rethinking india's nuclear doctrine

Rethinking India’s nuclear doctrine

By Ali Ahmed

Published in Agni, Jan-Mar 2010, Vol XII, No. II, pp. 25-32

http://fsss.in/agni-volume/2nd/editor-%20page.pdf 

Introduction

Anti-nuclearists are most likely to discourse on post-nuclear use scenarios. Their reflections have so far been on the physical effects, for instance what might happen if an explosion were to occur on a city like Mumbai, and regional environmental effects. Little explored are the sociological and political consequences of nuclear a nuclear exchange(s) amounting to ‘unacceptable damage’ (usually defined as counter value). This is in emulation of the discussion in the Cold War era. However, the difference between ‘then and there’ and ‘now and here’ is essentially that South Asia has masses with a ‘history’. Herman Kahn could write off millions in his calculations and believe the Americans could survive the aftermath. To think similarly that any South Asian state can manage with a population rendered trifle smaller due to a nuclear attack is unrealistic. This article attempts to bring the dangers to fore and in doing so highlights the logic in self-deterrence. It thereafter dwells on the consequent need for India to move towards a nuclear doctrine that is responsive to the socio-political reality in South Asia.

Self-deterrence is a much maligned term. It is deemed to undercut deterrence since deterrence works best when self-deterrence is taken as non-existent or minimal. Such thinking accounts for projection of ‘irrationality’ in the decision maker to enhance deterrence, as was the case with Nixon and Reagan. The page has partially been borrowed by Pakistan.

Here, deliberately thinking through the consequences of nuclear use is attempted. In the eventuality of actual nuclear use consideration, as against those practiced in simulations and war games, there would be no escaping such a consideration. Since nuclear weapons are going to be around for, in President Obama’s words, through his ‘lifetime’, consequences of their use requires consideration on a wider spectrum than merely the physical outcome of nuclear explosion and fallout.

The doctrine and its consequences

India’s nuclear doctrine is based on infliction of ‘unacceptable damage’ on the enemy, albeit after enemy ‘first strike’; ‘first strike’ being synonymous in Indian understanding with first use. Such retaliation could result in like reaction from the enemy since it would still have nuclear weapon left over. What are the implications of receiving such a counter strike? How this question is answered should determine whether India should make good on its threat in the eventuality of nuclear ‘first use’.

Politically, a changed complexion in governance may arise with increased space for antagonisms towards the enemy. In India’s case, this could amount to an internal social rupture. Refugee movements in the midst of an emerging ideological clash, in the case of an India-Pakistan nuclear exchange, would make Partition appear but a ‘trailer’. The much bandied ‘thousand year war’ would cease being a rhetorical phrase. This apprehension is based on the reading of the tensions and expectations of clashes that have arisen earlier in the aftermath of terror attacks. The case of Gujarat is a case to point. Triggering such clashes is taken as one of the reasons for terror attacks. The government’s efforts to defuse tensions by pointing to the foreign origins of such attacks, indicates the sensitivity of the relationship. Can existing social tensions be expected to withstand a higher order nuclear strike, particularly when those that prefer disruption within polity wish to profit from the ensuing disturbances?

Sub-nationalities that have suffered unacceptably damaging strikes could reappraise their relationship with the Centre as a consequence not so much the physical effects but also of regressing in their inter-se relationship with competing sub-nationalities. This means that in case urban centers which are centers of where particular ethnic groups power and wealth are targeted, the relative position of these groups in relation to their neighbouring and peer ethnic groups would be effected. For instance, if the Andhrites were to lose the twin cities or the Maharashtrians, Pune or Mumbai, they would be considerably set back as an ethnicity. There would then be an internal political and judicial accounting on how such a circumstance came about. While the enemy would not doubt be arraigned, the culpability of the central leadership in not being able to avert such a circumstance will be to the detriment of center-state relations.

Externally, the government initiating the initial nuclear strike that causes ‘unacceptable damage’ can escape international isolation only if the enemy has resorted to ‘first use’ resulting in ‘unacceptable damage’. The key decision makers would be arraigned in international law. Presently, in law of armed conflict there is no clear judgment on the legality or otherwise of nuclear use. The International Court of Justice has ruled that at best it may be permissible as a case of defensive use in a ‘last resort’ mode. While having received a nuclear strike prior to retaliation can be taken as enough justification, the quantum of the retaliation and targeting will be consequential for ascertaining the legitimacy and legality of the strike. Causing ‘unacceptable damage’ when not in receipt of the same, may prove not to be persuasive. 

The apprehended outcomes are true for both states involved in the exchange. It would be true for all three states involved in case of a ‘two front’ nuclear war.

It may be counter-argued that the national interest would be supreme and considerations of morality, internal politics and international law are extraneous intrusions. Unaccountable leaderships, that India needs to face up to, would not be self deterred. In this perspective, leaderships cannot have their personal interests in survival or avoiding subsequent legal action to impact decision making. India’s previous wars such as 1962 and Kargil War demonstrate that India has been able to come together as a nation. Taking this precedence as cue, it can be said that it may be able to emerge strengthened from a nuclear catastrophe.

It is argued here instead that the ‘national interest’ in a nuclear exchange is to avoid suffering ‘unacceptable damage’. If the outcome scenario that impacts India’s very identity, mode of government and national character is plausible, then there is a case for self-deterrence, especially so in a democratically accountable leadership. Even if the likelihood that India would not whither away is taken as greater, India cannot possibly risk suffering ‘unacceptable damage’ and finding this appreciation as false. What are the implications for India’s nuclear doctrine?

Consequences for nuclear doctrine

Reluctance to use nuclear weapons and nuclear restraint on part of one helps stay nervous fingers from the nuclear button of the other. This is partially the logic of India’s NFU. India’s restraint reduces any tendencies towards lowering of enemy nuclear thresholds and pre-emption along the lines of ‘if I don’t he will, therefore I must’ thinking.

Self-deterrence from inflicting ‘unacceptable damage’ so as not be end up being recipient of like damage, implies that one plank of India’s doctrine that of the promise of inflicting ‘unacceptable damage’ needs be jettisoned. ‘Assured Retaliation’ is not effected, ensuring that deterrence does not suffer. However, flexible nuclear retaliation gets ruled in, with inflicting ‘unacceptable damage’ entering the equation only if the enemy has first resorted to such a level of strike(s).  

Presently, the doctrine restricts itself to only the option of ‘massive’ retaliation. This is more likely an ‘unconsidered formulation’, to quote an informed critic. Indian nuclear deterrence is predicated on inflicting ‘unacceptable damage’, which for its votaries does not require ‘massive’ nuclear retaliation. The contention here is that deterrence does not require the default infliction of ‘unacceptable damage’. The assurance of nuclear retaliation is enough. Flexibility permits leaving the level of that retaliation to the circumstance then obtaining.

Being tied down to either massive levels or higher order levels of unacceptable damage is politically problematic. The prevalent thinking is that greater political ‘will’ and ‘resolve’ is required to be cultivated and exhibited to convince the adversary of Indian willingness to use nuclear weapons. The implication for internal politics is that the political ‘resolve’ necessary to make good on a nuclear doctrine is in that the political leadership would have to be one that is suitably predisposed. This has implications for the good health of democracy in that a ‘weak’ leadership, perhaps of a coalition, may not be considered as having the requisite ‘resolve’ for war waging. The situation in Germany in World War I, in which the civil dispensation was virtually supplanted by the Hindenberg-Ludendorf duo, is instructive in this regard.

The requirement of exhibiting political resolve is especially highlighted in India’s Draft Nuclear Doctrine of 1999. This owes to nuclear strategists for most part believing that the Indian leadership is more likely to be perceived by the adversary as ‘soft’ and ‘indecisive’. It supposedly comprises ‘netas’ of varying commitment to the ‘national’ and reputedly unschooled in strategic matters. The need for muscularity has been built into the doctrine through the term ‘massive’. Since this inclusion was in the tenure of the Right wing NDA government in 2003, this may have been to tie down future dispensations that, in the rightist perspective, may be more inclined to compromise with the ‘national interest’.

However, massive nuclear retaliation has one strategic advantage over inflicting ‘unacceptable damage’. Inflicting only ‘unacceptable damage’ renders one equally liable to receiving like punishment in enemy nuclear retaliation. To escape this, ‘damage limitation’ (Kahn’s concept) would require simultaneously degrading the enemy’s nuclear retaliatory capability to maximum extent. This means going ‘massive’. The underside is that since elimination of the enemy’s capability cannot be guaranteed, the enemy, ‘broken backed’, can only go counter value. Therefore, even going ‘massive’ cannot prevent receipt of ‘unacceptable damage’ in return.

The other route to preventing receipt of ‘unacceptable damage’ requires heeding the logic of self-deterrence – incentivising the enemy not to resort to nuclear weapons at levels inflicting ‘unacceptable damage’. This can only be through retaliating to ‘first use’ of lower order strike(s) proportionately.

Moving to a new nuclear doctrine

Currently interpretations of deterrence are limited to two: one, that they deter war and, second, that they deter nuclear weapons use. Pakistan that holds the first view may find itself surprised by outbreak of war in case India, under grave provocation, implements its Cold Start doctrine. Likewise, India that believes in the second, may find itself surprised in case of nuclear ‘first use’ by Pakistan. Therefore, sense lies in being prepared for the worst case of war outbreak and nuclear use. A more appropriate and accurate interpretation of deterrence should instead be that nuclear weapons possession deters receipt of ‘unacceptable damage’.

This means that as long as nuclear weapons exist and conflict is possible, engaging with the manner of their use remains. So far strategy has centered on deterrence in which the threat of use is manipulated to keep them from being used by the enemy. However, the thinking has been that in case of deterrence break down, in-conflict deterrence is hugely difficult and escalation is a strong possibility. Therefore, limiting nuclear response is not a viable proposition. Therefore, in such analysis, nuclear retaliation should be punishing and of an ‘unacceptable’ level for the enemy. Not doing to do so would, one, send the message of lack of political resolve and, two, make nuclear war fighting appear a feasible proposition.

The question that arises then is how to limit even flexible nuclear retaliation, seen above as being preferable to ‘massive’ nuclear retaliation. Cognisance of this argument implies that flexible nuclear retaliation requires a caveat. It is here the formulation first introduced by General Sundarji makes sense. He maintained that should the nuclear taboo be broken then the endeavour should be to terminate the nuclear exchange(s) at the lowest possible level. Taking cue from this formulation, the nuclear doctrine should explicitly state that nuclear use would be terminated at the lowest possible level.

Critics would have it that this would place India at a deterrence disadvantage with respect to China. It being an authoritarian state would not be amenable to self-deterrence. The short answer is that China, having grown phenomenally over the recent past is would not want to imperil its gains. It would not wish to see its power effected negatively, particularly in relation to the USA. Therefore, it has not interest in pursuing nuclear war. This explains its NFU policy. Since it already has adequate conventional military capacity, it would be more than willing to limit any nuclear exchanges in line with the formulation of terminating nuclear war earliest.

With respect to Pakistan, it may be argued that a Jihadi regime, ideologically intoxicated that finally it would prevail, may not be self-deterred. Pakistan under such a regime may be willing to suffer asymmetric damage in return for the satisfaction of inflicting unacceptable damage on India. Even if true, India does not need to compel such nuclear resort by Pakistan by promising ‘unacceptable damage’ as the only manner of using its nuclear capability. The satisfaction of ‘finishing’ Pakistan is no compensation if India were to be changed immeasurably as a result. However, in case Pakistan were to go for a higher order ‘first use’ that causes ‘unacceptable damage’ to India, then India, in light of the tenets of a flexible doctrine, would have the right to even go ‘massive’ in return.

Conclusion

India should move to the ‘Sundarji doctrine’. Its present doctrine promising ‘massive’ nuclear retaliation and infliction of ‘unacceptable damage’ is valid only in case India receives such strikes from the enemy. This not likely to be the case since the nuclear second strike capability enables India to retaliate in kind and inflict on the enemy an unaffordable punishment. Therefore, terminating the exchange earliest when neither has suffered unacceptably makes strategic sense.

This is to move to a fresh intellectual territory, not traversed even in the Cold War era that was otherwise prolific on deterrence issues. Deterrence is rightly predicated on the assurance of nuclear punishment of the order of levels inflicting ‘unacceptable damage’. However, the argument here is that infliction of such punishment opens up India to like punishment in revenge or retaliation. It is uncertain whether India as we know it can withstand such punishment. Even if the appreciation is that it can emerge strengthened from such a nuclear exchange, the mere possibility of the outcome being otherwise is cause enough for self deterrence. In which case, India’s current doctrine of inflicting ‘unacceptable damage’ as a default retaliation option needs a rethink. Instead, the proposition is for a move from damage infliction considerations - valid for deterrence - to damage limiting considerations in case of breakdown of deterrence. Even if damage infliction is the basis of nuclear deterrence, in case of breakdown damage limitation must be that of nuclear employment. Given the higher probability of nuclear escalation after the first exchange, it requires to be an explicitly stated that the exchange(s) would be terminated at the lowest possible level. This is essentially the ‘Sundarji’ doctrine.

This requires debate in India. The discussion being valid for other Southern Asian states, including China, the proposal for adherence of NFU needs to be extended to include adherence of this formulation too.   

India-Pakistan: Move From Cosmetic To Credible Nuclear Confidence Building Measures

By Ali Ahmed, PhD

26 February, 2014
Countercurrents.org

http://www.countercurrents.org/ahmed260214.htm

http://www.kashmirtimes.in/newsdet.aspx?q=29483 India-Pakistan: Nuclear Threat

The Nobel Prize-winning International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War in a new study, 'Nuclear Famine: Two Billion People at Risk?’ (http://www.psr.org/assets/pdfs/two-billion-at-risk.pdf), conducted along with Physicians for Social Responsibility, have said that even a ‘limited’ nuclear war using a 100 weapons would disrupt the global climate and agricultural production so severely that the lives of more than two billion people would be at risk. This finding is based upon research by climate scientists assessing the impact of nuclear explosions on the earth's atmosphere and ecosystems. The study used a hypothetical India-Pakistan war to prove its point.

An earlier study on the impact of ‘local nuclear war’, published in the Scientific American (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=local-nuclear-war) in the aftermath of the Mumbai 26/11 crisis, had likewise reflected on an India-Pakistan nuclear exchange. By its reckoning, besides the 20 million dead on the subcontinent, one billion people would perish in the famines triggered by dust clouds.

Earlier in the period of Operation Parakram, the US Natural Resources Development Council (http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/southasia.asp) had put the figure of dead from the direct affects in case of 24 nuclear bombs on ten subcontinental cities, at three million, with half the number as seriously wounded, and casualties from fallout in both countries at 30 million.

It bears attention as to why three studies have alighted on South Asia for their modelling purposes. That both India and Pakistan have attended the second conference on humanitarian effects of nuclear war in Mexico this month (http://www.sre.gob.mx/en/index.php/humanimpact-nayarit-2014), adds to worries since it suggests both governments are concerned of possible nuclear conflict and its consequences. This means that even if both states are satisfied that deterrence is in place, South Asia remains a nuclear flashpoint.

Given this, there is a case for keeping the nuclear dimension of the relationship, that otherwise tends to recede to the background in the times of ‘peace’, defined as absence of crisis. It would not do to scramble in the onset of crisis with preventive and mitigatory measures. These need to be in place prior and are best emplaced in times of ‘peace’.

The two governments believe that doing ‘more for’ deterrence is enough. While Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is taken as expanding at the fastest rate in the world, India is proceeding with an equal pace if a step behind in numbers. India is ahead in the variegation of its arsenal, from developing missile defences to submarine launched nuclear IRBMs. The assumption behind these quantitative and qualitative nuclear developments is that such activity enhances nuclear deterrence by making it ‘credible’.

In India’s nuclear doctrine of ‘credible minimum deterrence’ not only does ‘credible’ precede ‘minimum’ but does so comprehensively. The reasoning is that minimum deterrence, based on existential deterrence or the deterrence induced by the mere presence of nuclear weapons, is not enough. Deterrence is taken as credible only when the nuclear adversary is assured of retaliation of an order that will cause him to stay his nuclear hand.

Currently, though Pakistan is ahead of India in numbers of warheads, India’s case is that it squares off against two opponents, Pakistan and China, acting in collusion, even in the nuclear field. It is therefore likely to build up to a second strike arsenal of larger proportions than Pakistan, even if the premium on numbers are superseded over time with the acquisition of the underwater leg of the triad. India has access to stockpiles of enough fission grade nuclear material to enable a nuclear ‘surge’ as and when needed.

Even so, gaining the ‘invulnerable’ second strike capability is not enough. A nuclear doctrine is required for communication of the implied threat of retaliation and the resolve to retaliate to the adversary. The ‘declaratory nuclear doctrine’ meant for deterrence is to stay the putative adversaries’ nuclear finger. However, in case the nuclear button does get pushed in fear or panic, ‘operational nuclear doctrine’, meant for breakdown of nuclear deterrence, must in the event kick in to guide nuclear strategy.

The doctrinal interaction is worth a pause. Pakistan has not foresworn nuclear first use. India, in turn, has promised ‘massive’ nuclear retaliation in such a case. This has forced Pakistan into vertical proliferation, in order to sustain such an attack and have a second strike capability in order not only in the event to counter strike, but also in first place to deter massive nuclear retaliation by India. Deterrence breakdown implies Pakistan will not be stopped from introducing nuclear weapons into a conflict and to begin with, taking India’s declaratory doctrine as kicking in, that this invites a massive strike by India. A Pakistani counter that would likely be a broken backed one would then go for India’s jugular, its megalopolises.

However, taking the case of India’s operational nuclear doctrine being different, it may not retaliate massively, but proportionately. In such a case, stopping the nuclear exchange at the lowest possible levels is necessary; else, as the reasoning behind India’s doctrine of massive nuclear retaliation has it, inexorable escalation could result. While there is a shared interest against this, no mechanisms, such as nuclear risk reduction centres, are in place to assure against this. Even so, the damage from local or limited nuclear war will be unsustainable for the planet.

In other words, the outcome, consistently warned against by successive studies, is virtually inevitable in case of nuclear use in the subcontinent. If the two states are not to destroy themselves and the world, they must either solve their disputes – that can provide the proverbial spark for the nuclear tinder - or get rid of nuclear weapons. Since the latter is unlikely in light of the former, and the former is unlikely any time soon, the third option is to build the mechanisms for cooperation in escalation control and de-escalation.

This implies that both states must go beyond the desultory nuclear confidence building talks to discuss the doctrinal interaction and its consequences at the round of periodic talks. The aim in these must be to ensure credible Nuclear Risk Reduction Measures such as a jointly manned nuclear risk reduction centre, perhaps located outside the region or in a third country within South Asia. Since the two states are unlikely to do this on their own, believing that doing so will indicate a concern with the state of health of their deterrent, the impulse for this will have to emerge from civil society, and as mentioned, in times of ‘peace’.

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

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1. The Doctrine Puzzle

   India's Limited War Doctrine

   By Ali Ahmed

   The book examines the impetus behind India’s conventional military doctrines in the light of nuclearisation. Through a multi-level and multidimensional approach, it seeks to understand the reason behind India going for a proactive offensive doctrine. The Indian war doctrine is examined at the...

   Published 30th December 2013 by Routledge India

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.