India’s Pre-emptive Escalation Dominance Model

Rahul Bhonsle 

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India’s Pre-emptive Escalation Dominance Model

Escalation dominance is seen as the first principle for success in wars between two nuclear-armed rivals, which is to avoid a confrontation rather than expand it. Escalation dominance is best defined by the American think tank Rand Corporation as, “a condition in which a combatant has the ability to escalate a conflict in ways that will be disadvantageous or costly to the adversary while the adversary cannot do the same in return, either because it has no escalation option or because the available options would not improve the adversary’s situation.” Noted American nuclear strategy theorist Herman Kahn has identified 44 steps in the escalation ladder from the emergence of a crisis to full-scale nuclear war.

These include political and diplomatic actions to limited wars to a full fledged conventional war, counter force and finally counter value nuclear options. The escalation ladder in the context of India and Pakistan follows the pathway of expansion from rhetoric to diplomatic face-off, cross-border sniping attacks, Border Action Team (BAT) actions, artillery duels – counter force followed by counter people, skirmishes to localised limited war and beyond. Pakistan’s inhuman and illegal use of terrorist attacks has added another dimension as these have the facade of deniability being carried out by non-state actors; this has an element of control of escalation with Pakistan for the onus for conflagration is on India.

Indian armed forces introduced the doctrine of pre-emptive response popularly known as Cold Start, as a response to mass casualty terrorist attacks by Pakistan on Indian soil. Pakistan, in turn, developed battlefield nuclear rocket Nasr which was integrated into the New Concept of War Fighting (NCWF) designed to checkmate an Indian Cold Start. In the context of India’s nuclear doctrine of No First Use (NFU) and massive retaliation to any nuclear strike on the country, the Nasr was seen to have posed an escalation dilemma to India, preventing the launch of pre-emptive conventional attack. The success for India now lay in controlling the dynamics below the level of the Cold Start option yet give a strong lesson to the adversary.

The multiple front, “surgical strikes,” launched on the night of 28/29 September in response to the Uri terror attack of 18 September introduced a new element - pre-emptive escalation dominance. While such trans-border raids have been in the repertoire of the Indian Army on the Line of Control (LOC) for many years, these were launched in the tactical context of trans-border shadow boxing of sorts between the two forces. These were never declared, or acknowledged thus had the veneer of covert operations. The September Surgical strikes assumed a strategic dimension throwing an open challenge to Pakistan yet retaining control of escalation with India.

How was this pre-emptive escalation dominance achieved? Firstly the targets selected were terrorist camps in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) and not Pakistan army posts. The Indian DGMO in his briefing to the media on 29 September also outlined that terrorists were in the launch pads about to strike. He said, “on receiving specific and credible inputs that some terrorist teams had positioned themselves at launch pads along Line of Control to carryout infiltration and conduct terrorist strikes inside Jammu and Kashmir and in various metros in other states, the Indian Army conducted surgical strikes at several of these launch pads to pre-empt infiltration by terrorists. The operations were focussed on ensuring that these terrorists do not succeed in their design to cause destruction and endanger the lives of our citizens”. As India does not have any terrorist camps on its soil Pakistani retaliation will perforce have to be on Indian military targets this, in turn, will open up the scale of response for India keeping options for escalation open.

Secondly, by denying the surgical strikes and calling these as purely cross-border artillery strikes, Pakistan seems to have limited its options to cross-border firing if it wants to escalate based on the Kahn matrix. In case it chooses to jump up the ladder it will only trigger a larger conflagration.

Thirdly Indian DGMO Lt Gen Ranbir Singh sends a strong message by openly declaring the surgical strikes to his Pakistan counterpart, Maj Gen Sahir Shamshad Mirza on the hot line. Mirza only acknowledged cross-border firing. The denial was standard response for acknowledgement of the same would have been a significant loss of face for the Pak Army which has created a facade of invincibility within the country. Acknowledging the surgical strikes would be seen as a replay of sorts of the American Seal attack in Abbottabad to take out Bin Laden. The denial also reinforces India’s escalation dominance as conflagration will appear firstly illogical and also disadvantageous for Pakistan.

Fourthly by explicitly declaring that India does not have any intention to escalate the DGMO Lt Gen Ranbir Singh placed the onus for the same on Pakistan. He said in his media briefing on 29 September, “The operations aimed at neutralising terrorists have since ceased. We do not have any plans for further continuation,” adding, “It is India’s intention to maintain peace and tranquillity in the region”. As Herman Kahn states of escalation dominance “ (it) is each side’s relative fear of eruption [of violence]. That side which has least to lose by eruption, or fears eruption the least, will automatically have an element of escalation dominance.” In the present circumstances India has least to lose having placed the onus for any aggressive response on Pakistan.

Finally, nuclear sabre rattling by Pakistan including by the Defence Minister Mr Khawaja Muhammad Asif of using tactical nuclear weapons has further weakened the case for escalation with a high public international reproof.

A word of caution however is in order. The escalation ladder is based on the logic of rational engagement, and Pakistan could yet undertake a misadventure thus the Indian armed forces cannot rest their laurels on the surgical strike and need to be, “fully prepared for any contingency that may arise”.