Indian Defence Review

For the fear of alienating the Muslim population of J&K, the use of nuclear weapons there by Pakistan can more or less be ruled out.

The Op Parakram experience exposed five major flaws in the Sundarji doctrine:

What is the solution? Even as full mobilisation of the armed forces is set in motion, a chunk of the Army, with the aid of IAF, must have the capacity and capability to launch prompt incursions at rattling pace to deliver deathblows on enemy targets, but the onslaught should not be deadly enough to compel Pakistan to punch the nuclear button. Cold Start essentially embodies this war-fighting strategy. Cold Start, an offensive exercise, reverses India’s historic defensive military posture. By entrenching the tenet of broad front offensive-shallow penetration, it overthrows the narrow front-deep penetration credo of the Sundarji doctrine.

The vast majority of the military, bureaucratic and political plutocrats of Pakistan belong to heartland Punjab, and therefore it is highly unlikely that the Pakistan Army would use nukes for tactical gains

Unveiled in April 2004, Cold Start is a limited-war doctrine, a terrestrial-cum-aerial blitzkrieg that confines the conflict within the nuclear ‘red lines’. It envisages the creation of eight Division-sized Integrated Battle Groups (IBG) — carved out of the existing holding corps on the western front (less XIV, XV and XVI Corps based in Jammu and Kashmir) and also the strike corps — each IBG made up of independent/rapid armoured brigade, mechanised infantry, self-propelled artillery, missile-defence battery and backed by close air support, capable of executing multiple strikes using overwhelming firepower, to take the Pakistan Army by surprise and to inflict considerable damage on it within, say, four days. The Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor, to a query from the press corps, confirmed this: “The plan now is to launch self-contained and highly mobile battle groups adequately backed by air cover and artillery fire assaults for rapid thrusts into enemy territory within 96 hours.”

The holding corps, re-designated as pivot corps, would be reinforced with extra brawn so as to undertake limited offensive operations and strike few crippling blows of its own.

The pivot corps and IBGs would be stationed closer to the border to minimise logistical requirements and to enhance their ability to surprise. Besides, these division-sized units can be alerted and mobilised quicker than corps. Simultaneous attack from eight different directions should leave the Pakistan military leadership at sixes and sevens, and there through degrade their decision-making ability. Having eight formations to monitor instead of three should put the recce at intelligence resources of Pakistan at full strain, which should further the chances of achieving surprise. Moreover, heavens forbid, if Pakistan scrambles to nuke, division-sized formations would be smaller targets than corps-sized ones.

Given Pakistan’s proclaimed itch to nuke India, the Indian Army expects the US-led international community to intercede to halt the hostilities. During the post-ceasefire negotiations, India expects to extract iron clad undertaking from Pakistan to quell its homegrown terrorists in exchange for the territorial gains it made.

Pakistan, of course, can be expected to claim that India’s Cold Start warfare would have a destabilising effect on the subcontinent. Apart from formulating an ‘antidote’ to Cold Start, Pakistan would begin to rely even more on its nuclear arms to clip India’s conventional upper hand. Pakistan can also be expected to redraw and lower the nuclear red lines besides essaying to miniaturise nuclear warhead and putting its nuclear forces under a higher state of alert.

To-do Items

The first instances of fielding irregulars as force-multipliers perhaps took place during Napoleon’s invasion of Spain in 1808 and Russia in 1812. Of late, the Israel Defence Forces had to bear the brunt of the militiamen — Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. The Pakistan Army has diligently fathered and nurtured irregular fighters as frontline ‘assets’ to confront the Indian forces. The Indian military planners have to factor the menace posed by these wildcard warriors.

Pakistans nuclear weapons are primarily meant to blunt Indias conventional edge. Since Pakistan, unlike India, has no “˜no-first-use policy, and since it has not ruled out employing nukes in response to a conventional assault”¦

With time, the distinction between strike corps and pivot corps must diminish and disappear, to enable the remodelled corps to carry out both offensive and defensive operations. This way, the combat potential of the Indian Army could be harnessed fully.

The armed forces have to stockpile NBC equipment and enhance training to familiarise troops to operate in an NBC contaminated area.

The Nuclear Battleground

Nuclear weapons are not meant to fight wars, but Pakistan does not seem to believe so and its army thinks they are playthings to be pulled out at the first swoosh of gunshot. So let us analyse whether India can undertake limited conventional operations against Pakistan without triggering a nuclear response.

Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are primarily meant to blunt India’s conventional edge. Since Pakistan, unlike India, has no ‘no-first-use’ policy, and since it has not ruled out employing nukes in response to a conventional assault, the only unequivocal policy outline hitherto comes from retired Lieutenant General Khalid Kidwai, boss of Pakistan’s Strategic Plans Division. He enunciated, “If, India overruns large swathes of Pakistan territory; India destroys a large part of Pakistan’s land or air forces; India blockades Pakistan in an effort to strangle it economically; or India pushes Pakistan into a state of political destabilisation or creates large-scale internal subversion in the country.”

Cold Start essentially embodies this war-fighting strategy. Cold Start, an offensive exercise, reverses Indias historic defensive military posture.

The Indo–Pak border can be demarcated into four geographically and demographically distinct sectors or theatres:

Right from south Jammu to central Rajasthan, the terrain either side of the Indo–Pak border is marked by natural and manmade obstacles like canals and dhussi called ditch-cum-bund (DCB) — the subcontinent’s own Maginot Line. These DCBs are dotted with well-concealed concrete bunkers with ample defensive firepower. The DCBs thus render large-scale mechanised operations well-nigh impossible.

For the fear of alienating the Muslim population of J&K, the use of nuclear weapons there by Pakistan can more or less be ruled out.

The vast majority of the military, bureaucratic and political plutocrats of Pakistan belong to heartland Punjab, and therefore it is highly unlikely that the Pakistan Army would use nukes for tactical gains as an Indian nuclear reprisal would devastate their home province. Moreover, much of the DCBs and bulwark of concrete bunkers should survive a nuclear attack, and therefore counterproductive from military perspective, and only a gormless Fuehrer would bang the nuclear button. Furthermore, the RAPIDs — Reorganised Army Plains Infantry Division (attached to the holding corps in Punjab and Rajasthan) — are equipped with very dependable C4I (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, and Intelligence) system, kitted with NBC gear and stocked with decontamination vehicles/aids, and therefore capable of functioning in an environment dirtied by NBC attack.