Doctrine and strategy under the N-umbrella

This does not mean that military power would not be employed in an offensive role. But that should be in circumstances when deterrence has failed and either an adversary attacks us, or we need to apply military force to alter the negative and destructive thinking and policies of an adversary (the case after the terrorist attack on Lok Sabha in December 2001) and diplomatic measures fail.

The one single factor that has had the most profound impact on our defence policy, and hence the employment of our military power, is the existence of nuclear weapons. At another plane, terrorism has come to be the favoured choice of Pakistan to apply violence for political-ideological ends. It is in the strategic space below nuclear exchange, where conventional military power has to be applied. At the upper end of conflict, only nuclear weapons can deter nuclear weapons. In view of the enormous costs implicit in any potential use of nuclear weapons, it is clear that we must ensure that nuclear weapons are not allowed to come into play in the use of military power.

This imposes significant limitations on the conduct of war which did not exist till 1987. We need to ask ourselves whether we have evolved a credible doctrine to successfully counter Pakistan’s strategic doctrine of sub-conventional war (through terrorism) under the nuclear umbrella acquired by 1987? The answer unfortunately is no! The problem has been that while Pakistan put in place a well-planned strategy of sub-conventional war through terror under its nuclear umbrella, we stuck to ways of war outmoded by the presence of nuclear weapons.

Continued use of military power in counter-terrorism in what can only be called strategically defensive role merely added to the perceptions in Pakistan that their nuclear weapons deter India from using its powerful military; and we lowered our sights to tactical responses to terrorism instead of pursuing a viable strategic response. Our doctrine seems to have got stuck to the traditional World War II model of war ‘‘by numbers’’, with ponderous three-weeks for initial mobilisation itself!

Doctrinal baggage, according to then army chief General S Padmanabhan, crippled India’s early options once we mobilised for war to punish Pakistan after the terrorist attack on Parliament on 13th December 2001. And later on after March, heavy use of military power with three strike corps concentrated for a massive offensive in Rajasthan sector could not be employed because of risk of escalation across the nuclear threshold. And while Pakistan paid a much higher price than us, the conclusions of our strategic community were to the opposite. In the end Pakistan declared victory while we searched for words to explain the withdrawal.

In short, defence strategy should be able to apply punitive (conventional military) force without inviting an excessive response like a credible nuclear threat or use. In a way Pakistani strategy has ensured that the war through terrorism does not go beyond a level where India might be tempted or forced to escalate (as it did after the Lok Sabha attack). But there is no guarantee that this would continue to be the choice for the future. The options for us based on this principle would be to either apply military power spaced out in time and concentrated in space, or stretched out in space and concentrated in time. Any rapid loss of its major force or large territory should be expected to raise the stakes closer to Pakistan’s nuclear threshold.

A classical example of application of punitive force would be the two-year battle of attrition across the Suez Canal between Israel and Egypt with massive air and artillery duels between 1971-73, which did not push Israel to consider its nuclear weapons use; but it did so within 36 hours of the October 1973 War because of the rapid armour thrust by Egypt and Syria that had started to take a heavy toll of Israeli Air Force without success in stopping the Arab advance that led to unveiling of the nuclear threat as its response option.

In other words, our defence doctrine and strategy must seek to apply calibrated force for punitive effect, which does not have a destabilising effect on the adversary. ‘Shock and awe’ strategy is workable only under special circumstances, where there are no nuclear weapons with the adversary. Thus sharp, swift small-size operations would need to be kept limited in time and space. Precision long-range air strikes on selected targets are another option as the US did over North Vietnam ensuring that the bombing was kept below the provocation level which might have brought the Soviets or the Chinese directly into the war. For example, air strikes in defined geographical areas like the Pakistan Occupied Kashmir could be spaced out in time. Conceptually this would not be different from Pakistan’s strategy of bleeding India with a thousand cuts, except a thousand cuts wouldn’t be needed with modern firepower.

The key is that the onus of escalation should be placed on the adversary, but at every step he should find that we would block his choices and/or impose a higher level of punishment as compared to what he could inflict through escalation.

PART I

PART II

PART III

PART V