The Diplomatic Dimension af a ‘Swift And Sharp’ War

http://www.claws.in/1453/the-diplomatic-dimension-af-a-%E2%80%98swift-and-sharp-war-ali-ahmed.html

The Army Chief, speaking at the 1965 War’s fiftieth anniversary commemorative tri-service seminar, highlighted the army’s operational preparedness for a ‘swift and short’ war. Neither the terms he used nor the concept of Limited War, that the terms signify, are new to strategy. In the Indian context a similar description was given to the Kargil War with the Kargil Review Committee calling it, ‘not a minor skirmish, but a short, sharp war’. Indeed, the 1965 War was a Limited War too, if somewhat on a wider scale, with the eastern front and the maritime dimension not figuring in the action, except for a foray or two, and the two states agreeing to a ceasefire in three weeks of the outbreak of undeclared conventional hostilities. Limited War, for the purposes here and in the context of the nuclear era, can be defined as a war that at its outset is intended to remain non-nuclear. There appear to be two models of Limited War: a relatively wider 1965 War and the more restricted Kargil War. Whereas the latter can more readily be seen as being below the proverbial nuclear threshold, the former appears to possibly flirt with lowered nuclear thresholds. Whereas Pakistan would like to believe that its nuclear posturing has ruled out an offensive by India in the 1965 War model, India for its part would like to project that such a model continues in play.  Two possible models of ‘swift and sharp’ war therefore suggest themselves: a ‘reverse Kargil’ and an adaptation of 1965. Whereas the military dimension of these doubtless informs closed-door deliberations within the military that need not detain the discussion here, such deliberations need to be alive to the diplomatic prong of strategy in Limited War. In both wars –Kargil and 1965 –the diplomatic dimension was arguably as salient as the military, in the former more so than the latter. In the Kargil War, the terms of reference to the military over crossing of the Line of Control for retaliation was primarily informed by the diplomatic prong of strategy. It paid off in the end, with Nawaz Sharif rushing to Washington for a bailout and receiving no succour there. In the 1965 War, the diplomatic strategy played out in bringing the conflict to a close, with, as revisionists today would have it, India on top. Today, the nuclear dimension to conflict suggests that between the two models, visualized as two ends of a continuum, India may incline in the initial phases towards the Kargil model end, even while projecting its capability for following through with the 1965 model, notwithstanding Pakistani nuclear redlines. In doing so it would gain the diplomatic high-ground in its display of restraint in going in for a Cold Start lite and the threat of worse in store up India’s sleeve – projected diplomatically - would keep international pressure on Pakistan from escalation. There appear therefore to be three diplomatic strategy options. One is in gaining the political high ground by diplomatic action highlighting Pakistani provocation leading to the conflict and India’s self-imposed restraint. Precedence for this exists in the Kargil War and the Op Parakram crisis. In the latter, the mobilization was part of coercive diplomacy; implying diplomacy was the dominant prong. Second, is in the projection of India’s ability for escalation dominance. Whereas suitable military positioning will suggest as much in Pakistani operations rooms, that  may not be enough from dissuading escalation on their part. They may require being shown the writing on the wall by the international community, corralled to this by the diplomatic prong of strategy. An example is in General Zinni, CentCom chief, rushing to Islamabad and Musharraf’s turnabout on 12 January 2002. In case of conflict extension in terms of widening and/or deepening, diplomacy would require synchronizing with military strategy for creating and exploiting suitable saliencies for an exit strategy. Finally, in case India chooses to ab initio go the 1965 model way, the diplomatic prong would have a greater job of work on its hands. Presumably this would be made easier by India’s choice being dictated by the level of instant provocation or cumulative provocation over a period of time. The diplomatic prong may require borrowing a leaf from the US and Israeli jus in bello rationales that on occasion have included anticipatory self defence too. Since this would be a wider, if still limited, war, the bit about exit strategies in the last para remains relevant in this option. In all three options, the diplomatic prong would have to be seized of the nuclear dimension. The international community would justifiably be concerned and it would be India’s endeavour to reassure all of India’s continuing exercise of responsibility. While in doing so there may be a tactical temptation to place Pakistan as a villain most likely to break the nuclear taboo, it may be prudent to examine if instead Pakistani strategic good sense is alongside propped up, ensuring that state acknowledges the political and diplomatic fruits of like restraint. Not discussed in any detail here are the exponential demands on the diplomatic prong in case the nuclear balloon nevertheless goes up, since the war would then no longer remain Limited War. However, briefly, the diplomatic prong would require being alert to and part of the deterrence-reassurance nuclear strategy, even as the operational nuclear strategy dealing with nuclear weapons employment unfolds. In-conflict nuclear deterrence in terms of nuclear escalation dominance and reassurance for creating exit points will require diplomatic exertion. The latter will target Pakistani decision makers, directly and through the international community auspices. The conditions for creation of exit points cannot be done unilaterally, as much as bilaterally, and therefore a thought must be spared in peacetime for the mechanisms and measures by way of which the two sides will step off the nuclear ladder together. This can be by way of NSA level talks, a back channel or the talks plank on nuclear confidence building that has already gone through five iterations last decade. This can also be a secret agenda point in respective talks by both governments with international interlocutors, such as the US, so as to have good offices available at a crunch. This survey of the demands on the diplomatic prong of strategy resulting from the ‘swift and short’ war doctrine is necessarily preliminary since the open domain strategic debate has been sketchy. What needs doing is a discussion of such issues in the open domain so that nuances and edges are aired and the attentive public tuned in. This does not mean that an ‘all of government’ approach is absent. The structures are in place in the form of the National Security Council Secretariat and common training is in hand at the National Defence College. However, in case not already in place,this article would have served a purpose in pushing on the structural front,inclusion of diplomats in the ‘strategy programs staff’ of the NSCS, and,on the training front, in the Combined Operational Review program

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Avoiding Nuclear War in South Asia

http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2015/10/14/avoiding-nuclear-war-in-south-asia/

Two nuclear war scenarios have figured in the strategic discussion lately in South Asia. Both emerged from a war game conducted by the US National Nuclear Security Administration in Dubai that brought together experts from India and Pakistan. Two Indian analysts who attended the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory organised war game subsequently wrote uptwo different scenarios.

The first raised the interesting, and certainly welcome, possibility that nuclear war outbreak may not occur despite a conventional war. The second scenario, following the script of the war game, depicts a couple of tactical nuclear weapon strikes by Pakistan responded to with four tactical nuclear weapon strikes on military targets by India. Even so, it depicts a relatively desirable end state, with the two sides pulling back from the brink of all-out nuclear war despite the limited nuclear exchange.

The war game – and the second scenario - follow the by-now well-worn script of Pakistani terrorist provocation instigating Indian military reaction. India’s launch of conventional forces prompts ‘minor’ Pakistani nuclear first use, targeting Indian troops within its territory. While India does retaliate, the counter is not against strategic - counter value – targets, read cities. India thereby eschews its nuclear doctrine’s promise of ‘massive’ retaliation designed to inflict ‘unacceptable damage’.

In the first scenario, Pakistan resists the temptation to go nuclear, though one weapon is depicted as going-off accidentally. In the second, the war that has gone nuclear, is wound up while still a ‘limited nuclear war’, through the good offices’ intervention of the US-led international community.

While clearly the best case scenario is one in which there is no military confrontation between the two nuclear powers that the war game was conducted suggests continuing apprehensionsthat war clouds can beset South Asia in short order.

The key questionsare: How to make such a war follow the first scenario: keep it from going nuclear? Should it ‘go nuclear’, how to make it end in line with the second scenario? Finally, and more importantly, how to assure the best case scenario?

Since India has a No First Use pledge in place and is the stronger conventional power, it is not one seen as initiating a nuclear exchange. If a war is to stay non-nuclear, the onus is on Pakistan. However, the onus for incentivizing Pakistan lies with India.

India has for its part been practicing a limited war doctrine for about a decade now. The doctrine is reportedly cognizant of nuclear thresholds and keeps its limited offensives below these. Nevertheless, this does not appear to be enough since the second scenario depicts even such offensives attracting a Pakistani lower-order nuclear strike.

This owes to the scenario depicting a week-long prelude to war between the mega- terror attack and war outbreak. The interimwitnesses the Indian military having a crack at the Pakistani military, designed to create conditions for launching its limited offensives. Consequently, by the second day after these are launched, it is easy to see why Pakistan reaches for its nukes.

Clearly, if it wants to keep the war non-nuclear, India must avoid using the opportunity of war instinctively, to degrade the Pakistani military. This is counter-intuitive in the Clausewitzian framework, in that war is taken as meant for just this purpose: to militarily grapple with and hurl down the enemy.

However, Clausewitz needs adapting to the nuclear age. In the nuclear age, Clausewitz’s foremost principle – that the political retains primacy over the military even in war – dictates that nuclear war avoidance continues to make sense even when engaged in military hostilities.

This implies India’s strategic response should not be military-centric and military-led, as much as have the military play second fiddle to a more significant politico-diplomatic prong of war strategy. The latter must be weighed in a manner as to beget war aims, with the military posturing at best to strengthen the political hand. Adapting war strategy to the nuclear age implies ruling out a military-dominant war strategy. 

The political hand in such a case understandably entails a tradeoff: Pakistan to roll back terror with a tacit Indian promise to meaningfully address ‘outstanding issues’, shorthand for Kashmir. Foreign interlocutors agreeable to both and the back channel can serve as conduit. Internally, the public may need to be conditioned to get off the war horse. Such political exertion alone can bring about the first scenario: of nuclear non-use by Pakistan.

Military application in this case would then begin and end with the limited offensives by India’s pivot corps, corps deployed along the border in a defensive role but with an offensive bias. In the second scenario, Pakistan’s hand is forced towards the nuclear button owing not so much to the limited offensives, but due to India’s three strike corps shown as mobilizing in the wake of these limited offensives.

For staying relevant, scenario building usually reflects current thinking. In the second scenario, not only is the Pakistan army degraded starting ‘I’ Day (Incident Day) - the day of the terror attack - but is mauled further in the duration of the conflict. Even after the exchange involving six nuclear weapons – two of Pakistan and double that number of India – India proceeds to up-the-ante by launching its three strike corps to force Pakistan’s hand into capitulation.

This suggests a delusional intent to prevail in a nuclear war. While the scenario ends happily without prompting a strategic nuclear exchange, it is dangerously over-reliant on American intercession.

The second scenario, in as much as it reflects current thinking, emphasises a military dominant strategy that not only prompts nuclear war but also rules in catastrophic nuclear consequences. It thereby misleads that war is fightable and winnable, and indeed, so is nuclear war.

The best case scenario is therefore the only way out. Getting there is through jettisoning the misreading of Clausewitz that war is politics by military means, by a return to Cluasewitz’s original thought that war is politics but with only an admixture of military means.

Kashmir: Potentially back with a bang

http://thediplomat.com/2015/10/kashmir-potentially-back-with-a-bang/

In his book, The Future of Land Warfare, Brookings’ expert, Michael O’Hanlon uses an illustrative scenario to argue for maintaining a U.S. land warfare capability. To O’Hanlon, one utility of land forces would be in “handling the aftermath of a major and complex humanitarian disaster superimposed on a security crisis – perhaps in South Asia.”

In O’Hanlon’s scenario, India and Pakistan come to the threshold of all-out nuclear war. He considers this scenario “all too plausible” and a “real possibility today.” O’Hanlon is right that a nuclear confrontation would be devastating to South Asia, for the global economy and environment, and for “loose nukes.” While its probability is an open question, O’Hanlon presents the threat for his own purposes: to get the U.S. to maintain a large standing army.

Of consequence for South Asia is O’Hanlon’s belief that a nuclear exchange would result in a changed political scenario in which international intervention, with U.S. participation, will be eminently justifiable and therefore is well nigh plausible. A nuclear conflict could trigger external intervention in the form of a UN mandated international force to help stabilize the situation, being deployed in Kashmir. To him, India may be amenable to this if it “seemed the only way to reverse the momentum toward all-out nuclear war in South Asia.”

What this suggests is that a war would bring Kashmir center stage as nothing else would. This brings into question why India is leveraging hard power – intelligence and military – in its Pakistan strategy.

India is widely taken as the status quo power since it has the prize, Kashmir. Pakistan is considered revisionist, since it wishes to overturn the status quo on Kashmir. As the status quo power, keeping Kashmir off the radar screen is in India’s interest. For Pakistan, keeping Kashmir in the news for the wrong reasons is enough. A war would concentrate international attention like nothing else.

There is convincing evidence to suggest that even a regional nuclear conflict with just a few weapons opens up the possibility of environmental catastrophe, potentially causing more than a billion casualties worldwide. Therefore, if Kashmir is at the root of a conflict that threatens such a prohibitive cost, calls for forceful international intervention would be justifiable.

It can be argued that a war such as Kargil did not catalyze the international attention Pakistan expected. Instead it redounded on Pakistan, enabling India to over time dehyphenate from Pakistan.

However, the two countries’ nuclear arsenals were then in their infancy. Today the numbers are not only in the triple digits for both sides, but there are elaborate doctrines and structures in place. Nuclear weapons have to be usable to deter. The readiness to use nuclear weapons is useful in so far as deterrence goes, but it is also the Achilles heel of the whole deterrence enterprise.

Pakistan for its part has proclaimed that it would be quick on the draw. India’s response promises to be fast and overwhelming. The two doctrines are like the interactions of two unstable substances.

India has lately shortened its fuse. By calling off the National Security Adviser talks last month, India has chosen remove negotiations as a buffer. It can no longer call off talks to show it is “doing something.” Instead, it will have to actually “do something,” using its hard power, in the face of any Pakistani provocation.

This can serve to deter the rational element in the Pakistani establishment. However, it is well known that there are contending power centers in Pakistan. There is the “deep state,” the “rogue elements” and “good terrorists.” These stand to expand their power base under the shadow of crisis and chaos of war.

That India does not rule out future provocation is evident from the extraordinary lengths it has been going to deter such provocations over the past year. At a joint services seminar commemorating the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, India’s Army chief said that the Army is prepared for a short, sharp war to be launched in quick time. As O’Hanlon reckons, this will drag Kashmir center stage.

There is another “pull factor” in play.

In case of war, India can at best get back at Pakistan. It cannot get Pakistan to roll back elements that, in striking India, have endangered Pakistan. Such a roll back cannot be in the face of visible Indian military coercion and would not be achieved without something on offer.

In effect, Kashmir stands to figure twice over in the denouement. India will have to throw in a “solution” to Kashmir as an incentive for Pakistani action against terrorists who have gone over the top. And, second, India may be forced to use Kashmir as a de-escalatory chip. This is the price for having gone nuclear.

Kashmir would be back on the agenda, something Pakistan could not manage after either the war fifty years ago or the more recent Kargil War.

Pakistan’s ruling out talks without Kashmir figuring in them leaves India with only one choice: hard power. Whereas India justifies this as essential for deterrence, it bears reminding that if deterrence fails, Kashmir will be back on the agenda and with a bang. If this is not to be a nuclear one, India had better get those “first ever” NSA level talks back on track sooner rather than later

The strategic doctrine of an Assertive India

Published in Agni July 2015

India is a status quoist power. This is easier to establish in terms of its approach to territory. It appears to have reconciled to the fact that some of its territory is occupied by neighbours, Pakistan and China. While rhetorically it is inclined to see the return of this territory, it has not taken any military or political steps to bring this about. However, it would not like to see any more territory lost to neighbours and on this count has a credible military in place. However, is India politically a status quoist power?

Politically, it is an emerging power. A regional power, it is now also a power of reckoning in Asia. This can be easily seen from the busy diplomatic schedule of the new prime minister in his first year. Its growing economic clout, self-evident from the finding that it has displaced China as the fastest growing economy, is being translated into political power. Its growing economy is also enabling military power, with it being the largest importer of weapons over the past decade and having its defence budget touch $40 billion this year. This makes India’s position as a regional power unassailable, thereby partially sustaining the proposition that it is politically a status quo power.

However, India is also demonstrating assertiveness as a power under the new National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government in Delhi. The strategic refrain of the political forces currently in government when in opposition during the preceding United Progressive Alliance (UPA) regime was that India was not measuring up to its weight. It was constantly reactive and on the back foot. Such arguments came to a head in the wake of the 26/11 attacks in which India did not respond militarily. When elected via a majority in the lower house for the first time in two decades, the government has attempted to distance itself from the strategic policies of its predecessor.

The most visible manner it has done so is in the way it cancelled the talks with Pakistan last August and engaged in a prolonged standoff with that country on the Line of Control (LC). Even while engaging China, it is clear from its stance with Japan, the US, Vietnam and Australia that it is hedging its options even if not part of the containment of China. The recent outreach by the prime minister into the Indian Ocean Region, backed by rhetoric of India as a security provider, indicates the direction of the future. Cumulatively, these are suggestive of an Assertive India.

This means that it is not quite a status quoist power politically, but would like to see a change in the status quo with India acknowledged as a pre-eminent power in the region and one with a continental role in Asia. The former implies distancing from Pakistan decisively and the latter implies measuring up to China, if not substantially, at least nominally and perceptually. Therefore, the short answer to the question is that politically India can be counted as a quasi-revisionist power.

It is a truism that the strategic doctrine of a status quoist power is different from that of a revisionist power. The former tend towards the defensive and defensive-deterrent end of the doctrinal continuum, whereas the latter’s strategic doctrine can be situated towards the offensive and offensive-deterrent ends. The continuum can be imagined with defensive at one end and compellence on the other, with defensive-deterrence, offensive deterrence and offensive, as three mid-course stops (See Figure A below).

Figure A: Strategic doctrine in theory

This framework informs this review of India’s strategic doctrine. A discussion of strategic doctrine is a necessary prelude to discussing military doctrine since the former informs and determines the latter. An offensive strategic doctrine finds expression in and is reflected by offensive military doctrines.

The popular image is that India is a status quoist power and its strategic doctrine is one of defensive deterrence. However, there are two very diverse adversaries that India contends with. Therefore, it has a differentiated strategic doctrine: in effect two strategic doctrines. With respect to China, India would readily accept that it moved from a defensive strategic doctrine to a defensive-deterrent one. At the conventional level the mountain strike corps is evidence a credible defensive-deterrent doctrine. At the nuclear level, the long range Agni series and the efforts for a ‘boomer’ underway indicate firming in of such a doctrine. India’s foreign policy confabulations with the US, Japan, Australia and Vietnam are also indicative of this. This is the case for the moment.

However, taken cumulatively, the three – conventional, nuclear and foreign policy – enable a potential turn towards an offensive-deterrent strategic doctrine. An invulnerable second strike capability, a deepened strategic relationship with partner US and maturing of the mountain strike corps in terms of equipment and infrastructure needs met, could by end of the decade position India at a juncture of choice between the defensive-deterrent and offensive-deterrent. It is here that the preceding discussion on India’s positioning as a status quo or revisionist power comes in. A revisionist India, one with a self-image of an Asian power, if not a great power itself, would want an Asian balance of power reflecting this image. This would imply greater involvement in the strategic games afoot in Asia, pitching it at odds with China and in the US camp, even if today the refrain is one of multi-alignment. An offensive-deterrent can be envisaged once all the enabling elements are in place. The current defensive-deterrence is for the interregnum (See Figure B below).

Figure B: Situating India’s strategic doctrine

In respect of Pakistan, the 1965 War fifty years back was the juncture at which India moved decisively away from a defensive strategic doctrine. The subsequent war in 1971 is evidence of an offensive inflection in India’s strategic doctrine before it once again settled back into one of defensive-deterrence. In the eighties and nineties, India’s posture was one of conventional deterrence by denial through its holding formations and punishment in the form of counter offensive by its strike corps. Its nuclear posture was one of NFU and minimum deterrence, implying counter value targeting but only in retaliation. The Kargil War and Operation Parakram resulted in a shifting away from defensive-deterrence. The question is whether this is a shift to offensive-deterrence or to an offensive strategic doctrine.

In the NDA period the shift towards offensive was made, with changes in both the nuclear and conventional doctrines. The nuclear doctrine that preceded the conventional doctrine created space for conventional operations by positing ‘massive’ nuclear retaliation in case of Pakistan going nuclear even in face of conventional pressure by India. The conventional doctrine – dubbed ‘Cold Start’ - was made proactive and offensive. Even if mindful of potential nuclear thresholds, the nuclear deterrent posture was to enable heightening of any such thresholds. Together the two spell an offensive strategic doctrine rather than an offensive-deterrence one. The NDA displaced soon thereafter led to the new offensive strategic doctrine being still born. Hypothetically, the NDA could if reelected could have employed the ‘carrot and stick’ strategy to get Pakistan to heel, by using the two doctrines – military and nuclear – as stick while the Vajpayee opening up to Pakistan was the carrot.

In the event, the UPA decade led to a step back from the offensive strategic doctrine to offensive-deterrence. The strategic doctrine was influenced by neo-liberalism, the wider strategic philosophy of the government. Even though there was no change in the declaratory doctrines, both conventional and nuclear, the government less than enthusiastic in respect of both. There was no political imprimatur to the conventional doctrine and the government was less than forthcoming on equipment demands, as the preparedness profile of the army in wake of 26/11 demonstrated. At the nuclear level, the critique of the ‘massive’ nuclear retaliation formulation was allowed to play out, discrediting the nuclear doctrine. The nuclear status quo did not matter since the government did not have an offensive strategic doctrine involving ‘Cold Start’ conventional offensives in first place. It was not a defensive-deterrent strategic doctrine either in light of the unmistakable offensive content in conventional doctrine and continuity in nuclear doctrine despite its lack of credibility.

Further at the nuclear level was continuing work on missiles and warheads which when viewed against the discredited ‘massive’ nuclear retaliation formulation meant a move away from the ill-thought out formulation. As to whether the move away was back to the safety of the earlier mantra of ‘punitive’ nuclear retaliation or further to not discounting a nuclear warfighting is moot and can only remain unknown for lack of evidence. The latter - a move towards nuclear warfighting involving lower order retaliation for lower order nuclear first use by Pakistan, such as employment of nuclear armed Nasr – cannot be ruled out owing to such a response being non-escalatory and assured.

This indicates an offensive-deterrent strategic doctrine was in play in the UPA period as seen from the two doctrines – conventional and nuclear. This finding is buttressed by the fact that there was no move in the Manmohan Singh years to coerce Pakistan, despite some grievous terror attacks targeting Indian interests such as at Mumbai and Herat. Even the intelligence game, cited frequently by Pakistan as targeting it, was caliberated at a level to sensitise Pakistan to its underbelly with a deterrent intent in respect of its proxy war in Kashmir. It was therefore not an offensive strategic doctrine.

The discussion brings one up to the current Modi era. The question is whether in light of the projection of itself as a decisive government that is strong on defence, the strategic doctrine is one of offensive-deterrence, offensive or one of compellence. What is Assertive India’s current strategic doctrine? What are the potential strategic doctrines for the future?

There is no question that a qualitative change has taken place with the advent of BJP to power with a parliamentary majority for the first time in a quarter century. This along with the government’s year long distancing from its predecessor in terms of optics and its projection of the prime minister as a decisive leader are indicative of a different India from hitherto fore. In its first year it has concentrated on strengthening fences, even more so than on the economy. In fact it would appear that the economic card of ‘Make in India’ has the defence industrial sector as key. Its foreign policy activism, being tough with Pakistan and taking a stand on the border issue with China are evidence of an Assertive India. The National Security Adviser (NSA) has articulated the intelligence possibilities of Balochistan, if only to deter Pakistani interference in Kashmir. The ‘terror boat’ incident off the Gujarat coast at the turn of the year indicates preparedness. It has hinted at organizational changes in the offing, such as the Permanent Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee that the previous government ignored despite its own committee, the Naresh Chandra Task Force, advice on the matter.

The strategic doctrine of the government has remained unarticulated so far. This is of a piece with India’s strategic culture and precedence. It can only be inferred from statements of higher appointments and actions on ground. The measures that make for an Assertive India are suggestive of a shift in strategic doctrine from the offensive-deterrent to an offensive strategic doctrine. Is this reflected in military doctrines: nuclear and conventional?

In the campaigning season last year, it was suggested that the nuclear doctrine would be up for revision. However, since India, as part of its hedging against China is also courting Japan, nuclear doctrine revision has been shelved. This does not mean that it is not underway, in that while declaratory doctrine could remain unchanged, the operational doctrine could be tweaked. With Prahaar posing as India’s answer to Pakistan’s Nasr, it can be taken that India potentially has lower order retaliatory strikes to Pakistani nuclear first use. Its movements towards operationalising the boomer on both fronts - nuclear power and nuclear armed submarine – enable it to move beyond the ‘massive’ formulation since it will by end decade have invulnerable second strike capability.

On the conventional front, the go-ahead to the Army on the LC can be taken as reinforcing conventional deterrence. While the measure was useful from point of view of deterring proxy war action during election season in Kashmir, it also is a message of offensive action on India’s part in case it is provoked by mega-terror attacks. In the event, that India has not been challenged so far is a positive. Also, feelers from the Pakistani army are largely that it is not averse to Nawaz Sharif taking the India relationship further. The downside is of a commitment trap in which India is forced to match its rhetoric and Mr. Modi is to live up to his image when and if tested by just such a terror attack the strategy is designed to deter. Will India in this case behave differently from the Manmohan Singh government when faced with 26/11?

Based on the foregoing the plausible answer to this question is affirmative. It would appear that India may take coercive action in such a case. This need not necessarily be military led. India’s NSA’s intelligence background enables prioritization of other instruments of response. The suggestions in Pakistan of an Indian hand behind Pakistani discomfiture from terror attacks indicate that this lesser known option is a live one. During the Manmohan years a constant refrain from former intelligence officials was underdevelopment of this option. The usual reason cited was that this was taken off the table by Inder Gujral who had excised the capability. That Mr. Manmohan Singh had ineptly allowed Balochistan to figure in his Sharm es Shaikh declaration with Zardari had made his reaching out to Pakistan after 26/11   a dead initiative. It had been pilloried in intelligence circles. Therefore, now that the national security elite and environment is more receptive and Pakistan revealed as more vulnerable after the Peshawar terror attack, it can be expected that the intelligence option figures prominently. Plausible deniability that Pakistani hid behind in the heyday of its proxy war is a card that can now be turned against it. Diplomatically, Mr. Modi’s shuffle of bureaucratic hand in the foreign ministry alongside enables a diplomatic offensive. Obama’s Republic Day visit on invitation to India and Mr. Modi’s impending China visit can help with isolating Pakistan.

This implies that the military option is not necessarily the default option. The Cold Start doctrine is now into its second decade and can be expected to be considerably practiced. The equipment shortfalls are being remedied by the government with one of its first major decisions last August clearing Rs 17000 crores of acquisitions. Since this will take time to materialize, India’s military option can be expected to take a back seat so as to avoid a repeat of the post 26/11 scenario in which its army chief reportedly pointed to equipment shortfalls on being asked after a military response. A military option is particularly risky in terms of outcomes. Inability to prevail could lead to escalation impetus from within the Indian side. This would imperil over the long term the developmentalist plank of the government. It would also expose it to embarrassment if it exposes lack of strategic finesse. The military reforms such as levels of jointness necessary for such operations have not been undertaken yet. There are no indicators in open domain as to whether the government has ironed out the issues roundly critiqued in both the conventional and nuclear doctrines. It is hardly likely to chance the military instrument with unrevised doctrines it has not had time to familiarize itself with. It would also be more difficult to sustain diplomatically. The China factor cannot be discounted. Therefore, the military option can better serve to deter rather than be deployed if it comes to the crunch.

What is the potential strategic doctrine of the new regime? Once all the military cards are on the table in terms of doctrinal revision, organizational reform and equipment acquisitions, possible by end decade and in the prospective second term of the current NDA government, it is possible for India’s strategic doctrine to move up a notch. On the Pakistan front, this could be from the offensive strategic doctrine today to a coercive and compellent strategic doctrine. For China, an explicit offensive-deterrent can be envisaged with acquisitions in the offing in terms of mobility and firepower for the Mountain Strike Corps. The direction of India’s US relationship, including its military-technology prong with US displacing Russia as India’s largest arms exporter, is such as to make primarily for a force projection capability. This is in keeping with US’ expectations of India in the relationship, currently couched in the security provider framework. This will be the culmination of Assertive India and signal its ‘arrival’ as a Great Power.

To sum up, this article has made the case of a shift up the strategic doctrinal continuum by India. In the UPA period, India placed at the interstices of defensive-deterrent and offensive-deterrent juncture of the spectrum. In the second NDA period, an Assertive India has been posited. The implication of this is a movement in strategic doctrine up one notch to an offensive strategic doctrine in respect of Pakistan and offensive-deterrent in respect of China. The multiple defence related measures in place by the new government suggest a potential movement towards a compellent doctrine in respect of Pakistan and an explicit offensive-deterrence in relation to China.
Previous governments have not been inclined to articulation of strategic doctrine. This owed to India’s unstated strategic doctrine being slightly more reliant on force than India’s strategic professions would have it. India’s present government has no such inhibitions. Therefore, its stepping up to acknowledge the strategic doctrine attributed here to it is possible to envisage. This should be encouraged by calls for a national security policy white paper or open domain periodic strategic reviews. This will serve deterrence, besides conditioning the government to the underside of the offensive-compellent direction it appears headed.  

  

A cautionary word for the NSA

Kashmir Times, 11 September 2015

http://www.kashmirtimes.com/newsdet.aspx?q=44865

India’s National Security Adviser Ajit Doval in a public lecture averred that India’s propensity to punch below its weight needed correction. India’s diplomatic and security shuffles ever since Mr. Modi’s election can be credited to India’s national security reset under Mr. Doval.

The latest example of Indian operational footwork is the creation of conditions under which Pakistan’s NSA was forced to cancel his trip to New Delhi. The trip itself had a promising beginning going back to the very first ‘surprise’ by the government in the invite to SAARC leaders, including Pakistan’s Nawaz Sharif, for Prime Minister Modi’s swearing-in.

India roughed up the sheen with its very next move by calling off foreign secretary talks with Pakistan last August. Even so, it yet again created space for a potential opening in the joint statement of the two foreign secretaries at Ufa when the two prime ministers met on the sidelines of the SCO meet in July.

Perplexing move are in other areas as well.

When in Paris, the prime minister made a step-back from ‘Make in India’ to short-circuit the long drawn defence acquisition process in buying 36 Rafale aircraft off-the-shelf. The sudden signing of a framework agreement with Naga interlocutors is another example.

Whereas these actions suggest decisiveness, could they also have an underside in a shortcutting of the decision making process?

That the NSA is in the driver’s seat is unmistakable. He has figured prominently in what would otherwise be matters to be handled by the relevant institutions rather than by intervention of the NSA.

Media let on that the NSA was off, along with the then IB head, to Iraq on a rescue mission for Indians numbering in the double digits reportedly taken hostage by the ISIS. Could not this mission have been left to IB’s Asif Ibrahim who has since taken over as Special Envoy for West Asia and AfPak region?

Doval skipped the prime minister’s Bangladesh trip in order to organize the somewhat belated ‘hot pursuit’ operation in Myanmar after Naga hostiles killed 18 army men in an ambush in Manipur in early June. Apparently, the Indian army chief was also in tow, overseeing a tactical level action that could well have been left to the reputed corps commander there.

Where ordinarily the foreign ministry, in charge of Modi’s ‘Act East’ strategy, could have stepped in, instead Doval went over to assuage Myanmar’s hurt over possible sovereignty violations after the raid.

Another controversy over ‘turf’ has been in his getting on the phone for berating the Pakistani high commissioner in New Delhi and instructing India’s high commissioner in Islamabad to tell Pakistan to lay off firing on the Line of Control.

In what could be seen as undermining state governments, including in the BJP’s, he was spotted in Mumbai to supervise control over any backlash in the aftermath of the hanging of Yakub Memon. He queried Delhi Police on the Uber cab rape case. Though the NIA was already seized of the case, he visited Burdwan over the accidental blast there killed two alleged Bangladeshi bomb makers. In Kashmir, a new strategy to keep Kashmiri youth from radicalism was attributed to him after his visit there.

Clearly, Doval is indeed a man of action, as the numerous hagiographical profiles had it when he took over as one of Modi’s first appointees. However, Doval’s numerous interventions bring under cloud his remonstrations of teamwork, reinforcing criticism of Modi running an over-centralised ship.

Institutional good health depends on due processes and cohesion. The NSA can at best play a coordinating and facilitating role, and needs being self-effacing when about it in order that a national security culture based on institutions rather than individuals develops.

Concentration of power and authority in the person leads to an avoidable premium on personality factors, with an underside. Observers point to a Pakistan obsession resulting from the NSA’s long stint under cover there that can potentially render India’s Pakistan strategy awry.

More significantly, ideology potentially contaminates strategic rationality. The web-pages on culture and history of the foundation Doval headed for close to a decade, Vivekananda International Foundation, and that of his son, the India Foundation, reflect the Hindutva narrative. Ideology leads to a colouring of perceptions of national interest, with corresponding knock-on impact on national security.

Finally, expertise necessarily implies narrowness. A forte for intelligence does not necessarily imply operational dexterity or strategic finesse. Indian cultural constraints and bureaucratic deference, compounded by Doval’s omnipresence from the tactical to strategic level policy making and implementation, can result in a dearth of practitioners willingness to ‘speak the truth to power’.

While it is too early to write his report card or write-off Doval, a cautionary word can prove timely. Policy entrepreneurship and individual hyper-activism are recipes for personal and, worse, institutional failure with prohibitive national security consequences.

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India-Pakistan: Silver linings and band aids are not enough
http://www.kashmirtimes.in/newsdet.aspx?q=44700

India's army chief, using the occasion of commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the India-Pakistan War of 1965, has made clear that his army is on a short fuse. At a military seminar he said, "we are acutely aware that the swift, short nature of future wars is likely to offer limited warning time. This calls for maintaining very high levels of operational preparedness at all times. This is something that has now become inherent in our operational strategy." Army sources indicate that 'it will now take just four-five days for the battle groups to get going'. This current state of readiness confirms the timeline given out by an earlier chief who in 2012 said that, 'What we did in 15 days, we now do in 7; and will do in 3 days in the future.' It is clear that the army is well on its way to reaching its aim of moving from a 'cold start' to operations under a 'proactive strategy' within three days. This would please its minister, who at the same tri-service commemorative seminar said,  'A cursory analysis of the 1965 war highlights the fact that a nation's entire military establishment must constantly refine its capabilities and processes in order to ensure territorial integrity and counter any hostile actions.' This is to misread the lesson of the 1965 War. Such a misreading and action thereupon can prove catastrophic in the next subcontinental crisis. Indian army's preparedness indicates that the diplomats of the two states, the international community and peaceniks within the both civil societies will have at best 72 hours of time for  prevention. The lesson from the war fifty years ago is that escalation can prove inexorable. This time round escalation will be in double quick time. To India, the take away from the 1965 War has been that Pakistan having failed to take Kashmir by force - a measure of its choice - in launching the war, has no further stake. Its attempt at wresting Kashmir by proxy war over the past two decades has also been thwarted. It cannot be allowed to take it by any other means either, such as by talks. Therefore if at all there is anything to talk about, it is minimally to get Pakistan to back off, even if rhetorically it could include taking back the portion of Kashmir that Pakistan seized in 1947. For its part, Pakistan believes that its resort to force was not so much to wrest Kashmir as to coerce India to talks and catalyse international interest and pressure towards this end. Whereas the two countries pledged to address the issue through bilateral talks in the Simla Agreement of their 1971 War, it is clear that talks have made no headway. The latest instance is in the talks between the National Security Advisers (NSA) being called off at the last minute  late last month over divergence on the agenda. That leaves the possibility of use of force open. India's position is that Pakistan must first give up  this option - its support for terrorism. The two back-to-back attacks by terrorists in the run up  to the NSA talks indicate that Pakistan's national security establishment is loath to give up such support. The current nadir in the security situation is best illustrated in the Pakistani defence minister's  reminding India that India stood to incur 'heavy losses' if it 'impose(d)' war on Pakistan. The silver lining is that the two border security chiefs are slated to meet soon and a meeting between  the military operations heads of both armies is still on the cards. The two prime ministers have yet  another opportunity coming up for a meeting on the sidelines of the UN summit. To India's defence minister, India's preparedness can help deter. Doing so can at best preserve the  status quo, characterized by a close observer, Stephen Cohen, as 'shooting for a century'; and this, only if it impacts the mind of the Pakistani army favourably. This can only serve as band aid against relatively autonomous jihadists out to put the two nuclear  armed states at odds with another mega terror attack. A recent Brookings study has a scenario  with the two states at war. This is not implausible since the two states not talking to each other  but instead already firing at each other on the Line of Control lack a buffer. The more that needs doing includes the NSAs talking to each other; reactivation of a 'back channel'; and international attention at levels that can be ratcheted up exponentially in short order. Also, if it is  not to talk, India nevertheless would need to dispel the continuing alienation in Kashmir. Under the circumstance that is likely to persist for a while - of an aggressive Indian government and weak Pakistani civilian counterpart - this may prove just enough to lengthen the fuse.