The important thing is that the country's Armed Forces should not be handicapped by want of capabilities, nuclear or otherwise. The issue of intent can be later tackled, as it does not really matter at the stage of reinforcing our military
The Bharatiya Janata Party’s manifesto has promised to revise and update India’s nuclear doctrine. While this is a welcome development, it will need to be done with care, as unfortunately, India’s foreign policy mandarins who formulate and oversee the nation’s nuclear doctrine, understand little about India’s conventional warfighting matrix. Unlike the North Atlantic Treaty Organization-Warsaw Pact Cold War theology where nuclear and conventional warfighting were to be done simultaneously, in India’s context, against both Pakistan and China, a possible use of nuclear weapons will necessarily follow a conventional war; it will neither precede it nor occur alongside.
Once this fundamental is grasped, three aspects of India’s nuclear doctrine that need to be revisited are: No-first-use policy; minimum credible deterrence; and triad, that is, three means of nuclear delivery systems or vectors, namely aircraft, land-based and submarine-based missiles.
Experts believe that India’s NFU policy should be revised to either a first-use or an ambiguous policy considering that Pakistan has maintained a stony silence on the subject suggesting a nuclear first-use policy. Moreover, its acquisition of Tactical Nuclear Weapons has made India’s NFU commitment suicidal. Fortunately, the experts are wrong on both issues.
First and foremost, a nation’s nuclear weapons declaratory and employment policies are not sacrosanct; a nation’s leadership can change its intention anytime on its nuclear-use policy as long as capability exists. Thus, a declaratory nuclear first or second-use policy does not affect warfighting, which can be assessed by ground realities. If anything, a declared first-use policy will raise international heat, spur an unnecessary arms race, and heighten suspicion amongst adversaries making nuclear confidence building measures more difficult.
What is important is the role assigned to nukes in warfighting. For example, during the Cold War, the US-led NATO assessed that it could not match up to the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact’s conventional weapon capability in the European war theatre. The answer found was TNWs, which would halt the Soviet blitzkrieg. Regarding the US continent, it was believed that Soviets would attack it with their nuclear-tipped long-range ballistic missiles, hence the need for a ballistic missile defence, assured sea-based deterrence, and large numbers of ballistic missiles capable of saturating the Soviet Union. In short, the doctrine which purportedly prevented war between the big two was called Mutual Assured Deterrence.
India’s context is dissimilar. In Pakistan, where its Army controls nukes, no serving officer has ever said that they would be used first in a war. If anything, during the 2001-2002 Operation Parakram, Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff, General Pervez Musharraf, had consistently maintained that nukes would be weapons of last resort in war. He repeatedly spoke about ‘restraint and responsibility’ regarding nukes.
More to the point, the Pakistan military spends huge amount on its conventional warfighting capability to maintain an operational or theatre-level parity with the Indian military with similar conventional warfighting doctrines. What this means is that it is prepared to fight an all-out conventional war for seven to 10 days before sounding the nuclear bugle. In the clearest indication of its intent, in the absence of bilateral nuclear confidence building measures, the Pakistan Army has publicly spelt out its nuclear red-lines, which should not be crossed by Indian conventional warfighting machine. These four red-lines, given out by lt Gen Khalid Kidwai, head of Pakistan’s Strategic Plans Division responsible for nukes in 2002 are: First, if India attacks Pakistan and conquers a large part of its territory (space threshold). Second, India destroys a large part either of Pakistani land or Air Forces (military threshold). Third, India engages in economic strangling of Pakistan (economic threshold). And fourth, India pushes Pakistan into political destabilisation or creates a large-scale subversion in Pakistan (domestic threshold).
Against this backdrop, it is not surprising that the Indian military conventional warfighting doctrines, while dovetailing Pakistan’s nuclear red-lines in its conventional war plans, do not worry too much about nukes with both sides. Whenever asked about conventional war escalating to nuclear level, the standard answer that any Indian General, Admiral or Air Marshal gives is that it is a different war domain being looked after by the Government. Thus, working around the Pakistani red-lines, the Indian Army formulated its Cold Start or pro-active war strategy for shallow ingress across the entire border into Pakistan. This operational opportunity for conventional war available to the Indian Army worried the Pakistani Army. It was plugged by Pakistan’s COAS, General Pervez Kayani after 26/11 attacks.
After the November 26, 2008, terrorists’ attacks in Mumbai, which were sponsored, planned, supported and remotely-executed by the Pakistani Army, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh did enquire about the war option from the three service chiefs. The then COAS, General Deepak Kapoor confirmed to me that the Army had plans to do a swift attack on Fort Abbas (located in Pakistani Punjab, but across India’s Rajasthan State) close to the border and occupy it. This would have embarrassed the Punjabi General Kayani no end.
It was to cover such doable eventualities that Pakistan sought TNWs from China. However, the employment of TNWs with Pakistan would be different from TNWs in the Cold War theatre. Speaking on possible TNWs, it was again General Kidwai who clarified to a US audience that, “no delegation of authority concerning nuclear weapons is planned.” Thus, TNWs, while being low nuclear-yield weapons, would be controlled at the strategic and not operational or battlefield levels. This makes immense sense as the Pakistan COAS draws his ultimate authority (over its civilian Government) by controlling the nukes. Giving them to his subordinate commanders would dilute his supreme authority and they may even fall in the hands of terrorists, something that the COAS would be loath to even contemplate. For this reason, the likely vector for Pakistani TNWs would be its long-range (1,500km) Babur cruise missile, and not its 60km range Nasr ballistic missile as suggested by numerous experts. In short, Pakistan’s TNWs do not affect the conventional warfighting methodology between India and Pakistan.
Things are different with China. While China is unlikely to start a border war with India, if it ever happens, Beijing will want it to be short, swift and decisive. Unlike the 1962 war, this time around, a determined Indian Army will not allow an early breakthrough to Chinese Army to move towards its objectives. Thus, the possibility of China using its TNWs against India for a quick breakthrough, especially when chances of collateral damage are minimal, exists.
Therefore, against Pakistan, India should hasten development of its long-range cruise missile capability and not worry about its nuclear declaratory policy. The Defence Research and Development Organisation demonstrated test-firing of Nirbhay cruise missile, but sadly they are powered by Russian engines made available in extremely limited numbers under directions that the cruise missile will not be used with nukes. The DRDO should invest in long-range propulsion research at the earliest. Against China, India should consider having TNWs with strategic command and control. The important thing is that Indian forces should not be handicapped by want of capabilities; the intent does not matter. On India’s minimal credible deterrence and the triad, I intend discussing these in my next column.
(The writer is a former Indian Army officer and now Editor, FORCE, a newsmagazine on national security)