http://www.epw.in/journal/2017/8/strategic-affairs/corrosive-impact-armys-commitment-kashmir.html

Corrosive Impact of Army’s Commitment in Kashmir

Vol. 52, Issue No. 8, 25 Feb, 2017

Strategic Affairs

The army has had an extended deployment in Kashmir. While it has enabled operational experience for its members, there is a danger that the advantages of this can make the army acquire a stake in the disturbed conditions. This makes the army part of the problem in Kashmir. Its deployment is not without a price in regard to the internal good health of the army.

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Media reports have it that the Lucknow-based Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) reinstated Shatru-ghan Singh Chauhan, who had been dismissed from service for an offence a quarter century ago in Kashmir (Majumdar 2017a). In a search operation in Kashmir in 1991, a recovery of gold biscuits had been made. Chauhan alleges that these were appropriated by his seniors, while he was scapegoated for revealing the truth. On his part, the then corps commander, Lt General Mohammad Ahmed Zaki, recalling the episode clarified in an interview (Majumdar 2017b) that he acted in response to a complaint from the Advisor (Home) to the Governor that money had been stolen by someone during a search operation. An inquiry was initiated, based on the findings of which the proceedings against Chauhan were initiated. Zaki goes on to add that, on leaving Kashmir at the end of his tenure, he read news reports of allegations that he had appropriated the gold biscuits. The case testifies to how murky the army’s deployment can get in Kashmir.

More serious and better known instances of transgression have periodically surfaced in Kashmir, with some taking on proportions of causes célèbres, such as Kunan Poshpora. It is debated whether these are—as critics have it—endemic and widespread or—as the army usually depicts them—instances of “aberrations.” While, to military votaries, the military ethic holds sturdy with a majority sticking to the straight and narrow, the military’s critics point to the inability of peer pressure to fully restrict some members from breaking bounds. In the light of over 2,000 unmarked graves having been found in villages across Kashmir early this decade and the estimate by the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons that some 10,000 persons are missing, it is clear that, at least for a period of the deployment in Kashmir since 1990, ethically questionable practices were more prevalent than the army would care to admit. Critics attribute the current day angst in Kashmir to such practices. What this suggests is that the army could do with some soul-searching on the impact of its Kashmir commitment on its internal good health.

There are other ways too in which its Kashmir odyssey has had an ambiguous impact on the army. Take the recent unprecedented elevation of General Bipin Rawat to the post of army chief, superseding two of his seniors. Among the reasons the government trotted out attempting to tide over the controversy was his operational record and extensive experience in counter-insurgency areas and along the line of control (LoC), contrasting this with the background in mechanised warfare of his two seniors. Controversy attended two aspects. First was the questionable elevation of operational experience at the tactical level as a necessary and sufficient condition to pip his two well-regarded rivals at the post. The inflation of this parameter amounts to incentivising ticket-punching in India’s disturbed areas by ambitious officers and, at one remove, making the army acquire a vested interest in disturbed conditions.

The second was the controversy over the commandeering of senior appointments in the army by the infantry and artillery by so arranging the promotion system as to benefit members of these two arms. The expansion of the two arms has been occasioned in part by the deployment in the Valley (such as of the infantry-centric Rashtriya Rifles) as also along the LoC (such as for the artillery in wake of its showing in the Kargil War). The promotion system has been so engineered that, being larger, they constitute a larger percentage of the brass. Thus, the Kashmir commitment has led to the removal of professional merit as the singular criterion for promotion.

The effects are now well beyond the army itself. The “surgical strikes” along the LoC late last year, avenging the terror attack on the army base in Uri in September 2016, have found their way into electioneering. In a record of sorts, 19 members of the teams that took part in the operations have been decorated for valour, seemingly being decorated for participation rather than—as is usually the case with awards for gallantry—for courageous action in face of the enemy. The last time such a slew of awards were given out was yet again by a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, when it decorated each of the deceased sentries at Parliament who died in the dastardly terror attack on 13 December 2001 with the highest peacetime gallantry award, the Ashoka Chakra. This reveals the political calculation behind the awards by the government, with the ruling party, fearing the effects of demonetisation on the provincial elections underway, considering that such politicisation of the military is a small price to pay for victory in elections.

So, has the Kashmir deployment taken a greater toll on the army than reckoned so far? To the extent it is implicated in Kashmir, has Pakistan succeeded more than it ever imagined and in ways it could never conceive of? While there are good reasons for urging a rethink on India’s continuing hard line in Kashmir—last year’s toll of civilian dead in the unrest in Kashmir hovered round the three-figure mark—one reason worth examining is whether Kashmir is exacting an institutional price of the army, one of India’s better regarded institutions.

‘Cold Start’

Rethinking the nature of India’s Kashmir commitment is certainly not one of the recommendations in the 550-page report submitted in December 2016 of the 11-member D B Shekatkar Committee on combat capability enhancement. However, Kashmir has been central to the very need for the report in first place. The perceived decline in combat capabilities, which the report’s recommendations serve to address, is long-standing. Since India is loath to admit to any role of nuclear weapons, the venturesomeness of Pakistan in Kashmir is attributed instead to the decline of conventional deterrence. Incessant force accretions beginning in the early 1990s with the creation of the Rashtriya Rifles have led to further attenuating conventional deterrence. Since the mid-1990s, a large proportion of the army has been deployed in Kashmir, perhaps over a third. Even though the army in the period acquired a third strike corps, Pakistan succeeded in bogging down in Kashmir any surplus conventional advantage India might have gained, thereby neutralising India’s conventional edge. The conventional edge that remained was not of the order as to give India any confidence to cross the LoC during the Kargil War, and made the country settle for coercive diplomacy in the wake of the Parliament attack. The then foreign secretary Shivshankar Menon’s (2016: 60–81) memoirs of the episode let on—though he does not admit as much —that as late as in November 2008, India was self-deterred from conventional reprisal to the terror outrage in Mumbai, even though India was by then half-a-decade into adopting a new offensive army doctrine, Cold Start.

With Kashmir tying down significant numbers, the army continued down the path of expansion, this time in response to the growing Chinese threat. Though two mountain divisions were raised for a defensive role in the North East in the last decade, the Chinese threat, on which India’s Kashmir-mediated Pakistan obsession had an impact, was projected as a “two-front,” collusive war possibility. A new mountain strike corps was taken as the answer. The two-front formulation intended to recreate conventional deterrence on the western front by enabling dual tasking of the mountain strike corps, which was otherwise advertised and legitimated as a counter measure to the China threat. This inexorable expansion made the revenue portion of the defence budget outpace the capital part. As a result, though India had a new army doctrine of proactive offensive operations—the nuclear factor notwithstanding—it did not have the wherewithal to see it implemented.

Despite a half-decade long hiatus in Kashmir through the first term of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, the continued deployment of the army could not generate the confidence necessary to think of progressively removing the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA). The three successive years of summer turmoil in Kashmir, 2008–10, and a reminder last year are now taken as the reason why the army, and AFSPA, need to continue in place. This sets up the circular logic: the need for AFSPA is because of the need for the army, and the need for the army owes to the AFSPA. In other words, the army becomes part of the problem in Jammu and Kashmir.

Incentivising it to be part of the solution can be through pointing out that the army’s commitment in Kashmir is proving corrosive to itself. The counter narrative to this is that Kashmir serves with blooding in the army, keeping it combat ready. This is only true in a limited sense. From the honours and awards tally every year, it is clear that the cake is taken by the Special Forces. In an encounter in Kupwara forests in 2015, a Special Forces officer commanding a Rashtriya Rifles outfit was killed. While being a testimony to his leadership and bravery, it begs the question: where was the junior leadership and the soldiery? In 2016, there was a tussle over wrongly crediting the citation of a Special Forces Ashoka Chakra brave-heart to a Rashtriya Rifles battalion in whose area his Special Forces subunit was operating (Sawant 2016). The implication is that the foot soldier is the anvil and the gladiatorial Special Forces or their infantry counterpart, the Ghataks, are the hammer. In effect, the mainstream army is more or less in static guard duties, manning the LoC fortifications with Standard Operating Procedures as guide or carrying out routine population control measures. The spate of suicide attacks over the past two years has no doubt further tied down the soldier to his sentry post. The demands of the quick-off-the-blocks Cold Start doctrine, based on a “short, sharp war” concept, might prove rather heavy for an army if inertia-laden. The question to clinch the argument is: Else, why would Pakistan—to the extent it does—keep the pot boiling?

A Skewed Representation

The expansion of the army has seen a rise in levels of representation in the officer corps from the cow-dust belt and hills opening onto the Indo–Gangetic plain. A constant feature this century of reporting from passing-out parades at the academies is the state of origin of those gaining the commission. Invariably, the list is headed by Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Haryana. This narrowing of the social base of intake of the officer—the mainstay of a professional army—has long-term implications since this complexion of the officer cadre will last a couple of decades. The social and political mores of their areas of origin will gain currency within the army. Already, the succession battles of successive army chiefs this century suggest influence of casteist and, indeed, communal thinking. Unfortunately, the coincidence of the origin in the same region—Garhwal—of the new army chief, General Bipin Rawat, as the National Security Advisor, Ajit Doval, has prompted comment. They reportedly hit it off when the “surgical strikes” into Myanmar were being planned and executed in June 2015 (Dutta 2016). How the social biases in the catchment areas find expression in the army’s corporate attitude towards, for instance, gender inclusivity in terms of female officers going the distance, to pensions, and the recently-in-the-news “soldier-helper” system, is worth study.

A narrowing demographic base that is not representative of the nation lends itself to having repercussions beyond the army. It is not without a sense of the possibilities that cultural nationalists have the army in their sights as the next institution to subvert and run aground. The BJP’s billboards claiming the army’s surgical strikes are only the visible part. Less visible are the possible numbers graduating from educational institutions subscribing to the cultural nationalist idiom and self-selecting to officership as a career.

The threat now is of the political formation ascendant in the politics of the moment bidding for the army. There appears to be in place an assembly-line system of right-wing literature finding its way through social media into the mind of the officer over this decade. Revelations regarding the troll army affiliated to the ruling party (Sanghvi 2016) suggest that efforts to capture the military mind cannot be ruled out. There are military veterans studiously at work purveying the message that cultural nationalism and nationalism, and indeed patriotism, are one. The increased mobility of the military veteran with heightened pensions, longer lives and access to social media, and, in turn, an opening up of the army to the veteran—through, for instance, offering hospitality for a veteran jamboree for some or the other jubilee—have set up a transmission belt.

Such transmission would be easier when the brass is divided. Ambitious generals would be on the lookout for political patronage. The alternative can spell oblivion. Take the case of the surprise supersession of Lt General Praveen Bakshi. It could well be owing to his lukewarm reference to “surgical strikes” operations in June 2016, similar to the one in the previous year. By not going to town over these, he perhaps consciously deprived the government of yet another opportunity to grandstand on the military’s achievement (PTI 2016). He has since paid a price.

Apparently, taking his cue, General Bipin Rawat, in his very first interview (Unnithan 2017), brought the Cold Start doctrine out of the closet. This is to flaunt the conventional deterrent refurbished by the induction of what can be the mainstay of Cold Start, the T-90 MS tank. With Pakistan warned off, he has put Kashmiri stone-pelters on notice, that they would be taken as accomplices of terrorists in case they join the action in areas of military operations (DNA 2017). This licence to wilfully narrow the distinction between civilian and terrorist by no less than their chief amounts to a step down the ethical ladder for the army in Kashmir. Clearly, its Kashmir engagement is exacting a price of it in ways the army does not comprehend fully.

References

DNA (2017): “Army Chief Warns Stone-pelters of Tough Action,” 16 February, viewed on 17 February 2017, http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-army-chief-warns-stone-pelters-of-tough-action-2324584.

Dutta, S (2016): “Rawat’s Appointment as Army Chief Is in Line with Modi’s Aggressive Foreign Policy,” Scroll, 19 December, viewed on 7 January 2017, https://scroll.in/article/824529/rawats-appointment-as-army-chief-is-in-line-with-modis-aggressive-foreign-policy.

Majumdar, U (2017a): “Shooting the Brother,” Outlook, 20 February, viewed on 17 February 2017, http://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/shooting-the-brother/298454.

— (2017b): “I Didn’t Know Other Soldiers Testified That Gold Was Seized,” Outlook, 20 February, viewed on 17 February 2017, http://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/i-didnt-know-other-soldiers-testified-that-gold-was-seized/298457.

Menon, Shivshankar (2016): Choices: Inside the Making of India’s Foreign Policy, Washington DC: The Brookings Institution Press.

PTI (2016): “No Strike Carried Out in Myanmar against NE Insurgents: Army,” Deccan Herald, 6 June, viewed on 7 February 2017, http://www.deccanchronicle.com/nation/current-affairs/060616/no-strike-carried-out-in-myanmar-against-ne-insurgents-army.html.

Sawant, G (2016): “Army Demands a Re-write After Martyr Goswami’s Ashok Chakra Award Gets His Battalion Wrong,” Mail Today, 23 February, viewed on 15 February 2017, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/article-3461055/Army-demands-write-martyr-Goswami-s-Ashok-Chakra-award-gets-battalion-wrong.

Sanghvi, V (2016): “I Am a Troll: Inside the Secret World of BJP’s Digital Army,” Business Standard, 29 December, viewed on 12 February 2017, http://www.business-standard.com/article/beyond-business/i-am-a-troll-inside-the-secret-world-of-bjp-s-digital-army-116122801182_1.html.

Unnithan, S (2017): “We Will Cross Again,” India Today, 4 January, viewed on 11 February 2017, http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/lt-general-bipin-rawat-surgical-strikes-indian-army/1/849662.html.

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Stolen gold: A ghost from the past that scares none

http://www.kashmirtimes.in/newsdet.aspx?q=63979

Media reports of a former officer dismissed from service for stealing money let off a quarter century later by the Armed Forces Tribunal. The Tribunal as reportedly asked the government to pay him Rs 4 crores as damages caused. The media report on the case says that the petitioner claimed that his search party in a military operation had recovered some 25 kgs of gold biscuits. These he says were appropriated by his seniors, among whom he reportedly includes the then corps commander. When he remonstrated he was accosted, brutalized, declared mentally unsound, shot at and finally dismissed from service. 

The corps commander for his part in an interview carried alongside the article in a leading weekly clarifies that on hearing from the Adviser Home to the Governor that a theft had occurred in the locality where a military search operation had taken place, he had ordered an inquiry that yielded up the officer, then a second lieutenant, as culprit. Thereafter military law had taken its own course and after the corps commander had demitted his appointment, the military court had punished the offender. Later, rumours had reached his ears that he as corps commander had allegedly misappropriated the recovered gold. Apparently, he had given no cognizance to the rumours and these had died down. In his interview, the corps commander stood up for his administrative staff that handled the case and the chain of command including the commanding officer of the alleged offender in question. 

The Tribunal in its verdict - that is currently not on its website - is reported in the media as stating that the procedural lapses and the failure of the corps commander to investigate allegations of the young officer that his seniors had stolen gold owed to 'extraneous considerations'. The implication appears to be that the corps commander had conspired with the seniors of the officer - presumably his commanding officer and others - to pocket the gold. Since this is from media reports - likely to have been released by the petitioner who has liberally given his version to the media - it requires to be treated with a pinch of salt. 

In case taken at face value, it is clearly the Tribunal going overboard in not only swallowing the petitioner's story but going beyond it to implicate others. The judge and air marshal on the panel have asked for the army to conduct an inquiry into the gold stealing episode and revert within four months. Perhaps the Tribunal could have kept its comments to itself for four months longer rather than attribute ill intent to the corps commander.

It is one thing to say procedural shortfalls undermined the case of the army against the officer and another to say that these were deliberate in order to hide the tracks of the stolen gold. It is difficult to believe that the court had the evidence not only on a messed up court martial but from that could deduce that gold was stolen. A court cannot hide behind the logic that it is now the post truth age. 

What the court has in one fell swoop done is to attempt destroy the credibility of the first corps commander in the trouble times in the Valley. This is tragic in that his tenure has turned out to be the touchstone of leadership in the Valley. His successors have had the disadvantage of their endevours being reviewed against the bar he had set as a professional and leader. Unfortunately, not all of them have measured up, while some have failed spectacularly, including those who went on to hold high office. 

Take the case of the phone call from the Adviser Home to the corps commander that set off this episode. The Adviser Home surely would have reckoned that the corps commander would have been exercised by the information based on his reading of the man. Such a reputation can only be that of an upright officer, unable to bear with equanimity that his soldiers have exhibited moral turpitude in stealing money from a house that has been searched. His response was predictable. Instead of defending the indefensible, he did the right thing - ordered an investigation and finding that wrong doing had occurred, had followed through with the military judiciary. 

Not a few commanders have looked the other way wrong doing has occurred in their command, worrying how it will look on their leadership and wondering what it would mean for their record and careers. Some have believed that since it would show up the army in poor light, it is best swept under the carpet. Others worry that it would give ammunition to the army's critics both within the people and outside the Valley amongst liberals. A few would rationalize inaction thinking acknowledging wrong doing would provide grist to the opposition's propaganda mill. To some, since others have not taken action in such cases, it would not do to set a precedent or rock the boat. A few might take non-judicial action, using cultural punitive practices to dispel the need for military judicial action, which is known to be most cumbersome and tiresome for those engaged in operations. 

Ignoring responsibility in such ways leads to a culture of impunity, which has manifested in the Valley in worse ways - evidence of which is in the two thousand or so unmarked graves all over the Valley and the some 10000 missing persons, some of whom are surely in those graves. It is clear that the rot did not set in with this corps commander. He instead set the standard against which we can now measure the military's record and find it wanting, not wholly, but only episodically and along segments of its mandate. 

That the corps commander's tenure was a standard setting one is clear from Jagmohan's memoirs of the period in Kashmir. Apparently, Jagmohan was apprised of allegations that the corps commander was being 'soft' on people, by ensuring food distribution to the people inconvenienced by military operations. This was taken as evidence of his communal bias, since he was a believer, a practicing Muslim. Jagmohan was dismissive of the allegations, but the fact that these were swirling and brought to his ears by interested parties indicates the ugly and conspiratorial climate that prevailed at the outset of the troubles in Kashmir. If a military leader in such circumstance hewed a lonely furrow, it is to his credit as a person and professional and that of the army that put him in a position of leadership. 

If the Tribunal has been unmindful in its judgment of the collateral damage it is causing by its ill considered statements, then it is a disservice to the reason why Tribunals were set up in first place. They are to redress wrongs inflicted on individuals by a strict military judicial system, which being overseen by non-judicial professionals can lead to injustice to individuals. By no means does redressing such injustice permit the Tribunal to trespass on logic and judicial standards by tarring others with a broad brush under cover of judicial impunity. 

Even if procedural shortcomings are pointed to, the air marshal on the panel should have harked back quarter century to when he was a squadron leader and imagined how the situation was in the Valley back then. Even if he merely sat through his tenure on the Budgam airfield, surely he would have known there was a situation outside that precluded churning out of doctoral length judicial proceedings. It is for this reason former professionals sit on these Tribunals, those expected to understand the system and its circumstance. 

Clearly, there is an equal case to be made of 'extraneous circumstances' driving this particular judgment. Is it that standard setting done a quarter century back needs dismantling? Is there a purpose to such tearing down of hard earned military reputations? Is it of a piece with the recent revision by the army chief no less of the distinction between combatant and civilian? Does the petitioner's association with the BJP tell us something?

Internal security duties in their impact on the army

Aakrosh - Jan 2017

India’s internal security commitment in the north east is well over the half century long mark. In Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), it has gone beyond a quarter century. In both cases it can reasonably be argued that there have been periods of quietude in which peace process could have been progressed to see a viable termination of respective insurgencies. In neither case has this apparently been possible. A consequence of political inattention to conflict resolution has been in a continuing deployment of the army under an unpopular law, the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA). It can be inferred that the belief underlying the status quo is that the army can indefinitely sustain such a deployment and its effects.

Successive army chiefs have, usually while demitting office, pointed out that this is an unsustainable belief. Internal security duties have a long term and deleterious effect on the army and therefore they have urged political engagement in restoring normalcy. However, the situation has remained largely unchanged. There is even a danger of the army itself buying into the belief that its deployment is indispensible to national integrity. An argument could go that though there was a respite from 2004 onwards in Kashmir, its disruption in 2008-10 and more recently this year, suggests that army deployment is inescapable. Not all effects of such deployment are harmful and those that are can be mitigated by requisite leadership and training. The army has sufficient depth in terms of numbers and moral resilience to be able to sustain such deployment indefinitely; or so an argument can go.

This article argues that the assumption of the army’s ability to sustain army deployment in a counter insurgency role in numerous states indefinitely is fallacious. The army has to push back on the internal argument that this is possible and to push on with persuading the political leadership that democratic solutions politically arrived at, are answer to disaffection of people. Lack of energy in a narrative along these lines is a pointer that winning the argument for this internally will probably as difficult as selling it to the political class. The danger is in the counter argument – of the army’s indispensability militarily propping up national integrity – making the army acquire a stake in the disrupted security situation. It should not be that institutional interests keep the army from a strong case arguing for its return to barracks where such a distancing from an internal security situation warrants it. 

The Pakistan factor

Doctrinally, the distinguishing feature between internal security situations that call for army deployment appear to be the prevalence of or potential for an ‘external’ hand. For instance, where this is stark - such as in J&K – for the army to have a role is perhaps understandable. On the other hand the army’s reluctance to get into anti-Maoist operations in Central India had the absence of the external factor marking it. Interrogation this rather easy distinction yields up some startling revelations.

A popular portrayal of Pakistan is that it is out to repay India for India’s success in East Pakistan. Pakistan wishes to go further by administering India a thousand cuts. Its army being in charge of that state ensures adversarial relations in order that it gains a giant cut of the state pie. In nutshell, there are cultural and organizational theory relevant arguments explaining Pakistani hostility. The realist argument is somewhat muted, since it shows up Pakistan’s security dilemma that might be prompting Pakistani action. The realist argument needs unpacking further since it provides a rational basis for Pakistani actions; something Indian analysts are largely in denial over. Their view is that India is a non-threatening power and a counterview that it is threatening to its neighbor is an unsustainable aspersion. To the extent that the power imbalance is taken into account, it is to arrive at a conclusion that Pakistan should instead choose to bandwagon with India rather than try and balance it.

The argument here is that Pakistan, led by its army, is a rational actor in the realist mode. It espies a power imbalance with India that it then proceeds to respond to with external and internal balancing. The external balancing is in the form of action as a rentier state, renting out is strategic location for use by great powers, both US and China. Internal balancing is in creation of ideational resources, such as a jihadi sentiment and proxy forces, as force multipliers. The external imprint of the latter is in the proxy war. The latter is less on account of rationalizations such as Kashmir being a ‘jugular vein’ but for tying down India’s surplus military power in troops intensive counter insurgency operations.

India emerged as a preeminent power in South Asia in wake of cutting Pakistan down to size in 1971. It continued on its power trajectory with one doctrinal and organizational move following another. India’s going nuclear and mechanization date to the seventies. Continuing of mechanization, regional power aspirations and covert nuclearisation were in evidence in the eighties. A third strike corps, expansion through raising of the Rashtriya Rifles (RR) and over nuclearisation were hallmarks of the nineties. The 2000s saw doctrinal evolution to ensure the continuing utility of conventional forces into the nuclear age. The current decade has seen an arming so as to make doctrinal aspirations a reality. The security dilemma India posed Pakistan through its periodic military upgrades and power aspirations, led to a Pakistani counter.

Analysts selling the notion that India is a reactive and defensive power purvey the narrative that it is Pakistan’s covert nuclearisation that spurred India down the nuclear path. It is Pakistan’s proxy war in Punjab that furthered mechanization, so as to enable India to conventionally deter this and to administer a punch if needed. Its raising of the RR was to refresh its conventional deterrence against proxy war that shifted from Punjab to Kashmir. Its doctrinal movement was once again to refurbish conventional deterrence since Pakistan upped the ante in Kargil and through mega terror attacks. India’s spending on arms is only kept pace with its economic trajectory and is designed to keep Pakistan from yet again stepping up proxy war in Kashmir. Pakistan’s irrational attempted matching of India has led to its own security dilemma in India’s counter action.

This essay cannot settle this debate. Suffice it to point out that Pakistan’s India strategy is rational in the realist vein. Armies universally are known to be realist and conservative institutions. Pakistan’s army has trained in US military institutions since the fifties. Realism has been the dominant perspective in the US all through its super power years. Realism provided Pakistan the best perspective to cope with its tragic halving in 1971. It enabled the Pakistan army to ignore its own actions in East Pakistan and see India’s actions and power as accounting for this debacle. It has therefore deepened the realist hue with which Pakistan views India. It sees India’s power unmistakably, something Indian analysts are unable to see themselves. Further, there are aspects of India’s power and its instruments that escape scrutiny in India but are not lost on Pakistan. Amb. Rasgotra in his memoirs describes an encounter with Musharraf in which Musharraf cryptically refers to Indian actions that Pakistan is best positioned to register that account for what Pakistan does back to India. This requires factoring in to understand Pakistan’s view of India.

Further, Pakistan has largely proved a rational actor. It did not provoke a war in 1971 War till the very last minute when it was obviously into its third week. Emerging history of the war indicates that India had ventured across the IB sometime 20 November onwards. Musharraf’s memoirs tell of his frustration at missing out the war when Yahya Khan refrained from opening up the southern Punjab and Rajasthan front.

Another example of Pakistani rationality is in its Kargil intrusions. Whereas this example might not readily be taken on board, it can be seen as a limited incursion with limited aims as part of conflict expansion along the LC. What India did along the Neelam valley and earlier in taking Siachen, Pakistan attempted to replicate in Kargil. Pakistan rationally kept to its limited aims even while being evicted by not upping the ante and stepping down when it knew its game was up, even at the cost of loss of face. Attributing expansive aims to Musharraf prevents grasping the limitations. The relatively insignificant locale enabled India to keep its counter limited and Pakistan to retrace its steps. The bonus Pakistan got, and perhaps the gains it was really seeking, was in enabling an extension of the proxy war in Kashmir by another half decade. The spurt was such that India was unable to regain the status quo ante without upping the military ante in Operation Parakram. The resulting pressures led up to the tacit ceasefire and the Vajpayee-Musharraf deal that brought about a hiatus in Kashmir in 2004. 

This recounting is necessary to establish Pakistan’s army is rational. It is seized of the power asymmetry with India and imbued with realist rationality, seeks to address it. A counter-factual helps prove the point. A liberal perspective might have helped it to bandwagon. We know that the confidence building route via civil society and commercial interest convergence in thinking on peace has had its limitations. The holdup has been from the side of the security establishment, seized as it is with the power differential. This worries them that in case of a peace embrace, it would still throttle Pakistan in terms of identity and imbalance in power, economic and cultural.

The cultural argument that Pakistan is out to wreck ‘Hindu’ India is to resort to mirror imaging. It is an argument trotted out in majoritarian nationalist circuits to serve the prescription that this is what India ought to be doing to Pakistan in first place. The institutionalist argument that Pakistan army needs an Indian bogey to keep its bread buttered is an after-the-fact argument. It focuses on the institutional bonus for the Pakistan army, rather than on what prompted Pakistan’s view of India as a bogey in first place.

This appears charitable to Pakistan by letting it off the hook as the sole South Asian villain. However, it is a sobering view of India in that it establishes that India’s growing power and India’s adeptness in its use will prompt certain actions by actors subscribing to realism. Pakistan’s sandwich of India’s conventional prowess with action at the other two levels – subconventional and nuclear – is better explained thus. This explains proxy war. Understanding this is necessary to examining its impact on the Indian army.

Impact of interminable operations

Seeing Pakistan’s hand in Kashmir is easy. Assuming that it is to wrest Kashmir is to overstate Pakistani aims. As seen, Pakistan fears India’s power. It deems it necessary to tie this down. It got an opening it exploited fully in Punjab when India was moving towards mechanization. It gained another opening in Kashmir even as India was able to best the situation in Punjab. The Kashmir pot has been kept boiling so as to keep India’s shoulder to the wheel. This has in some estimates kept up to a quarter to a third of India’s army tied down in Kashmir. This includes the 740 km length of the Line of Control, in Siachen and in counter insurgency operations – protective, defensive and offensive. Since the expectation is that insurgency will spike in case of conventional operations, India raised the RR so as to recreate its offensive capacity. The Kargil War experience suggests that loosening the grip in conventional conflict might rebound over the long term. The disturbances this summer indicate that the RR might not be readily available for relieving the infantry from defensive tasks on the LC. It would have its hands full in its primary task. The Mountain Strike Corps has reportedly been aborted temporarily as being too manpower heavy. Thus, India might not have the offensive capability necessary to expand the scope of offensive operations in the mountain sector.

This leaves the plains and deserts for a conventional punch, deemed necessary for refurbishing conventional deterrence to begin with. In the deserts, Pakistan has taken care to brandish its tactical nuclear weapons that can only be used where there is little collateral damage. This leaves the developed terrain for offensive operations. Analysts have pointed out that this is the place to apply military power since it neutralizes Pakistani tactical nuclear weapons. However, this suggestion was first made when the power of irregular – jihad inspired - forces to stump conventional forces in urban terrain was not quite so evident. In wake of Iraq and from the experience in Syria, it is clear that venturing into urban space would be to step into a meat grinder. Even if this is so for both sides, it is not a sane strategic choice to make at the outset when one has the initiative.

This brings one to the salient point in this essay: Pakistan appears to have succeeded beyond its expectations. It has tied down surplus Indian military power. This is what it wished to do but it has manipulated India into believing in a narrative that enables keeping India tied down. Indian army sees its indispensability to conflict management in Kashmir. This prompted the army to stay on though the insurgency indices did not warrant this through the mid to late 2000s. The summer disturbances through three consecutive years did not alert the army to the possibility that its continuing presence might be part of the problem. Instead, the resumption of disturbances this year have only served to impress the army that it needs  to stay on, and obfuscate the possibility that doing so  sets up a self-reinforcing loop – its staying on provides the rationale for it to stay. It’s staying on keeps the AFSPA intact and popular disaffection alive.

The army would be loath to accept this view widely held in liberal circles. It can be expected to the more responsive however if spelt out in the realist lens. As seen, the army’s conventional deterrent is under siege. Equipment injections are one manner of resuscitation. But there are other – perhaps less clear – areas that need equal attention. Most of these fall in the organisationnal realm. Take for instance the current day fracas between the arms and between the arms and services. The infantry and artillery officer corps have largely cornered the top echelons through the idea of pro-rata representation being extended into the general cadre. Their numbers elbow out other officer cadres from upper echelons. This has to some analysts contributed to a mandalisation of the army, with the elevation of mediocrity resulting in a deficit in operational art. The rise of the infantry and artillery in the ranks makes the brass from these corps secure what got them there in first place. Thus, counter insurgency and LC fire assaults are set to enter into the third decade. The second underside is that the army as a sop to the mechanized lobby has not been able to reconfigure the strike corps that are veritable steel dinosaurs in the nuclear age. Thus, we see the baleful effects of the counter insurgency era taking its toll.

Equally less remarked on – and in retrospect this might be deliberately so – is the continuous expansion of the army. The army realizing that its forte is manpower is ready with manpower accretions as solution to each operational challenge, be it RR in face of insurgency in Kashmir or a mountain strike corps to face up to the Chinese. There is the two-front rationale thrown in for good measure. This is at the cost of quality at intake which an assembly line system of training cannot remedy. The officer corps is an example. The army intake of officers is of the order of over a thousand per year, and a third more than the civil services. While the officers are to regulate a million strong and disciplined army, the civil services help run a billion-strong country that is dysfunctional in some respects. This implies that there is no premium being placed on leadership or strategic sense since manpower is solution to every challenge. 

This has a drawback best viewed through military sociology. The composition of the army gets impacted in case of increase since this increase can only be serviced by regions that have recruitable manpower and without employment opportunities in other sectors. The figures routinely put out by the academies in relation to the recruitment base of graduates on their commissioning suggest a steady narrowing to a certain north Indian belt. In a voluntary army, this is taken as unremarkable, but needs to be seen in relation to their subsequent employment in counter insurgency in Indian regions with little resemblance to where they come from. There are also political tides in the north Indian belt that cannot but permeate the consciousness of the citizens from such areas and impact their attitudes. This implies there is a potential political bias in officers from such areas which might colour their professional showing.

Finally, the military leadership that has risen on the counter insurgency tide of the nineties has to reckon with the ethical shortfalls some of its members took while in such operations. It is widely held that the agitating generation of today in Kashmir was witness to much gratuitous violence, some of which spurred leaders under whose watch this took place up the military hierarchy. Their sphere of impact has risen with their rise in rank. How this has affected the overall ethos of the army is a moot question. Since these issues are seldom discussed, this is liable to be mistaken as impressionistic. The point is that just as while viewing the Pakistani army’s institutional wellsprings for its military actions, the focus on similar thrusts from within the Indian army must not elide analyses.  

Countering insurgency politically?

An institutional argument for exiting counter insurgency commitment is not the best line to take. Because counter insurgency is having a negative effect on the army is not the quite the reason to advocate other-than-military-operations counter to insurgency. The realist argument is perhaps the more saleable one. The institutional argument is not one the military can easily admit to and the realist argument is one that it can acknowledge and sell to the political class better. The argument made here is that the army has fallen into a trap set by Pakistan and it has done so with open eyes. This is a criticism seldom heard, especially in a day and age when speaking bluntly is mistaken for sedition. But then retaining institutional good health and regaining an uncluttered realist(ic) picture implies stating and hearing some home truths.

While the army has tried to bring home to the political class that it needs to get its act together and address national problems politically, this has been somewhat low key. It leaves the political class the impression that the lid can continue on the army with army deployment. The bureaucratic class that interposes can be expected to reinforce this impression in the political class since it keeps the army from being professionally state-of-the-art and embroiled in internal squabbles. The resulting national security scene in one in which the army’s actions suggest it cannot rely on the diplomats to keep the external sphere tranquil and on home ministry bureaucrats to keep the internal sphere so. It sees itself as the answer, failing to see that the host populace in counter insurgency areas might think otherwise.

Realistic appraising of its presence as part of the problem bothering the people can help it reappraise solutions. For instance, the graduated removal of AFSPA from either of the counter insurgency prone regions can do more for easing the insurgency than the respective army-based paramilitary in the two regions can do. In its environment scan the army needs factoring in its presence and its affects not only on the insurgency but vice versa too, of the counter insurgency on itself.

The army’s disengagement should not imply a corresponding militarization of the central armed police forces or the provincial police service. The lesson from counter insurgency in Central India is that it is better to have the army undertake such operations than to have army clones incompetently led by men in khakhi to undertake the same. Asking for political solutions politically arrived at is a tall order. The Naga talks for instance are closing on to their third decade. A government that promised to deliver on these has lost its way midway into its tenure. Therefore, it might be a tad too pat to advocate a politically driven counter insurgency strategy. It is a liberal delusion. Since this finding leaves the army with the baby, it is best that army look deeper and for longer into the mirror held out for it here. 

It is clear from the nomination of the chief designate that the requirement of having operational experience is being taken too far. Operational experience is largely in the context of counter insurgency, the last war – Kargil War – having seen about a division worth of troops in actual combat. Counter insurgency experience is no guarantee of strategic insight necessary at higher military leadership levels. Without prejudice to the capabilities of the candidates involved, the selection was apparently on the basis of counter insurgency experience. This proves the point being made here that such deployment is now part of the service DNA. It is no longer taken as a secondary role, albeit one ably discharged. It has now a defining function for the army. As pointed out here this is not entirely welcome. There needs to be a break out from the counter insurgency cul de sac. The realist perspective needs to be adopted afresh to view the insurgency as a Pakistani ploy to tie down the army. The current doctrinal answer that this then entails continuing army deployment has to be debunked in first place. The comfort levels with this argument are such that even where Pakistani hand does not exist or exists only potentially and marginally, such as in the north east, the army continues its deployment. This indicates that there are institutional blinkers on, which can only be jettisoned once a realist lens is put back on to see such deployment in all its negative finery. 

https://thewire.in/103104/army-selection-bipin-rawat/

So Who Are the ‘Men in Shadows’ Guiding Top Army Appointments?

Muttering ‘All’s well that ends well’ with a sigh is all that is left for military watchers in the wake of the supersession episode. In the traditional media conference on the eve of Army Day, army chief General Bipin Rawat let on that he and the man he had pipped to the post, Lieutenant General Praveen Bakshi, who was his former boss in Kolkata when he served as corps commander in Dimapur, had assured each other of mutual support. This brings out the quality of character of the men involved and retrieves somewhat the image of professionalism of the higher ranks in the Indian army.

Unfortunately, this is not uniformly the case. Prior dust-ups over the army chief post have dented the idea of professionalism, leaving behind a poor image of the contenders for the job. The starring role goes to General V.K. Singh and his fracas with General Bikram Singh and General Dalbir Singh Suhag.

Both cases witnessed unsavoury manoeuvres.

In Bikram’s instance, the case of a death in cross=firing during an encounter in which he was wounded as a brigadier in the Valley was made to resurface by a newly minted NGO, which disappeared from the public eye as quickly as it had appeared. V.K.’s brainchild, the Technical Services Division – reportedly an intelligence outfit that has since been disbanded – was implicated in this. To spike Suhag’s chances, the mishandling of an intelligence outfit under his command when he was the commanding general in Dimapur was trotted out.

A conspiracy?

In a new year’s eve address to officers at his headquarters in Fort William, Kolkata, Bakshi, who lost out in the recent race for army chief, is reported to have said that a ‘deep rooted conspiracy’ by ‘men in shadows’ accounted for his missing out on the promotion – an apparent reference to ‘intelligence games’ (or political ones) in the process of selection.

Bakshi reportedly said that he had expended Rs 85 crore of his special financial powers over the past 18 months as head of Eastern Command, in comparison to his two predecessors – both of whom went on to become army chief – who had spent a mere Rs 3-4 crore each. Among other things, this difference suggests two things: the self-confidence of Bakshi, befitting a prospective army chief, and, conversely, the play-safe attitude of his two predecessors.

Bakshi indicated that rumours were spread by certain parties over the accountability of such unusual – if legitimate – spending. With the rumours reaching the defence ministry, the spending was inquired into by the defence accounts and no wrongdoing emerged. To his mind, these rumours nevertheless influenced the government in overlooking his strong case, based not only on the traditional principle of seniority but also his sterling professional record. (Retrospectively, it may unfortunately be surmised that his two predecessors were wiser in adopting a ‘do nothing’ posture when at the penultimate step in the ladder to the top.)

For his part, defence minister Manohar Parrikar has clarified that the selection process was pristine. As a process, there is little to quibble over. He is also right in saying that if seniority was the only criterion then a computer could well substitute for the cabinet process. But, the question is that if the expenses withstood scrutiny, to what extent was the rumour-mongering effective?

Going forward

Seemingly explaining his decision to stay on rather than hang up his spurs, as is the precedent in cases of supersession at his level, Bakshi has indicated that he is staying to clear his name by – or so the media alleges – exposing those behind the conspiracy, including those in the media and in the army veteran community.

While the exposure of such a nexus is necessary for the continued good health of the army, it should not be the preserve of Bakshi, the aggrieved party. He may scar himself in the process, going down in history as a sore loser. Instead, it is a cross the supposed – albeit unaware – beneficiary, Rawat, must bear.

Rawat’s move to become the 26th chief of the Indian army has been rather well choreographed. Media speculation has it that he caught national security advisor Ajit Doval’s eye when Doval had dropped out of the prime ministerial visit to Bangladesh in order to supervise the ‘surgical strike’ along the Myanmar border against Naga militants who had killed 18 soldiers in an ambush in Manipur in June 2015.

From Dimapur, Rawat moved to Mumbai as a stepping stone before taking over as southern army commander in Pune. This enabling of an operational command was presumably at the expense of Lieutenant General P.M. Hariz, who was then presiding over the training command in Shimla. Hariz replaced Rawat when Rawat was elevated as vice chief in the run up to his trotting across South Block to the army chief’s room.

Hariz could well have taken over the southern command prior to Rawat, with Rawat having to cool his heels in Shimla awaiting his turn. While there is no case for training command to be part of the musical chairs, unfortunately this is the reality, with 19 changeovers in the quarter century since its founding. Hariz’s staying put in Shimla was not as much a move to rule him out of the race as it was one to position Rawat better.

Since this happened way back at the beginning of last year, the writing has been on the wall since then. When these moves were afoot, conspirators – if Bakshi is to be believed – were at work pulling the rug from under him.

Bakshi appears to point the finger at a nexus between the ‘men in shadows’ and sections of the media and veterans. With military intelligence operatives having figured in the previous two schemes to influence the nominations of the army chief, the ‘men in shadows’ may well be members of the intelligence community. It bears pause as to the link between the three sections – intelligence, media and veterans.

Irrespective of the cabinet process Parrikar refers to, given Doval’s charge in the national security sphere, it can be inferred that the intelligence czar, Doval, took the call.

A comprehensive debunking of the arguments made to back the government’s decision to supersede two able officers – ranging from operational experience to adeptness at surgical strikes and being savvy on the Line of Control – says much about the cabinet process touted by Parrikar.

The rumour campaign that Parrikar took cognisance of – enough to have an inquiry ordered – only reinforces his by now well-earned reputation of lacking good judgment. The campaign itself was an insurance to help the government sell its narrative on the unprecedented supersession of two generals. By that yardstick, it is simply not the work of over-enthusiastic subordinates but is better attributed to the congenital habits of men in shadows.

What about the sections of the media and veterans alleged to have played a role? The media’s role is not very clear and, in light of the manner sections of it purvey the cultural nationalist trope, should not in any case detain us overly. However, the spotlight should not escape army veterans with links to Doval, especially those belonging to his stable at the Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF).

On Christmas Day, two retired VIF-affiliated generals shared the dais with Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh luminaries in Pune. They potentially serve as a means of cultural transmission between Hindutva formations and the military. It is not improbable that, in turn, they informally input national security minders on military matters, not excluding, as it turns out, on vital military appointments.

The intelligence community is long known to have been compromised by such linkages. Is it now the military’s turn? The first observation of Army Veterans’ Day, preceding the Army Day this year, suggests yet another avenue has been forged for present-day politics to penetrate into the military. That V.K. is a government minister today is a warning of sorts on the veteran-political linkage.

As the dust settles, Bakshi would be well advised to serve the rest of his tenure with dignity, placing the onus on Rawat to clean up the stables. Rawat has gone on record to indicate that action will be taken should Bakshi voice his grievance formally. While procedurally sustainable, Rawat should know that more needs to be done.

Rawat needs to surprise his anonymous benefactors and disabuse them of any notion that the army is now in their corner. Comparatively, clamping down on whistleblowers on the army’s social practices is rather tame. Rawat should broadcast through precept and action that the army is off limits to ideological penetration. In this, tackling former comrades would be the easy part. What will test his moral mettle over his three-year tenure is getting his current political masters to acknowledge this

http://www.claws.in/1686/nuclear-doctrinal-revision-in-its-effects-on-the-india-china-dyad-ali-ahmed.html
Nuclear doctrinal revision in its effects on the India-China dyad 

In the latest brouhaha over nuclear doctrine revision, Manoj Joshi offered the sage advice that Pakistan should not be the only referent in considering evolution of India’s nuclear doctrine. The discussion in the strategic circles sparked off by the defence minister recently voicing his personal opinion on nuclear doctrine, was rather Pakistan centric. Joshi rightly required that any changes in India’s nuclear doctrine would require reckoning with the effects in respect of China.

This article attempts to discern possible effects on the India-China nuclear dyad of the thrust areas of change in India’s nuclear doctrine. Since some of the impulse towards change is from a consideration of India-Pakistan nuclear dyad, if such change has no negative implications for the India-China dyad, then the proposed thrust line of change acquires greater credibility, if not plausibility.

Currently, India’s nuclear doctrine is fairly well adapted for the India-China nuclear dyad. By all accounts, China is the primary referent of India’s nuclear doctrine and the continuing suitability of the nuclear doctrine for the China front makes for little incentive for change. Both India and China subscribe to No First Use (NFU). Though to some, Chinese NFU is territorially caveated, India’s also is with a caveat that it would not hold in case of use of the other two types of weapons of mass destruction.

Whereas in terms of numbers, the Indian deterrent’s credibility is maintained at a ‘minimum’, though flexible, level, for China the numbers are relatively higher – characterised as ‘limited’ - owing to it having to contend with the US nuclear arsenal. Both are geared towards nuclear deterrence rather than nuclear warfighting. While India claims not to believe in non-strategic use of nuclear weapons and not to have tactical nuclear weapons (TNW), it cannot be plausibly said that China does not have a more variegated arsenal, since it has contingencies on the Pacific front, including Taiwan, to think about.

The doctrinal similarity - particularly on NFU - has led to a diminished focus on China in discussions of nuclear employment. Doctrinally, since neither side will initiate nuclear use in conflict, there was little to be gained by wargaming nuclear use other than for academic interest. Militarily, both sides maintain strong conventional forces and therefore do not need to rely on nuclear weapons to either supplement conventional operations or to bail either out of a tight conventional spot. Politically, the stakes in any envisaged conflict are not of an order as to compel either side to jeopardise respective economic and power trajectories by bringing nuclear weapons into a conflict. At worst, a border was is apprehended and, while this might have horizontal escalatory possibilities, no plausible vertical escalation scenario has found mention in discussions so far.

Nuclear related developments in India point towards a comfort level with the doctrinal status quo. NFU serves India well on the China front since it is in an asymmetric situation as of the moment, when it is still catching up with China. The invulnerable leg of India’s triad is still under development and its recent Agni V test is only the fourth one so far. To deterrence purists, this might point to a deterrence deficit that makes India’s deterrence vis-a-vis China a work-in-progress. They would also bemoan lack of a tested thermonuclear capability, irrespective of scientific claims dating to the Pokhran II tests to the contrary. Nevertheless, there is consensus that even if there is distance to traverse, India’s nuclear posture comprising cumulative progress in terms of numbers, delivery systems, reach, a ballistic missile defence capability in-the-works, command and control and survivability cannot be discounted by China. This implies an Indian self-confidence in its nuclear deterrence, which in turn disincentivises doctrinal change. Thus, it would appear that the impetus towards change that arises largely from a consideration of the India-Pakistan dyad is unlikely to make a dent on India-China doctrinal dyad. Such complacency merits scrutiny.

There are three thrust lines of impetus to change. The first is NFU, which was extensively dwelt on in the recent storm in the doctrinal teacup. The second is more significant in that it dwells on the doctrinal challenge posed by Pakistani TNW. The third is in interpreting the punitive quotient of counter strikes: when unacceptable damage in counter strike is sufficient, is going ‘massive’ necessary? The three need to be examined in their effects on the India-China dyad.

There is no strident call currently to jettison NFU in regard to China. India has a finite deterrence capability – even if it does not satisfy maximalists. There is however a situation of asymmetry currently brought about by Chinese missiles in Tibet and its vicinity that have a reach into India’s north Indian heartland, which India cannot match in reverse any time soon. This implies NFU serves India, for the moment. In case push comes to shove in conflict, there is the additional buffer the NFU pledge enables between a contingency and the nuclear button: rescinding the NFU pledge in the national security interest when warranted. This would warn off China from breaching possible Indian thresholds, such as a territorial one imagined variously astride the Se La or Bum La or Bomdi La ridgelines.

The second impetus stems from the TNW conundrum. How can escalation control kick in on breakdown of deterrence? This is possible through proportionate retaliation, which means operationalising the deterrent accordingly. For the China front, the implication needs factoring in a lapse in NFU. In case the need arises for redressing a fast developing adverse conventional situation that has politically unacceptable manifestations – such as another evacuation of Tezpur - nuclear weapons provide a fall-back option. Such use obviously would not be strategic but proportionate to rolling back the adverse situation, such as tamping down incoming Chinese hordes through disruption of the line of communication. This would presumably keep the nuclear dimension of the conflict from spilling onto the Ganga-Brahmaputra basin. This makes for a case not so much for TNW capability, but for ability for nuclear use in an operational-level, theatre-specific setting.

The third impetus is regards a reversion to the formulation of the Draft Nuclear Doctrine: that of punitive retaliation to inflict unacceptable damage. Clearly, the ‘massive’ formulation of the 2003 official adaptation makes no sense for the China front. For escalation control through in-conflict deterrence, there is a set of targets held in reserve, such as along the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor in Indian claimed territory. Holding these hostage might be useful in case of the feared ‘two front’ scenario.

From the preceding discussion it appears that the thrust lines of change visible in the India-Pakistan dyad are not irrelevant for the India-China dyad. Manoj Joshi rightly suggests caution in doctrinal revision, but that should not be interpreted as favouring the status quo. It is clear that the necessity for limiting nuclear use in either first use or retaliatory modes holds even regards conflict with China. Consequently, the minimal recommendation here is not to shy away from the discussion. However, if we are to heed China’s response to India’s Agni V test weighing-in in favour of strategic stability, treading softly might be prudent. Open doctrinal discussion might be a preferred substitute for doctrinal revision. 

Strategic proactivism appraised through a Cluasewitzian-Trinitarian lens

Agni, December 2016

Midway through its term the government has indicated a shift towards strategic proactivism. By launching ‘surgical strikes’ in reprisal for the Uri terror attack and taking public credit for these it has upped-the-ante. Whereas surgical strikes were not absent earlier from India’s repertoire of anti-terror responses, this time round India has acknowledged these and the strikes were across a larger frontage. The political leadership has taken credit for ordering the strikes, attributing it variously to leadership boldness and ideological affiliations of members of the ruling party. This political brouhaha in wake of the strikes was possibly prompted by the opposition criticizing the seeming inaction in immediate wake of the Uri terror attack. The UN General Assembly session behind it and the prime minister’s speech in Goa in which he said the war in South Asia should be against poverty, the government timed the attack in a manner as to catch terror launch pads and the Pakistani army with a lowered guard. The retaliation was well received by the people. This interest and involvement of the military, the government and the people in the surgical strike episode brings to fore a Trinitarian analytical framework for viewing the shift to strategic proactivism.

Clausewitz’s perspective on war is that it is a social phenomenon explicable in a framework involving chance, subordination to political imperatives and passion. The three characteristics of war have been associated in Clausewitzian literature with the military, the political class and people respectively. For the military, war is an uncertain enterprise, covered by a fog of war and subject to friction. It requires the military leader to impose order on it and, in doing so, shape it to deliver military objectives. The political leadership is to ensure the control through its subordinate, the military, over war as a means to political ends. The people are associated with elemental hatred and enmity generated in war, utilized by the government and the military as an enabling resource to prosecute the war.

The Uri episode and surgical strikes provide a moment, though not of war per se, but of a visible interaction between the three elements of Clausewitzian Trinity in operations other than war. This article attempts such an analysis using the Trinitarian lens and in doing so appraises the immanent shift from strategic restraint to strategic proactivism surgical strikes herald.

The military

The military has been contending with the proxy war for a quarter century. This has been largely defensive, resulting in responsive and reactive operations including those with an offensive bias such as the earlier surgical strikes. This has owed to a strategic doctrine of strategic restraint by this and earlier governments, that relied on strategic reticence in order to ensure, firstly, the husbanding of power over time, and, secondly, to ensure that military digressions do not impact adversely on India’s economic trajectory. In the nineties, the military doctrine reflected this strategic doctrine of restraint in its location at the defensive deterrence segment of the continuum of doctrines. However, tested by the Kargil War and the Operation Parakram challenges, the military doctrine registered a shift within the deterrence segment from defensive to offensive, making for a shift to offensive deterrence in the 2000s. This can be seen in its shift to the so-called Cold Start doctrine and its operationalisation in organization changes and through successive large scale military exercises through the decade. The monies spent of defence have also been considerable, all designed to bolster the offensive content of offensive deterrence. At the tactical level, it has ensured a psychological ascendancy is maintained along the Line of Control (LC) with reprisal attacks following close on heels of terror episodes or Border Action Team challenges on the LC. This also served to restore deterrence at the tactical level, at least temporarily, till the tit-for-tat game on LC between the two militaries set up the next opportunity for offensive tactical action. 

Within the military there has been constant discussion on the desirability and possible efficacy of offensive action in response to Pakistani proxy war. The discussion acknowledges the escalatory matrix that inevitably frames military action. It focuses on escalation dominance in order to deter movement up the escalatory ladder. The idea is to be strong at all levels of the spectrum of conflict in a manner as to leave the adversary a choice between persisting with receiving punishment at the current level of military engagement in the spectrum of conflict or escalating to the next higher level, wherein it is similarly disadvantaged by an adverse power ratio.

To illustrate, if Pakistan is unable to compel Indian political action through proxy war due to an apt Indian military counter, Pakistan would be compelled to resort to terror attacks predicated on greater violence. To such mega terror attacks, India has a doctrinal answer at both the subconventional and conventional levels. At the subconventional level, it can deliver a reprisal at the LC through activating it physically and by fire. At the conventional level, it has built in a two step capability, with the first step reliant on the offensive content held with pivot corps and the second held with strike corps. Thus far, it has not resorted to the conventional level, even after the dastardly 26/11 attack, presumably because the capability was then under construction. The government in signaling the shift to strategic proactivism has gone in for fast track purchase of Rs 5000 crore worth of ammunition for air defence, artillery and Su 30s. It has also cleared a Rs 80000 crore equipment purchase.

The shift now to strategic proactivism implies it has a military answer ready and the likelihood of authorization to proceed would be more readily available, certainly at the subconventional level. The likelihood rests on the logic that the surgical strikes were not a one-off episode, but are the new normal at the LC. That would distinguish them from earlier surgical strikes. The emulation on the Kashmir front of the surgical strikes that were last year initiated at the Myanmar border against north eastern terror groups implies there is no stepping back to strategic restraint. Escalation dominance refurbishes offensive deterrence in its entailing of a consistency in reprisal action, especially since Pakistan appears to have upped the terror ante in its series of terror strikes from Dinanagar through Pathankot to Uri. 

Escalation dominance at the next level of the conflict spectrum – nuclear – has so far eluded the military. The military is constrained by the declaratory nuclear doctrine and has to per force to genuflect towards it in its discussions on nuclear retaliation. However, it is clear that environmental consequence of ‘massive’ nuclear retaliation is unsustainable. The pollution levels in Delhi in early November resulting from farmers in Punjab burning their fields testify that north India cannot sustain the effect of burning Pakistani cities. Coming up with an answer to Pakistan’s tactical nuclear weapons (TNW) is therefore necessary. Not only is ‘massive’ nuclear retaliation not credible, it is also not ‘wise’ (to paraphrase Tom Shelling) in that it opens up India’s cities to like retaliation. The answer stares India in the face – proportional retaliation.

India has the capability resting on its range of short range missiles – Prahaar – and on sub-kiloton weapons. For the military, this implies an expectation of nuclearisation of the battlefield. This means it must be able to fight through nuclear conditions and its Strategic Forces Command must be able to employ TNW in conjunction with the conventional battle. The aim of proportional retaliation would be to ensure that Pakistan does not steal a conventional march over India’s offensives, even while signaling both resolve to retaliate in kind and a willingness not to escalate. With assured destruction capability resting on longer range missiles, strategic weapons and a triad, predominance at the next higher nuclear sublevel exists. This will ensure escalation dominance at the nuclear sublevel of TNW exchange, insuring against escalation by Pakistan. Shadowing its nuclear use through proportional response would leave Pakistan with but one option: discontinue nuclear strikes. 

To sum up this section, strategic proactivism implies a greater propensity for tactical action on the LC with surgical strikes as precedent. These could be supplemented - in case of mega terror attacks - with conventional level ‘cold start lite’ attacks. A ‘short, sharp war’ can be ruled-in under strategic proactivism, since a shift from strategic restraint essentially entails unlocking India’s military advantage at the conventional level. Obviously, the conventional might so unlocked would require limitation as overriding criteria in employment. Therefore, ‘cold start’ requires hedging in the form of ‘cold start lite’. At the nuclear level, it implies moving to a nuclear warfighting capability and intent based on proportionate response, with No First Use remaining sacrosanct.

The political class

Politicisation of a security issue has not been absent in India. While the government took credit, according to some political analysts with an eye towards UP elections, the opposition too is active in chipping away at the edges using security related issues for its sniping, such as ‘one rank, one pension’ and seventh pay commission award. The assumption that national security requires a non-partisan consensus is turned on its head. An example is the manner the ruling party tried to take credit for ordering the surgical strikes. This provoked the opposition to revealing that such strikes took place on its watch too and, further, to question the efficacy of the strikes to pull the ruling party down a peg or two.

Strategic restraint has been associated with the earlier stints in power of both the National Democratic Alliance and the United Progressive Alliance. The pre-Uri attack phase of the current government witnessed continuity on this score. However, strategic restraint has never been altogether as advertised. Whereas militarily India has been reticent, this may have owed to deficit in capability, making it a restraint born in necessity rather than choice. Also, Pakistan was also relatively less provocative in the UPA period that had taken up the Vajpayee initiative begun in the NDA I period. Four rounds of talks took place, with the fifth half way through when 26/11 happened. However, UPA’s go-slow on the initiative – supposedly due to absence of a viable interlocutor in Pakistan when Musharraf went under – and subsequent abandonment after 26/11, has led to Pakistani return to proxy war, one also emboldened by the disaffection in Kashmir played out between 2008 and 2010 and, after a hiatus, over this year. Between 2010 and 2013, UPA II had desultorily resumed talks with two rounds taking place. They were abandoned when UPA II lost its way at the fag-end of its tenure and due to the beheading episode on the LC in early 2013. Strategic restraint thus was an apt doctrine for the period of relatively greater engagement with Pakistan.

However, it was never fully one of restraint, since the intelligence game with Pakistan continued in a proxy war between the two states in Afghanistan, one that also enveloped Balochistan. Since plausible deniability attend intelligence operations this is difficult to prove, but to be in denial over the incidence of intelligence operations is to deprive the domain of strategic analysis of autonomy from contamination of sentiments emanating from nationalism. Militarily, the conventional forces acquired a new offensive doctrine and created the warewithal. At the nuclear level, the official nuclear doctrine was challenged for sticking with NFU and criticized for its ostrich like behavior in maintaining ‘massive’ nuclear retaliation as viable in face of the global environmental ramifications of such nuclear use. Politically, there was a consistent refusal to engage meaningfully with Pakistan or shift from military reliant conflict management to politically purposive conflict resolution in Kashmir. Consequently, strategic restraint can be seen more accurately as ‘strategic restraint plus’ or ‘strategic practivism minus’. On the continuum of strategic doctrine it was someplace ahead of offensive deterrence, while being short of compellence. The current day shift to strategic proactivism therefore completes the final step to compellence. 

Setting strategic doctrine is essentially a politically driven exercise. The strategic coordinates provide a strategic rationale, but also serve to obscure the essentially political nature of strategic doctrine. The politics of strategic doctrine are not only informed by the external political sphere - international politics and geopolitics – but also by internal politics. For instance, a conservative regime in power would ordinarily have a strategic doctrine coloured by conservative realism. This is what distinguishes, for instance, the Obama presidency from the preceding presidency of Bush and the likely hue of the impending presidency of Trump. Likewise and understandably, the BJP – a conservative political party – cannot but have a conservative realist inclination to its strategic doctrine. This is best evidenced by its choice of national security adviser.

Here it is hazarded that the impetus to strategic proactivism does not lie in the strategic coordinates of India’s strategic circumstance alone. Conservative realism would normally be reconciled to a strategic doctrine of ‘strategic restraint plus’. In fact, it is possible that the location at strategic restraint plus of strategic doctrine in the UPA years owed to the fear of the UPA of being called ‘soft’ on security by its right wing challenger, the BJP. Therefore, with the BJP coming to power, a shift was not readily discernible; on the contrary there seemed to be continuity. However, that there is now a shift has been attributed by the defence minister to ideological mentoring under cultural nationalism. This nascent shift to compellence thus has political pedigree, one that needs acknowledging upfront.

This is necessary to do since compellence is widely regarded as more difficult to achieve than deterrence. Since it is widely accepted that India has not entirely succeeded in deterrence, it cannot be said that it would be more adept at compellence. Consequently, the strategic sense behind the shift is questionable. But the answer lying in the political plane, and not the strategic plane, implies that this is a moot question.

The people

The concerns of Indian people are largely existential. There is a visible focus on economic development and its trickle down uplifting all boats. However, there are multiple transformations ongoing in society, which includes social churning and its political fallout. The latter has given rise to cultural nationalism as a means to creation of stability around a central narrative on the nation based supposedly on a common and shared culture. This comprises the majoritarian project in which insecurity is partially welcomed so as to inject a sense of unity and generation of a herd instinct for adherence to the proffered common national narrative. Information war strategies are the primary manner this is furthered, with social media being a significant battleground.

A nuanced retelling of the Uri terror attack is necessary to reprise how people reacted to the Uri attack and the surgical strikes. The Uri terror attack was by four Pakistani terrorists in which 19 soldiers were killed. However it bears mention that 14 of them died in a fire, as indirect victims. This means that the four fully armed terrorists with surprise behind them managed to kill only four soldiers; one succumbed to wounds later. In other words, had the fire not occurred, there would have been fewer casualties. This tempers the manner Uri terror attack and places the surgical strikes in context. The latter thus appear an overreaction to the Uri terror attack. The national, media-induced hype therefore appears unwarranted. That it has nevertheless been fanned and used to legitimize a strategic shift in India suggests the manner the state has used national sentiment, whipped up by it not only over the episode in question but also over time, for its purpose of pursuing a hard-line against Pakistan.

As seen from the Uri episode, the terrorist has to be lucky but once and security forces always. The subsequent activation of the LC indicates continuing terror attacks and higher threshold reprisals. The popular sentiment appears to be in favour of retaliation in kind. This popular endorsement will serve to legitimise strategic proactivism. The government, having demonstrated a penchant for sudden action ranging from cancellation of talks with Pakistan to clinching the Rs 35000 crore Rafale arms deal and most recently in demonetizing higher denomination currency, would use the popular saleability of the hard-line on security to continue down the strategic proactivism route. In effect, an in-part manufactured public approbation would be buoying a strategic doctrine of unproven efficacy.

Conclusion

The shift to strategic proactivism appears to have a basis in the Clausewitzian trinity: the military, the government and the people. The military had termed its offensive doctrinal shift in the 2000s as ‘proactive operations’ strategy, presaging the term strategic proactivism. It has preferred an inclination towards the offensive and being proactive, since that enables it to take the initiative and maintain it. This is enabled by a shift in the strategic doctrine away from strategic restraint, that the military felt held it back, even if for good economy-centric reasons. For its part, the government’s inclination for strategic proactivism owes to its belief that it has finally the military capability in place for military reprisal. It also sees political gain in the hard-line, in part to deny the opposition any claim of continuity in security policies. While the economic domain has largely seen such continuity, the ruling party has maintained that its difference is in its commitment to national security. The public endorsement for the surgical strikes is liable to be stretched as approval of the shift in strategic doctrine. Since strategic affairs is not a plebiscitary field, cautionary advice not to take the public sentiment as a driver of strategy is warranted at this incipient stage of the shift.  The look here at the Uri episode in the Clausewitzian-trinitarian framework has been instructive. It suggests that there are strategic impulses at play that owe little to strategic rationality and may have origin in the polity itself. This is the potential Achilles heel of the shift to strategic proactivism.