India-Pakistan: A war
scenario examined
Agni May-Aug 2016 Vol. XIX No. II
Doctrinal shadowboxing
With the last India-Pakistan
crisis almost a decade back – in November 2008 to be precise – it appears
incongruous to discuss war scenarios. When crises appear to be well behind,
wars can only be even more so. However, the periodic rise in temperature between
the two states – most recently in the diplomatic spat over the Burhan Wani
episode and more significantly over the Pathankot airfield terror attack –
indicate that crisis can lurk just over the horizon. Unlike the monsoons that
can be spotted and tracked across the subcontinent, crisis can instead appear
as a cloud burst. In such circumstance, heeding Clausewitz is wise. Clausewitz
rightly held that statesmen must be clear on the kind of war they embark on,
lest they demand the impossible of the military instrument. If crisis was to
turn into conflict then it must be to the extent feasible on one’s own terms.
Therefore, a consideration of war scenarios is not without utility.
Precedence exists of such
exercise proving timely. Immediately prior to the onset of insurgency in right
earnest in the Valley over the turn of the nineties, a quasi factual scenario,
Operation Topac, conjured up a scenario of Kashmir going into an ISI induced
downward spiral. Six months on, the semi-fictional account could be credited
with prescience. The scenario was so compelling that the doyen of Indian
strategists, K Subrahmanyam, was misled into believing the paper was factual.
Though he later issued an amendment, the episode suggests that scenarios – even
if seemingly far-fetched in this decade of relative peace – may repay
attention.
That said; several reasons are
there to criticize scenario building as scare mongering. Pakistan is unlikely
to initiate a war; fully knowing that it cannot win. Its army knows that this
time round it may not be able to bounce back as it did after its 1971 drubbing.
In case it does bite the dust, power would likely pass on to civilians. Given
the record of Pakistan’s past civilian governments, power could well be
contested by extremists taking advantage of the vacuum. Avoiding such a future,
entails a war avoidance strategy by Pakistan. This suits India since it is on
an upward trajectory that can do without distraction. As an aspiring great
power, it would not like a war with Pakistan to re-hyphenate it to Pakistan,
tying it down to its region, South Asia. Consequently, India appears embarked
on a Pakistan strategy that has the
military relegated to third spot, following intelligence and foreign policy
occupying the first two rungs in that
order of significance. This is in keeping with the Tsun Tsu dictum of
winning without fighting.
In effect, at long last, there is
no kindle piled high in South Asia. With no kindle, the proverbial spark can at
best sparkle and die out as a crisis, one easily managed in light of the
experience of the two states in crisis management over the past three decades.
The bonhomie between the two government heads adds an additional buffer. Since
both powers with influence over Pakistan – the US and China – are wary of instability
that besets it deepening, they would be available to act as dampeners,
preventing crisis from turning into conflict. This puts paid to the scenario,
staple for arm chair strategists over the past decade and half, of a mega
terror attack sparking off, a potentially nuclear, war.
The scenario had been made
plausible by Pakistan’s propensity for terrorism and India’s doctrinal movement
from a defensive mode towards proactive operations. This ensured Pakistan
largely turning off the tap of insurgency in Kashmir by mid last decade. It
instead transferred the pressure to terrorism in the homeland, culminating in
the 2008 Mumbai attack. However, India’s conventional makeover accelerating
thereafter as a consequence, has suitably impressed Pakistan. This explains
absence of a triggering event since. Even so, Pakistan has taken care to very
visibly equip itself with tactical nuclear weapons.
India’s doctrinal response to
this has been two fold. At the conventional level, it has played nonchalant,
excising any mention of nuclear backdrop in its press handouts on military
exercises since 2012. Alongside, at the nuclear level, while successfully maintaining
a façade of status quo, it has likely moved to a war-fighting nuclear doctrine
as against its official version pronouncing nuclear weapons are political
weapons for deterrence alone. This new – unstated so far – stance is that lower
order nuclear weapons use not being ruled out, lower order nuclear strike backs
are not only the best response, but also the best deterrent. The subtext is
that thinking on nuclear weapons has moved from taking them as deterring
nuclear weapons use to deterring higher order nuclear weapons use. At the
conventional level the message is that despite the conflict environment being
permissive of lower order nuclear use, conventional operations would continue,
buttressed by lower order retaliatory options.
This movement does not
necessarily enhance dangers in that the closer coupling between the two levels
– conventional and nuclear – enhances deterrence at the subconventional level.
Pakistan - attuned to the Indian doctrinal debate and movement – cannot miss
the increased liability it would pay in case of its triggering off a crisis.
This would enhance the ISI’s control over ‘good terrorists’. However, there are
also ‘bad terrorists’, such as those that carried out the Peshawar school
attack. Pakistan has been targeting these with vigour, assuming them to have
Indian support in a bid by India to whittle Pakistan’s concept of strategic depth.
With ‘good terrorists’ at best fed into the Kashmir cauldron in a controlled
manner and ‘bad terrorists’ unlikely to turn on India, the ‘Incident Day
(I-Day) scenario of a terror attack providing a trigger for war recedes
further. Since this threat can be visualized - and since the Pakistani
establishment is distanced from it - India can arrive at a crisis modus vivendi with Pakistan. Prior
covert networking by the national security establishments on this score can be
done; rather, should already have been done.
Scenario building
Even so, events can snowball.
Take for instance a scenario in which India approaches the UP elections. The
preceding social polarization based on communal lines gathers momentum, fed by
majoritarian politics. Since this election is crucial to the subsequent
national elections, internal politics is on a boil. Jihadists sitting across
the border sense an opportunity. The excuse is to pitch for their underdog
co-religionists.
These are neither ‘good terrorists’
nor ‘bad terrorists’. They are hardcore extremists wanting to expand unstable
spaces that enable them to thrive in the resulting governance and democratic
vacuum. Pakistan has the fertile demographic and socio-economic terrain. It has
sufficient religious extremism already prevalent on the back of conservative
religion inspired political formations such as the Jamaat and people vulnerable
to be misled. Once a ‘frontline’ state, it has been frequented by such
jihadists, providing the forum earlier for the formation of the Al Qaeda, the
hideout for its chief, Osama bin Laden, and possible hideaways in ungoverned
spaces for others. Such spaces have homegrown affiliates of the ISIS. Its
cities often witness terror attacks on liberal opinion makers, testifying to
the physical and psychological reach of new-age terrorists. The ISIS – at the
receiving end of a combined great power roll back in its power base Levant – is
attempting to expand the arc of instability to metamorphose and survive. There
are many candidate Muslim inhabited areas, stretching from North Africa to
Bangladesh. Pakistan is certainly one such in its sights. Pakistan, well aware,
and sensing adverse relative strength is running with the hares and hunting
with the hounds.
Under pressure elsewhere, they
need a valve and an opportunity to break into South Asia. Whereas conservative
political parties and societal tendencies towards religious extremism have
prepared the entry points for such groups in Pakistan and Bangladesh, India has
been relatively immune. However, India’s hothouse politics provides an opportunity
to break in. The catalyst can be a monster terror attack. Under the
circumstance of an upcoming election, the government – that prides itself on
doing more for defence – would end up in a commitment trap. It has advertised
itself as different from its predecessor that was in its view limpid in
approach to terror, best evidenced by a seeming lack of response to Mumbai
26/11. It requires justifying a $100 billion investment over the past decade
and the forthcoming $200 billion over the coming one. Consequently, domestic
and reputation pressures take India down the well rehearsed conventional
military response route to subconventional provocation.
India - believing it has
escalation dominance - chances conventional war. A doctrinal reading suggests
that the belief is not unfounded. At the subconventional level, India has the
requisite numbers in place in Kashmir to keep a lid on terrorism, and, as
witnessed lately, respond to civil unrest, albeit in a heavy handed manner. Its
conventional forces are well practiced in the decade and half old doctrine of
‘Cold Start’. It has the tactical nuclear weapons: three of the five nuclear
tests in Pokhran II were of subkilo ton variety and it has the delivery
vehicles (Prahaar and Brahmos). This capability enables response to TNW use by
Pakistan, relieving India from following through with its unnecessarily
escalatory official nuclear doctrinal pledge of counter value targeting. Since
it can trade nuclear ordnance – kiloton for kiloton – and such exchanges can
only be to Pakistan’s detriment, India has escalation dominance that it can
cash in on to deliver Pakistan a retaliatory blow.
Political compulsions favouring
retaliation and with the military doctrine supportive, momentum could pick up for
a ‘short, sharp war’. To be sure, deceleration will be there in the form of
diplomatic interventions by a concerned international community. These can be
fobbed off with India citing precedence in great power initiatives in
anticipatory self-defence over the better part of this century. As for the
argument that military force will only be counter-productive, in that, Pakistan
would be more vulnerable to extremism in wake of a military defeat, India can point to proactive operations
undertaken by the US, NATO and Russia as precedence irrespective of potential
consequence of expanding terrorist terrain, physically and psychologically. It
can point to the limitations built into its conventional doctrine. It can use
its official nuclear doctrine instrumentally to ensure diplomatic pressure on
Pakistan mounts to stay that country’s nuclear hand. A war would be at hand.
Analysing the resulting war
Following from Clausewitz’s
warning on foreknowledge of the war being entered into, is the imperative on
war aims. Whereas war aims can be preset, war strategy involves grappling with
another nation’s will and strength. This impacts war aims. A ‘better peace’
post-war is a fine desire, but needs translation into war aims that can then be
further disaggregated into achievable military objectives. In this case,
diplomatic warnings on the possibility that war could push Pakistan into an
abyss need heeding. The counter argument that these powers have themselves
resorted to war is not particularly incisive when seen against the results of
such wars, be it in Iraq, Libya or Syria. Clearly, a restrictive parameter
would be to ensure that the Pakistani state is not so impacted by military set
back as to be dysfunctional thereafter. In other words, its military should not
be administered a defeat that makes it lose face, cohesion and public trust. This
is at odds with the logic of war, taken as a wrestling match in which the
opponent is to be pinned to the ground. Clausewitz said not to demand of war as
a means of something it cannot deliver.
Is war limitation, the answer?
Can a limited war - with thrusts by land, sea and air, calibrated to hurt, but
not defeat or destroy - both preserve Pakistan and serve as retaliation? Can
these force Pakistan to rein in terrorists in its midst under a ‘Pakistan
first’ strategy? Can the Indian government caught up in public pressures for
dealing firmly with Pakistan, simultaneously also turn these off? This suggests
three information operations thrust lines: one at external powers; the second
directed at Pakistan; and the third, internal. The first entails reassuring the
international community against escalation, even while using diplomacy to
pressure Pakistan to adhere likewise. The second, directed at Pakistan, needs
to announce the retaliatory aims. Aiming more, such as compelling a Pakistani
crackdown on terrorists even while the war is on, would be ambitious. The third
is more difficult. Since the scenario has as backdrop elections – provincial
and national – domestic politics, not so much from the opposition as much as
from within pseudo-cultural and quasi-political formations supportive of the
government. These would attempt to link the ‘external Other’ to the ‘internal
Other’ as part of their political project, using the war as catalyst. The
government cannot continue being placatory to such forces. It would also
require sensitizing the public to early war termination, even under less-than-ideal
conditions. Prior conditioning can conjure up an image of responsible and
mature war conduct and termination, preempting motivated criticism of going
‘soft’ or, worse, ‘chicken’.
Clearly, the military, tasked to
deliver, would require being onboard. Past experience suggests its thrust could
prove more expansive than the government can permit. In the Kargil War, partial
mobilization led to selective manning of the border, even as the theater of
operations was wisely restricted as per government policy to the intrusions
alone. In Operation Parakram, the military perhaps over-interpreted the
government’s policy of coercive diplomacy, best illustrated by the a few
hundred casualties to mine laying and demining. The military operations planned
after surprise was lost envisaged all three strike corps launching in the
desert sector, an operation the government could scarce permit in light of the
nascent nuclearisation of the subcontinent. While the military reportedly
demurred owing to equipment shortfalls in 2008, these shortfalls were in
relation to what the military wished to inflict rather than what could have
been proportionate and timely. This indicates the potential for a Moltkaen
tendency within the military – a belief that once the war commences it is the
prerogative of the military to pursue to
its militarily logical conclusion. Over the long term, this requires senior
level professional military education mitigating such tendency and in the event
of war, requires tempering by the national security apparatus now reaching
maturing, the National Security Council system.
The key question before embarking
on war is whether a war would energise the Pakistani liberals or would it
favour the extremists? The Kargil War forced a dash by Nawaz Sharif to
Washington, enabling pulling out of Pakistani forces. Evicting them would have
forced casualty figures up, leading to pressures from both the military and the
public to widen the war. The Operation Parakram crisis brought out the liberal
strand in Musharraf, culminating in the January 2004 Vajpayee-Musharraf
agreement to wind down in Kashmir. To an extent, Pakistan can be said to have
delivered, though India has understandably held out for more. The two
precedents indicate that Pakistan and its army can put national interest,
conventionally defined, above Islamic rhetoric. Pakistani society is also no
pushover to Islamist overtures. This understanding of Pakistani resilience in
face of extremism can act as a pull factor towards war.
The critical point would be how
to turn Pakistan – under military attack - into an ally in the wider war
against terrorism. Though Pakistan suffered US’ Operation Geronimo and stomachs
its drone attacks, it would be less amenable to India doing likewise. Over the
war’s duration, Pakistan would likely harness military power of terrorists,
such as making consolidation and the stabilization phase of operations
difficult. This would be a redefinition of sorts of strategic depth, hitherto
envisaged in spatial terms. In case of military relocation by India – and
leaving Pakistani territory eventually would be inevitable – Pakistan would,
through information operations, project this as its victory. Face saving for
the Pakistani establishment may enable it to take some credit, lest terrorists
wangle it claiming that they blunted India’s vaunted military. The chief
military problem in translation of political aims into military goals is: Can
Indian military action put a Pakistani ‘el Sisi’ in place? Since the answer is
of consequence not only to the region but also globally, it is not a war India
can embark on prompted merely by domestic political compulsions or ideological
impetus of majoritarian formations.
War: An option?
Whereas India has leveraged the
conventional level to project power, Pakistan has attempted to neutralise this
at the other two levels: nuclear and subconventional. A hybrid war with the
three levels co-extensive can therefore be expected. This is a step-up from the
two levels that have so far characterized hybrid war – conventional and
subconventional. Where other professional and dominant militaries have failed
spectacularly, such as the US and NATO, it would be imprudent to believe that
India can prove more adept. The foes the other militaries chose were not well
endowed – Iraq and Afghanistan. Pakistan is a nuclear power, even if one on the
brink on failed state status. The latter fact enables Pakistan to hold a gun to
its own head, one if let off can plunge not only Pakistan but also South Asia
into at least half century of avoidable setback.
The aspect not discussed is that
with the mainstreaming of majoritarian nationalism and its influence in the
strategic debate lately, this may not readily be seen as avoidable. There are
instead arguments for hastening Pakistan down to failed state status. Such
ideology contaminated strategic advocacy must be seen for what it is, not so
much about righting Pakistan as much as furthering a certain political project
in India. The hidden agenda in such argument is not about externally directed
war aims of retaliation, as much as internally looking war aims to take over
India with finality. Consequently, even if war looms as an option because
strategizing can make it feasible, it is not quite an option considering what
it can potentially do wrought politically in India itself.
