A War at Hand

http://www.kashmirtimes.in/newsdet.aspx?q=52803

A press release on the 18^th anniversary of the Pokhran II nuclear tests by the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (CNDP) sounds the alarm on a possible future. The press release states: ‘The Modi government’s evident lack of professionalism in foreign policy and the ideological penchant for jingoism to divert public criticism on domestic issues has only worsened the situation and there are apprehensions that the BJP might promote war hysteria as we reach closer to the next elections.’

This is unusual pessimism when Modi is only set on his third year. He is looking towards the dividend from his several visits abroad. He is set to be off to Iran, Israel and the US soon. He has put the tweezers on Pakistan by holding out on talks until it proves responsive on terrorism. Internally, he is putting the Congress out to dry. The results from the recent provincial polls might embolden him to further corner the UP government in the run up to poll next year. The first salvo has been the televised entry of a water train to Bundelkhand. His heavy artillery, Subramanian Swamy, elevated to Rajya Sabha for the purpose, is busy setting the scene for a revival of the Ram Mandir issue. With UP in the kitty, Amit Shah no doubt already has his eyes set on the following national polls, perhaps heralded as was the case with Rajiv Gandhi’s shilanyas, with the ‘bhoomi poojan’ – in today’s parlance - for a Mandir.

So which of the two scenarios will shape up: the usual despondency of the marginalized naysayers or that of upbeat Hindutva plotters? Curiously, both can end up true. The only surety is that if it takes a war to help keep Modi in power, there could well be one.

Since Modi is merely two years in the chair, he has not yet been abandoned by his development supporters. He is deftly attempting to pin any blame for lack of the promised neo-liberal dividend on the Congress’ grandstanding in parliament. This is designed to evict them from the upper house, enabling a clear coast for his corporate backers. Having given them full play over the past two years, his saffron supporters can be expected to continue with him. His blind eye allowed them a succession of sticks to beat the minority with. He has left off their mascots – Messrs. Vanzara et al. In any case, he has his trump card – the mandir – up his sleeve in case their faith in him lags. Therefore, it is too early to write off Mr. Modi as the naysayers have done.

Nevertheless, the Modi wave does seem exhausted. It suffered two reverses too many: Delhi and Bihar. The students at JNU and elsewhere have severely embarrassed him, so much so that hagiography on social media and in the media is not at the earlier levels of din. Indeed, the Arun Shourie interview has put him on notice with his support base in the middle class. If the Congress was to pull out the ace up their sleeve – Priyanka Gandhi – then Mr. Modi’s inner worry will begin to show. This is where the scenario of the CNDP will kick in.

The tinder is already piled up. Pakistan is being squeezed. From diplomacy being on hold, it can be inferred that the game who-blinks-first is on. This may take a season or two to play out, interspersed with episodes of the by now familiar reaching out, such as a prospective Modi visit to Islamabad in autumn, and pauses thereafter in close succession. Depending on how ‘successful’ the intelligence and psy war game pans out, the closer Pakistani establishment will get to exasperation. Absent conflict resolution, with Kashmir on the usual edge, they will have an outlet.

India has kept its military honed for just such an eventuality. It has most recently practiced its moves involving both a strike corps and a pivot corps in Exercises Shatrujeet and Chakravyuh II respectively. While the former witnessed the drop of a whole para brigade; the latter too is advertised as having an element of air envelopment. This suggests that Special Forces would be speeding up operations, both for the pivot corps in the initial stages and for the strike corps in the penultimate stage. What speeding up means in face of Pakistan’s tactical nuclear weapons, now a half decade old, is moot.

The expectation is that Pakistan will in the event be self-deterred on three counts. The first is easy to dismiss as has been competently done in the hallowed pages of International Security. The expectation is that the Pakistani civilian casualties from its own tactical nukes would be of such an order as to be prohibitive. This is predicated on the misconception that Pakistan would launch several strikes in order to stop India’s conventional ingress. This leads to the conclusion that since Pakistan would not be able to countenance such casualties, there would be no nuclear first use; thereby, enabling Indian attack. QED. However, this can be debunked as willfully misrepresenting the manner Pakistan would go nuclear and its aims in doing so. The most plausible such use would be to unmistakably signal crossing of a threshold by India troops who would thereby be best advised to back off. 

The second is that Indian troops would in a broad swathe hold Pakistani population centers hostage. This reading of India’s operational plans suggests that India will deliberately troop into developed terrain, in which its mechanized capability is most unsuited, in order to avoid giving Pakistan targets for tactical nuclear first use. This suggestion is in face of the in-your-face military history of this century in which even superior militaries have got bogged down in demographic terrain. Therefore, even if for argument sake it is granted that there is no nuclear first use – there are targets aplenty in the rear of such troops in a toe-to-toe mode – such troops can be likened to putting their hands into a beehive of irregular, jihad inspired fighters.

The third is that since Pakistan cannot be sure of not being ‘wiped off the map’ in any escalation and especially so if India keeps to its nuclear word of ‘massive’ retaliation, Pakistan would play conventional ball. All three arguments though easy to refute nevertheless serve to incentivize Indian use of its military power.

Such power would be at Mr. Modi’s beck and call if and when he gets into a tight internal political spot. As seen, politics is no longer what it used to be for a Modi used to referring to himself in third person. If the long standing observation of Ashis Nandy holds water, then Mr. Modi would unlikely follow Manmohan Singh in self-denial.  Mr. Singh modestly forewent using the military instrument in face of 26/11. The difference this time round is that Mr. Modi need not wait for a ‘provocation’. If the alleged Pakistani observation from their visit to Pathankot airfield is to be believed, Indian security minders could well trigger off a ‘provocation’. Even the famous parliament attack has drawn credible speculation as being a ‘curious case’. In fact, sound military strategy requires seizing the initiative and not leaving such onerous decisions as war to the whims of passing jihadis. War itself is seldom reactive; only its outbreak is often papered over with such spin. With an intelligence czar at the helm of national security, Chanakya niti of such an order cannot be entirely ruled out. 

To conclude, the naysayers in CNDP are only partially right. There would not only be war clouds, but also war to enable Modi’s emulation of Indira’s Goddess Durga act. It might be safer to wish Mr. Modi political good health over the balance of his tenure. May the Make-in-India tide lift all boats, including Pakistani ones.  Amen.

 

The Chennai floods and India’s strategic underside

http://www.countercurrents.org/ahmed161215.htm

The floods in Chennai for a second time round bring home that our metropolises are quite incapable of withstanding disasters. If natural disasters continue to perplex the administration across the country, be it in Srinagar or Garhwal earlier, it can well be imagined what nuclear conflict aftermath would wreck. In Chennai, it took longer to react since the army was absent, with its Southern Command over at its winter manouvers, Exercise Drad Sankalp. Therefore, public interest is warranted and public interest a must, even in arcane issues of nuclear strategy.

Recent obituaries on the death of Sandy Berger, Clinton’s national security advisor, prompted a return to the Kargil War. Sandy Berger apparently defused an India-Pakistan nuclear crisis during the war, quite like another national security official, Robert Gates, had done once previously in 1990. Alongside, excerpts from an Indian war correspondent’s just released memoirs of the period also make a mention of the nuclear dimension to the conflict.

Reportedly, Brajesh Mishra went over to Europe to suggest Americans use their good offices with the Pakistanis to wind up their intrusions in Kargil, or else India would use all measures to evict them. The hint was that India may require crossing the Line of Control (LC) and, following its 1965 War footsteps, would not necessarily restrict itself to the LC sector. This could provoke a nuclear response from Pakistan, necessitating nuclear retaliation by India. The scenario impressed Clinton enough to persuade Nawaz Sharif to call back the Pakistani intruders. The rest as they say is history.

The Kargil War prompted a rethink in India at both levels: conventional and nuclear. However, there was a mismatch between the two. While at the conventional level, India went on to a proactive and offensive doctrine, at the nuclear level it promised ‘massive’ – city busting – nuclear retaliation. A conventional offensive could prompt a Pakistani nuclear counter, leading to reflexive escalation on India’s part that would insensibly put its own cities at risk.

This would have been sustainable in case the conventional offensive was made a remote possibility by measures such as meaningful talks over conflict triggers such as Kashmir. However, while the talks did get underway, as the then Pakistani foreign minister Khurshid Kasuri’s memoirs testify, they could not be sustained and eventually were derailed by Mumbai, 26/11.

The latest Exercise Drad Sankalp has all the hallmarks of nuclear dangers: ‘decisive manoeuvres by mechanized forces on ground in harmony with utilization of the Third Dimension (air power (added)) to ensure complete dominance of the battlefield.’ The highlighted phrases would tend to trigger Pakistan’s nuclear card, officially pointed out finally by its foreign secretary only this September.

The mention of ‘integrated theatre’ concept the finds mention in the press note suggests that the manouvers appear to be prepared for such an eventuality. What the phrase means is that even though the Pakistani frontage has three geographic commands arrayed, they are capable of fighting as one, as was the case in the 1965 War in which General Harbaksh Singh was the de-facto theatre commander. While in 1965, the war was brought to an end with General JN ‘Mucchu’ Chaudhuri pleading lack of artillery ammunition, the integrated theater concept also entails integrated logistics, implying that India could rely on its depth in resources to continue the war despite its going nuclear.

India is evidently still fighting the last war. Deterrence wonks would have it that this ability will strengthen deterrence by implying ‘escalation dominance’, an ability to prevail even if Pakistan goes nuclear and at any level of nuclear exchange(s). However, the Chennai floods bring home that this does not hold for the civilian front. It would be wishful to believe that the civilian front will remain unscathed in war.

The favoured scenario is of Pakistan setting off a few tactical nuclear warheads to thwart India’s mechanized forces. However, with its conventional forces continuing the war – an ability the military exercises underway testify – then it would be yet again bringing its cities under risk. Pakistan, once it has broken the nuclear taboo, will unlikely defensively restrict nuclear salvos to its own territory, hurting itself multiple times over in addition to suffering India’s retaliation. Therefore, India’s prolonging the war despite Pakistan’s introduction of nuclear weapons would open the way for nuclear escalation.

India needs instead to end war immediately on its going nuclear. This was the conclusion of India’s leading nuclear thinker, General Sundarji (Blindmen of Hindoostan, Delhi: UBS Publishers, p. 102) that now needs dusting and readying for doctrinal battle.

Nuclear hawks would have it that this plays into Pakistani hands, enabling that state to get away. India must instead be firm and resolved to inflict punishment. The problem with this argument is India needs to then, alongside, gain ability to withstand punishment. It is debatable whether any society can really ever do so, leave alone India.

As Mr. Modi lands by helicopter to address the military brass assembled for the combined commander’s conference on INS Vikramaditya mid-month, he needs reminding that India would end up as Churchill would have it - a geographic concept – in case India does not lead South Asia off the nuclear path.

His foreign minister’s visit to Islamabad for the Heart of Asia conference has set the stage for more than merely his visit to Islamabad for the SAARC summit. The two national security advisers’ secret meeting in Bangkok heralds a revival of the ‘back channel’. The two must ensure that ‘back channel’ they go beyond nuclear confidence building that is part of the up-front ‘comprehensive bilateral dialogue’ to arrive at a mechanism for nipping the nuclear genie right in the bud.

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