book review of my book

Book Review by Vivek Chadha, Research Fellow IDSA

India’s Doctrine Puzzle: Limiting War in South Asia, by Ali Ahmed, New Delhi: Routledge India, 2014, pp. 260, INR 695

http://www.idsa.in/jds/9_2_2015_IndiasDoctrinePuzzle.html

India has often been accused of not having a strategic culture and, more recently, of not clearly enunciating its strategic and doctrinal thought. More often than not, this has led to interpolation of brief statements, actions and speeches in public domain that create more doubts than answer questions regarding the country’s strategic formulations. Ali Ahmed attempts to dig deeper into India’s doctrinal underpinnings in light of nuclearization in the operational domain, a field that remains limited to patchy assessments in the past. As a former soldier, Ahmed’s quest for answers stems from contradictions witnessed during the course of his career in the Indian Army (p. xv), before he decided to formally undertake the rigour of research. This provides him a unique perspective of a soldier-scholar, with a clear focus towards questions that often bedevil soldiers in the field as well as the strategic community. Ahmed argues that India changed course in 1971 to shift from a defensive to an offensive military doctrine; yet, this increased the country’s insecurities instead of achieving the opposite (p. xvi). Elaborating on this, he assesses India’s military posture and its doctrines since 1971. He also elaborates upon the limited war doctrine in light of the potential of conventional conflicts against a nuclear backdrop. The author, while identifying the doctrinal evolution in India’s context, limits his focus to the Indian Army and its doctrine of 2004. This document, often called the ‘Cold Start’ doctrine, came in the wake of perceived limitations to an all-out conventional war, instead focusing on a limited one. He contends that instead of the aim of war avoidance, the doctrine has lowered the nuclear retaliation threshold, which defeats the very purpose of such an exercise. Ahmed writes: These threshold are generally taken along four dimensions— military attrition, territorial losses, economic viability, and internal stability. Concerted offensive action by the Indian military would simultaneously nudge all four thresholds, directly and indirectly. The cumulative physical and psychological impact could unhinge and lower the nuclear retaliation threshold (p. 4). Ahmed analyses the shift in organizational culture of the Army in light of the Kargil conflict of 1999, followed by the Parliament attack in 2001, which led to a feeling of helplessness. This, according to him, ‘dented’ the military’s image and forced introspection. The limited war option evolved as a result of the same, with the army becoming determined to find opportunities to blunt the sub-conventional advantage held by Pakistan. This could have only taken placed by replacing the statusquo mindset, characterized by a defensive and attrition-based approach, with an offensive and manoeuvre orientation instead. Therefore, the deployment of the Army, previously focused at avoiding loss of territory, shifted to initiating an offensive and taking the battle into enemy territory. This required recasting the erstwhile defensive formations with an offensive capability and calibrating the risk assessment in favour of a proactive stance. However, Ahmed rejects the viability of the option of a limited war as suggested by the 2004 doctrine in light of its failure after 26/11. He further substantiates this on the basis of its rejection by the political class, as the course of events of the period indicates. He suggests that the attempt of the military to retain its salience through this option does not decrease, but rather increases, the possibility of first use of nuclear weapons by Pakistan (p. 150). Ahmed concludes his argument through the analysis of three principle drivers for doctrine formulation—structural, political and organizational—which influence its evolution process. He finds that structural-level drivers were responsible for the doctrinal response in light of the threat from Pakistan. At the state level, the shift in strategic culture led to the enunciation of the limited war doctrine. Finally, the doctrinal evolution at the organizational level was a result of the failure to force acceptable results during the Kargil conflict and Operation Parakram.

He concludes that the three factors have played a complementary role in shaping India’s doctrinal thought (p. 202). Ahmed suggests policy options to include an ‘explicit Limited War doctrine’, in light of the nuclear–conventional war interface. In pursuit of the same, he envisions the creation of the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) an essential prerequisite. He also finds the need to revisit the inclusion of the term ‘massive’ in terms of the envisaged retaliation, as part of the nuclear doctrine, in view of the negative impact it has had on the nuclear– conventional war interface. He instead suggests a ‘flexible retaliation doctrine’ for better escalation control. A revisit of the strategic doctrine from ‘offensive realism’ to ‘defensive realism’ is suggested, with a return to the policy of deterrence with a defensive bias on the Pakistan front (p. 207). This also entails moving away from Cold Start, given its short-fuse reactive nature. The importance of this publication stems from its endeavour to understand and refocus attention on India’s operational doctrinal evolution since 1971, and in attempting to decipher the current thinking on the subject. In doing so, the author differs from conventional wisdom on the subject, in view of its potential failure to either prevent war or lead to a desirable outcome. His recommendation of stepping back from offensive realism may be contested by votaries of a more robust policy against Pakistan. However, the attempt at objectively debating the subject is likely to result in greater clarity and understanding through this important addition to literature on India’s security. The book is recommended for both libraries and keen observers of India’s security. The assessment of the author can best be tested by an equally compelling analysis advocating and analysing the existing approach with justification for ‘offensive realism’. The absence of literature on these niche areas limits the ability of readers to benefit from the kind of rigour the subject deserves. Finally, the book could have benefited through a more careful editorial process, with typos as a result of words getting combined, both as part of the preface and subsequent text. This takes away from the otherwise high quality of production process employed by the publishers

review of my book

From Denial To Coercion Yogesh Joshi  INDIA’S DOCTRINE PUZZLE: LIMITING WAR IN SOUTH ASIA By Ali Ahmed Routledge, New Delhi, 2014, pp. xix 240, Rs. 695.00 VOLUME XXXIX NUMBER 2 February 2015 http://www.thebookreviewindia.org/articles/archives-4371/2015/february/2/from-denial-to-coercion.html Six years after India conducted a series of nuclear tests in 1998, strategy the Indian Army issued its conventional war fighting doctrine called the Indian Army Doctrine 2004. The doctrine, which later came to be known as ‘Cold Start’, drew a lot of attention in the strategic circles. Moving away from its decades old defensive posturing along the international border with Pakistan, the Army now adopted a more offensive approach. The shift was palpable: from deterrence via denial to coercion via offence. The shift is also puzzling because it occurred in a nuclear backdrop. If nuclear weapons bolster deterrence, then offensive conventional military doctrines, prima facie, appear anachronistic. [ihc-hide-content ihc_mb_type=”show” ihc_mb_who=”reg” ihc_mb_template=”1″ ] Ali Ahmed’s The Doctrine Puzzle: Limited Wars in South Asia attempts to explain the above-mentioned puzzle and does that exquisitely. For the author, causation behind the shift exists at three different levels of analysis. The first was India’s strategic environment in the aftermath of the nuclear tests. Under the shadow of nuclear weapons, Pakistan intensified sub-conventional warfare against India, evident first in the 1999 Kargil war and the attack on the Indian Parliament, a couple of years later. Even when conventionally superior to its western neighbour, the presence of nuclear weapons ensured that India’s response remains limited. India faced a serious dilemma: the presence of nuclear weapons had actually decreased its deterrence potential vis-a-vis sub-conventional threats from Pakistan. To break out of this stranglehold, the need was to create space for limited conventional probes while avoiding a nuclear response. If the strategy of massive retaliation increased the threshold of nuclear use, a limited conventional war could, in theory, allow New Delhi to inflict punishment on Islamabad for its many subversions. The Indian Army Doctrine 2004, therefore, was a response to this strategic conundrum. However, the two operative conditions—nuclearization of South Asia and Pakistan’s support for sub-conventional warfare—were present since late 1980’s. By 1988, Pakistan’s nuclear capability was an open secret. Since then, it was also actively supporting terrorism in Kashmir. Structural reasons pertaining to strategic environment therefore cannot explain the delay in formulation of a limited war doctrine. As the author rightly contends, it is important to open the black box of the state and find reasons within. Here, domestic politics or the second of level analysis comes handy. Availing the analytical apparatus offered by theory of ‘strategic cultures’, Ahmed contends that the coming of the BJP marked a shift in India’s strategic culture and therefore, the shift from defensive conventional deterrent to an offensive mindset. Strategic environment and domestic politics notwithstanding, institutional interests are equally important. Militaries, like other organs of the state, are also driven by narrow bureaucratic interests as well as organizational processes. Even when the strategic environment and domestic politics favour shift in doctrinal ethos, ultimately the motivation has to come from within the organization. First, doctrinal change should be accompanied with various incentives for the service. A limited war doctrine is premised on the revolution in military affairs (RMA) and adoption of an offensive doctrine would have ensured speedy modernization of the force. Second, in the conflict within services, such doctrinal changes increased the relevance of the Army. Lastly, if the primary mandate of standing armies is to fight conventional wars, nuclear weapons have rendered their entire rationale redundant. Military professionalism is poised towards breaking out of this dilemma. An offensive conventional doctrine, therefore, helps to promote military’s long held ethos. Only expert diagnosis and explanation of the problem can lead to perceptive prescriptions and Ahmed’s study is no different. His policy recommendations however are counter-intuitive. On one hand, he finds an offensive conventional doctrine as highly destabilizing and on the other, he argues that India’s nuclear doctrine should be modified on the principles of ‘flexible response’. His argument is contentious but given the problem of credibility in India’s declared nuclear doctrine of ‘massive retaliation’, he may well be right. The biggest import of this study is for students of strategy; a field still struggling in Indian academic discourse. Though scholars like Srinath Raghavan have left a deep imprint, their inquiries are largely historical and focus upon grand strategy, rather than specifically focusing on military doctrines. It is important to understand this distinction because of many difficulties associated with such a sensitive yet contemporary field of study. First, information is always at a premium when it comes to issues of national security and especially, military doctrines. Second and the more difficult problem to overcome is the fact that the Army itself has been in denial over the existence of the ‘Cold Start’. In other words, the concept suffers from definitional clarity. Therefore, undertaking such an enterprise demands being theoretically sound, conceptually clear and methodologically inventive. Theoretically, the author exhibits a robust understanding of strategic studies literature: the chapter on the concept of ‘limited war’ can be easily recommended as a text book reading for students of strategic studies. Also, in the strategic discourse, terms such as ‘doctrine’, ‘strategy’, ‘deterrence’, ‘compellence’ and ‘coercion’ are commonly used but often remain undefined. The author does well to explain these terminologies in the very first chapter, bringing much needed conceptual clarity. Lastly, the methodological novelty, both in the application of the ‘levels of analysis’ framework and evidence gathering is astute. Its simplicity notwithstanding, ‘levels of analyses’ is a difficult framework to operationalize especially in multivariable research. The author does well to find the third level of analysis not in the ‘individual’ but within the military organizations, hence avoiding serious pitfalls. In the bibliography: almost all official avenues of military publications, including the dissertations at the National Defence College, have been perused for evidence. However, there is an over-emphasis on domestic politics and organizational cultures at the expense of structural factors. The argument that the BJP ushered in a change in India’s strategic culture is a little far-fetched. First, this change was not reflected in other avenues of national security decision-making such as nuclear force structures. Even after conducting the tests, the BJP settled for a minimalistic nuclear posture which had been decided under the Rajiv Gandhi Government in 1985. Second, ‘culture’, in general, is a resilient structure; to argue that ‘strategic culture’ could undergo a substantial shift in such a short period of time runs against the dominant academic literature on the subject. Lastly, if the shift was instigated by the BJP, no policy reversal occurred with the coming of Congress-led government in 2004. In fact, for the entire first term of the UPA, as Walter Ludwig’s piece amply demonstrates, the Indian Army was busy perfecting its new doctrinal mandate. Also, discussion on RMA and its influence is limited. Ahmed largely views it as an organizational incentive. By doing so, he discounts the changing nature of global warfare and its impact on military thinking. Prospect theory suggests that decision-makers are much more influenced by high probability of success compared to high probability of defeat. Did the RMA help instill a belief in the Indian Army that complexities of a limited war could be easily overcome? RMA therefore has to be viewed through a structural lense; not as a mere incentive. Yogesh Joshi is a PhD candidate in School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

The nuclear foredrop to the conventional backdrop

Visualising Impact of Nuclear Operations at the Conventional Level

http://www.claws.in/1350/visualising-impact-of-nuclear-operations-at-the-conventional-level-ali-ahmed.html For visualising future conventional war, the first step here on will necessarily be visualizing the nuclear overhang.  While traditional nuclear thinking concentrates understandably on deterrence and its operation in conflict, additionally, conventional operations need to reckon with how to proceed in case of its breakdown. This web-article discusses the latter scenario in its implications for conventional land operations, without prejudice to the viability of India’s deterrence. Also, here only the western front is looked at for simplicity of analysis. There are two ways nuclear operations can be envisaged. The first is in anticipating the manner Pakistan may resort to first use: higher order or lower order strike.[i] A higher order strike would be at the upper end of the ‘opprobrium quotient’ such as a ‘bolt from the blue’ first strike, decapitating strike, counter value attack etc. Since India has second strike capability, that with the operationalisation of the Arihant shall be unassailable soon, Pakistan first use is unlikely be in the form of a ‘first strike’. It is aware that its advantage in numbers is rather slim, a mere 10-20 warheads.[ii] These cannot ensure that India will not strike back, particularly once its under-sea leg of the triad is operational. It is also aware that not very many Indian warheads need to survive to do grievous damage to Pakistan. Setting Pakistan back comprehensively, does not require more than 20-30 warheads. Such numbers can easily be expected to survive a first strike attempt by Pakistan. Even if it ever doubted it, Pakistan can no longer reckon on Indian nuclear decision making not rising to the occasion. Therefore, Pakistan may be self-deterred from higher order first use. If in case Pakistan is not deterred from a higher order nuclear first use, it is axiomatic that India’s counter will be as per its 2003 declaratory doctrine. India will visit unacceptable nuclear punishment.  How will this higher order nuclear exchange from both sides impact the conventional level? There would be three choices for land operations. First, is to retrieve to the start line, since the nuclear devastation will require military resources in ‘aid to civil authority’ in a variety of tasks. Second, is to pause conventional operations on a defensible line in order that military resources can redeploy for helping regulate life back home. The endeavour will likely be to check the nuclear consequences, both physical and socio-political, at this line. There is also little reason to continue into the enemy hinterland devastated by nuclear strikes. The third may be to press home the advantage and occupy the prostrate enemy. Thereafter, stabilization operations in nuclear-stricken Pakistan can proceed for decisive conflict termination. Of the three, the first may appear appealing since the change in the conflict’s character would have led to a revision of war aims altogether. Also proceeding with occupation may result in India  having to take up the burden of putting Pakistan back on its feet, something it would be hard put to in case it is itself recipient of Pakistani higher order nuclear first use. Alongside, a jihadist-nationalist surge in truncated Pakistan cannot be ruled out that would such Indian troops into a nuclear contaminated sub conventional fight. However, higher order nuclear exchanges are the least likely scenario, if most dangerous scenario. More likely therefore are lower order nuclear exchanges, assuming a conflict does go nuclear. Since conventional operations can reasonably be expected to continue, their manner is worth doctrinal attention. This must of necessity begin with positing the scenario of Pakistani lower order first use, for which it has two options. The first is as a ‘shot across the bow’ in the form of a ‘green field’ option with no Indian military targets, for strategic signaling. The purpose of such asymmetric escalation would be catalytic.[iii] Pakistani intent would be to energise foreign - read US and Chinese - conflict termination efforts. This could also be in the form of counter military targeting with a single or a few warheads, attempting operational level gains of stopping an Indian thrust, alongside serving strategic purpose. The second option could be more widespread in case India’s proactive offensives threaten to overwhelm the Azm-e-Nau-honed preparedness of Pakistani forces.  It’s much-advertised, Nasr, and other nuclear weapons, may be employed for redressing operational level disadvantage. These may be to attempt degrade an offensive formation by hitting its spear heads, the shaft or support base including fire support, logistics and supporting airfields. How do these two options impact the battlefield? Arguably, the first – lower order strike such as a demonstrative strike – will have greater consequence for the nuclear level, since it would breach the nuclear threshold, rather than any immediate effect on conventional operations. Increased caution in terms of nuclear preparedness of troops in the combat and communication zone would require to be incorporated in operations; thereby, at best slowing down operations. However, at the breaking of the nuclear taboo, the diplomatic prong of war strategy would temporarily eclipse the military prong of strategy since, alongside responsive nuclear strikes, de-escalation may be advisable. Conventional military moves would therefore be conditioned by the need to support the diplomacy-predominant lines of action at the strategic level.[iv] The military aim would be how to gain aims, suitably modified for a conflict gone nuclear, in a non-escalatory way. In case of the second lower order manner of first use – limited counter military targeting - then conventional operations will be directly impacted. India in accordance with its nuclear doctrine would contemplate nuclear retaliation. Conventional operations will defer to the nature of India’s nuclear retaliation. The nature of India’s retaliation and likely counter by Pakistan, alongside the intensified politico-diplomatic activity, would determine the direction of conventional operations. Conventional operations may help set the stage for an Indian nuclear counter strike. This could be as per the declaratory nuclear doctrine or an operational nuclear strategy at variance with it envisaging proportional retaliation. Conventional operations may be required to profit from the consequence of the nuclear attack such as by occupying territory or mopping up enemy forces. In any case, further conventional operations will need to factor in the nature of nuclear counter strike(s). Lastly, how conventional operations are unfolding needs to feed into India’s nuclear retaliation considerations. Proportionate retaliation by India is not unthinkable in light of nuclear strategy being distinct from nuclear doctrine, even if informed by it. In case of counter military lower order strike there may be a case for continuing conventional operations so as to take advantage of the nuclear retaliatory strike and posture favourably for conflict termination. How conventional operations can then unfold will have to be tagged into nuclear retaliatory operations. This means that nuclear operations in a lower order scenario are not to be considered or conducted in isolation of the conventional level. The questions at the conventional level would be: How can conventional operations be non-escalatory? How can conflict termination and exit points be shaped? In case of nuclear outbreak, since in-conflict deterrence will be active, the politico-diplomatic prong of strategy will be predominant over the military-strategic prong of strategy. International moves at play need recognizing.  The possibility of the international community forcefully intervening for escalation control, to include with military muscle such as declaring enforceable no-fly-zones, cannot be ruled out. This has increased in likelihood with the publication of the report in late 2013 that even a regional nuclear war would have global environmental consequences.[v] This increases departures in operational nuclear strategy from declaratory nuclear doctrine. This means that conventional operations in the nuclear environment of lower order nuclear exchange(s) are more likely than not. Consequently, the army needs to think these through in peace time in order that when it comes to a nuclear crunch, and this can happen in short order, the army has credible options it can present to the government considering its nuclear counter strike. This would facilitate more options for the Nuclear Command Authority than merely higher order retaliation. Doctrinal thinking incorporating the conventional-nuclear interface as visualized here is one direction to proceed. Ali Ahmed is author of India’s Doctrine Puzzle: Limiting War in South Asia, Routledge, 2014. He blogs at www.ali-writings.blogspot.in. Views expressed are personal.
References [i] Ali Ahmed, Reconciling Doctrines: Prerequisite for Peace in South Asia, IDSA Monograph, 2010, pp. 44-45. [ii] Pakistan reportedly has 100-120 weapons to India’s 90-110. See SIPRI Yearbook 2013, ‘World Nuclear Forces’, available at http://www.sipri.org/yearbook/2013/06, accessed on 1 August 2014. [iii] Narang, V., ‘Posturing for Peace? Pakistan's Nuclear Postures and South Asian Stability’, International Security, Vol. 34 No. 3, 2009/10, p. 38. [iv] Ali Ahmed, ‘Diplomatic engagement in a post nuclear use environment’, Indian Defence Review,  http://www.indiandefencereview.com/spotlights/diplomatic-engagement-in-a-post-nuclear-use-environment/ [v] Helfand, I., ‘Nuclear famine: Two billion people at risk’, International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War, 2013, available at http://www.psr.org/assets/pdfs/two-billion-at-risk.pdf, accessed on 24 July 2014.

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Book Review

A Bleak Century Ahead?

Ali Ahmed 

GLOBAL JIHAD AND AMERICA: THE HUNDRED-YEAR WAR BEYOND IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN 
By Taj Hashmi 
Sage Publications, Delhi, 2014, pp. 322, Rs. 995.00
http://www.thebookreviewindia.org/articles/archives-4380/2015/february/2/a-bleak-century-ahead.html
VOLUME XXXIX NUMBER 2 February 2015

Taj Hashmi evidently utilized his four year stint at the US Department of Defence, Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu, very well. He mentions conversations with student practitioners with service in theatres of the myriad and ongoing American wars. This lends a degree of authenticity to the book; in particular, its vehement critique of the manner the US has conducted its wars. While not being an apologist for the ‘enemy’, the Jihadists of various hues, the author’s thesis is that these wars have fuelled their own counter in the form of Jihad. This explains his pessimistic title about a world already in a hundred-year war.

[ihc-hide-content ihc_mb_type=”show” ihc_mb_who=”reg” ihc_mb_template=”1″ ]

Hashmi brings to bear his considerable knowledge of Islam, languages including Arabic, and South Asia to forcefully argue that there are no ‘good guys’ in this war. Just as there is no ‘good Taliban’, there are no ‘good Marines’ either. He does justice to the inspiration of the book, the victims of ‘unjust wars and terrorism’, writing with passion against both: unjust wars waged by the US and its many coalitions of the willing and terrorism perpetrated by Muslim extremists. While he outlines the problem many have suspected all along, he runs out of space to dwell on remedies, preventive measures that could potentially transform the bleak century ahead.
There are two villains in his book: the US and the Jihadists. He presents the US as a political system that feeds on violence. After being born in violence and expanding to its current borders by violence, it set the standards of modern wars with its civil war. Its political economy is one impelled by the military-industrial complex. Its capitalist oil guzzling economy ties it in an imperial embrace to the Middle East. The system of lobbies that runs Capitol Hill, and the salience of the Jewish lobby in American politics, ensures that US actions belie its professions of benign intent. American ‘exceptionalism’, to Hashmi, is a myth amounting to a propaganda tool. Even if Obama seeks to disengage, the ISIS led spike in the conflict in the Levant indicates that the flotsam and jetsam of the Bush years will continue to create geopolitical eddies into the future.
This creates the context that sustains and empowers the Jihadists. Whereas the ideological currents in Islam would have inevitably played out with the onset of modernity in postcolonial Arab and Muslim lands, their violent turn owes largely to geostrategic reasons. This was at two levels: one at the global level in which the Americans laid out the ‘bear trap’ in Afghanistan, and the second is in the Arab-Iranian—in its current avatar, Sunni-Shia—rivalry. The latter too is partially the outcome of US tutelage in that to contain a post-revolution Iran, the Shiekhdoms proved handy. This brings the story, simply told, up until the Iraq Wars. It has since gotten more complex with people power on display in the Arab Spring, that the US has taken care to undercut in Egypt, upturn in Libya and pre-empt in the Gulf. Whereas this is the visible strategic tip, the center of gravity of the iceberg is subsurface where intra-Islamic ideological wars unfold. Here, Hashmi provides some historical background that can help understand, what to him appears as, a date between the US’s Titanic and the Islamist iceberg.
Hashmi discerns two eyes to the unfolding and oncoming storm: one is South Asia and the other in the Middle East and North West Africa. In South Asia the ‘storm’ is possibly about to break with the Peshawar outrage against school children being the forerunner of more to come with the Americans departing the region worse off than the way they found it, even after spending about a trillion dollars. Obama was unable to follow through with the peace prong of his double pincer, the other being the ‘surge’. Though Holbrooke was a known hatchet man from his Balkan’s years, but past his prime, he died on the job. This shows up American appetite for war in contrast to its stamina for peace. Though Hashmi dwells on the rest of South Asia too, the Af-Pak problem is less likely to end up a subcontinent-wide problem than being merged with the widening arc of instability from the other eye of the storm, in the Middle East. The ISIS has emerged, yet again on account of external support including the US and its Arab minders, to be the most potent group. As hitherto, a divide and rule policy is in place to contain it. It is unlikely anything more can be done, since rolling back will require boots on the ground that the US, several times bitten by now, will ensure are not its own but those of its proxies.
This brings out the sense in the author’s contention that the present day threat is not from Islamism and terrorism as the West projects it, but from proxy wars, nurtured by the West. With its periphery in turmoil, and, if Hashmi is to be believed, likely to remain so for a hundred years, the only gainer is easy to spot: Israel. The proxy wars also stem from the incipient second iteration of the Cold War with the West and Russia facing off over Ukraine. The outcome of this is in further entrenching proxy wars such as the one in Syria.
Since the US is part of the problem, it is clearly not the solution. In any case, its solution is only military, one that has failed it and the rest continually. This is best exemplified by an anecdote Hashmi recounts. The military victor in Kosovo, General Wesley Clark, inquiring after US strategy from a uniformed colleague in the operational hiatus post displacement of Taliban from Kabul learnt that since military power was all the US had, to it every problem appeared to be a nail! Clearly, the war machine the US has created will not be cheated out of a war by China allowing itself to be co-opted into the global order. It needs an opponent, and lucky for its self-perpetuation, has created a formidable one in the Jihadists.
If their tryst is to be less bloody than the last hundred years or the previous Hundred Years War, then liberals in both America and in Muslim lands need first to win the intellectual battle within the two sides respectively.

The Diplomat - Balancing India's Right

Balancing India's Right

http://thediplomat.com/2015/02/balancing-indias-right/

In the immediate wake of U.S. President Barack Obama’s departure from India following his visit as chief guest at its Republic Day, India got itself a new foreign secretary, retiring the previous one prematurely. The new foreign secretary, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, was instrumental not only in arranging Obama’s visit, but also Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s successful trip to Washington last year, a visit that included the famous rock-star reception given to Modi by the Indian expatriate community at Madison Square Garden.

However, Jaishankar’s move has less to do with his ability to arrange diplomatic jamborees than it does with his well regarded experience and strategic skills, which stretch back to his days minding India’s political initiatives surrounding its peacekeeping presence in Sri Lanka.

What this appointment does is to redress the balance in India’s apex strategic establishment, which had become dangerously skewed towards an ideologically inspired strategic doctrine. India’s right-wing government began well, springing a surprise in reaching out to Pakistan and inviting its prime minister – and other South Asian leaders – over for Modi’s swearing-in. However, under National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, known for his tactical capabilities in the intelligence field and for his rightist ideological slant in his previous role as head of a think tank, India started to become decidedly hawkish, suggestive of an ideologically driven strategic doctrine.

Indian grand strategy aims at creating the strategic space and regional stability needed for its economic rise. However, as with foreign policy in general, there are domestic determinants and constraints. In India, this is principally the arrival in power of a right-wing government, one with a clear majority for the first time. The optics from a flurry of high-profile visits by the prime minister abroad and a reverse flow of dignitaries to Delhi fails to blur concerns stemming from India’s tryst with a majoritarian ideology.

The internal effect of this was best summed up in Obama’s town hall speech subtly reminding India of the risk to its religious equilibrium of Hindutva triumphalism, much in evidence since Modi’s convincing victory last year. Understandable apprehensions exist among India’s Muslims, who constitute the nation’s largest minority, according to figures released last month accounting for 14.2 percent of its population, or 172 million people. Modi’s apparent refusal to check his over-zealous followers has led to the middle class worrying that developmentalism, the reason why they cast their lot with Modi, may not be the only item on his agenda.

The socio-cultural agenda of Hindutva, which Modi has never disavowed and which his supporters espouse, appears more significant. Economic gains from developmentalism will serve to legitimize the Modi regime, giving it the time it needs for its pet project. If this is taken as the lodestar of the regime, externally, it is manifest in the rather heavy-handed approach India has adopted to Pakistan since it backed off from a promising beginning by aborting the resumption of talks last August.

Admittedly, strategic sense is not altogether absent. India keeps Pakistan from being too venturesome in Afghanistan, and meets the expectations of a higher regional profile the U.S., its strategic partner, has of it. When it is itself terrorism-infested, Pakistan cannot possibly rekindle the problem in Kashmir. Former U.S. Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel once alluded to the Indian backing of Pakistani insurgents, including possibly Baloch insurgents, who caused a nationwide blackout in Pakistan even as Obama was in Delhi. This hardline approach could conceivably permit a tradeoff in which Indian aims of a moderate Pakistan are met by India turning off the pressure.

However, an ideologically driven strategy would not stop at this. Its aims go beyond taming Pakistan. The ideological roots lie a hundred years ago in the Hindu-Muslim rivalry that led to Partition. Modi admitted as much when in his maiden speech in parliament he included the period Muslims have been on the subcontinent as one of Indian (read Hindu) slavery. Scores are to be settled. In that sense, while the middle classes want the economic rise of India as an end in itself, to India’s right-wing now in the saddle, power is also instrumental. It facilitates a strategy of compellence that, against a nuclear armed state, may not be in India’s best interests. It requires realists who, unlike hyper-nationalists and cultural nationalists, are sensitive to the limits of power, to balance out the right-wing influence on national security policy.

Within the Indian strategic establishment, the Prime Minister’s Office has had primacy at least since the mid sixties. Although the national security adviser has acquired stature over the last decade and a half, in this administration the reported convergence of minds between the prime minister and his adviser, Ajit Doval, has resulted reportedly in a centralization of national security decision making.

This cannot help with checks and balances. Since its formation at the turn of the century and despite credible people at its helm, the National Security Council Secretariat has not yet given any indication that it is an institution to reckon with. Acting as an ideological sieve by running ideas through a reality check may prove beyond it. The last deputy, Nehchal Sandhu, resigned soon after the changing of the guard in Delhi. The sacking of India’s defense research head and home secretary will only serve to further cow the upper ranks. Recall during the Emergency when bureaucrats were asked only to bend, but were inclined to crawl instead. The arrival of a realist such as Jaishankar is therefore welcome.

To rise to the occasion, he will need to turn his statement on learning of his new appointment – “Government’s priorities are my priorities” – on its head. What he must do is mellow the government’s ideologically driven priorities to conform, into a strategically sustainable realism. The parting advice of his predecessor on her departure from office is worth recalling: “It’s not about individuals … it’s about my Ministry as an institution.” Institutional checks and balances must return for the benefit of India’s national security.

India-Pakistan: Visualising the next round

India-Pakistan: Visualising the Next Round

http://www.eurasiareview.com/08022015-india-pakistan-visualizing-next-round-oped/

At the Council on Foreign Relations last week two South Asia watchers Amb. Robert Blackwill and Stephen Cohen were asked the ‘unthinkable question’: ‘What happens if there’s another Mumbai attack?’ Both replied that there would be a ‘vigorous’ India reponse that would most likely be military. Both suggested that this owed to the personality of the new Indian prime minister and the sentiment within India.

After the initial promise of an opening up to Pakistan in Nawaz Sharif’s India visit of May last year, India has since August been tough on Pakistan. It has engaged in an exchange of firing on the Line of Control and if Pakistani allegations are to be believed also been supporting Pakistani insurgents, Baloch and the Pakistani Taliban, from across the Afghanistan border.

In so far as this hardline stance has been tactical it appears to have borne fruit. Former ISI head and Track II presence, Mahmud Durrani, is reported to have met India’s National Security Adviser Doval and its new foreign secretary, Jaishankar, in what might have been an attempt to seek out India’s position on a resumption of talks. The Pakistani ambassador in Delhi is also meeting Jaishankar. More significantly, the new regime in Delhi has managed to ensure that there has been no terror attack out to test it, besides one in Kashmir designed to disrupt elections there.

The advantage of the hardline is that it sends the unambiguous message that India would go military in its response. This is to deter any adventurism in Pakistani national security establishment. This can be reasonably be expected to be registered by the army and its intelligence agency since they are busy in rolling back the jihadi strongholds using the outrage against the terror attack on a school in Peshawar to good purpose.

However, the danger is in ‘rogue’ and ‘out of control’ terrorist elements taking advantage of India’s response to create regional instability. Profiting from resulting Pakistani nationalist and religious reaction to any Indian action, they may seek to expand their space once again in Pakistan that is currently being attenuated by Pakistani military and legal action.

How can India achieve its aim without presenting terrorists with their desired opportunity?

The likelihood of such an attack is low since the Peshawar terror attack is being taken as a watershed. Therefore, there is unlikely to be any sponsorship relying on plausible deniability from within the establishment. It would be remarkably difficult to mount a major attack without such tacit and covert support as attended the 26/11 attack in Mumbai.

In the hypothetical case that a terror attack does occur, the breadcrumbs’ are unlikely to lead either clearly or directly to the Pakistani establishment. India will have to reckon with this when it considers its response.

In light of the new government having invested in building up an image of itself as distinct from its predecessors in terms of decisiveness, it would require taking action. Whereas its predecessors, both the United Progressive Alliance and the National Democratic Alliance regimes earlier, have considered and rejected a military response, it is widely expected that Mr. Modi may be more willing to take military action. Even if Mr. Modi’s self-image does not push him towards taking military action, there are other ‘pull factors’ that may incentivise such a decision.

The military options he has are probably more fleshed out than earlier. The Indian army has given itself the ‘Cold Start’ doctrine and over the last decade has been able to practice it. These exercises have likely kept in mind the criticism directed at Cold Start and it possibly has a menu of non-escalatory options. Since 26/11, major arms acquisitions that have placed India on the top of the table of arms importers have helped with modernisation. With an intelligence czar and old Pakistan hand as NSA, India possibly has the levels of intelligence and synergy necessary to execute a variety of strikes including counter terror and counter military by land, air and intelligence means.

Where can India proceed with such military action? Firstly, terror camps are an obvious target. The ones across the Line of Control (LC) are well known. These can be hit by artillery and those further in depth by air. Secondly, military objectives along the LC are next. With Pakistani military embroiled over the past half decade on its western border and the decade long relative quiet on the Line of Control, there are gaps and weak spots that Indian military can take advantage of, do a ‘reverse Kargil’ of sorts.

Thirdly, in the IB sector, the plains do not lend themselves for such action given the developed terrain and terrain obstacles along their length. However, a mechanised foray in the less-escalatory desert sector is possible. Between the two, military action in the plains sector will bring home the dangers more speedily to Pakistan and its Punjabi elite.

India’s strategic priority of economic development suggests a limited military action. Therefore, in its choice of options it will likely favour the least escalatory one. The military action will be such as to leave Pakistan without a plausible rationale for an escalatory counter. For instance, if military objectives on the LC are taken, then India may likely go in for those that help it improve its defensive posture, rather than expose Pakistan to further Indian offensive. Alongside, if India does not mobilise, then Pakistan would not be pushed into an over-reaction.

Finally, the military action needs to be such as to drive a wedge between the establishment and its potential jihadi support base by making the establishment weigh in favour of a ‘Pakistan first’ strategy rather than a religious ideological one. This can be best done by quick retraction of forces in order that Pakistani military bears down on the jihadists who provoked the situation at the cost of Pakistani security.

Pakistani reaction for its part will be to threaten escalation to get international pressure to bear on India as also help reopen the Kashmir issue. It will have to be seen to be robust enough a counter to assuage nationalist upsurge in Pakistan. This will keep the religious right wing from taking political advantage. Pakistan would also not like to see international pressure clamp down on it instead for fear of escalation. Therefore, a rational counter on its part will likely be non-escalatory.

This analysis suggests that fears of consequences, possibly nuclear, are slightly exaggerated. Both states will pitch their (re)actions to project escalatory possibilities without actually going over the threshold. This will facilitate crisis diplomacy. To fine tune this both states need to have a meeting of minds through means such as the Durrani mission. This will have the welcome effect of placing both states on the same side with respect to the expanding jihadi threat from the west

book review from The Hindu of my book

From ‘cold start’ to ‘limited war’, many unanswered questions

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-bookreview/from-cold-start-to-limited-war-many-unanswered-questions/article6824720.ece

N. SATHIYA MOORTHY

N. Sathiya Moorthy

As the author, a Political Officer with the U.N. after a stint in the Indian Army, concedes, the limitations of this book lie in the fact that it covers mostly the Army’s Doctrine, to the near-exclusion of those of the Navy and the Air Force . Again as acknowledged, it focuses almost exclusively on Pakistan, without much reference to China, the bigger of India’s two historic adversaries or both together in situations where the military may have to prepare for separate yet coordinated wars in the eastern and western sectors up North. In the 21{+s}{+t}century scenario of a rising China with the US already stirring the Indian Ocean waters, the need to include the airspace across the nation’s territory alone would complete a comprehensive and meaningful strategic-military doctrine.

Though limited to the Army, a book of this nature still raises as many questions as it answers for those outside the immediate realm of military planning, execution and academics. Given the increasing need for governments and militaries in the country to take the whole nation into confidence, such a near-lucid study (as can be possible for and in a book of this nature) can help inform the political class, the civilian administration and population, and more so, the emerging ranks of the strategic-thinkers, both within and outside the three Services, as to what wars and decisions are all about – and why are they so!

Ahmed focuses on two main recent concepts of India’s army/military doctrine, namely, ‘Limited War’ and ‘Cold Start’. The former is self-explanatory. The latter is a reflection on the alacrity with which the armed forces are able to mobilise for war within a short duration But neither is new concept, per se, in the global context. The author could have examined some precedents in greater detail so as to draw conclusions for the Indian forces.

The ‘Kargil War’ was a ‘limited war’, and involved Pakistan alone. The question remains as to who was the real instrument in keeping it a ‘limited war’ – the Indian defender or the Pakistani perpetrator. ‘Operation Parakram ’, when India mobilised armed forces along the Pakistan border at a relative short-notice after the ‘Parliament attack’, was a ‘Cold Start’. While the author has pointed to some of the mobilisation-deficiencies and consequent delays, and thus to the take-away from the exercise, he stops with saying that how in a ‘Cold Start’ , the military/army is seen as taking the initiative with the civilian leadership expected to go along.

One other shortcoming of the study is that it discusses the Indian Army’s thinking to the exclusion of what the adversary – Pakistan in this case -- may have in store. Much of it may relate to strategy and battle-front tactics under specific circumstances and ground situations, but as elements within, concepts such as ‘Limited War’ and ‘Cold Start’ cannot be unilaterally decided upon without thinking for the enemy, too.

The ‘Kargil War’ remained ‘limited’ because Pakistan did not take it beyond what it had already done – owning up, if at all, only the ‘sub-conventional’ insurgency, which it had employed earlier in 1948 and 1965. India is yet to find a suitable answer to the same. Post-Bangladesh, India is also yet to find an adequate answer to cross-border terrorism that Pakistan’s ISI has mastered and fine-tuned. .

If Operation Parakram was a step in a series of Indian efforts to transit smoothly from ‘deterrence’ to ‘defensive’ to being ‘offensive’ in terms of protecting national self-interest and security, it stopped just there. If anything, after the tri-Services Indian doctrines came to be discussed in public, Pakistani commentators are using the ‘offensive’ Indian posturing as being ‘provocative’ rather than the other way round .

There is also the underlying ‘strategic warfare’, meaning ‘nuclear war’. India has sworn to ‘no first-use’ of nuclear weapons. It has also vowed that its second-strike capability, when unleashed, would be of a “much higher order or at “massive levels” to inflict “unacceptable damage” on the adversary. Against this, even during the ‘limited’ Kargil War Pakistan declared that it would not flinch from deploying its ‘tactical’ nuclear weapons if the Indian Army crossed the international borders.

These raise uncomfortable questions. Pakistan not having gone back on its Kargil War declaration (about which there is no mention in the book), what’s ‘Cold Star’ all about, unless the Indian nation is prepared to let the other side to step up any combat to unacceptable levels of nuclear war? In strategising for such an eventuality, the ‘ Parakram ’ Cold Start showed that not only was the politico-administrative leadership possibly not fully prepared for what it was meant to be, and what its goals actually were, but there was more to it.

The IPKF deployment in Sri Lanka could be described as a ‘Cold Start’ that did not start off well, nor ended well. In a limited way, ‘Operation Bluestar’ was one such victim. Both operations were led by the late Army chief, Gen Krishnaswamy Sundarji, the ‘thinking general’. As acknowledged later, both lacked minimal and critical inputs from other wings and agencies of the Government. Raw intelligence was only one of them.

Even the political goals that were set out along with the time available for the armed forces ahead of the ‘Bangladesh War’ were not clearly made out in the two cases. And the nation did pay a heavy price in both. With the result, the ‘Doctrine’ still remains a ‘puzzle’ despite the Army, Navy and the Air Force having theirs – and the Nation, possibly none, with the military as a whole too not having one!