The
Ali Oeuvre:
National
security this century
https://www.dropbox.com/s/socevdjjm9bdkbu/The%20Ali%20Oeuvre.pdf?dl=0
Introduction
I was fortunate to
arrive in Delhi as a young captain when India turned a corner at the end of the
Cold War. My five years as an infantry man till then had opened up the tactical
level. I had already gained an early introduction to the operational level on
holidays in Kashmir, where a rebellion had broken out just then and had caught
my family in its vortex. In Delhi, from my back row vantage in seminar rooms, I
had a ring side view of strategic debates and managed a glimpse of the
strategic level.
I witnessed old
verities being abandoned and a new path forged. Thus, as with global history,
this century can be taken as beginning a decade earlier with the end of the
Cold War. The principal political shift was in cultural nationalism going from
being incipient at the fall of the Babri Masjid to entrenchment. The right wing
busily consolidated its sway over domestic politics. Its influence on national
security was subtle initially as India’s upward economic trajectory - in part -
hid revivalism as another impetus to its great power quest.
Even as history marched
on, I took time out to acquire an education on the side in a sabbatical. This
made for a well-spent subsequent decade in the military in which I participated
in the internal debates by writing for professional publications. Freshly back
from learning about military sociology, among other things, I watched as the
ideological wares of the right wing acquire adherents within the military. The
imprint of cultural nationalism was evident on both strategic and
organizational culture.
My initial encounter
with this was on the day when suddenly I espied a new layout in the Valmiki
Library at the Defence Services Staff College (DSSC), Wellington. I was a
regular library visitor and was surprised to see a statue of the Hindu goddess
of learning gracing the library one day. I dashed off an article for the Trishul, the journal of the DSSC,
pointing out what I thought was a step away from the military’s secular ethos. For
my pains, I was marched up to the chief instructor for being political, whereas
to me the appearance of the statue was evidence of a step away also from its
apolitical ethic against which the military needed to be cautioned. The senior instructor
who marched me up can be seen in his retirement on google garlanding the statue
of right wing icon BS Moonje. The then commandant of DSSC has since written a
book that is in most military libraries that talks of air planes in ancient
India.
I have since - subconsciously
for most part - traced the rise of cultural nationalism. I recorded this
intermittently, taking pains to apprise editors of the baleful imprint of right
wing trope in military journals. Among other issues I dwell on, my writings provide
a cultural explanation for the developments in Indian security over this
century. I was an early bird in reckoning an attempt at right wing hegemony
that rightly espied the security field as an easy conduit. The inevitable
impact of this change in domestic political culture on strategic and military
culture is a story that needs being told. I retrospectively notice that I have
done so – explicitly at times and unwarily at others - in my writings.
The thread linking
these writings is the liberal perspective on use of force in national security
matters. It is clear over the past few years of a right wing regime in power
that a pronounced reset of India is underway. A retrospective of my writings throws
up several instances my cautioning against such a pass. I think that this prescience
is the key to my work. Though voluminous, the corpus is an original perspective
on South Asian security since it largely – and singularly at that since there
are no other competing works on this - dwells on the influence of political
Hinduism on national security.
This is a minority
viewpoint in more than the usual way of interpreting ‘minority’. While I bear a
Muslim name and that identity did I reckon in part influence my perspective,
the ‘minority’ viewpoint I champion is the liberal one on national security. It
has required investment of time, resources and energy to challenge the
prevailing conservative-realist paradigm. In the context of the times, I like
to believe that it took some gumption.
Since the corpus covers
a vast terrain both in time and scope, I undertake a summary here. Besides the
underlying theme of the work mentioned, the body of work is a useful record of
the military and Indian strategic affairs over the last quarter century for
students, practitioners, attentive public and academics to peruse. The
published work earned me a doctorate – my second - from Cambridge University
under its Special Regulations. I assume on that account that my work might
interest a wider audience. The presentation here is to attempt reach it. This
is hopefully timely in light of what I believe to be dire straits into which
India is headed under this regime.
An
intellectual journey
At various times in my
professional life of over three decades I have been a military man, an academic
and an international civil servant. These exposures have contributed to my
thinking on strategic affairs and peace studies related questions. I began my
writing career, that was coextensive with my professional engagement, over the
past quarter century as an infantry officer in the Indian army. Immersing
myself in the academia after premature retirement from the army, I was able to
contribute to the discourse as part of Delhi’s strategic community. Alongside,
I worked towards a doctoral degree in international politics from Jawaharlal
Nehru University.
A perusal of the collected
works comprising close to a 1000 published pieces of varying length, over 4000 pages
and some two million words, needs summarizing. The aim is to bring out the
underlying unity to the whole. The work has been informed by the peculiar and
unique vantage points in my journey. My academic background has enriched the
reflection, distinguishing my work from that of other practitioners in that it
is a combination of learning and experience. The analytical tools acquired by
me while at the DSSC, at the military intelligence course, at the New Delhi think
tank and as a UN political analyst with its mission analysis qualification, have
been put to good use.
A quarter century of
extensive engagement with the strategic discussion in India finds expression in
the collection. Not only did I feed into the discussion, but my thinking was
enhanced by it. My writings enabled the strategic discussion (if not cacophony)
to be taken further and in the dissemination of the content to an attentive audience,
initially within the military, and over the past decade - after I left the military
- to an interested public through writing on the web and compiling the
collections in two blogs: www.ali-writings.blogspot.in
and http://subcontinentalmusings.blogspot.com/.
In the period, India
emerged as a reckonable power, with an expanding economic and strategic
footprint. There was a growing interest in matters of national security among
the educated, middle classes. Consequently, there was much to engage with and
write about, particularly off the mainstream track. My contributions are at the
interstices of international relations, strategy, military sociology and the
political backdrop to internal security.
Areas
covered
Military
sociology:
An aspect of India’s
politics that caught my attention early – as mentioned - was the rise of the
right wing in national politics. I concentrated on the implications for
national security and regional strategic affairs. Having studied civil-military
relations at the master’s level, I was able to see the impact of the ideology
on the military. While the Indian military is known as a professional,
apolitical and secular force, I was able to trace the manner the change in national
politics was influencing the military. This is a consistent theme in my
writings on the Indian military over the past quarter century.
While within service, I
consistently pointed out to editors of in-service journals the trickling in of
right-wing ideas into the publications, and thereby into the military mind.
This phenomenon has acquired a magnitude lately. My writings covering this
aspect are perhaps the singular source on this phenomenon in India, and on that
are of interest in military sociology.
They expand the
horizons of military sociology that usually restricts itself to the study of
the power of military over national politics in the form of praetorianism. What
I bring out is the reverse, on how forces in politics seek to control the military
through expansion of their reach into and within the military, termed subjective
civilian control. Military professionalism is imbued with the cultural
nationalist ethos of the ruling political formation, the ruling party and its
support base in far-right cultural and political formations.
Minority
security:
After leaving the
military, I gained a measure on the emergence to respectability in national
politics of right wing views. There was a concerted assault on India’s largest
minority – and incidentally the world’s largest numerical minority - India’s
Muslims. As a member of this community, I have - as with other Indian Muslims
in the middle classes (including cultural and non-practising Muslims) and
professions - been concerned by implications of majoritarianism for the
minority.
I have in my writings
taken a security-centric view, covering a gap in the discussion since very few in
the strategic community are Muslims. The theme I tackle is the rise of Hindutva
– cultural nationalism – in India is not without costs for India’s plurality,
democratic ethos and secularism. I concentrate on the implications on the security
of Muslim communities.
Strategy:
Further, I have
reflected on how the right-wing penetration upsets rational strategy making and
choices. I looked at how and why a secure and powerful state such as India
behaves like an insecure, paranoid one. India has shifted its strategic posture
towards greater assertiveness of its growing power over the past decade and half.
It appears caught up in a security dilemma with its neighbours, with neighbours
reacting to its security actions.
One arena of my
particular interest in which this action-reaction is found reflected in is of security
doctrines: strategic, nuclear, conventional and sub-conventional. I have
extensively dealt with doctrinal matters, making for the distinctiveness of my
work in India’s strategic community.
Having been a
practitioner once, I participated in counter insurgency operations and
conventional war exercises. I acquired a perspective on nuclear strategy at the
two universities in UK. I was thus able to appraise the inter-linkages between
the three strategic levels – subconventional, conventional and nuclear – and,
link this to the grand strategic and political levels. My strategic work,
included in the compilations, is on the potentially dangerous doctrinal inter-linkages
between the two regional rivals, India and Pakistan, in the nuclear age.
Of some consequence in
the strategic debate has been my doctoral dissertation at JNU on limited war in
South Asia. My doctoral thesis titled, ‘India’s Limited War doctrine:
Structural, Political and Organisational factors’ culminated in a book India’s Doctrine Puzzle: Limiting War in
South Asia. It covered the Cold Start doctrine, the doctrinal shift in
India towards a proactive strategy. The dissertation culminated in a
well-received book, India’s doctrine
puzzle: Limiting war in South Asia (Routledge 2014). The research and the
book were done at a time when I was advantaged by being in the rooms where the
doctrinal shift underway was often discussed. I dwelt on the implications of
shift in conventional level on the nuclear level.
Military
doctrines:
My engagement with
doctrines goes back to my Master’s dissertation in London on peacekeeping
doctrine. In the mid-nineties, peacekeeping had spiked with the end of the Cold
War. Doctrine required catching up with the outbreak of conflicts as Cold War
stability dissolved across Africa, South East Asia and Balkans. As a young military
officer of an army extensively engaged with peacekeeping and student, I was
thus an early inductee into doctrinal thinking.
Back in India, the army
was grappling with the advent of the nuclear age in South Asia in the two
back-to-back nuclear tests in Pokhran and Chagai in May 1998. India brought out
a nuclear doctrine. I examined its implications for the conventional doctrine,
arguing for the applicability of limited war doctrine in South Asia. India’s
conventional war doctrine at the turn of the century was modeled on a total war
scenario, in which three offensive strike corps poised to knock out the
adversary and capture territory for post-conflict bargaining. I found this was
anachronistic in the nuclear age.
My two monographs at
IDSA captured this shift, along with my book. I was in the midst of the
doctrinal effervescence in India, in which the armed forces put out respective
doctrines. Due to a peculiarity of India’s nuclear quest, the military had been
left out of the nuclear loop. Thus, its conventional doctrine was put out in a
vacuum of strategic guidance. I took on the role of stitching the two levels –
nuclear and conventional – together and hopefully made an original contribution
to Indian strategic thinking.
Nuclear
doctrine:
The writings dealing
with the conventional-nuclear interface were informed by a liberal perspective.
I found myself constantly at odds with the realist-conservative bias in the
military that surfaced in its publications, approaches and doctrines. The military
is an instrument of state power and tool in the use of force, I pointed to the
goal posts having shifted since the nuclear advent. My bringing out that it
could not be business-as-usual was a contrarian position initially in the
strategic discourse in India. The effect of hyper-nationalist and cultural
nationalist thinking on strategy was liable to underplay the nuclear genie let
loose in the region.
The Indian discourse
was on how to outpoint and overawe Pakistan leveraging the growing power
differential with Pakistan. The
assumption was that nuclear deterrence would hold. India was grappling on how
to have Pakistan discontinue its support to its proxies in the Kashmir conflict
by using its conventional advantage. Pakistan, for its part, pulled down its nuclear
awning to compensate for its conventional weakness. India, mindful of this,
decided to pull its conventional punches in its new doctrine, Cold Start.
However, the nuclear
doctrine remained unchanged at a declaratory level and consequently continues
to pose a threat to regional – and global - security. With Pakistan poised for
first use and India promising massive nuclear retaliation, there is a potentially
catastrophic doctrinal impasse. A shift in India’s nuclear doctrine for greater
flexibility is one way out of this conundrum, even if it makes nuclear war
appear fightable, if not winnable. If escalation pessimists are right, then the
alternative staring India in the face is to put its money where its mouth is –
it is fond of saying that it is against nuclear weapons - and de-nuclearise.
Liberal
security perspective:
Though India adopted
Cold Start doctrine, India’s military exercises did not reflect the necessity
of doctrinal shift to limited war in the nuclear era. Conflict termination
under nuclear conditions was not sufficiently thought-through. My
contributions, spread across multiple websites on strategic affairs, were
combative, taking the argument to the realist camp. I have packaged these in
books of my compiled words, so that the thread of the argument and the debates within
the strategic community of the last two decades can be easier followed.
I believe that my
advocacy from an Ashokan perspective was a lonely intellectual guerilla effort
since the Indian strategic community – as elsewhere - is realist dominated.
Realism has limitations that need to be brought to the attention of policy
makers grappling with global consequences of military action in the nuclear
age.
Kashmir:
India’s foremost
internal conflict, Kashmir, the most likely trigger for nuclear conflict, was
an abiding interest. Challenged by a people-centric militancy, India chose to
characterize it as terrorism and proxy war precluding political resolution and
privileging a military template. It was aided in this with the anti-terror
discourse internationally after the 9/11 episode. This approach limited policy
choices with conflict management instead of conflict resolution approaches to
fore.
I was an early bird in
examining the internal conflict, as my Kashmir-related writings going back to
the early nineties, testify. I was posed thrice - briefly each time - in J&K
during my military career and acquired a worm’s eye view to complement my
strategic perspective from my academic engagement. I had grappled with the
issue of external intervention in internal conflict – proxy war by Pakistan in
Kashmir - in a chapter in my MPhil thesis while at Cambridge. By mid-2000s India
and Pakistan reached out to each other. This was not to last, derailed by 26/11,
as the terror attacks in Mumbai in November 2008 were called.
From another perch - my
peace studies exposure in academia – I advocated progressing peace talks both
internally and externally. Discerning why these do not succeed and what it
might take for them to succeed is my attempt to stitch power oriented strategic
studies and peace studies, that looks at negotiated end to conflict. I notice a
conflict management approach trumps conflict resolution approaches, regardless
on the implications for the community in which conflict is played out. I have
been particularly critical on the latest constitutional initiative in Kashmir,
whereby Kashmir has been reduced to a unit to be administered by New Delhi.
Counter
insurgency:
The theme of peace
initiatives and humane conduct of counter insurgency operations permeates my
writings. This was usually to counter the militarized discourse in professional
journals and within the strategic community in general and on how to tackle
Kashmir and Pakistan. I reflected on the place of military template in this, arguing
for human rights sensitivity in counter insurgency even where there is
incidence of proxy war. I had two stints as an infantry officer in India’s
north east: in Assam and Tripura. Thus, I was able to have a practitioner-cum-academic
view, a not-unknown combination.
While India’s military
has mostly been cognizant of human rights law and requirements, there is often a
‘Rambo’ tendency in fighting men. Institutional measures are needed for curbing
can have strategic consequences as seen in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. The
turn to cultural nationalism and its influence within the military also needs
factoring in. Seeing the conflict as a civilisational one between Islam and
Hinduism, dating to a thousand years back, constricts scope for concessions and
mutual understanding. This is an understudied area since the military is
treated as a holy cow. I brought up these issues, calling for a draw-down in
the military prong of strategy in favour of a political approach.
Peace
studies:
I have been able to
gain a greater appreciation of political approaches and options in conflict
resolution in my capacity as a political affairs officer with three UN
missions. I undertook two UN trainings in mediation in Oslo and appreciate the
potential for conflict resolution of non-military approaches.
Political approaches
are not unknown in India. There are multiple suspension-of-operations
agreements in place in the north east and a major and long lasting ceasefire
agreement is under implementation in Nagaland. Even in Kashmir, there has been
a Ramzan suspension of operations, though the initiative appears to have set
the stage for Operation All Out, an operation that in turn created the
conditions for the constitutional initiatives of August 2019. The lack of
traction for peace brings to fore the necessity of peace studies insights and
their wider dissemination.
I was acquainted with
this deficit while at the peace studies faculty, getting to know the march that
strategic studies faculties have acquired over peace studies faculties. Policies
favour the former; thereby, having the role of and use of force appear more efficacious
when contrasted to the possibilities of peace through peaceful means. This is
taken as an exercise in sovereignty in post-colonial states that see citizens
as subjects. The view that citizens are to be protected by the state against
conflict and its effects, if necessary by preventive, mitigatory and
resolution-seeking negotiations and mediation for conflict termination is not
widely prevalent. The sense of insecurity allows a statist view to prevail,
leading to self-perpetuating conflict management rather than conflict
resolution.
A
summary of the oeuvre
I consolidated my
writings in disparate locations into book compilations over the years to enable
access for a wider audience, particularly the student community in
international relations, South Asian studies, Indian politics, South Asian
security issues and peace studies. The writings cover the period since the early
nineties and have touched upon all security relevant issues, such as the
nuclear issue, the conventional doctrine, counter insurgency practices,
Kashmir, India-Pakistan equations, peacekeeping and civil-military relations. The
conventional-nuclear doctrinal interface and civil-military relations or military
sociology are I believe path-breaking, the latter is particularly so since the
subject is understudied.
·
PhD
in International Politics, Jawarharlal Nehru University – ‘India’s Limited War Doctrine: Structural,
Political and Organisational Factors’
·
MPhil at Cambridge University – ‘Intervention In Internal Affairs By
States In South Asia’
·
MSc
in Defence and Strategic Studies at DSSC, Madras University – ‘The Contending Philosophies In Indian
Strategic Thought And The Impact On SAARC’
·
MA in
War Studies, King’s College London – ‘UN Peacekeeping and Military Doctrine’
The sixteen books can be divided into
four sets.
Synopsis of the sets
The
first set
The first set with my book chapters
and essays/articles respectively for eminent publications such as the
Economic and Political Weekly – for which I share the monthly
strategic affairs column with two other writers – is my major work. They cover
the past decade and I believe are a significant contribution to the strategic
debate in India, particularly so since the liberal perspective has not had
space.
The essays reflect a contrarian
perspective arguing that when India has enough power for security sufficiency,
more of the same as argued by realists is unnecessary, counter-productive and
liable to create a self-fulfilling prophecy in generating a security dilemma in
neighbours, such as in India’s case, a relatively weaker Pakistan. Some essays
carry an anti-nuclear stance, arguing through a strategic lens that nuclear
weapons possession implies a critical time break. The argument was for adapting
India’s conventional military power to the nuclear age. On the contrary, India,
in the period, attempted to continue searching for ‘decisive victory’ through a
new conventional doctrine, under cover of an expansive – and that count
implausible - nuclear doctrine.
The implacable logic of deterrence
in the nuclear age suggests a diplomatic outreach externally (with Pakistan)
and peace interventions internally (in Kashmir). In the event, this is not the
policy choice India adopted. I make the case through my writings that the
reason for India missing out on the logic of the nuclear age is that its
nuclear ascendance was in part induced by cultural (religious) revivalism in
India and the need for primordial, national pride makes it continue to adhere
to power – rather than accommodation - as means to conflict resolution.
The
second set
My second set comprises monographs.
These have both research and conceptual content. In the monographs, Reconciling doctrines, I make my most
significant argument that the doctrinal propensities of the two states – India
and Pakistan – makes for a volatile combination when juxtaposed against each
other. The two have offensive doctrines at the three doctrinal levels –
Pakistan at the subconventional and India at the conventional level. Both have
offensive nuclear doctrines: Pakistan does not have a No First Use doctrine
while India though with an NFU has a ‘massive’ retaliation doctrine. My case is
that a doctrinal interface is required between the two for conflict prevention,
escalation control and conflict management.
The second monograph is on the
structural factor determining doctrinal shift towards a proactive doctrine. It highlights
a doctrinal impetus for India lying in Pakistan’s constant challenge at the
subconventional level in Kashmir.
Of the three monographs, the one at
the United Services Institution, supervised by the doyen of India’s strategic
community, Mr. K. Subrahmanyam, was not published as I was an army major then
and anticipating that the critique would not have been passed by the
authorities had requested the monograph not be published. A bold look at how
institutional interest of security agencies trumps national interest, the
monograph is a critique of the subcultures in the security establishment,
including its influence on the army’s performance in Kashmir.
In all three monographs, I show the
hand of an assertive turn to strategic culture, brought about by inter-alia cultural
revivalism in India, perhaps the first such academic observation in strategic
literature on and in India.
The
third set
The methodology in my papers is
usually to contrast the liberal perspective with the operative realist one, thereby
providing a sound critique of extant policy. The books taken together are a
trove for students and have a historical value, because they trace the
political change in India and how that has impacted the strategic discourse and
India’s defence, foreign and internal security policies.
For instance, in Kashmir over the
past three decades there has been a consistent recourse to the military
template, to little avail since the hard option only creates more recruits for
the militancy and attracts Pakistan’s intelligence meddling. Therefore, the
neglected policy choices including political approaches and peace interventions
are advocated in my pieces covering Kashmir. It is no wonder India has
compounded its predicament in Kashmir lately.
I follow the nuclear issue through
the years, again making an anti-nuclear case but in strategic terms to carry
the argument into strategic discourse. The anti-nuclear discussion is otherwise
restricted to activist circuits that are marginalised, depriving the debate of
energy.
A word on my writings while in the
military, On India’s military: Writings
from within. I was an active participant in the intellectual life of the
Indian military. The record provides insight into the concerns of the military
over two decades of late last century and early this century. The book is a
window to the military.
A must read among my writings while
in-service is one comprising the then unpublished articles owing to the
requirement of obtaining military intelligence clearance for writings by
military personnel, but have since been self-published as
From within: Reflections on India's army.
Equally significant is a compilation of
comments
on articles published in military publications wherein my critique was on the
right wing cadence and influence. These letters now form a record for tracing
how the right wing had penetrated military thinking and the extent to which it
has. I reflect on the rise of cultural nationalism and trace its influence on
the Indian military.
I bring a practitioner-cum-academic
point of view to bear, a rare combination. There are few prolific writers from
within the Indian military; fewer have put together their work between two
covers. The Indian army is an oddity in the developing world in being both
professional and not having meddled in politics. However, my work is different
in showing up how politics has pervaded the military stealthily at first and
more blatantly of late. This is in itself a original contribution to the
ongoing national debate on where is India headed.
Summing up
The key take-away from my writings
is that the change in India’s strategic doctrine from defensive realism to
offensive realism owes to the impact on Indian strategic culture of India’s rightward
political shift under the impress of cultural nationalism. Here I contrast the
popular realist perspective with the one I have furthered in my writings, the
Asokan perspective.
The key competing explanation for
this shift in India’s dominant strategic perspective is a structural one that
has it that India’s security predicament has led to a response leveraging India’s
increasing power over the period. The realist explanation is in is traditional
balance-of-power terms.
The Chinese juggernaut looming
large across Asia and the traditional Pakistani threat taken together combined
to generate a potential ‘two-front’ problem. India’s economic indices since the
liberalization of early nineties had an upward trend in the early 2000s. This
led to greater investment in the defence sector, allowing for greater
self-assertion by India in response to the ‘two-front’ dilemma. The nuclear
breakout in 1998 was brought about by a Chinese collusion with Pakistan that
posed a missile and nuclear threat. Under the nuclear umbrella, revisionist
Pakistan sought to upset the status quo along the Line of Control, in Kashmir
and pose a terror threat in India’s hinterland. The Chinese infrastructure
development in Tibet led up to an adverse force ratio on that front. India was
able, through an increased defence outlay, to play catch-up, both in terms of
infrastructure building along the northern – undemarcated - border but also by raising
its military strength.
The threat forced Indian response
in terms of doctrine development, equipment acquisitions, military exercises,
defence infrastructure building, forging of strategic partnerships and
organizational innovation (such as the mountain strike corps). India reached
out to the United States (US), fellow democratic powers in the Indo-Pacific and
adopted an ‘Act East’ policy, to complement the US’ ‘pivot’ to Asia. Today the
discourse is on Indo-Pacific. An increasingly vibrant economy helped India
offset the Chinese attempt to box-in India into South Asian confines, using
Pakistan as proxy.
On the other hand, in the Ashokan
perspective, the ‘threat’ appears as a self-fulfilling prophecy, resulting from
a security dilemma generated in the smaller neighbour, Pakistan, due to India’s
own posture and actions. Over the eighties, India had a conventional war
doctrine of conventional retribution using its two strike corps, as
demonstrated in Exercise Brasstacks in the mid-eighties. This prompted Pakistan
in the early nineties to neutralize India’s conventional advantage by bogging
the Indian military down in a proxy war in Kashmir, even as India went in for a
third strike corps. India’s military template in Kashmir kept the locale ideal
for Pakistani interference.
To make its conventional advantage
usable in face of Pakistan’s covert nuclear capability, India went overtly nuclear.
It held China responsible for forcing its nuclear hand, even though at the time
India had forged confidence building measures with China. This suggests that
instead of a reckonable threat from China, the Chinese threat was a rationale
to cover a development prompted by India’s equation with Pakistan. This reading
has it that the structural explanation is only partial. By a structural yardstick,
at best, the Indian strategy was to reinvigorate its conventional advantage,
and thereby deter Pakistan at the subconventional level.
Alternatively, liberal explanations
do not disavow power balances but are sensitive to policy impulses in other
causal chains. At a wider – grand strategic level - Indian actions prompted the
threats it faced, which were, in turn, used as strategic rationale for continuing
down a chosen path of self-assertion. This begs the question as to impetus
behind self-assertion.
In my writings, a cultural
explanation has been privileged for its explanatory value.
The principle change in India has
been a discernible shift to the Right, not only economically with adoption of
neoliberalism, but politically in an emergence and rise of cultural
nationalism. This impacted Indian strategic culture, in turn imposing on the
strategic doctrine as traced in the cases followed: doctrine making, Kashmir,
minority security, India-Pakistan relations and the organizational and
sociological impact on the Indian army. In my writings, spread over a quarter
century as outlined here, the rise of cultural nationalism and its impact on
strategic culture and on military culture can be traced.
The quest has been for peaceable
solutions – peace through peaceful means. Using the timeless Ashokan tradition in
India I shone the light for and provided a mirror to the Indian strategic
community. Retrospectively, my observations appear to be vindicated, with religious
majoritarianism in ascendance in India. A sense of perspicacity is little satisfaction
in face of aggravation of the Indian and regional security problematic. My advocacy
for a liberal turn to politics, a return to a strategic doctrine of defensive
realism and critique of an assertive strategic culture and
offensive
military doctrines, appears set to continue in light of the ideologically
driven strategic missteps of the right wing regime.
Note - Also can be downloaded from the blog's right margin.
