the nuclear domain: in irreverance

Published in Badrul Alam (ed.) Perspectives on Nuclear Strategy of India and Pakistan, New Delhi: Kalpaz publications, 2013

THE NUCLEAR DOMAIN: IN IRREVERANCE

By Ali Ahmed, Ph.D*

Introduction

The back-to-back tests as has been the wont in South Asia since May 1998, of the Agni V and Shaheen 1 respectively in early summer 2012 brought out the manner perception management regarding nuclear developments by the two states, India and Pakistan. The hype by the nuclear complex and the nationalist media around the tests demonstrated a blind spot, amounting to a veritable black hole, in the nuclear imaginings of the respective security elites. This paper highlights this deficit in strategic thinking to conclude that, firstly, the nuclear complex needs stringent oversight, and, secondly, that a nuclear peace movement needs to be energized expeditiously. Towards this end, the paper first brings out the current scope of nuclear strategic thinking in India and then dwells on the aspects that seem to have escaped nuclear strategy, specifically, the aftermath of a nuclear exchange. While the effects of nuclear exchanges have been dwelt on in literature to demonstrate how horrendous will be the outcome, what is missing is engagement with the social and political fallout of such exchange(s). This is the blind spot the paper seeks to dispel. In doing so it demonstrates that the opportunity provided by the distasteful manner the nuclear complex sought to present its questionable wares must prompt appropriate attitudinal corrections towards nuclear weapons.

Nuclear doctrine

Nuclear doctrine can be both declaratory and operational. There may or may not be a convergence between the two. The declaratory doctrine may be distinct from operational doctrine, even though in light of the connection between transparency and deterrence, they may be the same. In India’s case, the declaratory doctrine is the one in the open domain. There is also presumably an operational doctrine. Whether the two are the same or distinct is a matter of conjecture. However, as this section will seek to demonstrate, the irrationality endemic in the declaratory doctrine suggests that the operational doctrine could possible be different.

India’s declaratory nuclear doctrine is that in case of nuclear first use by an adversary in any manner against India and its forces anywhere, India will retaliate with a ‘massive’ counter to inflict ‘unacceptable damage’. Firstly, as to whether it requires a ‘massive’ strike to inflict ‘unacceptable damage’ is moot. Secondly, in case of Chinese nuclear first use against India, for India to go ‘massive’ in retaliation makes little sense. As to how India will mount a ‘massive’ counter strike has not been explicated since Agni V will not be in serial production for another half a decade. Also in case India were to inflict ‘unacceptable damage’ on China, it can be assured of receiving the same right back and with some interest. This implies that going ‘massive’ against China is irrational. In case Chinese first use has been ‘massive’ or of first strike proportions, then it is not understood how India can mount a ‘massive’ counter. India would require breaching the ‘minimum’ in the popular formulation of its nuclear doctrine – ‘credible minimum deterrence’ – in case it is to acquire the number necessary to survive a ‘massive’ Chinese strike and then to counter with an equivalent salvo.

In respect of Pakistan, ‘massive’ nuclear retaliation against its nuclear first use of higher order proportions makes eminent sense. After all a higher order nuclear attack would certainly have damaged India enough to make India exact an appropriate if not proportionate price. However, in case of nuclear first use by Pakistan restricted to a lower order strike then if India was to go ‘massive’ in retaliation, Pakistan could be incentivised to retaliate similarly. Given that its nuclear numbers are reportedly in the range of lower three figures, it has the arsenal to inflict unacceptable damage on India.

This brief dismissal of the intent of ‘massive’ nuclear retaliation is necessary to demonstrate that though India had overtly had the bomb for over three years by the time the doctrine was officially endorsed by the Cabinet Committee on Security, India had not been able to cope doctrinally. The term was an unnecessary introduction, suggestive of the other aims the declaratory doctrine had set out to achieve, such as for instance political muscle flexing by India in wake of Operation Parakram. That the declaratory doctrine, despite widespread criticism on this score and more, has remained unchanged implies that there is a possible disconnect between declaratory and operational doctrine. It is infeasible that operational doctrine can be coincident with declaratory doctrine that is so bereft of strategic logic.

However, in case the term ‘massive’ is disregarded, then the retaliation criterion left is ‘unacceptable damage’. Is retaliation with a quantum of force to inflict unacceptable damage sensible in all manners of nuclear first use? When nuclear first use by the enemy is of such an order as to result in unacceptable damage to oneself, then it makes eminent sense to consider retaliation that inflicts like damage on the enemy. However, in case the damage caused by the nuclear first use is not of an unacceptable order, such as when it is a single warhead of low kilo-tonnage on a tactical level target, then inflicting unacceptable damage in return would lay India open to receiving a like counter strike. This means escalation is inevitable. The logic behind the doctrinal threat is that deterrence involves promising just such an escalation. It will make first use considerations more fraught, leading to abandonment of the nuclear option. However, where an enemy has the capacity for strike back in equal measure, as does China unquestionably and arguably even Pakistan in light of higher numbers now available to it, then default escalation to unacceptable levels of damage is not sensible as a operational doctrine, how-so-ever persuasive its deterrence logic may be. Therefore, even the much haloed term, ‘unacceptable damage’, sanctified as dogma exam in the Draft Nuclear Doctrine, cannot be taken as gospel.

What then is left of retaliation criteria? It emerges that in India’s case declaratory doctrine is very likely to be distinct from operational doctrine. Absence of articulation of operational doctrine is only superficially understandable. While nuclear secrecy has its place, nuclear transparency has significance for deterrence. For instance, if India’s declaratory doctrine in all its imperfection was indeed its operational doctrine then the fallout would be as follows. The enemy knowing that India would launch a ‘massive’ counter to any form of first use, would take care to launch a first strike attempt so as to degrade India’s retaliatory strike to the extent possible. This would surely be of unacceptable order many times over. In other words, promising a massive counter only serves to make India insecure. After receiving enemy first use of a massive order, India would unlikely be in a position to launch a massive counter, even if it is still able to inflict unacceptable damage. In other words, the enemy may be materially less set back than India in such an exchange. Given this, transparency that operational doctrine is not as irrational as declaratory doctrine is necessary. In other words, nuclear secrecy is not always an altogether good thing.

In the consideration so far, the ‘massive’ criterion has been decisively negated and ‘unacceptable damage’ stays on. In the latter case it has been seen that inflicting unacceptable damage as counter to first use not of levels of unacceptable damage amounts to escalation and is also escalatory. Therefore, unacceptable damage in retaliation for first use exacting unacceptable damage makes sense and little sense otherwise. This implies that for lower order strikes, lower order retaliation makes more sense. The criterion that emerges then is a ‘tit for tat’ nuclear response. Tit for tat implies massive to counter massive first use, unacceptable damage in return for unacceptable damage and lower order retaliation for lower order first use. This may be how operational doctrine, that needs to be notably rational, is configured.

The advantages are several. Assured Retaliation is in place in that there would be no question of self-deterrence since the retaliation would be equivalent, militarily feasible, politically justifiable and diplomatically sustainable. It will enable a negotiated end to both the exchange and to the conflict, the latter under the shock effect of multiple nuclear blasts. It negates escalation, enabling termination at the lowest level of nuclear use possible. It limits both the exchange and damage received, since inflicting equivalent damage in return would not incentivise a counter strike. A seemingly disproportionate counter will likely see a continuing exchange and higher cumulative damage at the end of it all. It is the closest equivalent in tacit bargaining which incentivises limitation while conveying an implacable intent to match the enemy ‘tooth for tooth, eye for eye’. The latter assures deterrence. Given these advantages, it is well nigh possible that a ‘tit for tat’ nuclear doctrine may well be the operational doctrine.

The ‘tit for tat’ strategy makes sense for reacting to nuclear first use and to the initial exchange(s). Beyond a point, there may be a need to limit damage to oneself by indeed going ‘massive’ to take out the enemy’s ability to continue exchanges. The understanding is that the nuclear blast in its effects can have the fallout of awakening the strategic leadership to the consequence of its use that exercises and war games simply cannot replicate. Therefore there is hope for ending an exchange at the lowest level, but in case that proves to be false in the context of unfolding reality, then ‘tit for tat’ can be abandoned. This brings out the criterion of circumstance dependent strategic choice.

The argument against such calculation – ‘tit for tat’, strategic choice -  presumes that nuclear war can be kept limited. A critique would have it that this may be a false notion, given escalatory tendencies in nuclear use. In this logic, escalation being inevitable, it is better to shoot off what one has prior to the enemy resorting to this while one still has the capability to do so. The ‘in case I don’t he will and since he will, I must…’ logic will lead to higher order strikes sooner than later. In other words, nuclear war can only be Total War and reaching this speedily at that. Such thinking possibly is behind the terms ‘massive’ and ‘unacceptable damage’. It does have deterrence value in that an enemy contemplating nuclear moves would be compelled to rethink in face of inevitability of receiving such damage. However, an enemy may well be compelled to go first due to military circumstances in at the conventional level of the conflict. This conventional-nuclear interface requires being brought onboard nuclear strategic thinking. Inadvertent escalation could occur, as also accidental crossing of the threshold; war, after all, being a game of chance, fog and friction. Therefore, recourse to inevitable escalation and suffering the resulting damage makes less sense in case push comes to shove, taking the realm beyond nuclear deterrence to nuclear employment.

Given this seemingly self-evident logic, why does the term ‘unacceptable damage’ have such credence? That the term is associated with distinguished nuclear experts lends it currency. However, the term was relevant a decade ago, when the state of the arsenal perhaps permitted only such an option. Having few warheads and limited means of delivering them, there were fewer options of in terms of operational employment of nuclear weapons in counter strikes. Even then it was not necessary to ‘go’ with all or majority of them straight off. However, using even a few of them would amount to a greater proportion being used since they were fewer then than now. The term unacceptable damage was euphemism for counter city or counter value strike. The few weapons would be put to good use and not ‘wasted’ on tactical targets. This makes ‘massive’ understandable, in that if for instance ten are used of an arsenal comprising 25 weapons, it would be over a third of the weapons being used. That these number would wreak unacceptable damage is a given. However, even then it was possible to use, say, three weapons in reply to a nuclear first use with a single warhead by the enemy. In such a case neither would the strike necessarily be massive nor would it inevitably cause unacceptable damage. It would only be so in case of counter value targeting. Since fewer weapons were available and delivery systems were not as variegated and accurate, they were more likely to be employed in such a manner. 

Additionally a buffer existed then at the conventional-nuclear interface. India’s conventional doctrine was a defensive one of counter offensive in wake of Pakistan’s taking to the offensive first in keeping with its military doctrine of offensive defence. In such a case, a nuclear first use threat would only have developed after Pakistan had struck first conventionally and India had replied with a counter offensive using its strike corps. Given the strategic possibility of being torn into two at the midriff in the well known scenario of a dash to the Sukkur barrage at Rahim Yar Khan, the possibility of Pakistan going nuclear was immanent. The situation then was of recessed deterrence with both states only a screw’s turn away from deployable warheads. The nuclear threat would only develop well into the conflict, one in which Pakistan was against the ropes.

This situation has changed drastically in light of a changed conventional doctrine in India. India no longer sees itself as a defensive power. Its military doctrine is one of proactive, offensive operations, albeit in keeping with a Limited War concept. India is ready to be off the blocks in case of subconventional provocations, believing that its readiness helps deter such provocations. This means that the threat for Pakistan reaching the nuclear button could develop in quick time, the buffer of India first awaiting and then reacting to Pakistani conventional military moves having long gone. India is intent on making Pakistan react. The nature of the reaction is only partially in Indian hands, in that India can preclude nuclear reaction by ensuring that its military operations keep below the nuclear threshold. However, Pakistan has demonstrated a capability for tactical nuclear employment that is suggestive of early nuclear first use in a low nuclear threshold mode. This means that a nuclear outbreak can be in fairly short order.

Such an outbreak need not necessarily, as earlier, be in a higher order strike in that earlier it was so since, as mentioned, the bombs were fewer and the delivery systems less well developed. Therefore, higher order first use was ruled in, to which India’s promise of unacceptable damage in return, made eminent sense. Now that is not the case. Firstly, India is on the offensive. Secondly, Pakistan has the ability for a lower order strike. Thirdly, India has a variegated capability that includes lower order nuclear responses. Therefore, there is no need to persist with the term ‘unacceptable damage’, leave alone ‘massive’. Given the change at the conventional level to the offensive, there needs to be a corresponding change at the nuclear level. Being more offensive at the conventional level, India needs to be more restrained at the nuclear level. This means that India could threaten anything, but does not need to carry out the promise in exact. Some would say that this would impact credibility in that it would negate India’s image of promise keeping, making it more prone to and vulnerable against nuclear threats. However, promise keeping has to be weighed against damage avoidance (to be tackled in the next section). By keeping the promise escalation is assured into the unacceptable domain since even if unacceptable damage is caused, and perhaps more because such damage is inflicted, the enemy counter will be to inflict like damage right back. This is now within its capability. In effect, what starts out as a subconventional provocation demanding of conventional punishment ends up as a nuclear conflagration, unacceptable damage on both sides amounting to as much. This is strategic imbecility, a blind spot aggravated by the discussion on possible damage scenarios discussed in the next section.

Mutual assured destruction?

The problem with nuclear strategic thinking is that it restricts itself to deterrence. However, nuclear strategy is also about employment of nuclear weapons once deterrence of first use has proven to be wanting in the introduction of nuclear weapons into a conflict. In effect, once deterrence is no longer the chief factor, what are the criteria for nuclear weapons employment? For deterrence there is a need to make threats believable through stating it, having the capability, demonstrating a will to follow through to make the threat credible and communication of both the intent and capability to the adversary. Nevertheless in case of break down in deterrence, then contemplating nuclear weapons employment requires a fresh framework. While deterrence will continue to have a role, such as how to deter escalation, the deterrence logic has it that the threat having been made, follow through is all that needs being done so as to reinforce credibility into the future. This is a blind spot in nuclear strategic thinking that can prove a black hole, as the remainder of this section will attempt to bring out.

In case of enemy nuclear first use of a higher order, there is a stronger case to go proportionately high in retaliation. Higher order nuclear first use would have exacted unacceptable damage. In order to punish the enemy and make him desist, it may be necessary to inflict on it like damage so that it’s strategic elite returns to strategic rationality. However, for lower order nuclear first use against India or its forces, going for higher order retaliation will lay India open to a similar counter. This is avoidable escalation in light of the consequences of unacceptable damage. What are the possible consequences?

The material aspect of the damage from the physical effects of nuclear weapons such as their blast, heat, radiation etc effects has been competently assessed elsewhere. The social, psychological and political consequence has not found reflection in literature. This requires imagining for ensuring the operation of self-deterrence on political decision makers. In case unacceptable damage is taken as euphemism for counter value targeting then receiving such attacks may prove a telling blow on the socio-political fabric of the nation-state, fragile as it is at the best of times. While defence technologists boast of an ability to defend at least two urban concentrations against missile strikes, their credibility is too well known to dwell on in any detail here. Therefore, their words can be taken as instance of information warfare meant for the putative enemy or self-aggrandisement, the likelier explanation, rather than for informing nuclear choices of a political decision maker. The boast in any case brings out the vulnerability of the remainder of the country. The statement is to imply that the command and control assets of the state will be preserved by anti missile defences and therefore the state will be able to survive. While this may be so, it is difficult to imagine that it would be able to cope with the immediate and long term social turmoil that could result.

The precedence of having coped with Partition can be trotted out to establish that India can, and will, survive. On the other hand, precedence of the anti Sikh riots of 1984, the Babri Masjid demolition and Gujarat carnage suggests that the state will not be able to reestablish itself for at least some time. In the interim the social fabric will disintegrate, preventing the state from recreating state and society in its pre-nuclear incidence image. All consequences will be compounded by the environmental disaster. The extant social and economic inequality will exacerbate, enabling attempts at take over of the state and society by forces currently located at both extremes of the political spectrum. The well-honed suppressive powers of the state may require exercising and in the process changing India. In effect, while India may reemerge it would not be as we know it. This means that the assumption that informs nuclear strategy that India can survive while Pakistan will be finished is untenable. India as we know it will be ‘finished’. In other words, Pakistan has ‘assured destruction’ capability, with assured destruction being redefined not in the percentages of Cold War vintage but in terms more suited to India’s reality of a subcontinental state in size, diversity and resulting complexity. The possibility of an unraveling of India, not unknown in history, is the foremost political level consideration in nuclear decision making. The decision imperative is therefore how to avoid this.

The nuclear security establishment and the nuclear complex operate on the strategic level and not the political level. They may tender advice that is leavened with political factors, but would retain its strategic level bias. Therefore, it would likely be pitched at the implications for in-conflict deterrence rather than on wider national security. It is therefore the prerogative of the political head to accede to the advice to the extent required or override it in its entirety. While the political head and the civil-military nuclear complex share the goal of security, the principal-agent problem arises when there is divergence between the two. Bridging this gap bottom-up cannot be done by the nuclear complex since that would amount to usurpation of political functions. Instead, civilian political masters need to take on the bridging function. The charge of ‘meddling’ can be managed under the principle of civilian supremacy. The nuclear complex, as represented by its expert civil-military leadership, has little claim to socio-political expertise, and therefore cannot dictate strategy.

The political level consideration in circumstance of nuclear use is therefore not deterrence focused but based on the socio-political outcomes of nuclear exchange(s). The overriding consideration in such a circumstance for a political decision maker is therefore preservation of a given socio-political order. This imperative must inform the choice made from among retaliation alternatives. The option that best provisions this is the one to alight on, irrespective of the deterrence oriented dictates of nuclear doctrine. Nuclear strategy is therefore not about the threat of damage to the enemy and carriage of it to fulfillment, but of preserving the state and society from such damage.

The criterion for nuclear employment is different from the criterion for nuclear deterrence. While the latter has threat and its delivery at heart, the former is about self-preservation. In a situation in which the enemy has a capability to set back state and society, even if not an assured destruction capability, avoiding nuclear escalation to such levels is the prime consideration. A strategic level argument that can be anticipated could be that this can be done by damage limitation strikes to take out the enemy’s retaliatory capability. Such reasoning carries the kernel of first strike. However, the enemy even if recipient of either a first strike or damage limitation strike has the capability of broken backed retaliation that can prove telling for state and society, even if, as mentioned, it is not of assured destruction levels. Pakistan has taken care to proliferate vertically with just such an intention in mind. This must be a message for India to recalibrate its doctrine, or at a minimum arrive at an operational doctrine that concedes Pakistan assured destruction capability, defined as an ability to set India back inordinately.

Directions in nuclear strategy

The blind spot having been identified, it needs plugging. The first step must be to recognise what’s the current direction for what it is. This is not necessarily coincident with what the nuclear complex and nuclear security establishment purports it to be. Their projection is that India’s is a deterrent doctrine. It is a ‘retaliation only’ doctrine. However, the nature of the retaliation, as seen in the previous sections, is not in Indian security interests. It makes India doubly insecure. Firstly, it invites nuclear first strike since the enemy would want to degrade India’s nuclear might to the extent possible so that the promised ‘massive’ retaliation is less than it would otherwise be. Second, in case first strike is not resorted to in first use and instead the enemy settles for a lower order strike, then upping the ante to unacceptable levels is, as brought out in the previous section, suicidal besides being self-admittedly genocidal. Therefore, ‘retaliation only’ may be good, but is not good enough as doctrine. A doctrine needs to optimally secure India and minimally not make India any more insecure. A reformulation of the doctrine is therefore necessary.

It is important to do so since from a doctrine emerge force structures, command and control and arsenal size and composition etc. From the direction of India’s deterrent it is clear that India is going in for ‘something of everything’. Arguably this would be acceptable in case the ‘minimal’ in the formulation ‘credible minimum deterrent’ is maintained inviolate. Is this the case? India is going in for a nuclear triad. It is also working towards a ballistic missile shield. These are advertised as reinforcing its No First Use pledge in that the enhanced survivability will help with assured retaliation. The numbers to inflict unacceptable damage need to be able to survive. These would be for both adversaries. In addition there is to be a reserve. This would make the numbers climb, impinging on ‘minimal’. Numbers will tend to stabilize only when assured destruction capability is perceived to have been reached after absorbing a first strike. This in its interaction with two adversaries will be incessantly upward. Besides, depending on how the missile shield shapes up, India, with its additional numbers, could position itself well to even consider abandoning No First Use at will. First strike considerations will not be far away, especially when faced with two foes in the ‘two front’ scenario, subscribed to earlier by the military and now acceded to even by a government that should know better.

This possibility in a conflict with a nuclear backdrop will enhance the ‘Will he, won’t he?’ apprehension on both sides, building in a tendency to preemption by either. The suggestion in nuclear strategic counsels could well be a change from NFU to the inadvisability of waiting for the enemy to strike. Such a strike if of first strike proportions could deflate India’s promise of ‘massive’ and even ‘unacceptable damage’. Therefore, an Indian first strike could well be on its way, with a preventive or preemptive rationale. Pakistan’s nuclear numbers indicate that it will not spare India irrespective of the damage it receives. Clearly, while Pakistan may ‘cease to exist’, as is put in some gleeful perspectives, so will India as we know it, as seen in the previous section.

This direction in India’s deterrent needs arresting. This is easier said than done. The record of India’s nuclear complex and nuclear security establishment has been one of an avid political player. The two are cognizant of institutional interests and are adept at playing the bureaucratic and perception management game. They have taken undue advantage of their ‘brahmanical’ position and the ‘holy cow’ status of high science. Politicians have for their part been debilitated by a seeming political necessity of not appearing ‘soft’ on defence. Therefore, there has been little check and oversight of the direction and pace of nuclear developments. The nuclear peace lobby has always been marginal, and increasingly perhaps sidetracked in combating the advance of nuclear power across the country. Therefore, there has been little challenge to nuclear verities. This has allowed blind spots to be inherited by succeeding generations of strategists. It is time the pied piper be called to attention and the emperor revealed to have no clothes on.

What then needs to be the direction? Firstly, there needs to be an over-watch by a parliamentary committee. Just as war is too serious a business to be left to generals alone, likewise the nuclear complex cannot dictate in what is essentially an issue in the political domain. The manner a state provisions security for itself is a political decision. It is time political India resurrects itself to take command of the strategic heights. The nuclear complex is peopled by technologists, while the nuclear security establishment has strategists. Neither is intellectually equipped, leave alone authorized, to intrude into the political domain. The insights of military sociology on civil-military relations, specifically the control of the military, need to expand beyond the uniformed military to include the military technological sphere.

An instrument of control is doctrine. An expansively phrased doctrine, as India’s has been shown up here, is at root of the tendency towards nuclear expansionism. A reworking of the doctrine can limit and thereby help reestablish control over the civilian-military nuclear sphere. This reworking, as noted, must move beyond the deterrence domain to deal employment. This means the criterion of limiting both the risk of and damage received for self-preservation must inform doctrine. The current emphasis is on punishment. The converse as demonstrated makes more sense. Therefore, the formulation should be to end nuclear exchange(s) at the lowest level possible. This has advantages of preserving the ‘minimal’ under threat in case of autonomy for the nuclear sector from institutional compulsions. The formulation is in keeping with deterrence in that the escalatory threat is held out in case the exchange is not terminated. The shift to self-preservation incentivises the enemy to shift likewise. This does not need to await the outbreak of nuclear exchange. Restricting nuclear use to the lowest level necessarily implies building mechanisms in peace time robust enough to withstand the buffeting of war. This can serve to reconcile doctrines and arsenals in peacetime. Such a mechanism should be self-annihilating: the more used, the less needed.

Conclusion

The celebrations of technological prowess such as an ability to ‘take out’ Beijing obscures the insecurity such ability brings with it. Strategists play as much a part in this obfuscation as technologists. While the latter’s motivations are sufficiently transparent, centered as they are on institutional interest, those of strategists are less so. These could range from nationalism and its variant, cultural nationalism, to narcissism. This contaminates their output. Therefore, leaving the nuclear strategic space to the nuclear complex and the nuclear security establishment is an abdication of political responsibility by the political leadership. Recouping would involve political examination of the doctrinal sphere afresh. A blueprint for such examination has been laid out here. It now awaits political attention and will.  

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* Ali Ahmed is an Assistant Professor at the Nelson Mandela Center for Peace and Conflict Resolution at Jamia Millia Islamia.

post conflict factor in nuclear decision making

Article No.:	2479	Date:	11/10/2013
The Post Conflict Factor in Nuclear Decision Making
Col Ali Ahmed
E-Mail- aliahd66@hotmail.com http://www.claws.in/index.php?action=master&task=1480&u_id=218
Nuclear decision-making is only partially dependent on the doctrine. While the operational as against declaratory doctrine will inform such decision making, since doctrine by definition is to serve as guide, the significant coordinates of the conflict circumstance, the opponent’s manner of nuclear first use and conflict termination strategies that would inevitably kick in with introduction of nuclear weapons into the conflict will be equally significant. This article makes the point that along with these very pertinent considerations must also be factored in the post conflict scenario as a second order consideration.  The nuclear strategy chosen as response to the adversary’s nuclear first use will determine not only subsequent conflict strategy, end game and outcome, but also the nature of the post conflict future. This article examines two nuclear strategies that form potential options for India’s nuclear response: massive punitive retaliation and flexible nuclear retaliation. It argues that from a perspective of a post nuclear conflict future, the former suffers in comparison to the latter. This needs to inform nuclear retaliation considerations. Nuclear use considerations usually limit themselves to what would deter best. They are formulated in order to prevent the nuclear use. India’s nuclear retaliation doctrine has it that India would respond with punitive retaliation to any form of nuclear use against it or its forces anywhere. In the declaratory nuclear doctrine, this would be of ‘massive’ levels. The threat of this, in an India-Pakistan conflict, is to stay Pakistan’s nuclear hand. It is not impossible to visualize that the operational nuclear doctrine could well be different and that in the event of enemy nuclear first use, the nuclear strategy might well be different. Some analysts say that India must fulfil its promise in case Pakistan tests India’s resolve. Not doing so will reveal a chink in India’s resolve thereby subjecting it to further attacks. Punitive retaliation will return Pakistani decision makers to their senses. Others maintain that the circumstance of introduction of nuclear weapons into the conflict must dictate India’s response. While the deterrence doctrine will inform India’s response, it will not dictate it. Disproportionate response would be escalatory, opening up India to like retaliation. What has not informed the debate so far is the factor of post nuclear conflict circumstance. Pakistan has not ruled out nuclear first use. The two approaches differ on the importance of the type of first use: whether this will be at a higher order in the form of an attempted first strike or a counter value strike or a lower order strike such as on India’s military formations on its territory. For the former – punitive retaliation – the type of nuclear first use does not matter. India’s response will be a heavy one. In case of the latter – flexible retaliation, this would be consequential to shaping India’s response. From the perspective of a post nuclear conflict future, which of the two make better sense? Punitive ‘massive’ retaliation makes sense in the circumstance of an attempted first strike by Pakistan. India will give back as good as it receives with a higher order strike. However, to the more probable manner of Pakistani nuclear first use – a lower order strike – this may be disproportionate. Even if the response sets back Pakistan and its nuclear arsenal considerably, of the 100 or so weapons it has, there would likely be some left over to damage India. While some analysts are sanguine that a large country like India can ‘take’ the loss of a couple of cities or so, they point out that Pakistan would be ‘finished’. This possibility would stay Pakistan’s hand and is therefore better for deterrence. What of the aftermath? Firstly, are the environmental consequences; not only to Indian border-states, but possibly also globally. Secondly, there would be an accounting for the harm received by India. Blaming Pakistan may not be enough in the post mortem, since India’s own actions would be under scrutiny. This would be both internal and very likely also external. Internally, it is quite clear that the India’s disaster management capability would be overwhelmed. Externally, this may even take a legal turn with the decision makers being held responsible for their decision. Thirdly, there would be economic fallout. States not persuaded by India’s logic may make it an object of sanctions, effecting India’s recovery. Fourthly, politically, coping with these consequences may push into an authoritarian regime. Lastly, strategically, the expending of nuclear ordnance on Pakistan and the damage sustained by India’s nuclear and military infrastructure would push India back a generation in respect of China. On the contrary, the flexible retaliation strategy predicated on proportional response in the initial stage of the nuclear part of the conflict does not suffer these disadvantages. In case of escalation, control is exercised and speedy conflict termination arrived at, the nuclear damage can be kept minimal. Environmentally, economically, diplomatically and politically this would be more sustainable. Its unanticipated consequence may even be benign in a speedy mutual nuclear disarmament by both states. Having sustained nuclear damage, they would be more realistic on the utility of nuclear weapons to security. India would under the circumstance not have China’s retention of weapons detain it down this road. Globally, nuclear disarmament would receive a boost, making it a possibility in ‘Obama’s lifetime’. Nuclear strategy making must go beyond deterrence and the conflict circumstance it is to prove responsive to. It has to also be informed by a vision of the post nuclear conflict circumstance. Such consideration reveals that ending the conflict earliest and with least damage sustained or inflicted makes strategic sense.   Col (Dr) Ali Ahmed (Retd) is a Delhi based strategic analyst.   He blogs at ali-writings.blogspot.in.

shyam saran contested

http://www.ipcs.org/article/india/ipcs-debate-india-nuclear-weapons-and-massive-retaliation-the-impossibility-4135.html #4135, 8 October 2013

IPCS DEBATE India, Nuclear Weapons and ‘Massive Retaliation’: The Impossibility of Limitation? Ali AhmedIndependent Strategic Analyst Email: aliahd66@hotmail.com   Shyam Saran speaking in his personal capacity, rather than as the current head of the National Security Advisory Board, relies on his association with the evolution of India’s nuclear doctrine to make the case that India would do well to stick with the doctrine of ‘massive’ nuclear retaliation. He has succeeded in setting the terms of the debate, but more importantly in getting a debate going. This article contests his position in suggesting that there is need for further evolution of India’s nuclear doctrine in light of developments this century. Saran’s case is that nuclear war cannot be kept ‘limited’. India would therefore require firing off at least a proportion of its nuclear arsenal to inflict ‘massive’ punitive damage on the adversary should it mistakenly choose to ‘go first’. A commitment to this alone will deter the adversary from this first step. Since it is a doctrine for deterrence, this makes sense. However, in case the adversary does introduce nuclear weapons into a conflict, despite the deterrence in place, then the situation is one of responding to the nuclear attack and in doing so also deterring any future nuclear use by the enemy. Therefore, it is partially one of deterrence, and of nuclear use. This implies that the nuclear deterrence doctrine needs supplementing with a nuclear use or operational nuclear doctrine. Saran would like the operational doctrine to reflect if not be identical with the declaratory nuclear doctrine. India must respond with punitive retaliation, if necessary of ‘massive’ levels, in case of nuclear first use by the enemy, whatever the manner of such first use. The advantage of doing so would be to reinforce credibility and thereby in-conflict deterrence. This will bring the enemy to his strategic senses in double quick time. Such a setback for the adversary would have limiting effects in knocking out the enemy’s ability to continue with the exchanges and, at one remove, the conflict. In any case, it is not possible to get off the nuclear escalator; nuclear limitation being, to Saran, a contradiction in terms.  Saran gets it right on deterrence. Deterrence doctrine reiterates to a potential nuclear adversary the inevitable - not merely possible - consequence of its nuclear first use. However, an adversary’s nuclear decision is one that can at best be influenced, not dictated. Alongside, nuclear use has to be articulated in an operational doctrine. A punitive strike, particularly one of higher order proportions in a situation of nuclear plenty, as currently obtains, invites a potent counter retaliation, even if it is a broken-backed one. This is especially so in case the nuclear first use instance is of a lower order level. Incensed by what in its perception would be a disproportionate response, the adversary will try and get even; exacting a price that arguably can prove unaffordable. While the adversary may be ‘finished’ as a result, India would receive a setback. While for deterrence posturing it is necessary to be cavalier over the possible loss of a ‘couple of cities’, decision-makers who require facing the political, social and environmental aftermath, have more sober considerations. Secondly, as has been pointed out by critics such as, among others, Ashley Tellis, promising ‘massive’ nuclear retaliation will incentivise first use of first strike levels of attack. The enemy taking India’s nuclear doctrine seriously would, to in Patton’s tradition, be ‘firstest with the mostest’. In the aftermath of such a strike, seeking to respond massively may itself be a contradiction in terms. Therefore, if higher order nuclear retaliation is not necessarily the only or best way, what are the options? Against Saran’s belief in the inevitability of escalation, the view to the contrary is that only escalatory possibilities will invariably kick-in. Nuclear use decisions informed by the operational doctrine are the manner in which escalation can be managed. As with the tango, escalation management requires both players to ‘cooperate’.  An operational doctrine that enables cooperation towards the common end of nuclear conflict termination is best. Counter-intuitively then, the moot question is: Which responses facilitate cooperation under the prohibitive conditions? Early on in the nuclear debate, General Sundarji had provided an answer: to end nuclear exchange(s) at the lowest possible level of nuclear use. The opposite view of K Subrahmanyam, echoed by Saran, on the impossibility of nuclear limitation, has instead dominated since. What makes the situation this century different that it is time to hark Sundarji? Nuclear first use can occur, given the intimate coupling between the sub-conventional and conventional levels sought by India and between the conventional and nuclear levels worked towards by Pakistan. India needs to think equally of limiting the consequences of nuclear use to itself as much as punishing the enemy. The operational doctrine must emphasise nuclear limitation; with nuclear cooperation enabled by a ‘tit for tat’ strategy and structural innovations as joint nuclear risk management.  It is possible that Saran, apprehending a shift, calls for transparency and re-dedication. While transparency is seconded, a coming out in favour of the shift is called for.

book, review eating grass and afghan endgames

Games Nations Play
Ali Ahmed
http://www.thebookreviewindia.org/articles/archives-1380/2013/october/10/games-nations-play.html

Games Nations Play

Ali Ahmed 

AFGHAN ENDGAMES: STRATEGY AND POLICY CHOICES FOR AMERICA’S LONGEST WAR 
Edited by Hy Rothstein and John Arquilla 
Cambridge University Press, New Delhi, 2013, pp. 229, price not stated.

EATING GRASS: THE MAKING OF THE PAKISTANI BOMB 
By Feroz Hassan Khan 
Foundation Books, Delhi, 2013, pp. 520, price not stated.

VOLUME XXXVII NUMBER 10 October 2013

The editors of Afghan Endgames are at the Department of Defence Analysis at the US Naval Postgraduate School at Monterey, California. In their words, they have assembled an ‘all star cast of experts across a range of fields relevant to solving the strategic riddles of Afghanistan’. Given that Obama’s deadline of draw down and pull out of 2014 is nearing, the book is a timely one to inform thinking on American policies in ‘Afpak’ and consequences for the wider region that includes India. That it is the outcome of a research project funded by the Defence Department in around 2011 indicates that it was part of the input into the policy choices adopted in Afghanistan that finds the US finally talking to the Taliban.   Curiously there is no discussion in the book on this vital issue. This is perhaps the fundamental flaw in the book; perhaps testimony of the nature of the defence ‘establishment’ that in the US includes intellectual hangers on who build the rationale, legitimacy and strategic communication details cloaking US pursuit of its strategic interests through violence and the threat of violence over much of the globe.   Synthesizing the expert opinion in the concluding chapter, the editors suggest that ‘much less is more’. They want the US to ‘go local, go small, go long’. This entails closing most bases and downsizing others, stopping expensive development and infrastructure projects, displacing the ‘old guard’ with ‘young Afghan leaders’, downsizing the Afghan National Army, maintaining a very small anti- terrorist presence for high value counter terrorism missions, drastically reduce funding of Pakistan and persuade India to sharply reduce its footprint in Afghanistan. If the book has helped to arrive at this prescription for US policy, its credibility would depend on (a) whether the US is indeed embarked down this road, and (b) if such a policy makes strategic sense.   A negative answer to (a) is evident from the US initiating direct talks with the Taliban who have opened an embassy in the UAE for the purpose. The US adoption of this route of attempting to co-opt the Taliban, thereby making continuing counter insurgency redundant in Afghanistan dispenses with the book’s suggestions—the verdict on (b). It is clear to the US that it cannot do with a minimal force strength in support of ...

...

Feroze Hassan Khan is not necessarily the

one to write the definitive book on Pakistan’s

nuclear project as he has been a longstanding

insider in the Pakistani nuclear establishment.

The fact that he has been allowed to draw on

his earlier official work to write the book by

Pakistani authorities themselves indicates that

while there is much that he has covered, there

is also much that may have been left under

wraps. Pakistan has reasons to have its nuclear

capability dwelt on, not least for reasons of

deterrence and transparency. The author’s

project was probably welcomed by the authorities

to the advantage of the author, since

it also helps him record his critical contribution

to the development of the doctrinal aspect

of the programme.

Given this happy symbiosis, Eating

Grass: The Making of the Pakistani Bomb,

while welcome and timely, must be read with

a pinch of salt as to its claims of Pakistani

prowess, contribution to national and regional

security and Pakistan’s ability to keep

their nuclear capability under control. The

book is important not only for what it says

of the bomb, but what it refrains from saying

out loud, though one discerns from the

narrative that the author has more to say but

does not do so.

The book does for the Pakistani bomb

what George Perkovich’s book did for India’s...

Table of Contents >>

Please  or  to Read More Entire Article

Af-Pak: A Strategic Opportunity for South Asia? Ali Ahmed SR87-Final.pdf http://www.ipcs.org/special-report/india/af-pak-a-strategic-opportunity-for-south-asia-87.html

In the post-Afghan elections scenario, the US is contemplating another ‘surge’ and a rethink on its counter-insurgency strategy. Though the US is determined to stay the course, it may have to switch from a militarily dominant to a politically dominant strategy, in which case, reaching out to the Taliban will be possible. In case the Taliban were to abandon its al Qaeda connection and moderate its extremist religious stance as part of a negotiated deal, the feasibility of such a political approach is not impossible to envisage. The ‘surge’ could position the US favourably by enabling it reach a position of military strength, thereby facilitating the negotiations. The underside of this strategy is that it could result in an escalation of war with the Pakistani Taliban resorting to an expansion of the theatre of war into Pakistani Punjab, thereby, destabilizing the nuclear armed state. This paper argues that to prevent such an eventuality, the political prong of the Af-Pak strategy must go beyond the ‘moderate’ Taliban to also reach out to the hardcore Taliban. It calls for an ‘engage and moderate’ strategy. The paper makes the case that attempting to defeat the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban combine will place the stability of Pakistan at great risk. Therefore, accommodating it, in return for moderation, may be preferable. This however, could be taken to mean an undesirable ‘appeasement’, especially if the Taliban is seen as an expansionist force, incapable of reforming itself. The paper debates this and arrives at the position that the Taliban can be tamed without the undue risk that predominantly military action entails. It recommends a proactive role for India in bringing about a ‘political first’ strategy for the international community

azm e nau and cold start

India and Pakistan: Azm-e-Nau as a Response to the Cold Start
http://www.ipcs.org/article/india/india-and-pakistan-azm-e-nau-as-a-response-to-4056.html

The Pakistani Army has just completed its summer war games, Azm Nau IV. The press release has it that with the Azm-e-Nau series of exercises held since 2009, Pakistan has arrived at an answer to India’s Cold Start. Its distraction so far with the ‘Af-Pak’ related security situation on its western border appears to be now behind it. With the Americans packing to depart, it’s back to business in South Asia.

The nuclear backdrop does make this worrisome. There is also no guarantee against a war breaking out. A conventional war cannot be guaranteed to stay conventional. It can be argued that Pakistan’s signalling that it is prepared conventionally is good in the sense that it will deter India on the conventional level. But the problem is that this gives Pakistan the confidence to provoke India at the subconventional level; providing a trigger for India to go conventional in response.

The ‘unthinkable’ cannot be wholly discounted. Pakistanis have gone down the plutonium route to miniaturise warheads so as to place them on missiles. Being short on planes, missiles are the mainstay of the Pakistani nuclear force. The latest of these missiles is a nuclear-tipped battlefield missile designed for use against Indian conventional forces. Its battlefield employment serves to bring nuclear war outbreak that much closer. Pakistan’s rationale for such lowering of the nuclear threshold is that it would deter India from launching Cold Start offensives; thereby, making nuclear war more remote.

This has got India debating its options. India could pay Pakistan back in the same coin of proxy war. It is easy to destabilise Pakistan, perpetually on the brink of being a failed and terror sponsoring state. However, there is no guarantee that this will end the terror provocations, and an unstable Pakistan is not necessarily in India’s interest.

India could rely on conventional asymmetry in its favour, deepened by successive defence budgets such as this year’s crossing of the INR250 thousand crores mark. The intent is to deter Pakistani adventurism and, if push comes to shove, to prevail at every level of the conflict, including nuclear. The idea is to gain ‘escalation dominance’, which means to convince the adversary to give up the fight rather than take it to the next higher level at which, yet again, it cannot hope to win.

India’s military has been on a learning curve ever since its conventional war doctrine was rendered obsolete by Pokhran II. While arriving at the concept of Limited War soon thereafter, it was unable to rise to the occasion when it was sorely tested at the next crisis in wake of the parliament attack. The embarrassment of having taken over three weeks to ready itself, led to the intensive thinking that resulted in the Cold Start doctrine.

The doctrine required multiple attacks into Pakistan at-the-double. Genuflecting to the nuclear backdrop, the army sought to limit these thrusts to shallow depths. Even so, this amounted to nuclear flirtation since the attack was to be rapid and along a broad front using resources with ‘pivot corps’ or defending formations and offensive formations staged forward closer to the border for the purpose. With the balance of its strike corps forming up in wake of the limited offensives and an air offensive unfolding simultaneously, Pakistan could well be stampeded into a nuclear decision in a truncated timeframe. This made Cold Start difficult to sell to the political masters.

Consequently, India has since distanced itself from Cold Start. An army chief has gone on to say that there was nothing called Cold Start. The contours of what it has come up with instead are indistinct. The publicity that attended Cold Start, intended no doubt to enhance its deterrent effect, is missing. Consequently, little is known of its successor, ‘Cold Start lite’. It apparently involves quick punches at key locations to punish Pakistan’s army and force its hand against destabilising forces within. While Pakistan could choose to up-the-ante, it is logically expected to be self-deterred when faced with the nuclear overhang. The nuclear scare is to help Pakistani army along in reining in its jihadists in a ‘Pakistan first’ strategy.

At the end of its summer exercises, the Pakistani army has claimed that it is in a position to deploy fast enough to the borders to give Indian attacks a bloody nose. This challenges India’s expectation that Pakistan would choose to lose cheaply than resoundingly at the next higher level. India will need to take the fighting up a notch higher. Its air force is also unlikely to sit out the war. This amounts to getting back into nuclear danger zone.

Clearly, even if a summer’s end finds both militaries more practiced, it does not mean either nation is any safer. The writing on the wall is to not only draw up the calendar for talks agreed on by Salman Khurshid and Sartaz Aziz at their meeting in Brunei recently, but have the two prime ministers meet swiftly to take the reopening forward.

The Book Review

February-March 2013

http://www.thebookreviewindia.org/issues/the-book-review/50.html

Book Review

INTERNAL CONFLICTS MILITARY PERSPECTIVESBy V.R. Raghavan (ed.) Vij Books, New Delhi, 2012, pp. 324,`1250.00

Internal Conflicts, an output of the Center for Security Analysis, Chennai whosemandate is to look at the non-traditionalsecurity lens, of necessity reflects on the issueof internal security that has been germane totraditional security for at least a quarter centurynow. It comprises papers presented atseminars that notably were also conducted atplaces other than the national capital,organized as part of an ongoing three-yearproject on internal conflicts and transnationalconsequences.

The editor in his strategic overviewexpands the coverage to include Sri Lanka andMyanmar. This  widening of scope of the bookis owed to the Center, co-founded by theeditor along with M.K. Narayanan in 2002,also engaging with security of South and SouthEast Asia. It is one of two organizations inIndia that are part of the strategic studiesnetwork of the Near East South Asia Center(NESA) Center for Strategic Studies, NationalDefence University, Washington D.C.. Thesecond section of the book carries papers byretired military brass, with VedMarwah beingthe exception. While the papers are Indiacentric, there is one on consequences of internal security operations on the Nepal Army.

The editor’s extended essay over 150pages is masterly. His discussion of internalconflicts in India covers North East India, J&Kand Naxalism. The Maoist conflict in Nepaland ethnic conflicts in Sri Lanka and Myanmarare the other areas of focus. He discusses stateresponses, peace processes, economicconsequences, militarization and politicalimpact in its internal and external dimensions.The editor’s conclusion is that the four stateshave used some or a combination of the fourapproaches available: security approachwherein police forces are used, militaryapproach, political accommodation andeconomic/development approach. India’s owncase has been that of a ‘combination approach’but with mixed results whereas for the otherthree, it has been predominantly a militaryapproach. His reflection on peace talks, peaceaccords and ceasefire agreements, also termedSuspension of Operations agreements, is usefulin extending the discussion on internalsecurity otherwise restricted to the conflictmanagement aspects to conflict resolution. Herightly highlights that the main deficiency insustaining peace is inadequate political followup. Given that most conflicts are aboutidentity related greivances, ‘states have toaddress the possibility of accommodation inmulticultural, multiethnic and multireligiouscontext’ (p. 173).

Lt. Gen. Raghavan’s military insight is inevidence in his Foreword on the ‘trilemma’faced in countering insurgency. He writes that‘in an asymmetrical warfare it is impossibleto simultaneously achieve, 1)  force protection,2) distinction between enemy combatants andnon-combatants and 3) the physicalelimination of insurgents. In pursuing any oneof these options, the armed forces need toforgo the other two options (p. x).’ Theexistence of the ‘trilemma’ is borne out in thecryptic reference by Lt. Gen. Sudhir Sharmain his paper on the debate within the army:‘It has been argued by some, that winninghearts and minds is in frucuous (sic) as it doesnot contribute to military success’ (p. 197).It is to his credit that he does not agreewith this line of agrument. This begs thequestion of the strength of the constituencyamidst the brass that does. Clearly, the SriLankan model of military elimination of theLTTE has not come about in a conceptualvacuum. The danger is in the militaryresolving the ‘trilemma’ in favour of point threelisted by Raghavan. The Myanmar andNepalese examples suggest as much andexpectations are that in case the Sri LankanGovernment remains oblivious of postconflict justice for neglect of point two, thenits military victory will be pyrrhic. Theinability of the superpower, the US, to achieveall threesimultaneously in Afghanistan shouldcertainly make any debate rest.

The chapter by Lt. Gen. Vijay Oberoimakes the distinction between the traditionalinsurgencies ‘indigenous’ (p. 189) to Indiaand those that are fostered from outside, suchas proxy wars with jihadi overtones. He isdoubtful if India’s traditional approach ofminimal force can sustain into the future.Seeing that the military’s continuingemployment is inevitable, he is of the viewthat an internal security force of the army becreated distinct from its force for conventionaloperations. There will therefore be a two-tierapproach: traditional insurgencies beingtackled by the central police forces and the‘externally sponsored high grade insurgencies’being combated by the army’s internalsecurity force. He wants that this force shouldbe ‘an integral part of the army and should bedeployed, employed and controlled by theArmy Headquarters (p. 194).’ This seems tobe the case even now with India’s twoparamilitary forces, the Rashtriya Rifles andthe Assam Rifles, operating under the Army. Acriticism that can easily be anticipated is thatthe Army in such a case will end up lessaccountable and become a vested interest ininsurgency. From the Army’s foot dragging onissues such as Armed Forces Special Powers Act(AFSPA), some believe that is already the case.

Lt. Gen. Arvind Sharma, a former EasternArmy Commander and overall in charge ofoperations in the North East, writing on thepsychological effects on soldiers opines thatsenior commanders must be ‘involved inshaping the environment to include smoothfunctioning with state government, sociocultural organisations, relations and dealingwith the public, the media and local authorities’(p. 218). He says this in the context of toomany commanders wanting to lead from thefront and imposing on tactical level operations.This debate goes back at least to the midnineties. The problem with arm-chair generalship is in the ‘strategic sergeant’ losing the warfor ‘hearts and minds’ by misapplication offorce. The result is in the commander then‘managing the environment’ by ‘perceptionmanagement’ rather than taking action against  inappropriate force application. Such actiononly draws scepticism about the Army’s recordon human rights, detracting from itsinstitutional credibility. With the state ofrectitude of the military increasinglyapproximating their civilian counterparts, thereis a case to the contrary, for the commander’somnipresence, particularly in high intensitycounter-insurgency.The book is a useful record of the military’sdoctrinal approach at the current time.

BOOK REVIEW

ASIAN RIVALRIES: CONFLICT, ESCALATION, AND LIMITATIONS ON TWO-LEVEL GAMES Edited by SumitGanguly and William R. Thompson, Foundation Books, New Delhi, 2011, pp. 259, price not stated.The Book Review / February-March 2013  

Two-level games are interactions in whichdecision makers operate in competitivedomestic and international environments.Elites not only have to initiate and respondin the international domain but also have totake domestic constituencies along. Suchinteractions are usually in the context of longlasting and ongoing ‘rivalries’—discordbetween serial disputants with potential forconflict and armed confrontation.

The book edited by Ganguly andThompson situates the analysis in Asiabecause of its ever-increasing importance andits ‘high potential for conflict over regionalhegemony and global leadership of anyregion’. The region has witnessed thirty-tworivalries in the modern era, of which nineare ongoing ones. The book covers thefollowing dyads: China-Taiwan, US-China,India-Pakistan, Sino-Indian, Sino-Russian,the two Koreas and China-Vietnam. To theeditors, this makes Asia ripe for a freshoutbreak of rivalry in a multipolar future.The ‘Middle East’ is excluded from theregion since it has already received adequateattention and there is corresponding deficitin relation to the rest of Asia that can arguablyprove more significant in the future.

The two chapters of interest to readersin this part of the world involve India in itsrelations with both its significant neighbours:China and Pakistan. This fact is itself a tellingstatement on its levels of  (in)security.Through the two-level game prism, such apotentially hazardous situation cannot havebeen brought about by factors solely in eitherdomain: international and domestic. Indiais in an intractable or protracted conflict withits neighbours not only because of factorsthat cannot be wished away such as criticalterritorial issues, but also because issues withresonance in domestic politics, such asnationalisms and identity, have made itdifficult. Consequently, when faced withcrisis or events, it would be imprudent torule out domestic sphere factors asinfluencing decisions on escalation or deescalation.

S. Paul Kapur’s chapter on the Indo-Pakrivalry does bring out the salience of thedomestic sphere. However, his argumentationdoes not rise to the expectations raised byhis intricately argued book,  DangerousDeterrent but merely retraces the well knownmeandering of Indo-Pak relations over threeperiods: the first conflictual period fromIndependence to the 1971 War; the ‘longpeace’ between 1971 till the outbreak of theinternal troubles in Kashmir in 1989; andthe troubled period since. The author rightlycharacterizes India and Pakistan as the‘quintessential Asian rivals’. His argument isthat the rivalry has been driven by thedispute over territory of Kashmir that hasidentity related portents for both states, aconstant in domestic politics. Theinternational factors—or factors related to theexternal strategic environment—have driventhe rivalry within this context. The domesticdomain has provided the permissive cause oftension while the efficient or proximatecauses lie in the realm of international strategic variables.

Manjeet S. Pardesi, a doctoral candidatein Indiana University, aims at understandingthe role of domestic politics in the rivalrydynamics between India and China. Heconsiders two cases: the late fifties and earlysixties and the late eighties. His conclusionis that the domestic sphere has littleinfluence on the decision to escalate butbecomes significant once a decision has beenmade. Escalation is more likely when thethreat perception becomes more acute anddeescalation when there is littleaccentuationin the threat. To him, Nehru adopted theforward policy once the internal situation inTibet deteriorated due to China reneging ontheir 17 point agreement with the DalaiLama signed when they reasserted theirsovereignty in 1950. This resulted in reducedTibetan autonomy and increased Chinesepresence in Tibet and pressure. While thedecision to escalate did not have domesticpressures behind it, once the die had beencast, nationalism ensured that the tiger couldnot be dismounted. While the latter is true,to discount the input of the domesticdimension into Nehru’s decision isdebatable. Though Nehru had centralizedforeign policy, he was concerned withdomestic opinion on his leadership sincequestioning in one sector could spill over tojeopardize the whole, or his vision for India.

This can also been seen in his policy onKashmir and in relation to nucleardevelopments.

Likewise, Pardesi believes that in the lateeighties the Chinese threat not having beenprominent, India chose to de-escalate afterthe Sumdorong Chu crisis of 1986. This ledup to Rajiv Gandhi’s landmark visit of 1988.However, the preceding OperationChequerboard and the militarily activeresponse to the crisis can be seen equally asIndia demonstrating its muscles to a domesticaudience in order to undertake the deescalation without its credentials as a credibleactor being questioned.This sensitivity of strategic decisionmakers to the domestic sphere is liable forunderestimation and thereby a misreadingof India’s intentions and actions. It makesfor the dominant perception that areasonable India has been imposed on byinsistent neighbours, who have even gangedup on occasion to corner India. This lies atbase of the ‘two front’ thesis that has beenascendant over the past half decade. Thenational resources that then get diverted intostrategic deterrence and military preparedness are thus legitimized. These havebeen seen instead as India reassuring itselfthat  it can negotiate from a position ofequality with China and can compel Pakistanby placing it in a position of asymmetry. Inother words, the domestic factor predominates in India.

The other chapters will be of interest tothe expanding numbers of China specialists.China is seemingly at the center of Asia withmarked rivalries along its periphery. This isuseful for the third party, the US, to get afoot in the door and to justify its ‘pivot’ or‘rebalancing’. TheAmerican editors justify US  engagement with the region as an Asian power.It is no wonder then that  they prognosticatethe potential for conflict in the region.