Nuclear Thread - 4

[Arun_S]

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Column: Applaud, don't shoot the chief

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2010-02-11 15:17:28

Last Updated: 2010-02-11 19:00:10





Colonel Anil Athale



`If you do not like the message, shoot the messenger,` goes an old adage.



General Deepak Kapoor, the Indian Army Chief and currently the Chairman of Joint Chief`s of Staff, would not have anticipated that his enunciation of India`s defence strategy would make him a target of the Indian media. The reaction from Pakistan and to some extent China is along predictable lines, but the attempts by some Indian media houses to run him down is appalling, to say the least.



This is my small attempt to set the record straight and nail the lies.



In his recent statement which seems to have provoked this peculiar reaction, General Kapoor basically proposed three things-

• [color="#800080"]India is preparing for a limited conflict under the `nuclear overhang`[/color].

• India is preparing for a quick response short of all out war to ‘unconventional warfare’ (diplomatese for cross border terror)

• India is preparing for a two front war-against China and Pakistan simultaneously.



The reaction to this has been a predictable hysteria in Pakistan and among the peaceniks in India. Pakistan described the statement as threatening, while sneering at India’s capability to take on China.



As the Kargil episode showed, a limited war under conditions of nuclear deterrence is not a new concept. It is hypocritical for Pakistan to now protest if India is preparing to pay it back in its own coin. The point is, by [color="#800080"]clearly enunciating this doctrine India has put Pak on notice that a ‘reverse Kargil’ would be a distinct possibility[/color].



The second issue of a quick response or ‘cold start’ is directly linked to the fact that in last decade India has suffered several proxy terror strikes from Pakistan, always denied by Pakistan. Given the type of attacks, what this new strategy means is that in future Pakistan will have to take into account a likely Indian retaliation.



In the aftermath of Kandahar hijacking of 1999, the attack on the Indian Parliament in December 2001 as well as the massacre of soldiers’ families in Kaluchak in May 2002, India found that its forces lacked flexibility and reaction speed. The Mumbai train blasts of July 2006 and Mumbai attack of Nov 2008 brought home the need to have forces to react quickly and inflict appropriate punishment on the adversary.



Apparently this lacunae has now been rectified, and the nation now has the tools to implement it. With this force in being, it is hoped that Pakistan will be deterred from repeating the earlier adventures. The onus on escalating further will lie fully on it shoulders. Rather than increasing tensions or chances of war, this will possibly prevent adventurism by Pakistan and force it to revive its support to the Jihadi non-state actors.



Those who are familiar with the history of Cold War developments of strategies between the US and erstwhile Soviet Union will know that the strategy of flexible response was developed by the US under Robert McNamara, to deal with similar situation of asymmetric Soviet threats. This is a sort of deterrence within deterrence.



As to the two front threat that India faces, the history of last 40 odd years shows that this has been a reality since 1963, when the Pakistan-China nexus came into existence. In 1965 at the height of Indo Pak war, China had massed troops on Sikkim border to help Pakistan. During the 1971 war too, India faced a similar two front threat. This was dealt with deftly by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by signing a treaty with Soviet Union (12 August 1971). During the 1971 war, China was kept quiet by the deployment of 21 Soviet divisions on the Amur-Ussuri border. With the demise of Soviet Union, India had to naturally revise its policy to deal with future conflicts.



But the most curious comment from Pakistan has been that this shows that the military is calling the shots in India. Anyone with even nodding acquaintance with the process of Indian decision-making would know that this new strategy must have been result of the review ordered by the Cabinet. In India, Generals do not make policy, political leaders do. But unlike Pakistani Generals, Indian Generals seldom speak out, and when they do, the Pakistanis should take them seriously. In the 2002 standoff, it was the warning of impending disaster for Pakistan issued by General Padmanabhan that had the desired effect, forcing Pakistan to submit a ‘verifiable’ assurance of curbing the Jihadis.



With US breathing down its neck to close down the Jihadi factories and India deciding to forge instruments to punish proxy attacks, there is natural disquiet in Pakistan over the loss of leverage obtained through patronising terror organisations like the Lashkar-e-Toiba..



[color="#800080"]But what is surprising that even some Indians found this new strategy objectionable[/color]. Do they want India to suffer another Mumbai-style attack?



Ayaz Amir in the ‘News’ (of Pakistan) and Mr K Subrahmanyam, former convener of India’s National Security Council, have made more or less the same points as I have made above. [color="#800080"]But the real ‘Elephant in the room’ is the distance that we seem to have covered in acquiring the needed capability. [/color]



Thanks to the inefficiencies of the DRDO, the Indian armed forces have fought all wars with technology inferior to the enemy. This was true of 1962, 1965 and even 1971, be it the artillery, tanks, radars or even infantry weapons. Not just our adversaries, but [color="#800080"]even terrorists have had better weapons than our own soldiers.[/color] That we still held our own is a tribute to the valour and leadership of our forces.



This is not mere bellyaching, or a bad carpenter blaming his tools syndrome. We were in a situation that we did not have the necessary tools at all . The fact that we are in a position to now think of a ‘flexible response’ strategy as opposed to ‘all or nothing’ means that we have now the means to carry out the required tasks. This would not be possible without the support of the US, the leading country as far as military technology is concerned.



Perhaps wisdom has finally dawned on the West that India –not Pakistan-- is the frontline state as far as the war on terror is concerned. Strategically, with the Americans building up in Afghanistan and the Pakistanis on the backfoot, there was a possibility that the Jihadis would mount attacks on India to derail the US operations by diverting the Pakistan army to check India. It is to counter such an eventuality that the new ‘cold start’ strategy has been initiated.



Hope for peace, or `Aman ki Aasha` for the subcontinent depends squarely on the Pakistani state giving up terror as a state policy.



That being the case, this is an occasion to celebrate, not castigate the messenger.



Colonel (Dr) Anil Athale is Chhatrapati Shivaji Fellow of the USI studying insurgency, and the co-ordinator of Inpad, a Pune-based think tank.