The Cool Burning Fire

 

 

The Subcontinent had never been a peaceful region, particularly after its partition into India and Pakistan. However, the Indian nuclear explosion in May 1973 changed the dynamics of power in the Sub-Continent for all times to come. A nuclear bomb is an instrument of deterrence, not meant to be used – henceforth, India would use the indirect approach to nibble at Pakistan, using nuclear blackmail to settle its scores with its smaller neighbor. 

Interestingly, even before gate crashing into the nuclear club, India had always adopted an indirect approach for destabilizing Pakistan? What was the reason? 

To find  the answer, we'll have to understand the psyche of the Indian civil and military leadership – generally, they are cautious and risk-averse people when it comes to settling scores on the battlefield.

 

During the first Kashmir war, the Indian Army fought essentially against a ragtag force of tribesmen, locals, and retired/serving army personnel on leave. Pakistan Army entered the fray only when the Indian Army was threatening to advance beyond line Uri- Poonch- Naushera. Indians captured two-thirds of the disputed state but failed to get the mountain barrier separating the Valley from the Potohar plateau vacated from the raiders/Pakistan Army. It also could not dislodge the enemy from Gilgit and Baltistan. Even when things were going in favor of the Indian Army, Nehru, being a very cautious man, knocked at the United Nations door. 

India attacked and absorbed small states like Hyderabad, Junagarh, Goa, and Sikkim, etc. because  militarily  they were no match for India. In 1962, Nehru tried to test the waters by provoking China through his forward policy. After India's defeat, China declared a unilateral ( and well thought out ) ceasefire, restricting India from ever approaching within twenty kilometers of the Line of Actual Control, and, to this day, India obliges China.

 

In 1971, India attacked East Pakistan only when it was sure of its victory, but the Indian Army stopped in its tracks in the western theatre because there was no longer a Mukti Bahini to secure the Indian Army's rear and flanks. In the future, India will resort to armed intervention in Pakistan only when it is sure that its offensive will be a walkover. Covert Indian intervention in Pakistan should be viewed in this context. 

In firearms ballistics, "propellants" are the "cool-burning explosives" which burn in a predictable manner at a controlled rate. High (or detonating) explosives (e.g., TNT) are used mainly for shattering; they are unstable substances in which the chemical reaction produces rapid shock waves. The Indo-Pakistan security paradigm can be likened to the firearm propellants – cool burning, generally predictable, and controlled.

 

Moving forward from the Cold War period, The India-Pakistan rivalry has shifted to a lower dimension where proxy operations against each other have replaced conventional warfare. In this scenario, nuclear deterrence acts as a stabilizer that prevents the events from getting escalated beyond a certain level. After the 71 War, and particularly after the 1998 nuclear tests by India and Pakistan, a pattern can be discerned where both India and Pakistan have resorted to an indirect approach to address their mutual differences. We notice manifestations of this approach in the Indian support of various separatist forces in Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Sindh, and its infiltration of religious extremists in Punjab. Many Taliban groups are also on the payroll of Indian intelligence agencies. A low-intensity insurgency is going on in Indian Held Kashmir for the last more than two decades. In this war, Pakistan is providing moral support to the Kashmiris by maintaining that theirs is a freedom movement.

 

After becoming a nuclear power, India, in concert with the United States and the European Union countries tried its best to deny Pakistan the option to counter Indian nuclear blackmail so that India could slap a Pax Indica on the Sub-continent. Since 1998 when Pakistan became a declared nuclear power, India had been frantically trying to find the gap in Pakistan's defense posture and exploit it with its superior conventional forces. Such a gap was perceived by the Indians at the tactical level, which, they thought, could be breached through low intensity, rapid advance into enemy territory with mechanized forces supported by the IAF. 

Hence the Cold Start doctrine called for a quick punitive operation through a shallow penetration inside the enemy territory in response to the enemy crossing a declared red line, destroying the enemy's men and material, followed by a swift withdrawal, thus denying the enemy time and excuse to retaliate. 

Apparently, it is a reactive doctrine and not one of pre-emption. However, like the 1971 War, it aims at creating conditions where Pakistan would be channeled into a situation to be used as an excuse for military action. Pakistan responded to the challenge by developing tactical nuclear weapons (TNWs). This is the reason India has recoiled from the Cold Start doctrine and feels insecure with its policy of "No first use" of nuclear weapons. It is trying to put pressure on Pakistan through the United States either to abandon the FSD altogether or curtail its nuclear arsenal.

What if the cool - burning fire blows up into a hot war

 

The the entire debate revolves around bypassing Pakistan's nuclear deterrence regime and striking it in a region where it is weakest - the conventional asymmetry. This writer, in an earlier article, has compared the forces on both sides which will play a decisive offensive role in a future war, i.e., armored and mechanized formations, combat aviation, parachute forces, air forces, and navies. A glance at the table below indicates that India nowhere enjoys a 3:1 superiority needed in these critical forces to force a military decision on Pakistan. Indian superiority in armored divisions and RAPIDs has been matched by the combined combat power of Pakistan's 2x armored divisions and 2x mechanized divisions. Pakistan Army also has more independent armored and mechanized brigades, SP artillery, attack helicopters, and parachute forces. We also have to take into account Indian deployment against China. 

The biggest threat to Pakistan, as it stands today, is not from India's mechanized columns and its high-tech weaponry, or, for that matter, its nuclear weapons. It is the threat of implosion engineered by the armies of beetles, nurtured by India and the US, which are eating at its innards.

 

Why should the US support India in its quest to dominate South Asia?

 

After WW II, Britain and the United States had wanted a united India to counter the Soviet Union –the nascent superpower. They accepted partition reluctantly as the law and order situation in the Subcontinent was gradually getting out of Britain's control. After the partition of the Subcontinent, for a brief period, the United States still hoped that India and Nationalist China would form the Asian pivot of America's global reach (China was governed by the nationalists till 1949 when toppled by the communists). However, only when China was "lost to the Free World" - and it became clear that India under Nehru was intent upon its own empire-building under the concept of Non- Alignment, was Pakistan brought into the matrix of American security and offered military and economic assistance. The 1962 Sino- Indian War provided the United States an opportunity to increase American influence over India without coercing the latter into a formal and declared pact. This, to some extent, also explains America's totally indifferent stance towards Pakistan during the 65 and 71wars.

 

It is worthwhile to mention here that in October 1965, a few days after the cease-fire between India and Pakistan, the CIA, with logistics support from India's Intelligence Bureau, planted a nuclear powered remote sensing device atop the 25,645-foot mountain feature Nanda Devi, located in India's UP(now Uttarkhand) state. Soon thereafter, another device was planted by the Americans on Nanda Kot, a nearby feature. Both the devices were planted to spy on China's long-range ballistic missile program. Such was the extent of the US- India strategic relationship during the period Pakistan had been touted as America's "most allied ally".