’ or an ‘enhanced NRRM’. This would supplement political
contacts, diplomatic linkages and confidence building measures, such as
hotlines, to reinforce the conflict termination message.
CONCLUSION
Clausewitz’s stricture that needs foregrounding is:
‘Theory therefore demands that at the outset of a war its character and scope
should be determined on the basis of political probabilities.’[123]
He further required that the ‘designs of policy shall not be inconsistent with
these means.’[124] There
is a degree of interactivity between India ’s
proactive conventional stance and Pakistan
The upshot is that India requires thinking through
the possibility of deterrence breakdown, since after all, Clausewitz’s bottom
line is that, ‘The first, the supreme, the most far-reaching act of judgment
that a statesman and commander have to make is to establish by that test the kind
of war on which they are embarking; neither mistaking it for, nor trying to
turn it into, something that is alien to its nature.’[127]
In the India-Pakistan case it would be complacent to believe a Limited War has no
potential to turn nuclear. In such an eventuality, the primary political
consideration is to minimise nuclear damage to maximum extent possible. In a
case of nuclear parity, this implies incentivising the enemy to be likewise
mindful. The way towards this end is to follow a ‘tit for tat’ retaliatory
policy as against default escalation to ‘unacceptable levels’. The loophole has
been provided by the Draft Nuclear Doctrine that favoured ‘unacceptable damage’
as a ‘peacetime’ posture, implying that the wartime, operational or employment
strategy could well be different.[128]
In case this recommendation is deemed as a policy ‘inconsistent’ with the ‘means’,[129]
then this is reason enough to heed Bernard Brodie to avoid even Limited War.[130]
This can best be done by engaging meaningfully with putative adversaries on
issues that impel conflict.
* Ali Ahmed is a Research Fellow at the
Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi
[1] HQ ARTRAC, Indian Army Doctrine,
Shimla: HQ ARTRAC, 2004, p. 27. Also see JDCC, Joint Doctrine Publication 0-01: British Defence Doctrine,
Shrivenham: Ministry of Defence ,
UK New Delhi
[2] See Barry Posen, The Sources of Military Doctrine: France , Britain ,
and Germany
[3] For NCA set up, see para 3 and 4 of
Cabinet Committee on Security (2003), “Press Release of the Cabinet Committee
on Security on Operationalisation of India’s Nuclear Doctrine 04.01.03”
(Accessed 10 April 2011), : http://www.acronym.org.uk/docs/0301/doc06.htm
[4] An early articulation of
the political effects of nuclear weapons possession was given out in an IDSA
paper, ‘A Strategy for India
[5] Jasjit Singh, ‘A Nuclear Strategy for India ’, in his (ed.), Nuclear India , New Delhi
[6] Jasjit Singh, ‘Why Nuclear Weapons?’ in
his (ed.), Nuclear India
[7] See for instance G
Perkovich (1999), India’s Nuclear Bomb:
The Impact of Global Proliferation, Berkeley: University of California
Press; G Kanwal (2000), Nuclear Defence:
Shaping the Arsenal; Knowledge World: New Delhi; B Karnad (2002), Nuclear Weapons and Indian Security: The
Realist Foundations of Strategy, New Delhi: MacMillan; M Sethi (2009), Nuclear
Strategy: India’s March Towards Credible Deterrence, New Delhi: Knowledge
World; and R Basrur (2008), South Asia’s Cold War: Nuclear Weapons and Conflict in Comparative
Perspective, London: Routledge.
[8] For a characterisation of India ’s doctrine as ‘assured retaliation, see R Rajagopalan
(2008a), “India : Logic of
Assured Retaliation”, in M Alagappa (ed.), The Long Shadow: Nuclear Weapons
and Security in the 21st Century, New Delhi Pakistan
[9] The phrase is of Michael Howard in his ‘On Fighting a Nuclear War’, International Security, Vol. 5, No. 4
(Spring, 1981), p. 5. Michael Quinlan has it that a case of mutual deterrence
operates between India and Pakistan
[10] PTI, ‘Pakistan has 110 N-weapons, edges ahead of India India and Pakistan Pakistan India
[11] Nuclear doctrine can be declaratory and
operational. These could be different, since the operational doctrine is not
generally in the open domain. The operational doctrine guides nuclear weapons
employment on breakdown of deterrence. Nuclear strategy is the strategy of
employing nuclear weapons in the context of deterrence breakdown. It is
cognisant of in-conflict deterrence and in India ’s
case is taken as restricted to nuclear retaliation, given India
[12] The likelihood of a war going nuclear is
currently less likely between India and China since both subscribe to NFU, are
unlikely to want their respective economic trajectories interrupted by such a
conflict, may restrict their conflict to a border skirmish, and have (or are
building up) the requisite conventional power to furnish respective limited
political aims in such a conflict.
[13] Carl von Clausewitz, On War,
trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret, Princeton :
Princeton University Press, 1976, pp. 87, 605.
[15] Ibid., p. 89.
[17] Ibid., pp. 87-88, 606.
[18] For the distinction Clausewitz draws between Absolute
War and Real War, see his On War,
Book Eight, Chapter Two, pp. 579-81.
[19] Ibid., p. 605.
[20] John Collins, Grand Strategy: Principles and Practices,
Annapolis
[21] Note 10 in Bernard Brodie, ‘Strategy as a Science’, World Politics, Vol. 1, No. 4, July
1949, p. 477.
[22] Bernard Brodie quoted in Alastair Buchan, War in Modern Society: An Introduction, London
[23] K. Dunn, ‘The
missing link in conflict termination thought: Strategy’, p. 177 in Stephen
Cimbala and K. Dunn, Conflict Termination
and Military Strategy, London
[24] Michael Howard, ‘Present at the Creation’, Survival, Vol. 50, No. 1, 2008, pp.
5-8.
[26] Michael
Howard, ‘The Forgotten Dimensions of Strategy’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 57, No. 5, 1979, p. 978
[27] Ibid., p. 982.
[28] Bernard Brodie, War and Politics, New York
[30] For details, see Lawrence Freedman, The
Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, Macmillan Press, London
[31] For a reference to unbridled strategic
space, see C Raja Mohan, ‘Uncontrollable Weapons’ in K Subrahmanyam (ed.), Nuclear Proliferation and International
Security, New Delhi: Lancers, 1985, p. 176.
[32] Helmuth von Moltke, ‘Doctrines of War’,
p. 218-219 in Lawrence Freedman (ed.), War,
Oxford
[33] Michael
Howard, ‘The Forgotten Dimensions of Strategy’, p. 982.
[34] Daniel Moran,
‘The Instrument’, p. 103 in Hew Strachan and A. Herberg-Rothe (eds.), Clausewitz in the Twenty First Century, Oxford
[35] Richard K. Betts, ‘Is Strategy an Illusion?’, International Security, Vol. 25, No. 2,
Autumn 2000, p. 41.
[36] Charles
Reynolds, The Politics of War: A Study of
Ratioanlity and Violence in Inter-state Relations, New
York : St Martin ’s Press, 1989, p.
27.
[37] Hans Born, Bates Gill and H Hanggi
(eds.), Governing the Bomb: Civilian Control and Democratic Accountability of Nuclear Weapons, Oxford : Oxford University
[38] Peter Feaver, Armed
Servants: Agency, Oversight and Civil-military Relations, London
[39] Michael
Howard, ‘The Strategic Approach to International Relations’, British Journal of International Studies,
Vol. 2, No. 1, April 1976, p. 75.
[40] Jasjit Singh writes that the strategy
must take into account ‘core values and national interests’ in ‘Introduction’
in his (ed.), Nuclear India, p. 7.
[42] Michael Howard, ‘On Fighting a Nuclear War’, International Security, Vol. 5, No. 4,
Spring 1981, p. 4.
[43] Ibid., p. 3.
[44] Ibid.
[45] See the
exchange between Colin Gray and Michael Howard in ‘Perspectives on Fighting
Nuclear War’, International Security, Vol. 6, No. 1, Summer, 1981, pp.
185-187. Also see James King, ‘Nuclear Plenty and Limited War’, Foreign
Affairs, Vol 35 No. 2, January 1957, pp. 238-256, on one of the early critiques
of the war limitation school. Colin Gray’s position in favour of the
war-fighting school is explicated in his ‘Nuclear Strategy: the Case for a
Theory of Victory’, International
Security, Vol. 4, No. 1, Summer
1979, pp. 54-87.
[46] Charles Reynolds, The Politics of War: A Study of Rationality and Violence in Inter-state
Relations, p. 163.
[47] Bernard Brodie, ‘Nuclear Weapons: Strategic or
Tactical?’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 32,
No. 2, January 1954, p. 227.
[48] Herman
Kahn’s thesis of what it would mean to survive is explicated in his chapter
‘Will Survivors Envy the Dead?’ in On
Thermonuclear War, Transaction Publishers, 2007, pp. 40-95.
[50] Quoted in Robert Jervis, ‘The Political Effects of
Nuclear Weapons: A Comment’, International
Security, Vol. 13, No. 2, Autumn 1988, p. 84.
[51] Jasjit Singh opines that the flaws in the
doctrine of ‘threatening each other with total annihilation’ are ‘obvious’ (‘A
Nuclear Strategy for India’, in his Nuclear
India, p. 307).
[52] Hew Strachan, ‘Clausewitz and the Dialectics of
War’ in Hew Strachan and A. Herberg-Rothe (eds.), Clausewitz in the Twenty First Century, p. 32.
[53] Bernard Brodie, ‘The Anatomy of
Deterrence’, World Politics, Vol. 11,
No. 2, January 1959, p. 179.
[55] Bernard Brodie, ‘The Anatomy of
Deterrence’, p. 176.
[56] Bernard Brodie, ‘The Development of
Nuclear Strategy’, International Security,
Vol. 2, No. 4, Spring 1978, p. 79.
[57] Clausewitz, On War, p. 90.
[58] Ibid., p. 91.
[59] Ibid., p. 91.
[60] Bernard Brodie, ‘The Development of
Nuclear Strategy’, p. 79. A strategic
nuclear exchange meant the targeting of each other’s homelands by the two
superpowers.
[61] Leon Wieseltier, ‘When Deterrence Fails’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 63, No. 4, Spring
1985, p. 836.
[62] Robert McNamara, ‘The Military Role of
Nuclear Weapons’, Foreign Affairs,
Vol. 62, No. 4, Fall 1983, p. 68.
[63] Max G
Manwaring, ‘Limited War and Conflict Control’, p. 59 in Stephen Cimbala and K.
Dunn, Conflict Termination and Military
Strategy, London: Westview Press, 1987.
[64] Damage limitation strikes on an enemy that has over
100 nuclear weapons as does Pakistan Pakistan
[67] B Schneider, ‘Terminating Strategic Exchanges’ in
Stephen Cimbala and K. Dunn, Conflict
Termination and Military Strategy.
[68] G Treverton, ‘Ending Major Coalition Wars’ in
Stephen Cimbala and K. Dunn, Conflict
Termination and Military Strategy, p. 93.
[69] Tomas Schelling, Arms and Influence, New Haven : Yale University
[70] Abdul Kalam with YS Rajan, 2020 - A
Vision for the New Millennium, New
Delhi India :
Vision 2020, Planning Commission, Government of India, New Delhi
[71] PM's Independence Day Speech, 2011, 15
August 2011; available at http://pmindia.nic.in/.
[72] Rajiv Kumar in his Many Futures of
India (New Delhi
[73] Shivshankar Menon, ‘Our ability to change India in a globalised world’, Prem Bhatia Memorial Lecture, 2011, 11
August 2011, New Delhi
[74] ‘Address by Mr. Pranab Mukherjee, Defence
Minister on "India 's
Strategic Perspective" at Harvard
University
[75] ‘Paper laid on the table of the House on Evolution Of
India’s Nuclear Policy’, 27 May 1998, India News, p. 4. http://www.indianembassy.org/inews/mayjune1598.pdf (Accessed 15 August 2011). The deterrent value can be inferred from
the statement, ‘(L)et our adversaries know that we have them and that they
should not dare attack us Ibid.,
‘Prime
Minister’s reply to the discussion in Lok Sabha on nuclear tests on May 29,
1998’, India News, p. 9.
[76] That the two are twinned is explicated in
Michael Howard’s, ‘Reassurance and Deterrence: Western Defense in the 1980s’, Foreign Affairs, Vol 61 No 2, Winter
1982/83.
[77] Ministry of Law and Justice, The
Constitution of India
[78] Ali Ahmed, Reconciling Doctrines : Peace
In South Asia,
New Delhi
[79] Kanti Bajpai, ‘Indian Strategic Culture’
in Michael Chambers (ed.), South Asia
2020: Future Strategic Balances and Alliances, Carlisle :
Strategic Studies Institute, 2002, p. 251.
[80] On influence of individuals and ideas,
see Rajesh Basrur, South Asia’s Cold War:
Nuclear Weapons and Conflict in
Comparative Perspective, Routledge, 2006, pp. 92-93.
[81] Speech by NSA Shri Shivshankar Menon at
NDC on “The Role of Force in Strategic Affairs”, 21 October 2010,
http://www.mea.gov.in/mystart.php?id=530116584
[82] ‘Paper laid on the table of the House on Evolution Of
India’s Nuclear Policy’, India News, p. 5.
[83] Ibid., p. 4.
[84] Itty Abraham uses the terms ‘Strategic
Enclave’, ‘security complex’ and ‘military-security complex’ to depict the
variety of institutions involved. See his ‘India’s “Strategic Enclave”:
Civilian Scientists and Military Technologies’, Armed Forces and Society, Vol 18 No 2, Winter 1992, pp. 231-233.
[86] Rajesh Basrur, ‘Enduring
Contradictions Deterrence Theory and Draft Nuclear Doctrine’, Economic and
Political Review, Vol. 35, No. 8/9, 26 February 2000, pp. 611-12. Also see
his, Minimum Deterrence and India's Nuclear Security, Singapore
[87] Jacques Hymans, ‘India Between “Soft State ”
and “Soft Power”’, Center for the
Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania
[89] ‘Prime Minister’s reply to the discussion in Lok Sabha
on nuclear tests on May 29, 1998’, India News, p. 10.
[90] A phrase in VS Naipaul’s book, India: A Million
Mutinies Now (New Delhi: Vintage edition, 1998).
[91] Clausewitz, On War, p. 76.
[92] Para 2
(iii) reads: ‘Nuclear retaliation to a first strike will be massive and
designed to inflict unacceptable damage.’. See “Press Release of the Cabinet
Committee on Security on Operationalisation of India’s Nuclear Doctrine
04.01.03”, http://www.acronym.org.uk/docs/0301/doc06.htm
(Accessed 10 April 2011). The Draft Nuclear Doctrine was drafted by the first National Security
Advisory Board that had several nuclear experts on it. It did not use the term
‘massive’, while ‘unacceptable damage’ did find mention. See text of ‘Draft
Report of National Security Advisory Board on Indian Nuclear Doctrine’ at
http://www.armscontrol.org/act/1999_07-08/ffja99.
[93] Rajat Pandit, ‘Response to strike from Pak will
be very heavy: IAF chief’, Times of India, 26 July 2011.
[94] One assessment has it that it may take
destruction of six to ten cities (Gurmeet Kanwal, ‘India’s National Security
Strategy in a Nuclear Environment’, Strategic
Analysis, XXIV (9), December 2000, p. 1062). Manpreet Sethi thinks
destroying five to six cities would be ‘unacceptable damage’ for planning
purposes (Nuclear Strategy: India’s March
Towards Credible Deterrent, pp. 251-52).
[95] Bernard Brodie, War and Politics, p. 379.
[96] K Subrahmanyam, ‘A Chaotic doctrine’ and
‘The Real Proliferation’ in his edited book, Nuclear Proliferation and International Security, pp. 31, 45, 51,
60.
[98] D Banerjee, “Impact on
Deterrence and Warfighting Capability”, USI
National Security Seminar
Papers, New Delhi
[99] C Raja Mohan titled his contribution as ‘Uncontrollable Weapons’ in K Subrahmanyam (ed.), Nuclear
Proliferation and International Security.
[100] K Sundarji, Vision 2010: A Strategy for the Twenty First
Century, New Delhi
[101] Ibid., p. 146.
[102] Jasjit Singh, ‘A Nuclear Strategy for India ’ in his (ed.), Nuclear India
[103] A counter view has it that there is
little reason for Pakistan to break the nuclear taboo with lower order nuclear
first use since the gains would be little, the costs high and the risks exorbitant.
This implies that Pakistan
[104] Ali Ahmed, ‘Pakistani
Nuclear Use and Implications for India
[105] Indian analysts view this with
scepticism, believing instead that only a conventional threat to national
survival will trigger nuclear first use (Jasjit Singh, ‘A Nuclear Strategy for India
[106] Indian analysts such as Jasjit Singh do
not recognise a distinction between strategic and tactical in the South Asian
setting (Jasjit Singh, ‘A Nuclear Strategy for India’ in his (ed.), Nuclear India, p. 317). Among other
reasons, this helps justify its retaliatory doctrine of unacceptable damage by
a higher order nuclear response.
[107] ISPR Press release of 19 April 2011 at http://www.ispr.gov.pk/front/main.asp?o=t-press_release&id=1721
(Accessed 12 September 2011).
[108] W
Ladwig (2008), “A Cold Start for Hot Wars? The Indian Army’s new
Limited War Doctrine”, International
Security, 32 (3): 158-190.
[109] Jasjit Singh notes an ‘inter-active
relationship’ between conventional and nuclear doctrine and strategy (‘A
Nuclear Strategy for India
[110] Jasjit Singh writes that nuclear weapons
offered an ‘attractive option to terminate a costly war’ (‘Eroding Thresholds’, in K
Subrahmanyam (ed.), Nuclear Proliferation
and International Security, p. 107).
[111] K Sundarji (2003), Vision 2010: A Strategy for the Twenty First
Century, New Delhi
Konark Publication, p. 191.
[112] A phrase in the title of Sunil Khilnani’s
book, The Idea of India (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999). The ability
of the USSR India
[113] See for problems that attend nuclear
command and control systems, C Raja Mohan, ‘Uncontrollable Weapons’ in K Subrahmanyam (ed.), Nuclear
Proliferation and International Security, p. 163.
[114] Ali Ahmed, ‘The Political Factor in Nuclear
Retaliation’, Strategic Analysis, 34 (1), pp. 5-8.
[116] For full explication of
the ‘Sundarji doctrine’, see K Sundarji (1992a), “India’s Nuclear Options
1992”, Focus, Trishul, V (1), n.d. and K. Sundarji (1992b), “Nuclear Deterrence Doctrine for
India”, Part 1 and 2, Trishul, V (1):
n.d. and V (2): 42-60.
[117] It is in keeping with the finding of
Robert Axelrod’s experiment in game theory in which he had invited entries to a
competition on the best strategy for the ‘prisoners dilemma’. The competition
was won by the computer program designed by Anatol Rapoport that had a ‘tit for
tat’ strategy in which the aggressor’s attacks were matched in retaliation. The
strategy has cooperation as the first step and then imitation in subsequent
steps. See James Schellenberg, Conflict
Resolution: Theory, Research and Practice, Albany :
State University of New York
[118] For a discussion on the types of nuclear
deterrence, see Rajesh Rajagopalan, ‘Nuclear strategy and small nuclear forces: The
conceptual components’, Strategic Analysis, Vol 23 No 7, 1999, pp. 1119-1121.
[119] The author is grateful for an anonymous referee’s drawing of his
attention to this trade-off.
[121] Sub-paragraph one reads: ‘The two sides
shall engage in bilateral consultations on security concepts, and nuclear
doctrines, with a view to developing measures for confidence building in the
nuclear and conventional fields, aimed at avoidance of conflict.’[121]
Sub-paragraph six reads: ‘The two sides shall periodically review the
implementation of existing Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) and where
necessary, set up appropriate consultative mechanisms to monitor and ensure
effective implementation of these CBMs.’ See ‘Memorandum
of Understanding signed by the Indian Foreign Secretary, Mr. K. Raghunath, and
the Pakistan Foreign Secretary, Mr. Shamshad Ahmad, in Lahore on February 21,
1999’, http://www.usip.org/files/file/resources/collections/peace_agreements/ip_lahore19990221.pdf (Accessed 31 May
2011).
[122] An officer of Pakistan’s
Strategic Plans Division, Rafi uz Zaman Khan, has suggested this in his papers,
‘Nuclear Risk Reduction Center’ at the Stimson Center, (www.stimson.org/southasia/pdf/rafikhan.pdf);
and and Occasional Paper 49, December 2002 (www.stimson.org/southasia/pdf/nrrcsouthasia.pdf)
(Accessed 20 June 2011).
[124] Ibid., p. 87. Also see A Echevarria,
‘Clausewitz and the Cold War’, Armed
Forces and Society, Vol 34 No 1, October 2007, p. 95.
[125] Jasjit Singh, ‘Eroding Thresholds’, in K Subrahmanyam
(ed.), Nuclear Proliferation and
International Security, p. 107.
[128] See text of ‘Draft Report of National Security Advisory
Board on Indian Nuclear Doctrine’ at
http://www.armscontrol.org/act/1999_07-08/ffja99.
[129] Clausewitz (On War, p. 87) had desired that, ‘War in general, and the commander
in any specific instance, is entitled to require that the trend and designs of
policy shall not be inconsistent with these means.’
