The Book Review

http://www.thebookreviewindia.org/reviewers/ali-ahmed/78.html

Ali Ahmed

Alternative Perspectives Combating Terrorism: Saudi Arabias Role in the War on Terror By Ali S. Awadh Asseri

Tensions Between Security and Reconstruction When More is Less: The International Project in Afghanistan By Astri Sukhre

Lessons in How Not to Fight a War The New Protectorates: International Tutelage and the Making of Liberal States Edited by James Mayall Vortex of Conflict: US Policy Toward Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq By D. Caldwell

A Contemporary Record Armed Conflicts in South Asia 2011: The Promise and Threat of Transformation Edited by D. Suba Chandran

IDSA MONOGRAPH SERIES

India’s Limited War Doctrine: The Structural Factor

Share on facebookShare on twitterShare on emailMore Sharing Services

Ali Ahmed

http://www.idsa.in/monograph/IndiasLimitedWarDoctrine_aahmed

IDSA Monograph Series No. 10

2012

The aim of the monograph is to examine the structural factor behind the development of India's Limited War Doctrine. At the structural level, the regional security situation has impacted India's strategic posture - primarily the threat posed by Pakistan, India's revisionist neighbour. Given its revisionist aims and relative lack of power, Pakistan covertly went nuclear. This has accounted for its prosecuting a proxy war against India. India was consequently forced to respond albeit with restraint, exemplified by its response during the Kargil War, Operation Parakram and in the wake of 26/11. Emulating Pakistan's proactive posture at the subconventional level, India reworked its conventional war doctrine to exploit the space between the subconventional level and the nuclear threshold for conventional operations. This has been in accordance with the tenets of the Limited War concept. In discussing India's conventional war doctrine in its interface with the nuclear doctrine, the policy-relevant finding of this monograph is that limitation needs to govern both the conventional and nuclear realms of military application. This would be in compliance with the requirements of the nuclear age.

About the Author

Dr. Ali Ahmed is currently political affairs officer in the UNMISS.
The monograph was completed during his fellowship at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi in 2010-12.

Download Monograph

Order Hard Copy

Please email us at publication [at] idsa.in or call +91-11-2671 7983 (Ext. 7322)

To
Late Maj Gen S. C. Sinha, PVSM

CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................... 7
1. INTRODUCTION .................................... 9
2. DOCTRINAL CHANGE ............................. 16
3. THE STRUCTURAL FACTOR .................. 42
4. CONCLUSION ....................................... 68
REFERENCES ......................................... 79

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This monograph is the outcome of my fellowship at IDSA in 2010-
12. I am thankful to the Cluster Coordinator, Brig (Retd.) Rumel
Dahiya, and members of the Military Cluster for their support. I
am deeply grateful to former Director-General, Mr Narendra
Sisodia for his encouragement. The monograph was made possible
by the IDSA providing me an intellectually stimulating working
environment, world class infrastructure, competent support staff
and an inspiring set of colleagues. The monograph draws on the
research for my doctoral dissertation in International Politics at
Jawarharlal Nehru University, which the IDSA was kind enough
to grant me permission to pursue alongside my fellowship. I stand
greatly indebted to my Supervisor, the very capable and always
kind Professor Rajesh Rajagopalan. I thank the three anonymous
referees for their comments that have helped improve the
manuscript and the copyeditor for making the monograph readable.
However, despite the advantages I have had in preparing the
monograph, there are the inevitable lacunae for which I am solely
responsible.
Ali Ahmed



Introduction

India developed its Limited War doctrine in the wake of the Kargil
War. Officially, the land warfare doctrine dates to publication of
Indian Army Doctrine in 2004. It was for a period of time, in the
century’s first decade, colloquially referred to as ‘Cold Start’. The
doctrine per se is for conventional war, but embedded in it are the
tenets of Limited War. The understanding is that whether a war is
‘Limited’ or ‘Total’ would depend on political aims of the conflict
and their strategic and operational translation. Since political aims,
can reasonably, only be limited in the nuclear age, the doctrine
can be taken as being a Limited War doctrine.
The doctrine has evolved from the military developments of the
past four decades. While India’s earlier doctrine - post the 1971
War period - had been a defensive one, organisational and doctrinal
innovations in the eighties served to enhance the offensive content
of military doctrine. Initially, changes were prompted by the
necessity of conducting conventional operations under conditions
of perceived nuclear asymmetry. This took the form of
mechanisation, deemed as more suited to a nuclear battlefield. The
doctrine was one of conventional deterrence comprising a dissuasive
capability (deterrence by denial) along with a counter offensive
capability (deterrence by punishment). In the light of Pakistan’s
acquisition of nuclear capability by the late eighties, the counteroffensive-capability, embodied by strike corps operations, became
problematic. This was capitalised on by Pakistan to enhance its
sub-conventional provocations taking advantage of the ‘stability/
instability paradox’. Consequently, India was forced, among other
reasons, to adapt its offensive capability to bring its conventional
edge back into the reckoning. The idea was to reinforce
conventional deterrence and in case that was found wanting, then
to be in a position to execute coercion or compellence as required.

Doctrinal development has been driven by the military experience

since the mid-eighties. The period witnessed the crises of 1987 and

1990 and the peace enforcement operation in Sri Lanka. Internal

conflict in Kashmir reached a climax with the Kargil War of 1999.

Pakistan’s proxy war culminated in the parliament attack that

prompted Indian coercive diplomacy, and Operation Parakram,

in 2001-02. Conflicts in the Gulf in 1991 and 2004 and Operation

Enduring Freedom which showcased the changes in the character

of conventional war influenced thinking. Organisational changes

and equipment acquisitions prompted by the revolution in military

affairs accelerated during this period. Cumulatively, these have

led to considerable doctrinal evolution. However, it was overt

nuclearisation that had the most profound effect and made conflict

limitation an overriding imperative.

An offensive and proactive capability that under-grids the war

doctrine speaks of a readiness to go to war, and, further, to take

the war to the enemy. The conventional doctrine and the nuclear

doctrine combined go beyond deterrence, to potentially enable

coercion through offensive deterrence. The nuclear doctrine posits

‘massive’ punitive retaliation in its 2003 formulation by the Cabinet

Committee on Security (CCS). This expansive formulation, it

would appear, is designed for enhancing the deterrent effect and

push up the Pakistani nuclear thresholds. Doing so enables the

leveraging of India’s conventional advantages in case Pakistani 

subconventional provocations are emboldened by nuclearisation.

Pakistan’s offensive posture at the sub-conventional level and the

consequent Indian offensive orientation at the conventional level,

leads to heightened  nuclear possibilities. The nuclear backdrop

serves as reminder that escalation could occur, either by accident

or design. The problem therefore has been as to how India should

cope with sub-conventional provocations. It has responded by

leveraging its conventional advantage. This needs to be tempered

by an inbuilt limitation at the conventional level in order that the

nuclear threshold is not breached. This challenge has proven

difficult, with Pakistan attempting to posture a low nuclear

threshold. India for its part has attempted to raise  this threshold

by promising higher order nuclear retaliation. This intersection

of the Indian and Pakistani doctrinal postures at the conventional

and nuclear planes has an escalatory potential that could do with
some mitigation.
The monograph makes the suggestion that limitation must attend
both conventional operations (as is indeed the direction of
thinking), and also equally importantly, nuclear operations. Its
chief recommendation is that India’s strategic doctrine should  be
informed by defensive realism. The compatible strategic doctrine
is therefore one of defensive deterrence. India’s military doctrine
therefore needs to be tweaked away from the proactive offensive
stance to one more mindful of the nuclear overhang. Merely
acknowledging its presence as the nuclear backdrop is not enough
in light of escalatory possibilities. The deterrence logic has its
limitations. Given this, not only must conventional doctrine be
cognisant of this, but indeed also nuclear doctrine.

Comparative Strategy


Cold Start: The Life Cycle of a Doctrine
Ali Ahmed a
a Nelson Mandela Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution Jamia
Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India

To cite this article: Ali Ahmed (2012): Cold Start: The Life Cycle of a Doctrine, Comparative Strategy,
31:5, 453-468

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01495933.2012.731964



India’s conventional war doctrine has been extensively discussed over the past decade.
It has been dubbed Cold Start, though the term has been dropped from usage recently.
The article discusses India’s limited-war doctrine in its origin, impetus behind it, tenets,
and reasons for the current distancing from the doctrine. The doctrine was India’s
rekindling of its conventional deterrent in the face of Pakistani subconventional proxy
warfare. Its implications in terms of escalation possibilities to the nuclear level attracted
considerable attention. Its “quick on the draw” nature added to concerns on crisis
stability. These conspired to shift the latest doctrinal movement in India away from
default reliance on traditional conventional operations to a proactive strategy that
includes in addition punitive military response options.

A Contemporary Record
Ali Ahmed

The Book Review, October 2012

ARMED CONFLICTS IN SOUTH ASIA 2011: THE PROMISE AND THREAT OF
TRANSFORMATION
Edited by D. Suba Chandran and P.R. Chari
Routledge, New Delhi, 2012, pp. 297, `795.00

The book under review is the fifth Annual Report on Armed Conflicts in South Asiabrought out by the think tank, Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, New Delhi. The Institute’s idea and practice of taking out annual reports is laudable. Over a period of time, these can serve as a reliable contemporary record, besides being useful for students, academics, policy makers and practitioners over the immediate term. The previous editions have been welcomed, no doubt prompting and enabling continuing of the series.

It is perhaps in genuflecting to peace studies that the editors have chosen to include the term ‘Transformation’ in the subtitle. Suba Chandran details why this has been done in his leading chapter in the second part of the book (pp. 137-38) in referring to the concept of some significance for peace studies. He goes on to say that his contribution ‘focuses on negative conflict transformation and conflict decay’ (p. 138).

This goes against the grain of the definition from the Berghof Handbook he reproduces while launching into his chapter: ‘actions that seek to alter the various characteristics and manifestations of conflict by addressing its root causes over the long-term, with the aim to transform negative ways of dealing with conflict into positive, constructive ones.’

It is therefore with good reason that the editors use the term ‘transformation’ in the subtitle rather than ‘conflict transformation’. What they appear to have in mind are the changes in conflicts for better or worse brought about by conflict dynamics when they use the term ‘transformation’. Where a conflict goes downhill, Chandran typifies it as ‘conflict decay’. This departure from peace studies theory concept of conflict transformation explains the possibility of transformation as a ‘threat’, phrased in the subtitle thus: The Promise and Threat of Transformation.

Since the editors have chosen to adapt the term transformation to their purpose, an opportunity to examine South Asian conflicts in the ‘conflict transformation’ framework has been passed up. The volume could have proved innovative, given that most such analyses, including some essays appearing in the book, are from an international relations and strategic studies framework. Conflict transformation, on the other hand, as a field of study in peace studies concerns itself with structural, behavioural and attitudinal changes required to move towards ‘just peace’. The potentiality of conflict transformation of conflicts endemic in South Asia could have been broached. This is testimony to the marginal presence of peace studies as an academic discipline in India, despite fledgling academic centers such as that of this reviewer and of institutions such as the IPCS to which the editors are affiliated.

The book is in two parts. The first has chapters by experts well conversant with the conflicts each has been called upon to elaborate on: Afghanistan, FATA and Khyber Pukhtun-khwa, J&K, North East and the Naxal movement in Central India. The second part is titled ‘Conflict Transformation and Early Warnings’. Though the part falls short of the promise of looking through the conflict transformation lens as obtains in theory, the part is a useful prospective look at conflict potentiality for escalation and de-escalation in J&K, North East, Central India and of fundamentalist violence in South India. It also has chapters on Nepal and Sri Lanka. It is debatable whether violence on account of religious revivalism needs to figure in a book on armed conflict, for that would amount to suggesting that terror incidence in South India, the locale covered in the essay, is of the order of an armed conflict. A definitional exercise at the outset by the editors could have dispelled this observation, even one reproducing a discussion from a previous edition of the series.

The impression a reader carries away is that conflict management is all that is being attempted by the State. This can at best help mitigate or end violence. The shortfalls in delivering on this limited ambition often as not end up sustaining the violence. Clearly, conflict resolution, the effort towards sustainable peace by ending of structural and cultural violence, is not on the cards, leave alone conflict transformation, taken as a step at a deeper level than even conflict resolution. This is a sobering insight on the capacities of the States in South Asia, including India that is popularly taken as an incipient great power. The significance of this observation deepens in the light of P.R.Chari’s negative take on trends in his intro-ductory chapter. He reflects on the ill-effects of globalization, on the uncertainty of the ‘demographic dividend’, decline in the rule of law, and finally disputes over depleting resources.

The lack of capacity of States suggests that peace studies needs being taken seriously as a subject area. Insights from conflict resolution and conflict transformation can help with a non-Statist answer to root causes and conflict dynamics. Answers anchored in the people are necessary since conflicts are now ‘among people’ (Rupert Smith). Therefore solutions should also be ‘people to people’ (P2P) centric. Currently the academic field draws principally on conflicts in the Balkans and Africa for insights. Its generic insights are sustainable in this region’s setting. A theoretical prism that can be applied fruitfully is that of ‘protracted social conflict’. It is perhaps the perspective that privileges State interventions and power centric approaches that is sustaining the conflicts in the region. The Institute can live up to expectations prompted by its name, by deploying its Annual Report to bring about this change of perspective. This will help widen the field, attract students to its fold and over time create conflict resolvers in numbers and quality necessary to tackle conflicts of the future

Prospects for UN Peacekeeping
 in Afghanistan

by Ali Ahmed

MAINSTREAM, VOL L, NO 38, SEPTEMBER 8, 2012

http://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article3674.html

It is fairly clear by now that a draw-down, not amounting to a withdrawal, of the US-NATO force ISAF from Afghanistan is underway. The exit is not to be a complete one since the Strategic Partnership Agreement between Obama and Karzai allows them to stay on till 2024. This is to keep the Kabul regime stable and the ‘Bonn process’ on course but also in connection with the strategic interests of the US in the region, namely, Iran, Central Asia, China and increasingly Pakistan. Also, precedence from the nineties suggests that a full exit is not an option. Since pulling out would reveal the superpower has lost the war, it certainly cannot be admitted in an election year. However, the cover of a rebalancing towards the Pacific against China is a useful starting point to help the superpower disengage.

Currently, what the US appears to be envisioning is continuing blood-letting. It hopes to outsource this to the ANSF. It will employ its special forces from the bases retained, provide air cover and keep up the drone attacks. The US staying on may not be useful since what it has not been able to achieve in a decade’s untram-meled military operations, it cannot be expected to do with a reduced military presence. Since the Taliban has managed to evade the intended effects of the ‘surge’, at worst the likelihood of a civil war exists and at best a manageable insurgency.

To this must be added prospects of spread of instability in Pakistan. Currently, the status quo is a hurting one for the US, not so for Taliban due to its sanctuary in Pakistan. To bring about a ‘mutually hurting stalemate’, it may be necessary to expand the conflict into Pakistan, at the risk of destabilising it. The US’ current policy thrust to rush Pakistan into North Waziristan is to finally wrap up. The region shall be a likely witness once again to another Pakistani military operation, leaving that state vulnerable yet again to terror attacks on rebound.

Superficially, it would appear that a mutually hurting stalemate that signifies the ripeness of a conflict for conflict resolution is not at hand. After all, a superpower can marshal resources, while the Taliban has shown itself to be a resilient actor. However, a realistic reading would be that both belligerents need a helping hand to extricate. The allies of the US are pulling out. The indicators—such as drug abuse among troops, green on blue attacks, violence by war veterans on return to mainland America, isolated instances of soldiers running amok etc.—suggest that the US too is exhausted. As for the Taliban, at least two members of its top-line leadership have been eliminated this month. Therefore, there is scope for measures towards a politically negotiated ending to the conflict apace with the drawdown.

This is especially so if the primary referents are taken as the people, and not the states involved. The desirability from a people’s point of view is also not self-evident. Some would argue that saving Afghan women necessitates killing some more Taliban. In any case, it is not a factor that can be expected to detain security bureaucracies or the Taliban unduly.

It would be difficult to convince either side to come to terms with the adversary in the light of the war-time propaganda indulged in liberally by both sides. Likewise, states may envision an opportunity for proxy wars, such as India and Pakistan. India, for its part, is not unhappy to see Pakistan’s disruptionist energy diverted to its western border. Some other states, such as China and Iran, may not be altogether unhappy to see the US in a spot of a bother. It is also not self-evident that an energised peace process can help prevent the most likely outcome of continuing conflict.

While peace initiatives have been in evidence, these have been tentative not having had the weight of the US behind them till recently. The peace prong of the strategy has progressed piecemeal with separate initiatives in isolation of the other by the Europeans, Arab states and also the UN mission in location, UNAMA. The ‘Afghan owned and Afghan led’ formulation has failed to impress the Taliban. The aim of separating the ‘good Taliban’ from the ‘bad Taliban’ has also fallen short. It is only lately, when it was evident that the military surge had failed, that the peace process has been privileged as a significant line of operation.

It is well-nigh possible that, like an iceberg, there is more to the peace process than meets the eye. It is possible that the extent and details are under wraps to keep off spoilers. However, what is certain that it is not yet the primary line of operation. It therefore needs a fillip. The question is:

‘How?’ Conventional balance of power ‘solutions’ have had their play in the discourse. The foremost one of ‘military surge’ not having worked and the so-called ‘peace surge’ not having occurred at all; others only have the limited aim of keeping the Taliban off balance. They are conflict management answers. Such answers are more hopeful than useful. Conflict management north of the Durand Line not being inspiring, there is little to guarantee that a conflict south of it can be better managed. The inadequacy of traditional strategy over a whole decade means that sticking to it amounts to strategic vacuity.

♦

Two points emerge: one is that the worst case scenario must be prevented; and two, that power-centric options are not the answer. The answers therefore are outside of the restricted confines of traditional strategic thinking—‘out of the box’. Such an idea will not come out of security bureaucracies; it can only emerge from elsewhere but would require to be taken forward by the state security establishment.

The ‘out-of-the-box’ idea here is the option of peacekeeping. The idea is in conversion of the enforcement operation underway there to a peacekeeping one. Peacekeeping presupposes a peace to keep. Currently there is no peace to keep. The stumbling block is the Taliban prefering to interface directly with the US and the US, for reasons of prestige, not allowing that. Both sides can be expected to project preparations for a post-drawdown Afghanistan as part of posturing and positioning. Such actions, being mistaken for or willfully misinterpreted as signs of ill-intent, prevent a peace process from taking off.

Peacekeeping, by enhancing the conditions of feasibility of the peace process, can midwife a peace process that can eventuate in peace. A precedent from the late eighties—of insertion of the UN Good Offices Mission in Afghanistan and Pakistan (UNGOMAP) to allow the Soviets to depart—exists. Only this time round the UN must play it differently.

Introducing peacekeepers into the scenario enables face-saving for both sides. The Taliban can claim it remains unvanquished. With security and space guaranteed, they would be more amenable to talks. The US, for its part, can have a neater exit. Since both gain something, there is common ground for arriving at consent for the mission.

The centre of gravity for such negotiations must shift away from the Kabul regime and the US Special Envoy towards the UN, supported by organisations in the region such as the SCO and SAARC. A suspension of operations agreement needs to be arrived at prior to troops getting into place. Peacemaking, with mediation by the UN, may be advanced alongside a comprehensive and inclusive peace agreement that is beyond the current ‘Kabul process’—the outcome of the London and Kabul conferences that were the political part of the ‘surge’ strategy of Obama’s presidency.

Peace monitors must deploy to oversee a ceasefire followed by a peacekeeping force on ceasefire. The UNAMA, that is currently a political mission in support of the state engaged in ineffective peacebuilding and protection of the civilians’ tasks, must graduate into an integrated peace operation. On the contrary, at the moment the UN’s thrust is towards a graduated disengagement and handing over to the Kabul regime. This is in line with the US’ aim of projecting an image of planned transition. This is a trifle premature.

If the talks prong of the strategy is to be energised, regional states must be ready to supplement, and if necessary substitute, the US. In particular, since who pays the piper calls the tune, funding may have to raised from within the region’s resources. This is where either the SAARC-SCO combine or the regional countries represented at the Istanbul conference of last year can assert themselves as regional arrangements taking on their share of the burden in accordance with Chapter VIII of the UN Charter.

The peacekeeping options broadly are: under regional arrangement, a regional organisation-UN ‘hybrid’ peace mission and the usual UN mission. The talk of Muslim countries sending in troops has been around since Bonn I. The force configurations include: a SAARC force; a joint SCO-SAARC force; a UN force comprising Muslim countries; a force sent by the regional states represented at the Istanbul conference; or a UN force from uninvolved countries.

What are the implications of this for India and China, the leading states of the SAARC and SCO respectively? As rising powers, they get a stage to showcase their power by turning round a situation in their backyard. They also create an opportunity for cooperation, which can over time avert the seeming inevitability of a clash between the two Asian giants. They can together save Pakistan from itself. What are implications for India? India’s self-interest is in seeing no spill-over from AfPak in Kashmir or on its social fabric in terms of majority-minority relations. Its reviving relationship with Pakistan can be taken to a new level. Its power aspirations can be better served. Its UN permanent seat campaign can be strengthened. The idea is in keeping with its strategy of restraint.

What are the prospects of this idea? To say that an idea requires political vision and will is to kill it at birth. However, little can stop an idea whose time has come.

Ali Ahmad, Ph.D, is an Assistant Professor, Nelson Mandela Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.

Do we need a Chief Warlord?


EDITORIAL
& OPINION
THE FINANCIAL WORLD—DELHI
10 Sep 12

IN A recent article, former Chief of Army Staff,
General Deepak Kapoor, has weighed in against
the idea of a permanent chairman of the Chiefs of
Staff Committee. One among a series of selective
leaks of the Naresh Chandra Task Force report
suggests that the task force has recommended making the
appointment of the head of the cosc a permanent one.
The leaks are themselves trial balloons sent up by a
government unable to arrive at decisions on the merits.
Aware of lacking the political heft to implement these
even if it could do so, the leaks create a storm that it can
then point to for lack of consensus and consequently a
decision. It does not see its role as exerting to create the
consensus. In this case, Deepak Kapoor’s article, taken
as reflecting the position of his former service, will help
forestall decisions, since he would be seen as voicing the
army’s position. That would be a pity, since holding out
for a cds as Deepak Kapoor’s ‘all or nothing’ position has
it, is the worse option.
This owes to the nuclear context and the ever-present
possibility of war, brought home most recently in the foreign
minister’s remark on the eve of his meeting with his
Pakistani counterpart, ‘The consequences for Pakistan
would be disastrous.’ This was to reinforce India’s deterrence
of terror provocation. However, the problem is in
India being hoist by its own petard, which in theory is the
‘commitment trap’. To ensure that such disaster for Pakistan
does not also turn into a disaster for India, there is
a need to have a military bridge between India’s conventional
and nuclear capabilities.
Currently, none exists. The Strategic Forces Command
manages India’s nuclear deterrent. However, its C-in-C
has two masters. In theory, he reports to the Chairman
Chiefs of Staff Committee. It is hard to see how the Chairman
cosc, a rotating appointment that Naresh Chandra
seeks to make permanent, can possibly oversee the sfc.
While challenging enough in peacetime with the chairman,
double-hatted as boss of his service alongside, it
would be quite a tall order in war.
He would require conducting the operations of his
service, integrating those of the three services for a joint
campaign, and also overseeing the nuclear-conventional
interface. It is for this reason that Naresh Chandra perhaps
wants a permanent incumbent. At least he would not
be straddled with overseeing any particular service and
would, hopefully, be beyond its parochialism in order to
serve as a single point source of advice to the civilian master.
While the discussion could benefit by reflection, such
as General Kapoor’s, on the demerits of the organisational
reform, it would need to take on board the advantage. The
primary one is in monitoring impact on the nuclear level of
what is going on militarily on the conventional level in war.
Currently, it is possible that in practice the National Security
Adviser oversees the sfc in his capacity as head of
the Executive Council of the Nuclear Command Authority.
This is, to say the least, a strange arrangement. Nuclear
watcher Bharat Karnad, in a recent expose of the arrangement
suggests that the NSA relies on a retired head of sfc
for fulfilling his nuclear-related role. This arrangement
clearly calls for further institutionalisation. Naresh Chandra
possibly has an answer.
SM Krishna’s terse observation, if not threat, recounted
above suggests that India is preparing a military counter
to any major terror attack by Pakistan. In such a case, escalation
could occur depending on the Pakistani counter.
If this results in a conventional tryst, then limitation
needs being foregrounded. Advice on this, alongside
linked nuclear related reactions, would be required. This
has to be done at a mechanism one step removed from the
action, such as by a permanent chairman of the cosc.
He would be on the Executive Council to both advise
the Political Council alongside the nsa and work the nuclear-
relevant reaction as ordered by the Political Council
through the nsa. This way there is a military link between
the Nuclear Command Authority and the sfc. Secondly,
the headless hqs Integrated Defence Staff would gain a
leader and an agenda. It could provide the control staff for
the sfc since a line headquarter as is the sfc cannot also
be its own judge.
LASTLY, KAPOOR’S cds, imagined as a warlord
over all three services, has an underside. He would
not be in a position to advise the government since
it would amount to judging his own case. Such an appointment
has potential for a folly of Hindenberg-Ludendorf
proportions, praetorian figures from Germany’s
World War I past.
Therefore, to write off the task force report may not do
for the government. It will have to demonstrate it exists.
If it fears that push comes to shove as its foreign minister
thinks, then it had better emerge from somnolence.
Better still would be if it gives up threats and settles
with Pakistan through getting SM Krishna to talk meaningfully.
Then it would not manufacture a threat where
none need exist.
Ali Ahmed is Assistant Professor, Nelson Mandela
Center for Peace and Conflict Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia

The sub-unit cries for army attention
Financial World, 27 Aug 2012

ALI AHMED ARGUES THAT PRIMARY GROUP BONDING WILL BE THE DIFFERENTIATOR IN FUTURE WARS


THE ARMY has been in the news for the wrong reasons lately. The reasons have to do both with the good health at the top, among the brass and at the lower levels, the spear end. While the former has hogged the headlines, there are good reasons to leave the latter to the army’s own ministrations.
It is quite obvious that with over 200 years’ institutional memory of man management
practices, increased interaction with foreign armies, academic exposure to management studies, first-hand knowledge,
and a better educated threshold on intake, the army is competent to navigate the social and material change it is inevitably
beset with. The aim here is to bring to fore the aspect of cohesion, one that can help it tide over the problems. When a candidate officer or soldier looks up at a billboard demanding to know: ‘Do you have it in you?’, what exactly is ‘it’ is left to the accompanying photos to suggest. These depict a life extraordinary: of fun, adventure, odds, risk, outdoors, technology,
camaraderie. In effect, the poster asks whether he has a ‘need’: a need for adventure, glory, friendship, physical and mental challenge, altruistic service etc. Those with such needs are to self-select the profession of arms to help them fulfill these needs. The youth pledges his life in return. While the service environment, both in field and peace, caters to this, the possibilities are maximised in war.
In peace time, needs are met largely by the organisational hierarchy from the wider army to the rifle company. While pay, perks and welfare form the formal package, the operational environment in the field either of counter insurgency and high altitude deployment and hectic round in peace stations of competitions, visits, operational exercises, firing practices,
military relevant ritual like parades, socialisation
practices, courses, patrols etc. All this makes for organisational cohesion.
In war, the organisation provides the operational context that enables fulfillment
of needs. However, the critical difference
is that the horizon of the soldier constricts from the vast expanse of the cantonment, counter insurgency grid or parade ground plenty, to his foxhole, tank and gun. Thus, in the outbreak of war, the organisation is suddenly and dramatically, substituted by his subunit and, more immediately,
his squad, troop or section. What needs ensuring then is that the identities
of these seemingly less significant entities at the bottom of the organisational ladder are fostered and maintained.
In war, the members of this primary group rely on the group for their mutual, collective and individual needs. This is enabled through the process of primary group bonding in which the member relies on his team mates for survival and they in turn on him, thereby not only enhancing his life chances but also fulfilling his needs ranging from physiological to psychological.
Since the primary group exists for an organisational purpose in the form of operational
objectives, positive articulation of horizontal integration is by vertical integration, or cohesion of the command channel. Horizontal and vertical integration
therefore are prerequisites for combat success. This is a bare bones distillation of received knowledge from an academic field enhanced by the contributions of the likes of Lord Moran, Bartov, Stouffer, Marshall, Shils and Janowitz, Gabriel and Savage, Charles Moskos and Nora Kinzer Stewart, among others. India’s wars, as any reading of regimental histories and autobiographies tells us, have only reinforced
the observation that the identity of the subunit needs nurturing.
A REITERATION OF this timeless piece of military wisdom may well be against the management ethic increasingly in evidence and universally so. With the organisation looming large, particularly in military stations, subunits and sub-subunits are under the threat of marginalisation in the hectic scheme of things. There is no gainsaying that the smell of cordite and crack of the weapon can easily recreate the primary group in quick time. Nevertheless, the expectation
of short wars in future suggests that a higher threshold of primary group bonding
may well be the difference between effectiveness
and efficiency.
The remedies are no doubt at different levels. As has been pointed out by a former vice chief in a recent newspaper column, incessant deployments in unending counter
insurgency or on unresolved borders is one area for the government’s intervention.
In any case, that would still leave the military to revert to the radical ethic. Its problems finding their way into the headlines
suggest that the balance between the organisations’ space and that of the subunit
has been upset in favour of the former. It is time to recreate the primary group, a task well within the military’s capability and hopefully its attention.
Ali Ahmed is Assistant Professor, Nelson Mandela Center for Peace and Conflict Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia