https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/agenda-for-the-new-chiefs?s=w

Agenda for the new Chiefs

Determining the limits of ‘apolitical’

The last-time round, the turn-over of Army chief was delayed to merely two weeks prior to the date of retirement of the incumbent, General Rawat. This was a departure from past practice when the Chief-designate used to be announced sufficiently early, giving the handing-over process a month or so to play out. The departure from practice in December 2019 was understandable in light of the government putting together the procedures for creation of a Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) and deciding on who would be the first occupant of the newly created post. In the event, General Rawat was appointed CDS merely a day prior to his retirement.

In the current iteration there is no acceptable reason for the government to have delayed showing its hand. Even if we are to believe that it was concerned that the seniors of its prospective choice of Army Chief – Vice Chief General Pande - were yet to retire, the last of three shed his uniform end last month. Enough time has passed since the unfortunate expiry of General Rawat in an accident for the government to have made up its mind on his successor. The two appointments could have been announced early this month; even if Naravane was not its choice for CDS and particularly so if he is indeed its choice.  

This needless wait gives rise to avoidable speculation. The grapevine may be indulging in its new pastime: ‘deep selecting’ between the two kinds of candidates - the professional and those, who through virtue-signaling have indicated their pliability quotient. More consequential is reflecting on what might be holding up the government and what the implications are for the military, in particular the Army.

From such an exercise emerges the agenda of the incoming Chiefs. If the implications are found to be negative, then the Chiefs have to hold their end up, batting for their team and not either for themselves or a mythical New India. While a straight bat is always best, technical perfection may not be the best way for them to play their forthcoming innings.

So, what’s holding up the government? It is a verity that professionalism at the apex of the military is largely uniform. This is not quite true for the CDS appointment, as is evident from General Rawat’s stewardship of it. An infantry man and supposedly a counter insurgency specialist, his run-ins with the other two Services suggest that he was arguably out of his depth on his key mandate, jointness. So, a fine-grained look at professionalism that befits the CDS is warranted. Even so, since – as mentioned – four months are enough for that, the government appears to be looking not for professionalism as much as for likemindedness.

Its record on appointing heads of other institutions is indicative. A look at the education sector suggests that the government wishes for ideologically-aligned personages. From the apex police appointments, largesse is evident for those from the Gujarat cadre and those who have assisted in the journey of the prime minister from a provincial honcho to Delhi. Such assistance allegedly on occasion also involved cover-up of some legally suspect deeds along the way.

The latest appointment - of the head of the Union Public Service Commission - provides a hint of what goes on in the collective mind of the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet that comprises the prime minister and his acolyte, the home minister. Though this author has been in the International Relations (IR) field for past three decades, he has not come across any publication or even the spoken reputation of the eminence appointed to the consequential chair, whose background is reportedly in IR. This indicates that institutional building is not the lookout, instead institution rewiring is.

While such scraping of the bottom of the barrel for an ideologically-aligned brass-hat is not possible in the military’s case, the regime will nevertheless be very selective, looking at the next significant factor: pliability. This may dilute the premium on professionalism: Naravane’s apparently missing the boat suggests as much. That willy-nilly ‘pliability’ foregrounds itself as a factor begs the question: Why?

The hint is in the most recent mouthings of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s (RSS) head, Mohan Bhagwat, at a gathering of ‘saints’ (as per the news report) in Haridwar. He said that Akhand Bharat is to be fast tracked to 15 years. This, to him, “is not possible without the progress of religion”. The place of religion is evident from his saying, “Sanatan Dharma is only Hindu Rashtra.” Anyone contesting progress on this path “will be either removed or finished.” He acknowledges that the power is with the people. Therefore, they are being conditioned by the RSS. He urges the religious gathering to also prepare the people, adding, “We will walk together as an example, without fear.” He expects to deter contestation and international attention from what’s to follow by carrying a “big”, “heavy” stick.

It is no state secret that the regime owes allegiance to the RSS. The government, the ruling party and the RSS have confabulated on policies. The RSS chief’s call to walk ‘without fear’ in the direction he has indicated – Hindu Rashtra to be presumably followed by Akhand Bharat – shows his confidence in the government holding the RSS’ back. This is evident in the depredations of Hindutva believers being overlooked and instead their victims – mostly Muslims - being arraigned either in court or targeted for reprisal – such as by demolition of houses - by the State.

If Hindu Rashtra is being fast-forwarded, it is not only because of the confidence lent by the people returning Messrs Modi and Bisht to respective chairs. Modi’s sway over people’s imaginations – brought about by a captive media, his own charisma, fake news tailored for a post truth age and a troll army - lends the Hindutva lobby confidence that they have that wide a time window.

Besides, the international situation is in a flux and any human rights opprobrium their contemplated measures (evidenced by the reference to the stick) will attract can be treated like water off a duck’s back. Blinken’s recent tough talk on human rights while in India attracted a riposte by Jaishankar showing how India will handle adverse external attention henceforth.

Where does the military fit in all this?

Admittedly, the military – traditionally conceived – has no role. As an apolitical military, it is sworn to lay off politics. At best, it is to have a stand-off, facilitative role. A military that genuflects to Hindutva, while ostensibly keeping its constitutional distance, helps Hindutva hit its stride.

The regime has done enough to incentivise behavior along these lines by the military. It has put up a war memorial and is turning out a museum. It showcases the military in events like Parakram Parv. The prime minister spends Diwali with troops. It has arguably delivered on One Rank One Pension - of sorts. It has studiously looked the other way when the military has under-performed as at Balakot, Rajauri (site of the Pakistani aerial riposte) and Ladakh, even as information war targeting the domestic audience has kept this a national secret.

The regime’s national security policies have been such as to ensure the military is kept to the professional till, with no leeway for a stray, political thought. It has been sent up the Himalayas in full strength, even though the increase of India-China trade over the first quarter reportedly registered the highest-ever growth by volume. The regime has stirred up the Kashmir pot with its Articles 35A and 370 caper; ensuring that the army has enough on its plate into perpetuity. The remainder of the army is undergoing a make-over from traditional formations to integrated battle groups, which should keep it immersed professionally for a decade. The military has jointness on its agenda, which will keep it busy through the timeline to Hindu Rashtra.

Not only does the military have a compelling job at hand, but has also been thrown a bone. Sensibly, to over-ensure, the regime has some innovative ideas to whittle it. The Tour of Duty (TOD) brainwave is one such. This will dilute cohesion in the ranks, keeping the military from mounting a political challenge. A cohesive military is good for operational effectiveness, but bad for civil-military relations if it gets the wrong ideas into its head.

It is in this context pliable military leaders are useful. Not only must they keep the military out of politics as it takes its own course, but discreetly and tacitly demonstrate comfort levels with the ideological preponderance of Hindutva to, in turn, help it prevail over competing political narratives.

In case the Hindutva project goes awry, then the military may be asked to be part of the big, heavy stick. As for Akhand Bharat, if in the imaginings of Bhagwat it has a bigger territorial area than presently controlled by India, it is feasible that the military might be subject to mission creep, from offensive defence now to compellence then. Even developing the capacity to bring this about – even if in the event it is not chanced for good reasons as the nuclear threshold - will help keep neighbour Pakistan tied down. As for what Akhand Bharat means in relation to China, it would be imprudent to rely on Amit Shah’s grandstanding in parliament of August 2019 for any hint. 

If these are the expectations of the upcoming military leadership, then we can arrive at the leadership agenda of the new military chiefs. It’s easy to see that the route charted by Mohan Bhagwat is quite opposed to the Constitution. Though Bhagwat takes care to say that the people are in control, note that he also says that they are being conditioned to go down a certain path.

Consequently, while changes may be procedurally democratic, as to whether this is enough to change the basic structure of the Constitution, from a secular to a majoritarian democracy, is questionable. A captive judiciary may not be able to rule against a rabid State on this score. It bears thinking through as to what the role of the military is in extremis. Are there limits to the doctrine of a democratic military being apolitical?

An instructive period to look at on this is Germany of the late thirties and within it, at the Wehrmacht. The sway of Hitler required the subordination of the military. Not only did Hitler meddle with the line-up, elevating compliant military leaders, but was rather ruthless as he went about it. Alongside, he gave sufficient professional incentive to the German Army, allowing it to expand and the resources to do so; thereby cultivating the operational level commanders. Changes towards operationalisation of Blitzkrieg kept the German Army busy, even as Hitler created the conditions and provided an opportunity for the employment of their professional skills. Sensibly, he created rival armed formations, as the Schutzstaffel, as insurance. He also sent in the Hitler-Jugend to populate its ranks.

There are parallels drawn by the liberal commentariat with this period, from the way India is headed. However, at the current juncture, the military can at best be alert to its dharma. India’s millennia-long and culturally-compliant subordination of the military to the political masters cannot be changed, merely by surmising the future from the boasts of the RSS. The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

Even so, for now, a military alert to its dharma will help deter any thought in any right wing head that the military has been brought to heel as have other institutions. The military apex needs to be prickly when called on to lend political masters a hand, such as for using the military’s tacit endorsement of its actions or achievements for its political purposes.

Since the political project will advance more than a step at a time (“Everything will not be achieved at once,” according to Bhagwat.), the agenda for the new Chiefs can only be limited to demonstrating to the regime that the military still has its spine. They must also read the riot act to Hindutva bhakts within the ranks. Evidently, reading from social media, there are many. They must stand tall against hare-brained schemes as TOD. They must of course - as is the case with all Chiefs historically – ensure the military does not let down its guard and punches to its weight.

Since the regime has the initiative, it would look out for military Chiefs who would not push back. Since it is at the top of its run up and is only now turning to come down the track into bowl, it does not need pliability to a degree as it would as it speeds up to the wickets at the bowler’s end. This gives hope that professionalism might yet get the better of pliability for now – ideological slant being ruled out. Professionalism allows for discharge of the advisory function with conviction. So the Chiefs must know they are empowered to advise the regime where it gets off, without insisting on it.

 https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/expectations-of-the-tour-of-duty?s=w

Expectations of the Tour of Duty initiative

From Sardar Patel Bhawan to Nagpur

Writing on the Tour of Duty (TOD) initiative, a former military adviser in the National Security Council Secretariat cautions against the baby of military effectiveness being thrown out with the bathwater. He hints at the less remarked reasons for the move, stating, “The other payoffs cited are of strengthening the connection between society and the military, instilling nationalism among the youth, reducing age profile, and providing an opportunity for the youth to fulfil their aspiration of serving in the Armed Forces.”

This post argues that these are not quite ‘other payoffs’. A rationale on financial grounds is but rationalization to sugarcoat TOD to make it palatable for the army to swallow. Commentary from former army men expresses apprehension about the move.

Theory has it that primary group bonding takes time. Horizontal group integration is furthered when the primary group faces and bests challenges, collectively. Personnel turbulence is the enemy of cohesion. Absent cohesion at the primary group level, the army’s operational showing is iffy.

The army’s deployment in operational areas is largely in high altitude and in counter insurgency. Both settings require cohesion in primary groups. This is usually pre-existing, brought about by training together. It can also be generated when faced with adversity and operational tasks.

But this presupposes a degree of personnel stability. In case there is a revolving door system then the time and stability required for horizontal bonding will not be available. This may make cohesion wither.

It is possible to generate cohesion in face of operational dangers – such as in war or crises – and military leaders have the capability to infuse respective outfits with it. However, it’s the organisation’s lookout that cohesion is pre-existing so that the premium on leadership to also cater for it is reduced.

That this aspect stands neglected in the initiative suggests that the organization expects that cohesion will not be required. Hints on this have been abroad for some time. There is an expectation that the future wars will be different in kind.

The assumption is that high intensity wars are passé. The nuclear umbrella precludes these. Advantage can be taken of a peace dividend from nuclear weapons’ possession to see if the army can be re-jigged a bit. Wars if any will be of short duration, subsumed under Limited War. Hybrid wars - with mostly non-contact operations as hallmark - will be the wars of the future. They require composition and skills of a different kind.

These are persuasive arguments. Nevertheless, the initiative begs the question: Why? Why has the government not followed a different route to the same end: rationalizing the defence expenditure?

Elected twice over as a majority government, it is indeed a government with a difference. It is best placed to address both India’s external and internal security issues with long term solutions.

Other governments with less political capital have come close but have fallen short, since they did not command majorities and had to answer to right wing carping for being soft-on-defence. They did not have the certitude of not selling out on the national interest that the right wing has.

The right wing has appropriated ‘nationalist’ credentials and claims to have a better handle on the ‘national’, as against parochial party, dynasty or caste, interest. The right wing also has the social capital having the infrastructure in place to sell its decisions in both polity and society.

Therefore, there was nothing stopping this government from settling India’s security issues with neighbours over the past eight years, as prelude to realigning the army to the changed security circumstance.

With the border problem behind the nation – when Lines of various designations redefined as demarcated borders – and mutually agreed, negotiated solutions to territorial disputes on the cards, the army could have easily been both downsized and upgraded. It would have been spared the calisthenics that the TOD entails. 

The TOD initiative implies that the government believes that it has both sets of problems reasonably fixed. The subtext of the initiative rollout is that wars of last century – the Russian invasion of Ukraine notwithstanding – are not replicable. We don’t need conventionally-oriented militaries, reliant on cohesion to deliver on their operational responsibility. 

This is inexplicable in strategic terms. A country beset with what is popularly called a two-front challenge, attenuated by collusion between two hostile neighbours, cannot be complacent. Let’s take a counter factual. It can be argued that had Covid not interfered, it is well nigh possible that in spring 2020 India might have been subject to joint coercion by its two adversaries, put off by its initiative the previous year rescinding the political map of Jammu and Kashmir.

To drive home the point a hypothetical situation is not required. Even in the context of Ladakh, had Covid not interfered, India may have had to evict the Chinese intrusions. This would have required - along with other measures as standoff missiles and airpower, cyber attacks, information war etc - a Kargil replay. Galwan provides a glimpse. It is arguable that a system sans cohesion cannot deliver at the crunch.

Even if we are to take the internal security situation, from the hiatus in Kashmir and rolling back of Armed Forces Special Powers Act in the North East, it cannot be taken that the central police forces can keep the lid on matters. A spiral in externally-abated insurgency can be expected in case of outbreak of hostilities with normal interdiction of the communication zone by the adversary using proxies.

Insurgency will not go away until politically addressed, which the government has resolutely refrained from doing. Not only did it set the political clock back by its Article 370 convolutions in Kashmir, but also shot itself in the foot in Nagaland while it was doing so. As the army’s experience of the nineties with the evolution under fire of the Rashtriya Rifles suggests that without subunit cohesion, only repression, hardly conducive to conflict termination, will be on call.

Are we to believe that the government expects to succeed in conflict avoidance always and every time? Since strategy is a two-player game, that is rather presumptuous. The government’s main task in war is not to mistake it for anything that it is not. War is pretty only between a hyper-power at the peak of its unipolar moment and a ragtag army, and that too only in its first, opening phase.

Surely, the government is aware of this, since it has a military adviser, albeit one that sings its tune. So to embark on destabilizing the army through the TOD must be with some very good reasons. These are not reckonable in the strategic ken, but have impulse elsewhere.

Strategists make a mistake in analyzing this regime’s actions in conventional terms. Most analysis is in the realist paradigm, unsuited for grasping the regime’s intent and actions. The cultural lens is the best prism to get a fix on it. As Elizabeth Kier had it, militaries are configured in a manner that their internal power is rendered inert by governments more bothered by the internal power equations.

The shift in political culture has been towards firming in of Hindutva. The regime’s aim is its propagation, which at the current juncture entails consolidation. It therefore cannot afford instability and definitely not the uncertainty of conflict. Consequently, war avoidance is its strategy, not so much through deterrence, but through tacit appeasement.

This explains the prime minister going out on a limb to claim there was no intrusion and the subsequent vacuous rounds of interminable military-level talks. Even Operation Snow Leopard was just us dancing solo.

It explains the preceding years of defence budget draw-down, broadcasting to the other adversary, Pakistan, that it need not worry since India is not accentuating the asymmetry with it. The regime pulled its punches even in the surgical strikes, allowing Pakistan to brush these off with contempt.   

Consequently, the strategy is janus-faced: signaling to an external audience a relatively flaccid India, while the internal audience is made to see a fiery India. 

External stability enables the regime to countenance instability within the military. It has already leveled all other institutions. Even the military is considerably degraded in institutional strength. The TOD is thus a preemptive measure to neuter the military by removing any cohesion that it can muster to challenge the regime, a coup proofing of sorts.

It is cover for right wing penetration into the military, through induction of right wing oriented youth. An aim plus is militarization that will remove in one generation the right wing’s belief that Hindu effeteness brought about their slavery for over-a-1000 years. Preparing recruits for the corporate world is hogwash.

The measure also has the plausible purpose - as left-wing critique has it on social media - that the foot-soldiers of the right wing can get trained in military mores officially rather than informally in shakhas. After the Ram Navmi incidents across the country, what they will then be put to then need not be belaboured here.

The outlandish TOD can only have a very useful purpose. Balancing of long term budgetary proportions is the reasoning bureaucrats have added to the pie. The TOD pie has instead been cooked up in Nagpur, with icing done at Sardar Patel Bhawan.   

 https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/an-alternative-strategic-reading?r=i1fws&s=w&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=direct

An alternative strategic reading of Modi’s India

A retrospective on Modi’s crises

“Counterfactually, had Modi not become the prime minister, it is difficult to imagine India responding as robustly and tactfully to China and Pakistan as it has done since 2014 (Sreeram Chaulia, Crunch Time, New Delhi: Rupa, 2022, p. 162).” Chaulia’s book makes the case of a robust and tactful Indian response in the four Narendra Modi-led crises – Uri, Doklam, Balakot and Ladakh. Instead, the proposition could be more accurately phrased to read, “Counterfactually, any prime minister post 2014 could have resorted to the options exercised, but may not have had to exercise these.” Though prompted by the book, this post is not a review of it, but an alternative reading of strategic developments dwelt on in the book.

Let’s begin with the attack on the Uri garrison. It was arguably not quite a ‘terror attack’, not being one targeting civilians in order to overawe a political system. A legitimate military target was taken on by the attackers in the context of hostilities on the Line of Control (LC) and the post-Burhan Wani suppressive template in the Valley. Pakistan had post-26/11 mostly switched to targeting security forces, precisely to escape being called out as a terrorist state – it’s lesson-learnt from that episode. The Uri garrison, though taken by surprise, did a plausible job in wresting back the initiative and taking out the 4 attackers at the cost of some 6 of their own, the others unfortunately perishing in an accidental fire. This helps place the reaction in perspective. Surgical strikes by land that could have triggered off a border war can well be taken as over-reaction.

As for the surgical strikes themselves, had any other dispensation been in power it would have had the option too. Recall, surgical strikes at a smaller scale had taken place earlier. That a military operations head who denied having any records of earlier surgical strikes is now the military adviser in the National Security Council Secretariat should tell its own story. His post retirement sinecure owes to his enhancing the myth that the innovation awaited Modi’s arrival to operationalise. The army commander then - who quoted the military operations head in refuting his retired predecessor admitting to the earlier surgical strikes, only conducted discreetly and discretely, is also ensconced in a sinecure, heading the army’s land warfare think tank.

The surgical strikes at the scale they were mounted could not have been launched had there be no preceding instances. Not only was the enabling doctrinal movement in the preceding government’s period, but the tightening up of the execution was itself done. This is best known to the Modi government since it has the then army chief in its council of ministers. General VK Singh is on record admitting to the army’s felicity with contingency operations that enabled it to furnish a set of options not amounting to war when faced with Pakistani provocation.

This was a natural progression to the Cold Start doctrine, an outcome of lessons-learnt from the coercive diplomacy, Operation Parakram, indulged in reaction to the terror attack on the Indian parliament. The doctrine having been fine-tuned by decade-end, the army moved to more usable military options, referred to by General VK Singh. Cold Start did not have the answers that presumably were asked post 26/11 during considerations on how to get back at Pakistan without triggering a nuclear conflict. It was a conventional doctrine, which though mindful of nuclear thresholds, had built-in escalatory tendencies. Missing were subconventional options which would put additional buffers.

In any case, such options did not require a doctrinal nod. These had been in evidence even prior to doctrine catching up. Stories abound of head-hunting expeditions by both sides on the LC, necessitated by retaining or regaining ‘moral ascendancy’ – a term central to a military’s self-regard in a competitive setting. These took a leaf out the First World War book, when raids were launched across frozen trench lines lest Christmas Truce-like situations erupt across it. An Army Chief in the context of the beheading of a soldier on the LC said that he encourages aggression tactical level commanders, implying that the chain of command had been given full play to get even. In short, landward surgical strikes were not an innovation, but a pre-existing practice, which by the time Modi came to power had doctrinal imprimatur. The subconventional doctrine, dubbing these border skirmishes, steers clear of discussing them for reasons of confidentiality.

What of the effects of the surgical strikes? In the tradition of the Gurdaspur and Pathankot attacks that were prior to surgical strikes, Nagrota, Lethpora, Sanjuwan and finally, Pulwama yet happened. Landward surgical strikes failed to deter. That aerial surgical strikes followed shows landward surgical strikes exhausted their utility in a single iteration. Faced with Pulwama, and having lost surprise with the earlier surgical strikes, a step-up the ladder with the aerial option was next, though that should not really have been the only punitive response option left.

It is true that putting a new idea into an Army’s head is made difficult by the old idea occupying it. The Cold Start concept was based on integrated battle groups (IBGs), but these were not self-consciously operationalised. Strike corps continued their sway well into the nuclear age, due in part to internal turf dynamics of the Army occasioned by its Kashmir commitment. The infantry-artillery lobby reigned at the cost of the mechanized one, making the latter loath to let up on its raison d'être – the strike corps and its potentiality for the mythical Blitzkrieg.

It was only with General Rawat taking over as Army Chief that he turned to IBGs. Incidentally, Pulwama happened just a week after the Army announced, 15 years after the idea was mooted, IBG test-bed exercises. If these were available prior, then a landward strike could also have been countenanced to substitute for Balakot. Also, since Cold Start remained the conventional option, its hypothetical unfurling in wake of a Pakistani landward riposte - instead of Swift Retort - could have pushed the crisis into conflict in short order.

This reinforces the case of an unnecessary risk being run, especially since Pulwama was not a terror attack, targeting as it did a military target in the context of heightened counter insurgency operations that had accounted for over 700 Kashmiri youth. As for Pulwama being a black operation, that a book has come out refuting the idea shows up the info war; only to deepen suspicions on what’s being hidden.  

Balakot has been on the cards with the Air Force advocating subconventional use of air power well prior. This may have had institutional interest at heart, in that the nuclear age making an unmistakable advent in the subcontinent in 1998, feasibility of conventional war receded. The Air Force grabbed at straws; making itself more relevant to India’s ongoing national security concern in Kashmir being one such avenue. Writing in the 2004 edition of Trishul, a group captain makes the case that air power is relevant across the three stages of insurgency: strategic defensive, stalemate and offensive. It is also useful to coerce the sponsor. Thus, with the concept crystallized and finding mention in the joint doctrine on subconvetional operations, the Air Force had some 15 years of head-start on preparation, constantly figuring among the options when contemplating response to both 26/11 and Uri. That it was unleashed at Balakot and did not deliver quite as planned is another matter. That its showing in the Pakistani riposte - Swift Retort - was also arguably below par is also a matter that need not detain us here.

The choice of target - made much of for being in mainland Pakistan - was a novelty. Even so, the bravado lost its shine somewhat with the Indian statement emphasizing that it as a ‘non-military preemptive’ strike, presumably anchored on the choice of target being non-military - rather than the mode of delivery of the ordnance - and the intent, pre-emptive. Pre-emption is a fraught term borrowed from the Americans. Prevention is the more saleable international security jargon. Sloppy drafting is the least of concerns.

It bears reflection as to what might have been the case had India actually taken out the 300 seminary students it claims. Recall, since Pakistan had taken to privileging the American end-game in Afghanistan, it had already started pulling its punches in its proxy war in Kashmir. India would have ended up willy-nilly bestirring it against its better judgment, since jihadi energy to the Pakistan Army is better directed at India than within Pakistan.

Even so, the escalatory prospects intrinsic in crises were in full play. Narendra Modi avers to an aborted ‘qatl ki raat’, tacit reference to readying for a missile exchange. This was over a relative triviality, supposedly to prompt release of a downed pilot, in any case subject to protections of the Geneva Conventions. Instead, the potential over-reaction was to divert attention from the lost aerial skirmish of that morning, which, incidentally, coincided with India also accidentally shooting down its own helicopter. The possible result of the missile exchange - if it had come about - might well have focused minds enough to have the Security Council take a view on what to do about the bone of contention, Kashmir, that remains on its agenda, albeit latently, and with good reason. It is unlikely that the world will sit by an Iraq-Iran War of Cities replay between nuclear powers. India got away lightly in the misfired missile episode recently only because the Ukraine War was on.

Next, the two crises with China merit attention.

The outcome of the one at Doklam, where India stood its ground for over 70 days, has it that the Chinese are very much back on the plateau and have completed what they set out to. This prompts the question: what was all the hulla-gulla about? Did India concede what it had wished to prevent when it launched into the Doklam crisis to wind up its deployment? That the Chinese activity on the plateau was in full-swing as early as autumn suggests as much.

India’s showing in Doklam evidently did not deter China from its Ladakh intrusion later. Neither did the two informal Modi-Xi summits that followed. Could it be that the Chinese had a measure of Indian resolve through both Doklam and from the two summits, which instead of deterring them, prompted the intrusion? Therefore, unlike in the advertisement that attends Modi’s resolve and international showing as a statesman, is the credibility of Modi’s India not quite as vaunted?

India had completed the doctrinal movement, on over the preceding decade in relation to China. Having a reckonable answer to Pakistani provocations in the mentioned contingency operations backed by Cold Start duly-refined, India had shifted - lock-step with the pivot to Asia of the Americans - to countenancing a two-front scenario. The two-front scenario owed to Pakistan not having gone away, even as India – as the next great power – wished to punch above its weight by weighing against China.

Through the decade, Indian Army valiantly tried to convince two different governments on the desirability of an offensive mountain strike corps (MSC). All it got at decade-end was a truncated corps, debilitated by lack of economic heft in Modi’s India – itself an outcome of the hubris that attended the decision on demonentisation.

Even so, by end 2019, India had practiced the IBGs intended for portions of the China front. Thus, India’s Army, fresh from its test-bed exercises was partially in a position to implement its doctrine by launch of IBGs and the MSC. When Covid did not stop the Chinese ingress, it cannot be argued that it stopped India’s readily available and recently practiced IBGs. That India pushed up 50000 troops soon enough shows that a set of these troops could well have on a short fuse also gone across. That it could occupy heights on own side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Operation Snow Leopard shows that troops could also have occupied unheld heights across LAC. The term ‘defensive offence’ – an unlettered mouthing confusing ‘offensive defence’, the term favoured by the Land Warfare Doctrine 2018 – could have served as cover, but India chose shadow-boxing over stepping into the ring. India settled for an info war directed at its own people, rather than manipulating escalation by offensive action. That interminable talks are on shows how military heft is required for talks to be meaningful.

An alternative reading is necessary since the spin on Modi’s showing in these crises has him as the intervening variable between provocation and reaction. The reaction is hyped-up and portrayed as evidence of Modi’s potential as a war leader, while not chancing escalation is seen as maturity. Instead the reading here is that not only was the reaction insipid, but shying off escalation where warranted shows up the butterflies in the stomach. (It’s for another post to dwell on why the crises came about in first place, brought on by policies impelled by Hindutva, a narrow ideology of the Modi regime.) It is important to put a pin into this balloon lest at the next crisis, we believe the myth of our own creation and the enemy gets to pin the balloon.