Indian Defence Review

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.

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.

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.

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,

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

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. (Breacher Michael, “India and World Politics: Krishna Menon’s View of the world”, Oxford, London et al, 1968. p. 171)
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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
7. The News, (Pakistan), 7 Jan 2011.
8. 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.)
9. MacNamara Robert S., The Essence of Security, (Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1968.)
10. 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’.