https://www.academia.edu/44179437/NUCLEAR_HERESIES_Part_II

NUCLEAR HERESIES

Part II

BY ALI AHMED

 

Ali Ahmed, PhD (JNU), has been an infantryman, an academic and a UN official. His second doctorate, a PhD under Special Regulations from Cambridge University, was awarded based on his publications - inter-alia - on nuclear doctrine. This book is second part of a compilation of his writings on nuclear doctrinal issues in South Asia.

 For anti-nuclearists

 

Foreword

This is the second part of Nuclear Heresies. The title owes to the main theme of the book, that a nuclear doctrine that was genocidal to begin with, is now suicidal. The doctrine self-interestedly assumes that South Asia is not in the state of Mutual Assured Destruction. Since at the crunch this notion will be rudely dispelled, the book endeavours to make the case that it would not do to wait that long and instead rethink deterrence and rework doctrine, if not be rid of the wretched weapons themselves.

The book has been twenty years and more in the making. It comprises commentaries with focus mainly on the India-Pakistan strategic equation, of which the nuclear factor is a critical part. It engages with the doctrinal interconnection between the two subcontinental states, arguing that their two doctrines taken together make for a combustible mess.

The book covers the century so far. Since we have managed to avoid a nuclear punch up, this implies we can get along. By no means is this thanks to nuclear weapons. We can thus coexist if not collaborate, and without nuclear weapons at that. This vision needs to energise people, lest someday nuclear use be the trigger for good sense.

I thank the publications in which these commentaries appeared over the years. I have used others’ works as peg for my arguments, sometimes using their ideas for target practice. While some were genuine bhakts of the false god, deterrence, there has been over the years an ideological contamination of doctrinal space by bhakts of the better-known variety. My singular contribution, if any, has been to point to this, hopefully to the betterment of strategic thinking in general. 

I hope the commentaries inspire students in particular. Here they can access the nuclear field through an Ashokan lens. The liberal rationalist perspective has a long historical tradition in South Asia. It needs airing in order that someday it gets the momentum and escape velocity to reclaim its place, if not sway, in Indian strategic culture.

 

 

Contents

1. The Nuclear Domain: In Irreverence                                                                                                               8

 

2. Modi at the Helm: Whither Nuclear Decision-making?                                                                                                              17

 

3. Indian Nuclear Command and Control                                                                                                             21

 

4. Indian Nuclear Command and Control – II                                                                                                             29

 

5. The Scientific Establishment: From the Brahmachari Bomb to Brahmastra                                                                                                             34

 

6. Information Operations in Limited Nuclear War                                                                                                             52

 

7. A Call for nuclear sanity                                                                                                             54

 

8. Avoiding Nuclear War in South Asia                                                                                                             56

 

9. India’s Nuclear Doctrine: Strategic Direction or Drift?                                                                                                              58

 

10. Modi May Say Otherwise, But India Is Still Short of ‘Survivable Nuclear Deterrent’                                                                                                              59

 

11. What nuclear weapons have done to us                                                                                                              61

 

12. Are India’s nuclear weapons in safe hands?                                                                                                              63

 

13. Nuclear Battlefield Preparedness                                                                                                             64

 

14. India-Pakistan: Contrasting Doctrines                                                                                                             66

 

15. Conventional Backdrop to the NuclearForeground                                                                                                             72

 

16. Visualising the Impact of Nuclear Operations at the Conventional Level                                                                                                             78

 

17. India’s forthcoming nuclear doctrine review                                                                                                             81

 

18. At the Conventional-Nuclear Interface                                                                                                             88

 

19. The Doctrinal Challenge                                                                                                              93

 

20. The Danger of Strategic Determinism                                                                                                             99

21. India and China: Nationalism and Nuclear Risk                                                                                                            101

 

22. Political Dimensions of Limited War                                                                                                            102

 

23. What Does India Mean By ‘Two Front’ Problem?                                                                                                            105

 

24. Mountain Strike Corps: The Nuclear Dimension                                                                                                            108

 

25. Exit Points and the Updation of Cold Start Doctrine                                                                                                            109

 

26. What Does India Mean By ‘Massive’Retaliation?                                                                                                            112

 

27. Nuclear Use: Need for Thinking on Political-Level Considerations                                                                                                            115

 

28. India’s Nuclear Doctrine Review: Don’t Leave It to the Hawks!                                                                                                            116

 

29. Nuclear Doctrine Review: NRRC                                                                                                            118

 

30. Diplomatic Engagement in a Post Nuclear Use Environment                                                                                                            121

 

31. The Aftermath of Pakistani Nuclear First Use                                                                                                            123

 

32. Nuclear Doctrine Review: Three Deterrence Models                                                                                                            125                                                                                                                

 

33. Severe Indigestion From Nuclear Orthodoxy                                                                                                            127

 

34. An Indian Nuclear Doctrine Review: A Third Model                                                                                                            129

 

35. Kashmir and the Bomb                                                                                                            131

 

36. Nuclear Doctrinal Revision for the China Front                                                                                                            133

 

37. India’s Nuclear Doctrine: The Storm in India’s Nuclear Teacup                                                                                                            135

 

38. India-Pakistan: Distancing the Spark from theNuclear Tinderbox                                                                                                            136

 

39. Rethinking India’s Nuclear Doctrine                                                                                                            140

 

40. The Post Conflict Factor in Nuclear Decision Making                                                                                                            144

 

41. India, Nuclear Weapons and ‘MassiveRetaliation’: The Impossibility of Limitation?                                                                                                            146

 

42. Nuclear Use Consequences for Pakistan                                                                                                            147

 

43. Hatf IX and Possible Indian Responses                                                                                                            149

 

44. Deterrence has a Shaky and Brief Shelf Life                                                                                                            151

 

45. Demonstration Strikes, in an Indo-Pak Conflict Scenario                                                                                                            152

 

46. Tit for Tat: A Nuclear Retaliation Alternative                                                                                                            154

 

47. What Does Pakistan Hope to Achieve with Nasr?                                                                                                            156

 

48. Pakistan’s ‘First Use’ in Perspective                                                                                                            158

 

49. Making Sense of ‘Nasr’                                                                                                            161

 

50. Nuclear Targeting Caveats                                                                                                            163

 

51. The Military Intelligence Function in Future War                                                                                                             166

 

52. Implications of Indian BMD Developments                                                                                                            168

 

53. Nuclear Implications of the ‘Two Front’ Formulation                                                                                                            170

 

54. Re-visioning the Nuclear Command Authority                                                                                                            172

 

55. Policy Brief  Reviewing India’s Nuclear Doctrine                                                                                                            175

 

56. The Need for Clarity In India’s Nuclear Doctrine                                                                                                            181

 

57. India’s Response to CBW Attack                                                                                                            184

 

58. India’s Nuclear Doctrine                                                                                                            187

 

59. Taking Nuclear War-Fighting Seriously                                                                                                            193

 

60. India-Pakistan: Missing NCBMs                                                                                                            196

 

61. Prospects of India-Pakistan Nuclear Confidence Building                                                                                                            198

 

62. NCBMs: Scaremongering, But with a Purpose                                                                                                            200

 

63. The Direction of India’s Deterrent                                                                                                            201

 

64. Implications of Indian BMD Developments                                                                                                            203

 

65. Should India Give Up its NFU Doctrine                                                                                                            205

 

66. The Logic of the ‘Sundarji Doctrine’                                                                                                            206

 

67. The Illogic of ‘Unacceptable Damage’                                                                                                            208

 

68. The Illogic of ‘Massive’ Punitive Retaliation                                                                                                            209

 

69. Nuclear Trajectory in South Asia                                                                                                            211

 

70. Nuclear C2: The Balance Agenda                                                                                                            212

 

71. Deterrence Stability in a Context of Strategic Instability                                                                                                            214

 

72. Hatf IX and Possible Indian Responses                                                                                                            216

 

73. Arguing for NBC Training                                                                                                            218

 

74. Mountain Strike Corps: The Nuclear Dimension                                                                                                            220

 

73. One gaffe too many                                                                                                            221

 

74. Whose command? Whose control?                                                                                                            224

 

75. The nuclear numbers game                                                                                                            226

 

76. Wanted: A peace movement                                                                                                            228

 

77. Making nuclear sense                                                                                                            230

 

78. The Bright Side of ‘Asymmetric Escalation’                                                                                                            232

 

79. On Disarmament Prospects in South Asia                                                                                                            234

 

80. Yet Another Nuclear Controversy                                                                                                            235

 

81. The Myth of ‘Weapons of Peace’                                                                                                            237

 

82. Getting it Right: Rereading India’s Nuclear Doctrine                                                                                                            239

 

83. Pakistan’s Possible Nuclear Game Plan                                                                                                            240

 

84. The Calculus of ‘Cold Start’                                                                                                            242

 

84. Limited Nuclear War, Limitless Anxiety                                                                                                            244

 

85. The Day After ‘Cold Start’                                                                                                            247

 

86. The Logic of Nuclear Redlines                                                                                                            248

 

87. A Smoke Screen called Limited War                                                                                                            250

 

88. The Need to Revisit Conventional Doctrine                                                                                                            251

 

89. The Impetus Behind Limited War                                                                                                            252

 

90. Preparing for ‘Limited Nuclear War’                                                                                                            253

 

 

 

 https://www.academia.edu/44170962/NUCLEAR_HERESIES_Part_I

NUCLEAR HERESIES

Part I

BY ALI AHMED

 

Ali Ahmed, PhD (JNU), has been an infantryman, an academic and a UN official. His second doctorate, a PhD under Special Regulations from Cambridge University, was awarded based on his publications - inter-alia - on nuclear doctrine. This book is a compilation of his writings on nuclear doctrinal issues in South Asia.

 

 

 

For nuclear skeptics, who have kept us safe

 

Foreword

Nuclear Heresies is an apt title for this book. Being a nuclear skeptic but with a seat on the margins of New Delhi’s strategic community, I have been unable to come to terms with the prevalent notions on nuclear doctrine and strategy. Though within the room, I have had a seat in the back bench and along the walls of seminar rooms. From that vantage, the vacuity of what passes for informed discussion on nuclear deterrence was pretty much evident, which I proceeded to record.

In this book, I have tried to convey my skepticism on nuclear doctrinal thinking in India over the past twenty years. During the period, the doctrinal field was bubbly, though rather monochromatic. The pundits associated with nuclear doctrine formulation held forth, while their hangers-on mouthed the virtues of an imbecile doctrine, in part, for access to the high table.

The alternative strategic community was as usual alert to this from its marginalized perch on the sidelines of the strategic circuit. It lost one stalwart early on and its other leading lights were caught up with other equally salient matters as India lurched towards the Right in the period. Thus, vigour was at an ebb in the critique, even if rigour was not.

In any case, the alternative strategic community lacked the resources which the state liberally used for the information war on its people, that India is a responsible nuclear power. There is no such thing as a responsible nuclear power.

I persevered in pointing out the emperor had no clothes on, as was the case with most other issues of national security and strategy. This was inevitable from my perspective liberal-rationalist perspective since the mainstream was realist dominated, one taken over in the last decade by closet cultural nationalists who finally shed their pretenses in the Modi era.

Essentially, the book makes the case that nuclear assets, ignoble in themselves, are in unsafe hands. The Hindutva brigade cannot be trusted with the crown jewels. Just as they have muddied the rest of national security, they can be relied on to do this with nuclear strategy too. By then, realization would be too late. Therefore, this book is intended as a timely reminder to voters to rethink who they have handed over the nuclear suitcase to and withdraw the same urgently and unequivocally.

I thank my examiners for the PhD by Special Regulations for reading through this extensive work and showing their confidence in the ideas in it. This emboldens me to pass on the work here, mainly to students who can make up their own minds on what’s right for this country and region. This is the primary motivation of the book. I hope it serves the purpose of getting citizens to junk nuclear weapons, which their governments want them to think as necessary to keep safe. 

The book is in two parts, since a single volume would be rather bulky. The two parts comprise chapters, commentaries and articles penned so far this century. The major published works comprising the more thoughtful pieces are in Part I, whereas Part II comprises commentaries on the debates through these years. The two together should prove a useful trove for strategic and peace studies enthusiasts, regional specialists and military affairs afficionados. 

 

Contents

Political decision making and nuclear retaliation   5

The political factor in nuclear retaliation             21

Nuclear retaliation options                                 36

No first use nuclear policy                                 39                               

Pakistani nuclear use and implications for India  42

TNW in nuclear first use: The legal counter        56

Cold Start and the Sehjra Option                        64

Furthering NFU in the India-Pakistan context      72

A conflict strategy for India in the TNW era       80

Indian Army’s flagship doctrines                       88

India’s nuclear doctrine: Stasis or dynamism?     105

Extract from India’s Doctrine Puzzle: India’s nuclear doctrine  127

Limited War: The strategic conundrum               133

Airing the Sundarji Doctrine                              135

Limited War: An Assessment                            139

Reflection on the threat of nuclear war               142

India: Dissonance on the doctrinal front              150

Extract from IDSA Monograph No. 3: Reconciling Doctrines - Limiting Conflict 165

 

In tribute: Recalling the Sundarji Doctrine          175

 

Extract from the PhD under Special Regulations  183

  

 

 BOOK NAME: THE INDIAN ARMY: REMINISCENCES, REFORMS & ROMANCE

https://www.thebookreviewindia.org/from-the-pen-of-a-general/ 

AUTHOR NAME: Lt.Gen. H.S. Panag

BOOK YEAR: 2020

BOOK PRICE: 599.00

REVIEWER NAME: Ali Ahmed

VOLUME NO: 44

PUBLISHER NAME: Westland, New Delhi

BOOK PAGES: 272

Lt Gen HS Panag writes that having commanded two armies, the northern and central army, he had over six lakh troops under him at some point or the other. Most of them may have seen the badge he wore on his uniform since his colonel days that read: ‘Don’t do anything that I don’t do. Do like me, do better than me and do it now!’ This was his command philosophy, arrived at through inspiration from his father, a redoubtable colonel, and with experience since his National Defence Academy days as Academy Cadet Adjutant.

The leadership example of Panag accounted for his fearsome professional reputation across the service. He was known to challenge youngsters visiting his office to pushups and reputedly often came out ahead. He writes of winning his spurs with the soldiery when on a long-range patrol he lugged the heaviest load–the wheat sack–all the way. On reaching back, they carried him on their shoulders into the camp. This distinguishes military officers from the other professions, implying that not only must officers have brains but also brawn. Panag in his book brings out the brains aspect equally dexterously. He is said to have boasted on having read some three thousand books while in service, no mean feat considering soldiering is not an idyllic sojourn.

Besides brains and brawn, more important is moral fibre. Panag’s standing up to the troll brigade over the Right-Wing government’s dissimulation on Chinese action in Ladakh is an example. He led a combat group there, so knows the terrain. His commentary, along with that of a couple of notable veterans, has been of the order of speaking truth to power, which in today’s times in India unfortunately requires considerable guts. Since this book was written prior to the crisis up north, those commentaries do not figure in the book. However, premonitions of danger and what needs to be done to meet it abound in the book, indicating that had the national security minders listened there may have been no set back in Ladakh, requiring the horde of prevarication as now. His section on China is a must read on that account.

The first section in the book, on human rights, also sets him apart. On the military’s human rights record, the General is perhaps a lone ranger, testified to by his calling out the Army Chief for awarding Major Leetul Gogoi, the villain in the ‘human shield’ case.  He has used his experience post retirement on the armed forces tribunal to good effect by pointing out the gap between the army’s precepts on human rights and accountability for its actions. He was the only one to write of the second case that the Supreme Court dealt with when it allowed the army to take over the Pathribal case. In the event, the Pathribal case perpetrators were let off by the army. Panag points out the infirmity in the second case, regarding five killed in a fake encounter at Dangari, in Assam, which he prognosticated would lead to perpetrators being similarly let off. His is therefore an important voice that problematizes the official narrative of terrorists violating the human rights of security forces.

Panag flows with the tide in his section on Pakistan. He believes that the military has a role to play, the extent of which is a governmental decision. To him, India’s strategic options range from surgical strikes to limited war and include generating a fourth-generation warfare threat for Pakistan within Pakistan, what National Security Adviser Ajit Doval once famously referred to as the Baluchistan option. Even so, the first strategic option on his list is to ‘engage Pakistan diplomatically to work out a mutually acceptable solution within India’s constitutional framework and without change in territorial sovereignty’ (p. 182). He was army commander in the period when this option was being tried out.

Panag’s approach to Kashmir, to which is devoted one section, similarly carries cadences of the period of relative quietude when he was in command. He naively suggests that the Prime Minister reach out and hug the Kashmiris. Indeed, the emotional connect could work wonders, as was the case spectacularly with Vajpayee and less so with Manmohan Singh. Kashmir has been reduced to Delhi’s control rather than, howsoever imperfect, democratic control. Panag is prescient in saying that this is a set back that is yet to reveal its full extent and to play out fully. Though the massive protests he anticipated have not occurred, he cannot be faulted for not having anticipated a pandemic when the book went to print. In any case the dragnet across Kashmir suggests that the authorities were also equally worried on this count.

The other sections carry short pieces on leadership, reminiscences and on thus far unremarked military heroes. He writes these up simply, typical of a fauji. His poignant sketch of the love affair between a Sikh lad and a Kashmiri maiden is one waiting for a movie to take it to a wider audience. The story is evidence of the different life scripts that play out in Kashmir, of fear and hate juxtaposed against empathy and kindness.

The book comprises commentaries and articles by Panag on three web portals–Newslaundry, The Print and Times of India–from his retirement lair in a village in Sirhind. Divided into parts on human rights, reforms, leadership, reminiscences, conflict and unforgettable heroes, it has something for everyone, from a defence watcher to a youth enamoured with the fauj. This is perhaps the last such critical work of depth from a general since Krishna Rao’s tome. Subsequent works, such as by Shankar Roy Chaudhury, ‘Paddy’ Padmanabhan, ‘JJ’ Singh and VK Singh, and even from the formidable intellect, Sundarji, were mostly rather light (excluding here Sundarji’s writings on the nuclear question). Other than Rustom Nanavatty’s look at counter insurgency, we have not had from our generals the calibre of work such as that by Rupert Smith and Stanley MacChrystal. However, the strategic commentary over the years by veterans, such as Gen ‘Mucchu’ Chaudhury, ‘Monty’ DK Palit, Mathew Thomas, Afsir Karim, Dipankar Banerji, Ashok Mehta, Gurmeet Kanwal and Ajai Shukla to name some, has been remarkable for a nation supposedly lacking a strategic culture. Since there is more to General Panag than 6-minute reads, he must step up on his next foray for the benefit of Indian strategic literature.