By Col Anil Athale
26 Sep , 2015
India has been victim of proxy war since 1999. First in Kargil in May 1999 when regular Pakistani soldiers in garb of ‘Kashmir Freedom Fighters’ infiltrated and seized dominating heights across LoC (Line of Control) in Kashmir. In 2001, terrorists supported from across the border attacked the Indian parliament and came very near to destroying the political leadership of the country. More daring attacks followed, salient amongst them were the Kaluchak1 massacre in which 30 family members of army personnel were killed. There were several cases of bomb blasts in cities and a failed attempt to wipe out Indian scientific community.2
…in the last five years the LeT led combine has carried out ten major attacks in which over 625 Indians have been killed…
Several bomb blasts later, on 26 November 2008 terrorists infiltrated from sea and held the city of Mumbai hostage for 60 hours and killed over 166 Indian citizens. A brief look at statistics shows that in the last five years the LeT (Lashkar-e-Toiba) led combine has carried out ten major attacks in which over 625 Indians have been killed and over 3000 have been wounded seriously. Most of the investigations have reached a dead end or the perpetrators have fled to Pakistan.
The LeT led campaign against India is essentially a joint enterprise with Pak Army (through its wing the ISI). LeT led campaign is unique in that it is a virtual proxy war launched by one state against the other by using the tactic of deniability. Late Krishna Menon, India’s defacto foreign minister in the 1950s and early 60, was of the view that “Pakistan views partition as only a beginning. Her idea is to get a jumping off point to take the whole of India. Their minds work in this way- that it was from the Mughals that the British took over. Now that the British have gone back, the Muslims must come back.”3
India responded to the Kargil attack by using all its forces to eventually throw out the infiltrators. The Indians however fought within its own territory and did not cross the LoC. Indian response to the 2001 attack on the parliament was to mobilise its armed forces and threaten a full scale war. But as Pakistan upped the nuclear ante and international pressure mounted on India, it settled for an assurance from Pakistan, guaranteed by the Americans, that it will not permit its territory to be used for such attacks in future. That assurance was breached in Nov 2008.
What is more likely is the takeover of that state by a Taliban like leadership. The assassination of Governor of Punjab by his bodyguard, who was showered with rose petals by lawyers in Lahore, is a pointer in that direction.
Ever since Kargil attack and certainly since the attack on parliament in 2001, India has been searching for a matching response short of all out war to deter future attacks. ‘Cold Start’ doctrine was India’s response to the developing scenario. It envisages that in case of similar terrorist incident India will launch a swift limited attack on Pakistani targets within 24 hours. In essence this has been Indian strategy for last several decades, the only novel element being the swiftness of response.
Despite being in existence for over four years, when the terrorist attack took place in Mumbai in Nov 2008, India failed to respond.
It is obvious that the existence of ‘Cold Start’ strategy failed to deter such attacks and there is no guarantee that it will do so in future. The greatest danger is that emboldened by the earlier success, the Pak based terrorist groups may attack more ambitious targets like oil refinery on the coast or even a nuclear power plant.
The very idea that a limited conventional conflict can take place even under a nuclear overhang is questionable. Pakistan has been swift in exploiting this flaw (since it takes two to tango) by denying the possibility that the conflict would be ‘limited’ and raising the spectre of nuclear exchange. This has paralysed the Indian decision making in the past and likely to do so in future. Does it mean that India has no options short of nuclear ‘harakiri’?
Fortunately the four decade old ‘Cold War’ between the US and erstwhile USSR, specially the American dilemma in Europe and Asia, offers some valuable lessons and insights to Indian policy makers. This article aims to bring to bear ‘Cold Logic’ on the dilemma faced by India.
…a limited conventional conflict can take place even under a nuclear overhang is questionable. Pakistan has been swift in exploiting this flaw by denying the possibility that the conflict would be ‘limited’ and raising the spectre of nuclear exchange.
Right at the outset it must be asserted that the Indian policy makers and military must get out of the pre-nuclearisation mindset. Deterrence is a product of capability and credibility, with the later being as important as the former. Clear signals, laying down realistic ‘Red Lines’ and overt plans, are all part of the deterrence regime. Secrecy is no longer a virtue and it is time India got out of the mindset of bizarre concepts like ‘Recessed Deterrence’4 and ‘Minimum Deterrence’. The only deterrence is ‘credible deterrence’ that works. Another deep rooted mindset in the Indian military thinking that needs to be eradicated once for all is the tendency to separate the nuclear and conventional forces. The nuclear forces do not exist in a vacuum, there is an umbilical link between the two.5
Changing Geo Politics of the Region
Almost with the independence in 1947, India got sucked into the ‘Cold War’ rivalry between the US and USSR. Right till 1970s, what India faced was a proxy US threat via Pakistan. The threat became even more pronounced after 1972 when the Sino-US alliance came into existence. Even the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Pakistan in the 1980s was a joint Sino-US enterprise.6 China’s collaboration with Pakistan in nuclear field, either directly or through its North Korean proxy is also a matter of record.
It must be however accepted that till Reagan era, the US was circumspect and its actions in Pakistan were more in relation to the threat it perceived from erstwhile USSR. It was a kind of ‘collateral’ damage as far India was concerned. But after the demise of Soviet Union and definitely after the year 2000, Pakistan is increasingly a Chinese proxy. Sixty percent of its military wherewithal is Chinese supplied. While China is certainly much less advanced than the US, but Chinese interest in Pakistan is ‘direct’. Thus it will be appropriate for India to view the challenge as Sino-Pak threat rather than purely a Pakistani one. Indian ‘Cold Start’ doctrine ought to take into account the China connection as well.
It has long been predicted that Pakistan is likely to become a failed state. This ignores the very strong ‘negativity’ factor that unites Pakistan. What is more likely is the takeover of that state by a Taliban like leadership.
India has failed to grasp certain salient issues that lie at the root of failure of regional peace process. These are,I
Pakistan’s national aim is to break up India into small parts and then be the biggest state in South Asia and dominate it.
Pakistan equates security with ‘equality’ with India in all spheres. As the gap between the two countries has widened there is a terrible sense of insecurity.
There is a suicidal steak in the Pakistani state (put in pithy Hindi, ‘Ham to dube hain, tum ko bhi le dubenege’, we are drowning but will take you down with us).
At an individual level, there are enough fanatics who regard suicide attack as their highest religious duty, and look forward to a great life in heavens.
It has long been predicted that Pakistan is likely to become a failed state. This ignores the very strong ‘negativity’ factor that unites Pakistan. What is more likely is the takeover of that state by a Taliban like leadership. The assassination of Governor of Punjab by his bodyguard, who was showered with rose petals by lawyers in Lahore, is a pointer in that direction.7
Lessons from Cold War
India had in place a threat of ‘massive conventional retaliation’ for any aggression by Pakistan in place right up to 1965. In response to Pakistani attack in Chhamb on 1 Sep 1965, it launched an all out attack on Punjab on 6th Sep. The Americans similarly faced a problem of Soviet conventional threat to Europe (a la Kashmir) and for some time till their nuclear monopoly lasted threat of massive retaliation was credible.
But once the Soviet Union acquired nuclear weapons in 1949, this seemed unlikely as it would put American homeland at risk in order to save Europe. Mr John Foster Dulles, the US Secretary of State in speech in New York in January 1954 , warned, “Local defences must be reinforced by further deterrent of massive retaliatory power… the basic decision was to depend upon a great capacity to retaliate, instantly , by means and at places of our choosing..” The Soviet test of an ICBM in 1957 made the strategy of massive retaliation virtually redundant. Soviet sponsored proxy wars continued in many parts of Asia and Africa. It is in these conditions that the Americans, under project “Vista” developed smaller nuclear weapons, 10 to 100 kilo tone, and classed them as ‘tactical’ weapons to be used against the Soviet conventional forces in Europe. The Soviets, however never accepted the theory and, maintained that they will regard this as the start of a general nuclear war.8
…despite the end of Cold War, the world is still en Gulfed (pun intended) in conflicts of varying intensity.
Almost throughout the Cold War, the Americans stubbornly stuck to their position. In order to reinforce their resolve, the Americans deliberately delegated the authority for use of tactical nuclear weapons to the theatre commanders while the rest of the nuclear arsenals remained firmly under the control of the US President. It was to enhance the ‘credibility’ of NATO’s doctrine of tactical nuclear weapons that McNamara ushered in the strategy of flexible response, to replace the unworkable theory of Massive Retaliation.
In order to justify his theories of ‘flexible response’ McNamara put forward a concept of ‘city exchanges’ during a nuclear war. Another major contribution was the development of ‘Counter Force’ strategy. A force specially designed and created to target the enemy’s retaliatory capability.9
On 23 March 1983, in an important address to the American people, the American President Mr. Ronald Reagan announced a new security strategy for the US, the Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI),
“What if free people could live secure in the knowledge that their security did not rest upon the threat of instant retaliation to deter a Soviet attack? (instead what if) we could intercept and destroy the strategic ballistic missiles before they reached our own soil or that of our allies?”10
The main point that Reagan made was that in near future technology was likely to become available and affordable to think of defence as the corner stone of security rather than deterrence based on retaliation. As sugar coating he held out the possibility that at some future date it should be possible to do away with nuclear weapons altogether.
Path Towards Global Security
World Order is in a flux and the exact contours of new world are still to emerge clearly. The centrality of the East-West conflict in the post Second World War era was virtually an article of faith for most strategic analysts. Therefore it has come to most of them as a surprise that despite the end of Cold War, the world is still en Gulfed (pun intended) in conflicts of varying intensity. Many analysts including I had recognized that even during the Cold War era, many of the conflicts in the world had rationale independent from the central struggle.
…the basic ingredient of a nuclear weapon, fissile material, cannot be manufactured in caves of Tora-Bora mountains! The likely source is thus well known and it should be possible to lock that up.
Deterrence was the main concept though ‘compellance’ comes a close second. It is easy to dismiss the contribution of these two important concepts by dismissing one as the good old balance of power and the second as a new version of gun boat diplomacy. In philosophical sense this criticism is valid but what cannot be ignored is the increased sophistication and fine tuning that is part and parcel of this technique.The new World Order that is still in the formative stage seems to be evolving into three levels. At the apex are the G-20 with the prospect of some more East European countries joining them. At the second level are countries in Asia that are in the ‘developing stage’ both economically and technologically. At the bottom are countries in Africa and Latin America that are yet to evolve as nation states. The relationship between the countries of first order is determined by economic factors and use of force is unthinkable as the linkages are too strong and there is great degree of interdependence.
Between the countries of the second and third order and those of the first order, there is no such economic linkage. In most cases it is a total dependency relationship. India as a country in the first order has to deal with Pakistan that is firmly in the second. In this situation use of force and specially the fine tuned use of combination of propaganda, cultural subversion, covert operations, destabilization and economic pressure assume importance to thwart the threat. The Indians seem to have grasped this as evidenced by the effort to forge economic relationship with China.
In the post Cold War era, with the passing away of the balance of terror, at the main system level, it is economic interdependence that is the governing factor. In the relationship between the main and subordinate system this is not true and use of force remains valid. This is what makes the new situation appear familiar and unchanged. But that is only a superficial view because in the earlier regime force and balance of terror was the stabilizing factor in both the main system and subordinate- main system relationship. Thus there was a linkage between the use of force at two levels and that acted as a restraint. With the change at the main system level to economic linkages, the use of force against the states in subordinate system has become much more probable. The danger for countries like India has increased and not decreased in the post cold war era.
The problem with these countries is not that they have nuclear weapons/technology but that they are not a status quo powers, have ambitions to expand their influence and territory and want to use the nuclear threat through proxy.
Deterrence is an amalgam of psychology, threats of use of force and diplomacy of force to achieve political objectives without recourse to war. But deterrence is neither omnipotent nor omnibus. It is on the other hand issue and country specific. It appears India is attempting to search for a solution to this problem.
India has often publicly declared its lack of faith and non- belief in the strategy of deterrence. It appears that the concept of deterrence is not understood well in India. In the classical approach, practiced in India, use of force is the last resort to achieve political ends- Guns are the last argument of the Kings! This is a sequential process, with diplomacy being the first step. And should diplomacy fail, intervention by armed forces after careful contingency planning and training. As opposed to this, concept of deterrence means a constant state of war. There is no division of period between planning and use. In deterrence regime the threat of use of force is continuously brought to bear upon the deterred adversary. During the Cold War and deterrence phase of the US-USSR relationship, both the countries were in constant readiness to go to war instantaneously. Thus for the thirty years of Cold War, at the level of threat, there was very little difference between an ordinary day and crisis. Holding the adversary hostage was a factor constant to the deterrence regime.
Since deterrence is basically a product of capability plus intent, credibility is as important as physical capability. All means are used to constantly convince the adversary about one’s will to use force. Successful deterrence thus means a fine tuning of ‘all the activities of a nation’ to convince the credibility of use of force.
India as a nation has emerged in the first group but is militarily being challenged by a nation in the second order. Additionally the Indian ruling elite has vague notions on the role of power in world affairs, the decision-making institutions are underdeveloped and there is inadequate time to rectify the ills. All this raises the spectre of India succumbing to the guiles of the adversary. As a matter of fact the importance of understanding this technique of cold war has increased after the demise of the USSR as India no longer has the luxury of hiding behind the Soviet apron.
Today India ranks amongst the first ten economies of the world. But among them, it alone seems to rely on ‘defensive’ strategy while the rest of them rely on the ‘certain and credible retaliatory power’ to deter war. The level of industrialization makes war ‘unthinkable’ as destruction of the painfully built industry is relatively easy in the days of air power. Defending vast industrial complexes against even moderately sophisticated attacks is neither cost effective nor is 100 percent success possible. Relative to the cost of technology for construction, the technology of destruction is both cheap and easily accessible to economic basket case like Pakistan.
It is undoubtedly true that in the short term their targets are either India or Israel, but once successful here, the resultant triumphalism will ensure that these states will be taken over by the extremists…
Luckily for the mankind, the basic ingredient of a nuclear weapon, fissile material, cannot be manufactured in caves of Tora-Bora mountains! The likely source is thus well known and it should be possible to lock that up. But here the main obstacle is that the countries with high risk have an ambiguous relationship with the terrorist groups as well as their ideology. There are sympathisers to the terrorists cause in general public and within the establishment. The countries that qualify for this dubious honour are Pakistan, Iran and possibly Syria. All the three have working relationship with known terrorist groups and use them to achieve their national aims.
The Americans need to be reminded that though Al Qaeda that carried out the 9/11 attack was based in land-locked Afghanistan, Osama Bin Laden and his minions transited with ease through Pakistan. The close relationship between the host regime of Taliban and Pakistan is also well known. Iran’s relationship with Hizbollah and its regional and global ambitions is also well known. Syria is possibly yet to graduate to the level of Pakistan or Iran but has similar ambitions.
The problem with these countries is not that they have nuclear weapons/technology but that they are not a status quo powers, have ambitions to expand their influence and territory and want to use the nuclear threat through proxy. The use of proxies is to enable the host country deny responsibility for a nuclear attack and thus escape retaliation. In the best scenario wherein one believes the protestations of responsible behaviour by these countries, there still remains the question of how much control they have over the non state actors. It is this combination of internal volatility, ideological sympathy to the cause of global Khalifat (a world Islamist state) and presence of substantial nuclear material and know how that produces the nightmare scenario of terrorist strike with nuclear weapons.
It is undoubtedly true that in the short term their targets are either India or Israel, but once successful here, the resultant triumphalism will ensure that these states will be taken over by the extremists- who’s ultimate target is the West led by the US. As a variation of the theme, the terror groups may decide to target American military installations closer to their home since mainland American may prove difficult to reach.
The real danger is collusion of elements in a state, take over of state by terrorists or clandestine supply of nuclear material by a state to claim plausible deniability and yet use these through a terrorist proxy…
If India has to be secure in a troubled neighbourhood, it has to seriously look at,
Tactical nuclear weapons, preferably enhanced radiation or neutron devices to minimise the fallout.
Consider delegation of retaliation authority to theatre commanders.
Create a massive retaliation threat based on proven Prithvi missiles in large numbers.
Develop a missile shield.
India’s Cold Start doctrine will only be credible if the above steps are taken, else it will be regarded as a bluff and the bleeding of the country through terrorist attacks will continue.
Notes
All the three terrorists killed in this incident have been identified as Pakistani Nationals. They were Abu Suhail, son of Abdulah, resident of Faislabad, Pakistan, Abu Murshed (Mohammed Munir), son of Mehzabin Shah Jeb Resident of Gali no. 1, Salamatpura, Rahwali Cantt, District Gujranwala, Pakistan and Abu Javed (Amzad Salam Bin Mohammed Gisha), son of Amir Bin Jabbi resident of Village Guda Giriya, Nosar Ali Khan, District Gujranwala, Pakistan. Certain food items like biscuits and chocolates found on the persons of these terrorists also reveal that these items were purchased from Zaffarwal, Pakistan. These terrorists aged 19 to 20 years who were responsible for the cold blooded massacre at Kaluchak on May 14, 2002 had reportedly infiltrated across the LoC (Line of Control) in Samba area and boarded the Jammu bound Himachal Roadways bus at Vijaypur.
The Hindu, Dec 29, 2005. On December 28, 2005, gunmen open fire indiscriminately at delegates coming out of the international seminar of the Operational Research Society of India at J.N. Tata Auditorium, Indian Institute of Science Bangalore. Eyewitnesses claim that four to five people got off a white Ambassador car and fired at the delegates at 7.30 p.m. Participants included 56 foreign delegates and 250 Indian delegates are said to be participating. The terrorists had planned to shoot and blow up the conference venue but later investigation revealed that their plans went astray due to the notorious Bangalore traffic and the plan had to be aborted. In terms of repercussions, the failed attack was as serious as the attack on parliament.
(Breacher Michael, “India and World Politics: Krishna Menon’s View of the world”, Oxford, London et al, 1968. p. 171)
A former director of IDSA, India’s sole official think tank, had popularized a concept of ‘hidden’ deterrence, a contradiction in terms. A deterrence can only be successful if it is an open and clear threat based on demonstrated capability. Ambiguity and uncertainty can lead to failure and disaster.
It was a common practice in all war games to build a scenario of nuclear weapons towards the end of discussion, generally few minuets before the lunch break. One hopes that this practice has ceased at the Staff College and NDC.
The Tribune, 12 August 2005, Article by K Subramanium Enough evidence exists on how Dr AQ Kahn was protected by the CIA form being prosecuted by the Dutch or how German company shipped a whole centrifuge plant to Pakistan
The News, (Pakistan), 7 Jan 2011.
Kaplan Morton A., Great Issues of International Politics, (Chatto & windus, New York.) Foreign Affairs Vol. 32 No. 2, Jan 1954, Brodie Bernard, ‘Nuclear Weapons: Strategic or Tactical’, pp 217-229. In a press conference on 8 Oct 1953, President Eisenhower tried to make a distinction between atomic and thermonuclear weapons, calling the former tactical and latter strategic. Kahn Herman, Thinking about the Unthinkable, (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London , 1962.)
MacNamara Robert S., The Essence of Security, (Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1968.)
SPAN, June 1985, Keyworth G.A., ‘A Bold Initiative in Strategic Defence’. pp. 16-19. New York Times Magazine, 27 Jan 1985, Brzezinski Z. et. al., ‘Defence In Space is not Star Wars’.
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