What the next war spells for Kashmir

Kashmir Times, Op-ed, 4 November 2015

http://www.kashmirtimes.in/newsdet.aspx?q=46502

The 1965 War’s fiftieth anniversary celebrations in India saw amateur military historians opportunistically claiming that India won the war. If Zhau Enlai’s view of history is taken as guide – in which when questioned on effects of the French Revolution, he is said to have remarked that it is too early to tell - it is somewhat early to celebrate 1965 War as a victory.

Whereas there have been two wars since – 1971 War and Kargil War – these have not been about Kashmir, even if Kashmir figured prominently in the former’s peace treaty and served as the site of the latter. In the 1971 War India cut Pakistan to size in the hope of creating the conditions for having it give up on Kashmir. It succeeded partially in this, in that Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, firmly in saddle with the Pakistan army down and out, was ready to sign away Kashmir. Later the army hanged him for that, not for political murder. For its part, the Kargil War was an extension of the war in Kashmir, in its theater along the Line of Control. It extended Pakistan’s bloody fingers in the conflict by another three years.

Instead, the 1965 War was fought by both sides over the issue of Kashmir. Pakistan was stampeded into war by India’s political actions seeking to normalize its relationship with Kashmir in the mid sixties. India also took the opportunity offered by Pakistani military action to claim that having tried and failed to wrest Kashmir, Pakistan had lost raison d’etre in Kashmir. Going by the aims of the two sides, it cannot be said that Pakistan lost since it has kept its stake in Kashmir alive. Likewise, it cannot be reckoned India won since the Kashmir issue is not quite history.

That Kashmir continues as an ‘issue’ ensures it will figure in the next war.

That another war is not being ruled out by either state is clear from Pakistan’s foreign secretary acknowledging for the first time that its Tactical Nuclear Weapons are in response to India’s conventional war doctrine and capabilities. Within merely a week from his statement, India announced field maneuvers for its field army, Southern Command, and its strike corps, 21 Corps.

It is unclear if this is a preplanned exercise since the announcement has been without the usual publicity that attends such exercises. Incidentally, there is no name given to the exercise as is the usual practice either. It is also uncharacteristically the second exercise of a strike corps within the same year; 2 Corps having been exercised in early summer this year. Usually, the three strike corps exercise in rotation, with one being exercised each year. 

This bit of ‘signalling’ by both sides will no doubt keep both security establishments wary of war. Both hope to deter the other and can be expected to succeed. However, there is a ‘jack in the box’ that can upturn things.

India’s readiness to battle – evident from exercises this year across the frontage of its South Western and Southern Commands stretching from southern Punjab to Rann of Kutch – can only serve as incentive to jihadists. Should they attempt another mega terror attack, the favoured scenario of strategists would indeed play out: a terror attack followed by India’s conventional inroads into Pakistan forcing Pakistan’s nuclear trigger finger.

This is all the more plausible since the two sides would be relying on the US to pick their chestnuts out of the fire. US think tanks have extended the scenario into its post nuclear use phase and in a war game held in Dubai conditioned players from both states that external peacemaking initiatives would be necessary and inevitable in such a case. Indian participants have shifted their advocacy of dispatching Pakistan to oblivion for the temerity of nuclear first use to a softer nuclear response of throwing back merely a double of tactical nuclear tonnage. This non-strategic war will presumably enable de-escalation.

Kashmir will figure in such a war not only as a theater of war but also in its aftermath. However, no scenario lately has a mushroom cloud figuring over Kashmir. The last such cloud was conjured up in the early eighties when a threat of a nuclear bomb on Banihal blocking its access to Kashmir, enabling Pakistan to wrap up Kashmir, was used in scaremongering by nuclear hawks to push India into catching up with Pakistan in bomb making.

As a theater of war, India can employ its new mountain strike corps to wrest territory. This would be in keeping with its information war plank that taking back POK is what is meant by ‘outstanding’ issues of Partition. Since this could be a messy enterprise and would take longer than a ‘short, sharp war’ allows, it could at best straighten the Line of Control to its own advantage. It may be more forthright in advancing in areas that it can hope to control firmly later such as along the Skardu-Gilgit axis. The strategic gain from this would be in threatening the Pakistan-China link and proposed economic corridor in perpetuity.

It would be sticking its hand into a beehive in case it drives into the Punjabised areas to Kashmir’s west. Not only will these be difficult to wrest, but there would be an irregular war backlash even as the war progresses and prospects of failure in stabilization operations later. It would put Indian troops on the wrong side of their fortifications built over half century. Besides, the shifting of the Line of Control forward would open up spaces for infiltration the likes of which would put the infiltration of fidayeen in wake of the Kargil incursion seem a trailer. The consequence on revival of troubles in Kashmir can be easily imagined.

As for the aftermath of what was intended as a Limited War and ends up as a Limited Nuclear War, Kashmir can be sure to figure in the peace. Since, as mentioned, both states would be abdicating their accountability to respective citizens by outsourcing peacemaking in a war that goes nuclear to the US lead international community, the international community is unlikely to confine itself to humanitarian assistance and mediating a ceasefire. It could legitimately engage in structural peacemaking, meaning the elimination of structural conditions – root causes - that lead to war.

Since India as the status quo power – one in firm possession of its secular crown Kashmir – would not like to see external arm twisting over Kashmir, it needs deciding now if its inclination for the military option is in its best national interest. For Kashmiri nationalists, war might not altogether be such a bad thing. For jihadists it will be altogether a good thing. What’s good for them cannot also be good for India.

Clearly, the analysis here does not suggest that the current day militarized approach to Pakistan can protect India's interests as defined by itself. While somewhat late to inform Mr. Modi’s package for Kashmir to be rolled out on 7 November, there is a case for defusing Kashmir from within, rather than seeking to ‘resolve’ it through a 'final' military tryst with Pakistan. What needs doing, and urgently, is a change of tack: leavening an ideological strategy with strategic rationality.

---

The Strange Silence Surrounding an Indian Military Exercise

http://thediplomat.com/2015/11/the-strange-silence-surrounding-an-indian-military-exercise/

In late September, India’s media reported on a military exercise to be undertaken by one of the country’s three “strike” corps, 21 Corps. Since then, Indian military watchers have encountered only silence on the exercise. This is uncharacteristic of India, on two counts.

One, India has always undertaken such exercises with a flurry of publicity, even if the military details are necessarily kept under wraps. There is sense in publicity in that it reassures the public of a vigilant military; it is good for the government’s image as “strong on defense”; and it sends a deterrence message in the form of military readiness to India’s neighbor, Pakistan. Yet this autumn’s round of exercises is an interesting shift in India’s information strategy.

The silence could well be for a mundane reason: During October the formation moved into an exercise location in the desert sector and is undertaking preliminary training. The exercise proper could build up to its climax in the near future with the relevant publicity and the attendance of high-level officials such as the defense minister and Delhi-based military brass.

Nevertheless, thus far, all that is known is that 21 Corps is on exercise along with the remainder of Southern Command. Even the name of the exercise – usually a martial one and sometimes with mythological roots – has not reached the public domain yet; and therein is the mystery.

Two, this is the second exercise involving one of India’s strike corps in the same year; the earlier one being held in earlysummer, in which India exercised 2 Corps, alongside the “pivot” 10 Corps. In effect, two field armies have been exercised this year: South Western Command earlier, of which 10 Corps is part, and now the Southern Command.

Usually, India exercises one strike corps a year. This owes to reasons such as the cropping pattern in exercise areas only allowing a window in early summer along with budget limitations. To exercise a second strike corps in the second seasonal window in late autumn/early winter the same year is a departure that, while indicating more budget availability, also suggests urgency.

Why the silence and possible urgency attending this exercise?

It can plausibly be speculated that the lack of publicity so far owes to a statement made by Pakistan’s foreign secretary on the eve of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s visit to the U.S., namely that Pakistan’s tactical nuclear weapons (TNW) have been acquired to deter and if necessary respond to India’s conventional operations.

Since strike corps operations are offensive and have strategic ends, their employment can be expected to flirt with Pakistan’s nuclear thresholds. Pakistan has now publicly acknowledged a low nuclear threshold. Therefore, for strike corps operations it can no longer be business as usual.

From India’s conventional doctrine and exercises, it cannot easily be discerned if India is sufficiently cognizant of the nuclear reality. Its doctrine is of post-Kargil War vintage, though officially adopted after Operation Parakram in 2004. Much water has flown under the nuclear bridge since, including vertical proliferation and the addition of TNW to Pakistan’s arsenal in 2011.

India’s military, in exercising two field armies and two strike crops this year, is indicating that it can activate the border theater, from the semi-developed terrain abutting the northern part of Rajasthan to the desert terrain in the south. Strategically, it is projecting to Pakistan that it is not deterred by TNWs.

Such muscle flexing cannot be seen merely as going about what armies normally do in peace time: train. This could well imply that India has an answer to TNW that enables it to believe that it can persist with conventional operations.

Thus far, India’s declaratory nuclear doctrine has been of “retaliation only” and predicated on deterrence by punishment. However, since this would be a disproportionate response to TNW and could trigger a strategic exchange, it is possible that India’s operational nuclear doctrine has shifted to “proportionate” response or “graduated” deterrence. That way it can provide nuclear cover for conventional operations by employing TNW in retaliation. This has been the thrust of the recent strategic debate in India.

The urgency of two field armies exercising in the same year consequently derives from India’s conveying to Pakistan’s military unmistakably that it continues to have options, even when confronted by a lower nuclear threshold.

At the same time, the accompanying public silence (at the time of writing) surrounding the exercise appears to be intended to keep the focus of both strategic analysts and the international community away from this message intended for Pakistan’s military.

Strategic analysts skeptical of the so-called Cold Start doctrine of 2004 have pointed to the truncation of the crisis response window that quick-off-the-block conventional operations portend as well as the subsequent nuclear dangers. With India’s next edition of the conventional doctrine of 2010 not in the public domain it cannot be critiqued adequately. The manner in which the military exercises unfold will offer clues as to potential nuclear risks. Keeping the lid on this aspect enables the military to go about its business without external scrutiny.

If strategic analysts are unable to blow the whistle for want of evidence, the advantage for India is the lack of alarm in the international community. Even India’s public is kept ignorant of nuclear dangers, allowing its politicians to enjoy the limelight from military prowess while obscuring the dangers.

India’s belief that there is a conventional reply for any mega-terror action from across the border has one positive: It could help deter any Pakistani covert intelligence engagement in any such action. However, the flip side is that should rogue or autonomous elements undertake such action, the two states could be at blows before peace has a chance to intervene.

While both militaries apparently envisage few TNW mushroom clouds, they need to be forewarned that this will only be so if they mutually put in place de-escalatory measures.

My chapter is:

'Indian Army’s flagship doctrines: Need for Strategic Guidance'

in Handbook of Indian Defence Policy: Themes, Structures and Doctrines

Edited by Harsh V. Pant

Routledge India – 2016 – 426 pages

http://www.tandf.net/books/details/9781138939608/

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

- See more at: http://www.claws.in/1453/the-diplomatic-dimension-af-a-%E2%80%98swift-and-sharp-war-ali-ahmed.html#sthash.eWMzqIe1.dpuf

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