Deterrence

[Philip]

Use neutron bombs.Kills people but spares edifices,etc.

Use of neutron bomb

Neutron bombs are purposely designed with explosive yields lower than other nuclear weapons. Since neutrons are absorbed by air,[5] neutron radiation effects drop off very rapidly with distance in air, there is a sharper distinction, as opposed to thermal effects, between areas of high lethality and areas with minimal radiation doses.[2] All high yield (more than ~10 kiloton) "neutron bombs", such as the extreme example of the 50 megaton Tsar Bomba, are not able to radiate sufficient neutrons beyond their lethal blast range when detonated as a surface burst or low altitude airburst and so are no longer classified as neutron bombs. As it is the intense pulse of high-energy neutrons that are generated by a neutron bomb that are intended as the principal killing mechanism, not the fallout, heat or blast.

For example, the inventor of the neutron bomb, Samuel Cohen, criticized the description of the W70 as a "neutron bomb" as it could be configured to produce a yield of 100 kiloton:

the W-70 ... is not even remotely a "neutron bomb." Instead of being the type of weapon that, in the popular mind, "kills people and spares buildings" it is one that both kills and physically destroys on a massive scale. The W-70 is not a discriminate weapon, like the neutron bomb — which, incidentally, should be considered a weapon that "kills enemy personnel while sparing the physical fabric of the attacked populace, and even the populace too."[3]

The Soviet/Warsaw pact invasion plan, "Seven Days to the River Rhine" to seize West Germany. Under such a scenario, neutron bombs, according to their inventor, would hopefully blunt the Warsaw pact tank, and more thinly armored BMP-1 thrusts, without causing as much damage to the people and infrastructure of Germany as alternative tactical nuclear weapons would. They would likely be used if the mass conventional weapon NATO REFORGER response to the invasion had yet to find time to be organized or found ineffective in battle.

Although neutron bombs are commonly believed to "leave the infrastructure intact", with current designs that have explosive yields in the low kiloton range,[29] the detonation of which, in a built up area, would still cause considerable, although not total, destruction through blast and heat effects.

Neutron bombs could be used as strategic anti-ballistic missile weapons or as tactical weapons intended for use against armored forces. The neutron bomb was originally conceived by the U.S. military as a weapon that could stop massed Soviet armored divisions from overrunning allied nations without destroying the infrastructure of the allied nation.[30] As the Warsaw Pact tank strength was over twice that of NATO, and Soviet Deep Battle doctrine was likely to be to use this numerical advantage to rapidly sweep across continental Europe if the Cold War ever turned hot, any weapon that could break up their intended mass tank formation deployments and force them to deploy their tanks in a thinner, more easily dividable manner, would aid ground forces in the task of hunting down solitary tanks and firing anti-tank missiles upon them,[31] such as the contemporary M47 Dragon and BGM-71 TOW missiles.

[KrishnaK]

1. Pakistan has never published or openly stated any red line. There are no Pakistan red lines that India can avoid crossing - those red lines that have been spoken of by commentators and "experts" are purely speculative

Lt. Gen. Kidwai is hardly a commentator or an "expert"

[Johann]

Shiv,

1) The red lines were listed by Khalid Kidwai, the man in charge of Pakistani nuclear planning and security at the height of the Parakram crisis in Dec 2001-Jan 2002. See section 5 here; http://www.pugwash.org/september11/pakistan-nuclear.htm

They've generally been taken as seriously as India's Draft Nuclear Doctrine has been.

2) 'Cold Start' has been denied but as you point out the substance remains - to mobilise rapidly, and conduct punitive operations that can achieve their goals before a) the Pakistanis can mobilise, and b) before diplomatic pressures force a halt.

In short its getting inside everyone else's OODA loop. The statements indicate there's a range of contingency operations under that umbrella, including naturally enough under NBC conditions....but the basic strategic political value is to hit the Pakistani military and hurt it when and if the political leadership deems it necessary without paying an enormous cost. Because if cost was no issue time would not be an issue. Generally speaking punitive victories have to be about inflicting disproportionate losses - and massive mutual retaliation doesn't interface well with that. To go beyond that is to enter the realm of nuclear war fighting which hawks in both the USSR and US were keen on.

[shiv]

Shiv,

1) The red lines were listed by Khalid Kidwai, the man in charge of Pakistani nuclear planning and security at the height of the Parakram crisis in Dec 2001-Jan 2002. See section 5 here; http://www.pugwash.org/september11/pakistan-nuclear.htm

Johann Here are the so called "Red Lines"

India attacks Pakistan and conquers a large part of its territory (space threshold)

India destroys a large part either of its land or air forces (military threshold)

India proceeds to the economic strangling of Pakistan (economic strangling)9

India pushes Pakistan into political destabilization or creates a large scale internal subversion in Pakistan (domestic destabilization)

Basically anything can lead to a nuclear attack as long as Pakistanis feel insecure. The criticism of these points is in the article itself:

We in turn asked Gen. Kidwai if he did not think that the above conditions for the use of nuclear weapons were at the same time too broad and too vaguely defined and how he considered the risk of inadvertent nuclear conflict in the subcontinent. The answer has been that there will be no risk of nuclear conflict assuming "rational decision making" by the interested parties.

The red lines allow a nuclear attack on India:
1. If Pakistan is internally unstable
2. Pakistan chooses to blame India

And a couple more red lines from the footnotes:

Examples of economic strangling of Pakistan included a naval blockade and the stopping of the waters of the Indus river
The political destabilization and the internal subversion scenarios are considered as distinct possibilities.

Exactly what role does India play in not crossing Pakistan red lines other than simply disappearing from the face of this earth? As per these red lines India can be nuked for doing nothing and for doing something - and on top of this there is a statement that demands "rationality" from both sides - notwithstanding the fact that the red lines are irrational.

More from the same source:

Also there has been no discussion about the possible consequences of Pakistan nuclear attack on India, namely on the effects of Indian nuclear retaliation. This possibility has been discarded again on the basis of the fact that rational decision making will keep both countries away from the nuclear brink. Anyway, Pakistan does not intend to develop (and make public) for the time being, a "nuclear doctrine" in a fashion analog to the nuclear doctrine defined by India.

My reading is that the Pakistanis have not thought this out and Kidwai's responses were impromptu with a general list of everything that India is blamed for as being a trigger for a Pakistani nuclear attack. There is no promise that Pakistan will not do anything irrational (this was in 2002) - and Pakistan went right ahead with Mumbai in 2008. Cold Start was initiated after 2008 when India belatedly realized that Pakistan was not about to behave rationally and that Indian military threats were too slow and allowed Pakistani defences to get ready for conventional retaliation and punishment. After that there have been no red lines other than the statement of intent to use tactical nukes.

There was an interesting comment in a nuclear weapon blog that pointed out the irrationality of Pakistan's alleged tactical nukes. Apart from the fact that it is difficult to make them reliable and small without testing, they can be made to work by putting in excess amounts of Pu or U 235. That would use up such large quantities of their precious fissile material that they would not have much left for real nuclear war after destroying 14 India tanks or whatever.

While it may be dangerous for India to react and judge as I do - I will say what i think because my words mean nothing in the overall scheme of deterrence or nuclear war. The Pakistanis are holding out a nuclear bluff. India has repeatedly been blamed for violations of the water treaty and for fomenting internal disturbances in Pakistan - Manmohan Singh even admitted that India was involved in Baluchistan. Given that India has done all this where is the nuclear attack from Pakistan? This suggests that Gen Kidwai's response was simply a hand wave - made up on the spur of the moment and as far as I know never repeated - but taken up as Pakistan's red lines by every one else. This shows the power of bluffing - but bluffing about nuclear war is decidedly irrational.

Pakistan is telling India "You are needling us and you have crossed our red lines, but we have been kind enough not to nuke you". They are probably expecting that they too can needle india with terror and not have any retaliation from India. This is a dangerous and irrational game. Sooner or later they will provoke and India will react after which they will have to make good on their promise to nuke India. At that time India will have to respond as per its nuclear doctrine - that of "disproportionate response"

Other than that - there is absolutely NOTHING India can do to avoid crossing the so called Red lines which are totally irrational and probably totally fake as well. This also means that there is not a lot India can do to decrease the risk of nuclear attack - but overseeing the collapse of Pakistan as a functioning state would certainly be a good idea. But that is OT

[shiv]

Here is a 1999 paper on one man's guesswork of Pakistan's nuclear policy. Clearly 3 years later it had moved on to something else - as stated by Kidwai - which actually increases the possibility of nuclear war
http://www.defencejournal.com/apr99/pak ... ctrine.htm

Pakistan's Nuclear Doctrine would therefore essentially revolve around the first-strike option. In other words we will use nuclear weapons if attacked by India even if the attack is with conventional weapons. With his American experience of a graduated nuclear response Professor Stephen P. Cohen feels that Pakistan would use what he calls an 'option-enhancing policy' for a possible use of nuclear weapons. This would entail a stage-by-stage approach in which the nuclear threat is increased at each step to deter India from attack. The first step could be a public or private warning, the second a demonstration explosion of a small nuclear weapon on its own soil, the third step would be the use of a few nuclear weapons on its own soil against Indian attacking forces. The fourth stage would be used against critical but purely military targets in India across the border from Pakistan. Probably in thinly populated areas in the desert or semi-desert, causing least collateral damage. this may prevent Indian retaliation against cities in Pakistan. Some weapon systems would be in reserve for the counter-value role. These weapons would be safe from Indian attack as some would be airborne while the ground based ones are mobile and could be moved around the country.

[shiv]

What might Pakistan do? These points are speculative. Pakistanis have not stated them in public as far as I know - but in many ways they go against what Kidwai has said. the two are not compatible. For example in the middle of a Cold Start like attack none of the following would be feasible. On the other hand Pakistan would not find it easy to simply take such steps after blaming India in Baluchistan.
http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.ar ... pub963.pdf

Under the conditions posited here, any threat from
Islamabad would need to be far more official for it
to have immediate effect. It would certainly have to
be time-bound and specific—we will do X in place
Y if Indian troops have not silenced their guns by
time Z. To reinforce its seriousness, Pakistan would
need to proceed with visible readiness steps, for
example, moving truck convoys (both dummy and
real) to potential assembly points, broadcasting the
deployment of missiles armed with conventional and
nuclear weapons at undisclosed launch pads (possibly
communicating to third parties the coordinates of some
of them to reinforce the point), and so on. Pakistan
might also want to leave itself options to demonstrate
resolve without starting a nuclear escalation.

A third step therefore might be to test a weapon to
quicken the decisionmaking pace for India. That would
require already having a weapon in place, which is
highly unlikely, but could perhaps be done with a
week’s notice. Moving a weapon into position for such
an eventuality would require substantial foresight by
Pakistan, but is in the realm of the possible.

A fourth escalatory step—or third if a weapon
had not been prepositioned in a test tunnel—would
be to conduct a test in the atmosphere, perhaps on a
missile fired toward the Arabian sea. Each of these
steps would require a time lapse to allow India to see
reason and stop its offensive – but at the same time,
it may be difficult to stop the action on the battlefield
in a timely manner. There could be a real problem of
actions and threats overtaking the decision process in
New Delhi. In any case, Pakistan would be forced to
make a fateful decision whether to use one or more
weapons against Indian targets. With the armies likely
enmeshed and intermixed on the battlefield, dropping
a weapon would require care to avoid also killing
Pakistani soldiers. This could argue for using a weapon
well behind Indian lines, but that could produce only
marginal effect on the actual fighting. Pakistan might
instead target a military base close to the front.

The next escalatory step would be a fairly large-
scale attack. It is possible to imagine steps short of
such an attack as described above, but at some point
Pakistan would likely see no reason not to attack with
large numbers of weapons on a range of military and
industrial—and potentially civilian—targets. There
might be an effort made to avoid Muslims, but at such
a dreadful point it would be quite difficult to practice
much target discrimination. Any attack would be both
destructive and suicidal since it would shatter any
lingering caution on India’s side, and a similar attack
would almost certainly follow in response. Both sides
would be left with unimaginable damage and a long
and painful recovery. Depending on the extent of the
damage, there could also be widespread but likely
temporary (1 to 2 years) global consequences for food
production, health, and the environment.

[member_28468]

Does india have EMP wepons or for that matter anyone else,are we looking into this direction??

[shiv]

Does india have EMP wepons or for that matter anyone else,are we looking into this direction??

There is no Indian political will to use nuclear bombs for anything so even if EMP is a good idea in war - they will not contemplate any mechanism to use such a weapon, whose mode of delivery needs to be designed in advance. This is where the current call of relooking at India's doctrine becomes valid. We really need to see how far the UPA govt let things slide and what threads need to be pciked up.

[ShauryaT]

An Indian Nuclear Doctrine Review: A Third Model by Ali Ahmed

A third model, the Sundarji nuclear doctrine eliminates the drawbacks mentioned. In Sundarji’s words, it states: ‘Terminate the nuclear exchange at lowest level with a view to negotiate a politically acceptable peace; riposte commensurate with strike received – quid pro quo option; a punitive element may call for response at a higher level than strike received – quid pro quo plus option; a need on occasion to degrade to maximum extent the adversary’s ability to continue with the exchange – spasmic response option; a need to minimise casualties among foreigners and innocents for post war rapprochement.’

By its focus on political negotiations for war termination, it caters for escalation control; thereby eliminating the problems posed by the other two models. However, the criticism this articulation may receive is that under the circumstance of nuclear use, the possibility of political and diplomatic engagement for nuclear exchange termination and for war termination will be severely negatively impacted. Since a nuclear exchange is the ultimate expression of distrust, making a two-way street of escalation control would be through the exercise of power to hurt and generating fear in the enemy of the power held in reserve in relation to potential targets yet to be addressed. Therefore, this is an almost wishful formulation.

The counter to such a critique is that instead of an emotive nuclear decision-making environment in which vengeance and in-conflict deterrence will be to fore, it is instead equally plausible that the first nuclear explosion will ensure a quick return to strategic sense since survival would be at stake. As this would be the case on both sides, there would be the necessary element of cooperation that can enable a negotiated end to the exchange in the first place and to the nuclear conflict next.

Effort to this end would also be greatly facilitated by the international community, energised by the fear of implications for escalation for the global environment.
Clearly, this will call for mechanisms to be in place prior, forged in peace time. This implies not only doctrinal transparency and doctrinal exchanges, but also mechanisms of assured interface in the trying conditions of nuclear conflict outbreak or nuclear outbreak in a conventional conflict. This would entail creation of a nuclear risk reduction mechanism.

Currently, India and Pakistan have hotlines as part of CBMs (confidence building measures) between the two. Going beyond CBMs to NRRMs (Nuclear Risk Reduction Measures) is necessary for working the Sundarji doctrine. Since this cannot be done in crisis period or in war time, it is best to recognise the necessity for escalation control communication in conflict and emplace the mechanism.

A counter-point would be that to create such a body means to tacitly admit a lack of faith in deterrence. This should not hold up the initiative since when and if this faith is on the rocks, it may prove too late. However, in case of hesitance the two States as part of doctrinal exchange can cater for the contingency and materialise the mechanism in case a sub-conventional push comes to a conventional shove.
Any impending review must therefore cast its net wider and look beyond the two mainstream models – ‘massive’ and ‘flexible’ – at play. The Sundarji model is also a candidate for consideration in the review.

[ShauryaT]

Linked article to previous one by author.
The Logic of the 'Sundarji Doctrine' - Ali Ahmed

It is here that the less-discussed ‘Sundarji doctrine’ has advantages. This requires termination of the exchange(s) at the lowest levels of escalation. It explicitly states the intent not to escalate by promising to remain at the lowest level and promising to end the exchange earliest. This gives incentives to the enemy to stay at the lower end himself and not to go in for further exchanges, hoping to give us similar incentives. This is at variance with deterrence philosophy that is instead a competition in showing resolve and willingness to face even ‘unacceptable’ punishment.

Such a doctrine makes better sense for India. Firstly, India, just as its putative nuclear adversaries, has vulnerabilities that aggravate ‘unacceptable damage’. It would not be able to cope with the aftermath, even if emergency is invoked. It has repeatedly been demonstrated that India’s disaster response mechanisms are weak. While these will strengthen over time, Cold War experience indicates that protection through anti missile defences and shelters etcetera is an expensive chimera.

Secondly, the poor would suffer more, especially the long term impact. Unprecedented breakdown of order, in multiples of the Partition experience, would occur. India though powerful, is also a ‘weak’ state. The verities of national life, as we know it, will be challenged. The impact on polity could be a lurch towards the Right and authoritarianism. In case of Pakistan being the nuclear adversary, internal communal harmony may not withstand the strain of misplaced perceptions and those taking political advantage of the situation. Thus, even if the enemy is ‘finished’, ‘India’ as we know it, would also cease to exist. Receipt of ‘unacceptable damage’ would be equivalent to shocks administered by Timur, Nadir Shah and Abdali in history.

Lastly, provinces that have borne the impact of an ‘unacceptable damage’ in the form of loss of an urban centre would be miffed. The balance of ethnicities and communities that is India in reality would be upset. Appraisal of the changed local balance would be likely to make the groups effected disillusioned enough to reopen sovereignty issues.

In deterrence theory, self-deterrence occurs due to such negative prognostications. Therefore, theory has it that political ‘resolve’ has to be cultivated and demonstrated. Doing so reinforces deterrence. But consideration as to the response when deterrence for some reason or other has broken down, requires moving away from the promise of inflicting punishment to preserving oneself from unacceptable punishment.

In this light, the Sundarji doctrine recommends itself. It would help preserve India, even while sparing the nuclear opponent the temerity to break the nuclear taboo. Its expectation that nuclear escalation can be avoided needs debate. Measures that need to be instituted for its success, such strategic dialogue in a permanent nuclear risk reduction and management mechanism, can then be emplaced.

[ShauryaT]

Deterrence debates and defence

[ShauryaT]

What sort of nonsensical contradictory argument is this? It is complete nonsense even if the people who have made these paradoxical mixed-up statements are well known and senior professionals and analysts. Are you sure that you are not mixed up Shaurya?

I do not think, I am mixed up. Each of these people have a "slightly" different perspective and at the end of the day, some have signed on a dotted line to push for some changes in a direction that I do not think serves Indian interests. I will do my part to oppose such moves by some of them. Some views are more important than others. Ajai Shukla's views I do not care about, neither is he original nor are his views well thought through on the matter at hand.

[ShauryaT]

But I would imagine that this gravity has to weigh on a Pakistani COAS's mind as well when it comes to their willingness to use spectacular attacks that would compel an Indian PM to consider the option.

As it evidently does. Also, note the statements, it is not about destruction of our peoples, it is all about self preservation. Almost begging, please let us have our little fiefdom. Why do you want to act as spoilers? It is all about the lives of the elite with the PA at the top of the chain to preserve their fiefdoms.

How eager were FDR-GDR eager to nuke each other due to ideological differences of the states?

[shiv]

The following 297 page pdf is the clearest exposition of what has emerged from Pakistan in terms of information about nuclear war/deterrence plans (such as exist in Pakistan)
http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.ar ... pub963.pdf

The Kidwai interview finds mention and is categorized as not being specific enough to be of any guidance value. Kidwais "red lines" are not red lines at all because they simply leave the field totally open for any response at any time.

I have not read Ali Ahmed's articles in full but I have some serious reservations about the conclusions he reaches for a post-war scenario - "poor will suffer more", "People in some places will be miffed" etc. It is possible to speculate on this issue ad nauseam and still not reach any conclusion.

But Shaurya, let me point this out to you:

Throughout this debate we have been mixing up "deterrence" with "nuclear warfighting"

Deterrence is all about stopping/preventing/deterring the other party from initiating nuclear war.

But Adm Menon's questions, Adm Prakash's ideas and Sunderji's suggestions are all about nuclear warfighting. It may be possible to deter an adversary by stating how we will fight nuclear war - but a "nuclear doctrine" that sets in stone the exact manner in which we will proceed to wage nuclear war should not leave ch!nks that will allow a rash or irrational nuclear adversary to nuke us and believe that he will get away with it lightly. For deterrence it is essential that the other party is discouraged or scared enough of the consequences to avoid the use of nuclear weapons in the first place.

For contrast let me point out the inconsistencies and fallacies in the varying statements that have come out of Pakistan, none of which amounts to any sort of official doctrine about what they intend to do with their nukes. The pdf linked above has the background info as late as 2009.

The first is the interview given by Khalid Kidwai to two Italians - posted above as Pakistan's "red lines". Kidwai's red lines are so broad and general that one would have to ask why India has not been nuked yet because many of those red lines have already been crossed as per media and statements that have emanated from time to time from Pakistan

The second is the doctrine of gradually increasing threats/responses
1. A verbal threat
2. Mobilization of nuclear forces
3. Exploding a test nuclear bomb somewhere on Pakistani territory
4. A nuclear attack on India that does not cause much damage
5. All out attack

The above have been suggested as a possible way in which Pakistan may respond. Every step is designed to scare India and back out even if Pakistan has started a war. And Pakistan always fails to admit it when they start conflict.

india's nuclear doctrine is a very very clear response to this above 5 step nonsense. By the time Pakistan gets to step 3 or step 4 they will have the shit nuked out of them. So this 5 step escalation ladder is pointless.

Pakistanis need to read India's nuclear doctrine because India's red line is very clearly defined even if Pakistan is unable to reach any decisions about what they want to do with their nukes.

In my opinion India's nuclear doctrine is extremely good as a tool for deterrence. But it does not spell out how India will fight nuclear war, other than saying "disproportionate response"

Fighting nuclear war is a different thing. It is "post-deterrence" - that is nuclear war gets fought if deterrence fails. Sunderji points out how he thought it could be fought. Adm Menons asks if it should be fought with "maximal response" in a question that Sunderji has already answered.

I am not sure what Adm Arun Prakash means by asking that the option of first use should be left open, but I do think Adm Prakash has pointed out that nothing can work in the absence of political will and if NFU is just an excuse to postpone the decision to use nukes we may be in trouble. Our politicans need to open their eyes and minds.

But I have one serious issue with Adm Prakash's contention that the option of FU should be left open. The real problem is that you cannot have clear nuclear plan if you spell out exactly what will make you resort to "first use". If you say "We will use nukes on China if they occupy territory in AP" then China can choose to wage war that comes just below our first use nuclear threshold. Pakistan has done this to us by waging proxy war knowing that our crystal clear nuclear red line (NFU) is not being breached. But the down side is that Pakistan's own red lines may have been breached several times by India and no nukes have come yet. So they have no consensus or plan about how to use their nukes. It is left open. The situation is unstable but we can't change them. We can scare them though. The US faces the same dilemma. The US states that it will use nukes first - but that day simply has not come. US nukes continue to sit in storage. The uS simply holds out a threat that it will use nukes "any time". that does not stop multiple nations and entities from attacking US assets, forces and allies.

I personally think NFU is a good idea for the purpose of deterrence, but the pledge can be broken if we are in danger. That makes our NFU pledge a little weak - but so what - if it scares the crap out of others?

[Johann]

But I would imagine that this gravity has to weigh on a Pakistani COAS's mind as well when it comes to their willingness to use spectacular attacks that would compel an Indian PM to consider the option.

As it evidently does. Also, note the statements, it is not about destruction of our peoples, it is all about self preservation. Almost begging, please let us have our little fiefdom. Why do you want to act as spoilers? It is all about the lives of the elite with the PA at the top of the chain to preserve their fiefdoms.

Shiv, Shaurya,

I'd agree that the Pakistanis are trying to broadly deter an Indian government from actively bringing about the collapse of the Pakistani nation-state. And to maximise the deterrent effect they have deliberately listed every mechanism they could think of.

In that sense the red lines are much like the North Korean leadership's messages to the US and South Korea. These are both states with severe ontological insecurity.

The difference is the level of desperation in the two systems, and the amount of leverage available. But in the end both threats amount to simultaneously holding a gun to your own head as well as to your neighbour, and anyone else who has a stake in the region.

The response to both by those facing these threats has been extremely cautious handling - stern warnings, concessions, demonstrations of strength, and occasionally the decision to overlook acts of war (The Mumbai attacks, NK's sinking of an RoK patrol vessel), and dialogue.

In both cases its the lack of democratic control over national security decision making that allows for such risky behaviour on the part of the regimes, certainly riskier than the democracies they are dealing with.

In that sense I have more hope in the medium term for de-escalation from Pakistan than from North Korea.

I don't think that its an accident that the completion of the first full term of a democratic government coincided with a reduction in spectacular terrorist attacks in India. The generals freedom of action has been constrained, and that is a good thing for the stability of deterrence. However elitist Pakistani civilian democratic politics is, it has to represent interests that are broader than those of the military as an institution. And businessmen like Nawaz and Zardari have a very different calculus of risk and opportunity than military men.

But in the meanwhile the tactical nuclear weapons in response to 'cold start' is the first major expansion of the earlier 'red lines' beyond preventing state collapse/ dismemberment. It represents a new depth of insecurity - the Pakistani military has lost its confidence in being able to execute the 'riposte' doctrine in response to an Indian crossing of the IB. It is the doctrinal move from deterrence to nuclear warfighting.

It seems to me the Pakistan military is placing all its eggs in the nuclear basket, knowing that they can not possibly keep up with Indian conventional force growth, that its alliances are much weaker than in the past, and that it is unable to actually do much more than annoy India with terrorism.

But this nuclearisation of its defence in even non-existentially threatening war does not restore the PA's freedom of action. It actually means they have to think very carefully as well about provoking a crisis that an Indian government. They aren't North Korea, with total control over their population, and indifference to international isolation.

In addition the cost of trying to grow its nuclear weapons forces to maintain deterrence against growing Indian conventional as well as strategic capabilities (including ABMs) is going to eat up most of its defence budget, leaving its conventional forces as not much more than a counter-insurgency army.

[PratikDas]

Thanks to Shiv ji for his sustained efforts in distilling much of the obfuscation. Just some feedback from one among, I'm sure, many reading this thread.

I don't live in the delusion that Pakistan is pleading through their nuclear doctrine marketing that India let their fiefdoms survive. The Mumbai attacks were not characteristic of a country pleading for survival. I would only plead that those living this delusion kindly excuse themselves and not take the whole ship down with them, like they tried to do with Siachen.

Johann Here are the so called "Red Lines"

India attacks Pakistan and conquers a large part of its territory (space threshold)

India destroys a large part either of its land or air forces (military threshold)

India proceeds to the economic strangling of Pakistan (economic strangling)9

India pushes Pakistan into political destabilization or creates a large scale internal subversion in Pakistan (domestic destabilization)

Basically anything can lead to a nuclear attack as long as Pakistanis feel insecure.

Let's add yet another Pakistani red line to the list. (One begins to wonder if red is the only ink available in Pakistan and green the only paint)

• Kashmir

At the same time, I would warn against being lulled into believing that the Indian nuclear doctrine exists solely to deter Pakistan (and therefore it can be diluted as a CBM for the ever-pleading Pakistan, as those long bereft of their faculties would propose). Pakistan is the sideshow that China funds to keep India distracted just like it funds CCTV to provide the world a daily dose of Made in China BS. This just happens to be the country that takes your land while you're debating with them why they should return what they've taken earlier. If there is a country against which India's nuclear doctrine should be calibrated, it is China - because Pakistan's sabre rattling has so little signal to noise ratio that calibrating for it is a [deliberate] wild goose chase.

Demilitarization of Siachen was packaged as a CBM for a country that was actually more in need of bullets against internal terrorism than it was in need of CBMs from India, and the CBM too was a deliberate sideshow for what was in fact a handing over ceremony of Siachen to China to be overseen by all those do gooder nations responsible for the sewage tank that is the Atlantic Council.

What is usually unacknowledged, and understandably so, is the elegance of the Indian nuclear position, i.e. complete nuclear disarmament today if everyone is willing to sign up for it, and we have been saying it for decades if anyone would care to acknowledge this incovenient truth, or else massive retaliation after a nuclear first strike - be it with a Chinese nuke or a tactical puke.

ToI: Pakistan army chief calls Kashmir 'jugular vein of Pakistan'

ISLAMABAD: Terming Kashmir as the "jugular vein" of Pakistan, the country's army chief Gen Raheel Sharif on Wednesday said the issue should be resolved in accordance with the wishes and aspirations of Kashmiris and in line with UNSC resolutions for lasting peace in the region.

Addressing the main ceremony to mark the 'Youm-e-Shuhada' (Martyrs' Day) at GHQ Rawalpindi, Gen Sharif said Kashmir was an internationally recognized dispute.

"Matchless sacrifices offered by Kashmiris will not go in vain," he said.

Sharif, who just returned from his official trip to Saudi Arabia, termed Kashmir as a "jugular vein" of Pakistan. He called for resolution of the Kashmir issue in accordance with the wishes and aspirations of Kashmiris and in line with United Nations Security Council resolutions.

The resolution of the Kashmir issue is "indispensable" for lasting peace in the region, he said.

"Pakistan Army is in favour of peace but is always ready to respond to any aggression in befitting manner," he said.

Pakistan has often described Kashmir as the "jugular vein" but this is the first time Gen Sharif has used the term or spoken about Kashmir since taking over late last year.

Talking about domestic issues, he said that Pakistan Army believes in strengthening of democracy, supremacy of constitution and rule of law.

The army chief lauded the media and said: "We believe in freedom of media and responsible journalism".

His comments came amid a controversy surrounding the attack on leading Geo TV anchor Hamid Mir and subsequent move by the defence ministry seeking cancellation of the broadcasting licence of the channel.

Sharif said Pakistan Army supports every effort for elimination of terrorism and restoration of peace in the country.

He said armed forces of Pakistan are capable enough to foil the nefarious designs of the enemy and remain alert round the clock for defence of the motherland.

Nobody should doubt the capabilities of Pakistan army as it will come to the expectations of the nation, he said.

Sharif asked anti-state elements to unconditionally accept Pakistan's Constitution and join the national mainstream otherwise the military "with the support of people will take them to task".

The ceremony was attended by a large number of dignitaries, including defence minister Khawaja Asif and former army chief Ashfaq Pervez Kayani.

[shiv]

I don't think that its an accident that the completion of the first full term of a democratic government coincided with a reduction in spectacular terrorist attacks in India. The generals freedom of action has been constrained, and that is a good thing for the stability of deterrence. However elitist Pakistani civilian democratic politics is, it has to represent interests that are broader than those of the military as an institution. And businessmen like Nawaz and Zardari have a very different calculus of risk and opportunity than military men.

Johann it would be wrong to credit Pakistan with an observation that could be credited to better surveillance and arrests of key terrorists in India - perhaps a reduction of hamfistedness of Indian anti-terror agencies. Spectacular busts have been made - but the terror attacks have continued - albeit on a smaller scale. So it is wishful thinking to imagine that Musharraf left and a civilian govt took over and the army simply came under civilian control.

[ramana]

All the establised doctrines are based on two-person game.
Eg USA-USSR. The UK, France and China were minor actors. UK was part of US.
USSR-PRC was a two person game.
France got its nukes as it would get nuked anyway in global exchange. So they are really an isolated pole.

India-Pakistan is not a two-person game.
Its India-Pakistan, PRC and US in that order.

Now think of a strategy in a non two-person game.
In a global exchange all will get nuked whether they have nukes or not.


I recall seeing a book in 1978 which had map of potential targets in such a case.
~41 locations in India!!!!

So the most stabilizing action is to ensure no one lets off a nuke for it will escalate.
The country most likely to let off a nuke under whatever misperceptions(pusslimanous leadership in India, 3.5 fathers intervention, ever unready Indian military, Paki ancestors riding on horses while they now ride donkeys or vice versa etc) is TSP.
And massive retaliation is what keeps them on a long fuse.


So Indian policy of NFU with massive retaliation is a world stabilizing posture.


MMS should have got the Nobull prize for that.

[ramana]

X-post in different context;

I recall when JJ pulled out of the NDA in 1999 at the onset of Kargil. It may have been in the back of the mind of ABVP, LKA, & GF not to escalate the matter and not cross the LoC under any circumstance since they were a care taker govt. Had the IA, IAF & IN crossed over, the scum would have been finished for good and even the US would have been without a 9/11. My point is a stable govt. in India is essential to international security and prosperity. A weak or perceived weak govt. will create long term consequences.

[ShauryaT]

I don't think that its an accident that the completion of the first full term of a democratic government coincided with a reduction in spectacular terrorist attacks in India. The generals freedom of action has been constrained, and that is a good thing for the stability of deterrence. However elitist Pakistani civilian democratic politics is, it has to represent interests that are broader than those of the military as an institution. And businessmen like Nawaz and Zardari have a very different calculus of risk and opportunity than military men.

Johann it would be wrong to credit Pakistan with an observation that could be credited to better surveillance and arrests of key terrorists in India - perhaps a reduction of hamfistedness of Indian anti-terror agencies. Spectacular busts have been made - but the terror attacks have continued - albeit on a smaller scale. So it is wishful thinking to imagine that Musharraf left and a civilian govt took over and the army simply came under civilian control.

I credit it to the BJP govt that forced the TSPA to come to terms after the pressures of Parakram and the Cease Fire Agreement. The democratic experiences of Pakistan, its internal strifes, the focus on the western borders along with better Indian enforcements in J&K and also the general exhaustion of the Pakistan population to try and compete with India and to get on with life have all been force multipliers but the start was made by a strong government in India.

[ShauryaT]

I have not read Ali Ahmed's articles in full but I have some serious reservations about the conclusions he reaches for a post-war scenario - "poor will suffer more", "People in some places will be miffed" etc. It is possible to speculate on this issue ad nauseam and still not reach any conclusion.

Ali Ahmed is a junior analyst still being groomed but has pre-dispositions are of a dove from what I have read of him.

For deterrence it is essential that the other party is discouraged or scared enough of the consequences to avoid the use of nuclear weapons in the first place.

True. But is this what the Indian doctrine set out to do? You may infer that is its purpose in 2014, but its inceptions were in the mid 80's, with K. Subrahmanyam's (as we all know the real architect, of the current Indian doctrine, ) "minimum deterrence" theory. These aspects stemmed from two sources, our political unwillingness to wield these weapons and K. Subrahmanyam was a proponent of these weapons and our lack of capabilities or intent to field large arsenals. He was a smart man, a very smart man, who knew how India works and sought to open the gates, he revised the minimum deterrence concept, added words like credible to expand the arsenal, made minimum contextual, and has assured retaliation as its underpinning as he knew the political wavering that would happen and the armed forces cannot have something wishy washy in this area, given the apathy of our political class on matters governance, let alone defense and they cannot spell the word nuclear (some very few exceptions notwithstanding). At least with the current doctrine, the SFC has something to work with, game scenarios around, build procedures, controls, etc.

Pakistanis need to read India's nuclear doctrine because India's red line is very clearly defined even if Pakistan is unable to reach any decisions about what they want to do with their nukes.

Shiv ji: You are banking on a piece of paper that we ourselves do not take too seriously in all its aspects for it does not account for many scenarios and you are expecting the enemy to respect that. NFU and massive response is good political rhetoric but when it comes to pulling the trigger it will matter for little as war scenarios, objectives, means, costs, liabilities, risks, fears will take over. It will make sense for TSP threatened with a devastating conventional force which would in short order leave TSP's sovereignty erased, to at least conduct a demonstrative nuclear strike, this is the least to be expected. Now, the ball would be in India's court to escalate and how?

In my opinion India's nuclear doctrine is extremely good as a tool for deterrence. But it does not spell out how India will fight nuclear war, other than saying "disproportionate response"

The underlying presumption being your opponents view nuclear weapons the same way we do but they do not. Their goals and objectives is to deter a decapitating conventional strike - not to prevent nuclear war.

I am not sure what Adm Arun Prakash means by asking that the option of first use should be left open, but I do think Adm Prakash has pointed out that nothing can work in the absence of political will and if NFU is just an excuse to postpone the decision to use nukes we may be in trouble. Our politicans need to open their eyes and minds.

True, that is how I read the Admiral. Also, in general, our armed forces are quite fed up with the extremely passive approaches the state takes on hard power and even when there is a clear opportunity - no clear goals or objectives are provided to the military beyond --- defend every inch et al. How this lack of confidence manifests between service HQ and MoD is a story by itself.

But I have one serious issue with Adm Prakash's contention that the option of FU should be left open. The real problem is that you cannot have clear nuclear plan if you spell out exactly what will make you resort to "first use". If you say "We will use nukes on China if they occupy territory in AP" then China can choose to wage war that comes just below our first use nuclear threshold. Pakistan has done this to us by waging proxy war knowing that our crystal clear nuclear red line (NFU) is not being breached. But the down side is that Pakistan's own red lines may have been breached several times by India and no nukes have come yet. So they have no consensus or plan about how to use their nukes. It is left open. The situation is unstable but we can't change them. We can scare them though. The US faces the same dilemma. The US states that it will use nukes first - but that day simply has not come. US nukes continue to sit in storage. The uS simply holds out a threat that it will use nukes "any time". that does not stop multiple nations and entities from attacking US assets, forces and allies.

If one has to combine hard power as the underpinning for national power, where your nuclear forces are one extreme end of this power equation, then it would be not possible to "legislate" how shall this power be used for all scenarios. India has a long, long way to go to learn how to use this hard power, let alone nuclear. I did say, do not rush to legislate. So, under the present scenario, massive retaliation is better than nothing, till we get some strong governments in place, that can build some institutional capacities. K. Subrahmanyam's dream of an NDU is yet to be fulfilled.

I personally think NFU is a good idea for the purpose of deterrence, but the pledge can be broken if we are in danger. That makes our NFU pledge a little weak - but so what - if it scares the crap out of others?

[shiv]

Shiv ji: You are banking on a piece of paper that we ourselves do not take too seriously in all its aspects for it does not account for many scenarios and you are expecting the enemy to respect that. NFU and massive response is good political rhetoric but when it comes to pulling the trigger it will matter for little as war scenarios, objectives, means, costs, liabilities, risks, fears will take over. It will make sense for TSP threatened with a devastating conventional force which would in short order leave TSP's sovereignty erased, to at least conduct a demonstrative nuclear strike, this is the least to be expected. Now, the ball would be in India's court to escalate and how?

Shaurya - you are making the same error that you accuse me of making. You assume that "Everyone thinks in a particular way" and since you and some others don't take that piece of paper seriously you imply that no one else does or that it is worthless. In fact all deterrence is fluff. It is based on threats - it cannot be more than that . If you don't believe it that is OK. But you need to put yourself in the position of a person with nuclear weapons ready to attack India and then see if the paper still causes you to ROTFL. I put it to you that the paper then would take on some new meaning. You can laugh at the paper because it offers no threat to you. Assuming that it does not threaten anyone else and that others don;t take it seriously is an error that you are making here.

The underlying presumption being your opponents view nuclear weapons the same way we do but they do not. Their goals and objectives is to deter a decapitating conventional strike - not to prevent nuclear war.

No one, neither I nor you nor anyone else can really know what an adversary really thinks. But that should not stop us from thinking and attempting to deter a rational adversary. We cannot deter a determined irrational adversary. I am not sure why you are concerned so much about a decapitating strike. That may be better for India -as long as we have a second strike capability. If weak kneed politicians are eliminated the second strike will be carried out by a determined chain of command that does not include the now dead political mice.

You might think that this is wishful thinking but not making any plan is even worse. it is a formula for dithering and confusion. This in fact is what Pakistan has done.

If one has to combine hard power as the underpinning for national power, where your nuclear forces are one extreme end of this power equation, then it would be not possible to "legislate" how shall this power be used for all scenarios. India has a long, long way to go to learn how to use this hard power, let alone nuclear. I did say, do not rush to legislate. So, under the present scenario, massive retaliation is better than nothing, till we get some strong governments in place, that can build some institutional capacities. K. Subrahmanyam's dream of an NDU is yet to be fulfilled.

This is one type of philosophical argument of which there can be many. However this does not address the immediate issues of deterrence or even give Indians any idea about what power we do have and how it may be wielded.

[Anand K]

There is the sanity & bluff aspect and the credibility aspect to all this IMO:

We say Pakis who publicly and volubly draw red lines at everything, including Veena Malik's Indian citizenship, are Irrational. They also DO HAVE nukes (doesn't mater who gave it to them) and seem to be ramping up their WMD production and capabilities by all reports. All this confuses us and keeps us guessing on his actual mindset - and IMO this is with regard to slightly less unhinged RAPE-TSPA leadership and not "Mad Mullahs with Nukes" . So, isn't someone who assures Massive Nuclear Response to even the loss of 14 tanks by a miniscule sub-KT (incidentally used on the nuke attacker's own territory) also...... Irrational by a measure? Though we haven't been polishing our blades in public and built roadside Agni mock-ups as vigorously as PRC-TSP has, they KNOW we have at least a "capability in the basement" for MR. Perhaps the fact that our WMD delivery technology has demonstrably increased this adds to the teeth of the threat. Maybe that would keep the TSP-PRC guessing and confused on if the Indians are actually the crazy ones? Well, them sparrow-wrestlers crossed the IB in '65 contrary to all perceptions right?

Hey, two people can play the Crazy Reagan game. Maybe there is a utility to MR if there exists a level of credibility to that threat, i.e. SLBMs, MIRVs, deep tunnels in the hills etc? In the 80s and early 90s if we roared about MR everyone would laugh at us as at that time our capability was pretty much "push out a huge-a$$ nuke from the cargo door of an Ilyushin". So we had a lukka-chuppi MCD-ish for a long time and it was indeed that - we could indeed Ilyushin-nuke them, if not deliver it with a shiny new Mirage. Now things are very very different. OTOH Pakis at that time famously publicly said all they need is a "nuke on a bullock-cart" and did not need no new-fangled (beta-test) missiles and nuke-capable Mirages which Indians had. If they drew red lines everywhere back then they would have been laughed at too and they also had a lukka-chuppi MCD since their cold test in '87. (Even this "MCD" was enough to embolden them to launch Kashmir Jihad and tie down VP Singh's plans in '89. So much that Bob Gates himself flew down here with half the US National Security Apparatus). Now things are different there too.

Perhaps it's all about your fears and how much well-founded your fear is regarding the other. And this landscape keeps changing.

Jm2c

PS: The Mahabharata War could not be deterred by presence of a non-combatant God on one side as well as WMDs, (literally) Holy Fathers and super-humans on both sides. The high falutin' Dharmic Rules of Engagement didn't last the first few hours too. Also WMDs were used by a rational actor (from the "Good" side) and grief-stricken irrational actors from the other side..... and these weapons were used against civilian targets too. Spin off effects of all this battlefield WMD use and mass culling led to millennia of Dark Ages too.
Damn.... these Sooth Asians have precedent for total destruction! C-R-E Jihad time!

[Johann]

Shiv,

There's clearly been improvements in India's CT performance, but the number of lower grade attacks suggests that the PA has been constrained from putting its full behind attacks big enough to embarrass India's political class. This is a little like the LoC ceasefire under Musharraf after Parakram - the infiltrators still came, but without covering fire they were much easier to mop up. The PA wants to avoid crisis while still demonstrating that it can cause trouble.

I'd agree with Shaurya that those constraints come from multiple angles - strong Indian responses (although as Anand points out there is a history going back to the 1980s of such efforts), the gradual erosion of the military's domestic political power, the fact that a third of its forces are tied down fighting beards, and that since 1998 the conflict of interest with the Americans has meant that the USG is likely to let them sweat, and leak damning details to the press in a crises. These things didn't happen all at once, but cumulatively. These process have not stopped, or even plateaued, and the PA will fight it every step of the way and attempt to adapt.

I also believe it is this sense of increasing constraints that have led the Pakistani military to emphasise the rather desperate idea of using tactical nuclear weapons on its own soil. One of the things that I think is significant is how little publicity given to this radical shift in the Pakistani public sphere by the state or anyone else. There really isn't *anything* like the kind of rhetoric of self sacrifice that you see constantly drilled into the North Korean population, or the public debate in European NATO countries in the 60s through the 80s that led to a (very) uneasy acceptance of tactical nukes, but with a powerful anti-nuclear movement in countries like Germany that would be the hardest hit in the event of a Soviet offensive and the tactical nuclear exchange that would probably trigger.

While the generals like to brandish their mijjiles as proof of power and progress, they clearly don't think they can flat out order -or even persuade- the public to embrace nuclear war fighting. In some ways this is not very different from the problems of selling nuclear war fighting to the Indian public as well, or to the public anywhere there is some measure of freedom of speech. While the average Pakistani likes the idea of his country standing tall, I see little evidence that they're any more willing to sacrifice their families' lives and see their villages and hometowns glassed than anyone else. Deterrence is a *much* easier sell, because its predicated on preventing nuclear holocaust or invasion and destruction, rather than triumphing through it. In that sense the continued democratisation and demilitarisation of Pakistani policy making and public debate is very much in the interests of everyone in the region, especially if the PA really intends to acquire and/or deploy tacnukes in numbers.

[ShauryaT]

Shiv ji: Here is a recent one from the Admiral himself. Highly recommend you and others interested read it. Sorry for the lack of formatting below. This excellent paper says it all.

India’s Nuclear Deterrent: The More Things Change…Arun Prakash March 2014

A series of changes are necessary in order to facilitate a more efficacious nuclear strategy.
Desirable changes include:

Development of a strong naval leg of the nuclear triad with nuclear submarine-based missiles that
have a striking range of 5,000-8,000 km;

Consideration of the option to develop tactical/theatre nuclear weapons in order to achieve
escalation dominance and retaliate against conventional force attacks;

Integration of the military in India’s national security decision-making process; and
Shifting towards a more transparent nuclear posture that is both reassuring to the Indian public
and more credible vis-à-vis adversaries.

Breaking the traditional institutional silence,
Shyam Saran, former Foreign Secretary and
current convener of India’s National Security
Advisory Board, has come out in the media
and public forums to defend the position of the
establishment, albeit not as a spokesman but as
proxy. The focus of his discourse is to, inter alia,
rebut the description of India’s nuclear deterrent
as ‘an instrument of pride and propaganda’
as well as counter the criticisms that nuclear
weapons have failed to enhance India’s security
and nullified its conventional superiority over
Pakistan, and that expenditure on conventional
weapon systems is mounting in spite of the
deterrent.
Starting with the ritual reiteration of India’s faith
in universal disarmament, Saran justifies the
legitimacy of India’s nuclear deterrent, ab initio, and
highlights the progress made in operationalising
the nuclear triad, providing hitherto unpublicised
details about the function and organisation of the
Nuclear Command Authority (NCA). Countering
the ‘perception’ that the military is excluded
from strategic decision-making and plays
second fiddle to the bureaucracy and scientific
establishment, he offers an anodyne argument
about strategic decisions having to be ‘anchored
in the architecture of democratic governance’.
Lifting the ‘credible minimum deterrent’ discussion
above the sub-continent-China level to place it in
a global security context he justifies the DRDO’s
pursuit of BMD and multiple warhead (MIRV)
capabilities as consistent with a no-first-use
posture, since both enhance the survivability
of assets and credibility of India’s nuclear
doctrine. Overall, Saran has rendered a most
valuable service by dispelling many common
misconceptions about the deterrent and thereby
adding to its credibility.
Such discourse is to be welcomed, in order to
counter growing scepticism. At the same time,
there is need to call to account the national
security establishment, whose egregious
silence over the past 16 years has allowed such
doubts to take root. Apart from addressing the
naysayers and naive pacifists, there is also a
need to address genuine concerns regarding the
perceived inadequacies of India’s nuclear arsenal
and the ambivalence of those who wield it. There
are justifiable fears about neglect by India’s
decision-makers of the hugely expensive nuclear
deterrent. In an evolving strategic environment issues such as India’s hastily made commitments
to NFU, a ‘minimal’ arsenal and the self-imposed
moratorium on testing call for reflection at the
highest level.

Need for reappraisal
So far, India has argued against the concept of
TNW on the ground that the notion of limiting
nuclear use to the battlefield is delusional
because escalation would be inevitable. Any
adversary not recognising this logic would meet
with massive retaliation by India. In fact NSAB
Convener Shyam Saran was confirming this
when he stated, in public, recently that ‘the label
on a nuclear weapon used for attacking India is
irrelevant’.
India has a few options open. One is to continue
threatening massive nuclear retaliation in
response to limited Pakistani use of TNW on
Indian military forces, at the risk of appearing to
over-react or respond disproportionately. Another
option is to develop and deploy TNW with the
objective of seeking escalation dominance and
deterring Pakistan from using nuclear weapons
on the battlefield. A third option could be to
develop nuclear weapons to threaten Pakistani
conventional forces while also retaining massive
retaliation options to deter further escalation.
Making a choice would call for detailed
discussions between all stakeholders, including
the military.
Currently, the nuclear deterrents of the two
sub-continental adversaries are enveloped in
a cloak of opacity, and there is a total lack of communication between those who are entrusted
with conceptual and physical management of the
two arsenals. This has engendered mistrust and
insecurity, both catalysts for the arms race in
progress on the sub-continent.

The time is, perhaps, ripe for a nuclear ‘glasnost’
in India, whereby the cloak of needless opacity
around the nuclear deterrent is lifted and as
much unclassified information as possible about
our nuclear capabilities made available to the
tax-paying public. This would achieve three
objectives. Firstly, it would convey reassurance
to Indians that they are well protected by an
effective nuclear deterrent which will obviate
adventurism on the part of nuclear-armed
adversaries. Secondly, it would send a clear
message to Pakistan that brandishing tactical
nuclear weapons is a dangerous ploy, discredited
and discarded by the nuclear powers during the
Cold War. Lastly, transparency, accompanied
by sustained dialogue and confidence-building
measures, would convince Pakistan of the need
for stable deterrence on the sub-continent and
lead to a substantive reduction in tensions.

[shiv]

Shiv ji: Here is a recent one from the Admiral himself. Highly recommend you and others interested read it. Sorry for the lack of formatting below. This excellent paper says it all.

India’s Nuclear Deterrent: The More Things Change…Arun Prakash March 2014

Good article. Need to wait and see if change of government makes a whit of a difference. The babus don't change.

[ShauryaT]

Five Decades of Nuclear China: Trends and Implications

The Chinese strategic tradition has given paramount importance to—more than
achieving victory—“occupying the undefeatable position” (li yu bubai zhi di). China’s
acquisition of nuclear weapons seems to be better explained by a combination of objectives than by a single, or a purely military, purpose. Nevertheless, the most powerful motive, particularly during the pre-detonation period, was to regain national self-esteem. China’s nuclear policy, hand-crafted by Mao and endorsed by every one of his successors, emphasised upon nuclear minimalism, at least publicly. This was manifested in the form of a small-sized nuclear force structure. For China’s political and military leadership, China’s nuclear weapons were “one element, but not the decisive element of the PLA’s comprehensive deterrence posture.” The corollary of Mao’s pursuit of a minimal second-strike deterrent force meant to project threat was his embrace of a No-First-Use (NFU) policy meant to project reassurance and foster stability by calming the nerves of potential foes, nuclear and non-nuclear alike. Chinese writings at that time reflect that along with small arsenals, restraint in their use formed the second pillar of China’s nuclear policy.

Analysts in China have pointed up that China’s nuclear forces serve a dual purpose. One is to deter a potential adversary’s nuclear use/threat of use; the other being to retaliate against a nuclear first-strike against China. However, it remains ambiguous as to how would the Chinese nuclear force be applied in circumstances where its vital national security interests (say, Taiwan) are threatened and conventional deterrence and use would fall short of preventing either Taipei from actions that are considered to be moving toward de jure independence or the United States from intervention. Beijing deliberately created and maintained a cloud of “calculated ambiguity” around the development, deployment and employment of its nuclear weapons—a trend that continue till date.
..
Today, China’s nuclear arsenal is estimated to include 200-240 nuclear weapons, with a stockpile of fissile materials estimated to include 16±4 metric tonnes of highly enriched uranium (HEU) and 1.8±0.5 tonnes of weapon-grade plutonium.
...
China has been a “key supplier” of technology, particularly PRC entities providing nuclear and missile-related technology to Pakistan and missile-related technology to Iran. China has determinedly used the proliferation card over the past few decades far and wide, supplying missiles and missile components to Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Syria, and nuclear materials/technology to Algeria, Argentina, Brazil, Iran, Iraq, North Korea and South Africa.
...
There is a striking similarity between what the Chinese have done and how the Pakistani’s are following, whether in terms of the nuclear programme or the missile development programme. In fact, given the kind of confluence since the early 60’s whatever the Chinese have acquired over a period of time has been transferred to the Pakistani’s either directly or through North Korea in case of missiles. We have an issue in terms of the fact that the two powers on our eastern and western borders and with which we have serious border disputes are following a joint policy as they are the challenges we have to face.
..
Their official defence expenditure is three times that of ours for the last two decades. In fact our share of defense expenditure in GDP has gone down from 2.1 percent to 1.19 percent today. Their unofficial expenditure is USD 200 billion according to SIPRI. That’s the differential we are talking about. So dialogue on an equal footing is hard to come by and needs some serious efforts.

Concluding Remarks by Maj Gen Dhruv C Katoch, SM, VSM (Retd), Director, CLAWS
The response of the Indian strategic community should be very clear in terms of the Indian Nuclear Doctrine. Use of any nuclear device against India, including tactical nuclear weapons will invite massive retaliation from India. The Indian Doctrine is clear and unambiguous and must be noted by those who have hostile intent against the country.

[Anand K]

ORF Guru's Gyan


This guy writes for the Pioneer too.

[shiv]

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/fo ... 979229.ece
For a clear nuclear doctrine
Jayant Prasad

For India, nuclear deterrence is defensive and a means to secure its sovereignty and security. Its strategy of assured retaliation, combined with “no first use,” provides adequate guarantee for this purpose. The strategy was unveiled concurrently with its 1998 nuclear tests, which ended the determined U.S. bid to prevent India from acquiring nuclear deterrent. Ironically, India’s nuclear weapons tests, together with the rapid expansion of its economy, transformed its global outlook and relations with the U.S. and the world.

The Chinese nuclear weapons test of 1964, on the heels of the 1962 war, had always rankled in Indian minds. K. Subrahmanyam and K.R. Narayanan, at the time in the early years of their public service, advocated a matching Indian response. This did not then have resonance at the top, as India was facing the twin crises of food and finance.

The P-5 states treated non-proliferation as their default foreign and security policy objective, but this was invariably trumped by national interest. India’s restraint and decision not to weaponise its nuclear capacities after the 1974 test were well known. Yet, when Pakistan accelerated its nuclear proliferation, it was not stopped in the wake of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, when U.S. President Jimmy Carter designated Pakistan a “frontline” state.

The Chinese transferred nuclear materials and technology to Pakistan, including the weapons design and the means to deliver them — the solid fuel 300-kilometre range M-11 ballistic missiles. In a paper published in 1972, Professor Wayne Wilcox of Colombia University, then working as cultural attaché in the U.S. Embassy in London, perceptively recognised that India’s policy concerning China and Pakistan “is to hedge all bets and cover all contingencies.” India was compelled to acquire nuclear weapons to deter nuclear blackmail in its contiguity.

Unlike Pakistan or Israel, India could not have a “recessed” deterrent or bomb in the basement, given India’s governance practices. Contingent factors delayed India’s nuclear weapons tests, such as the persistent external pressure on India, and arguments by internal agnostics who claimed that such testing would betray India’s long-held principles, diminish its international standing, and reduce future GDP growth rates by up to two per cent annually. In 1995 came the perpetual extension of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, without linking it to the complete elimination of nuclear weapons. The conditions attached to the 1996 Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty, which could foreclose India’s nuclear weapons option, became the final point of conviction. From then on, the question was not whether to test but when.

For India today, the choice is clear, as it was in 1998: so long as nuclear weapons exist, India’s nuclear deterrence will have to be maintained. Until there is a global compact for creating a nuclear weapon-free world, India will have to persevere with this policy.

What is credible deterrence?

In delivering the message of credible deterrence, all nuclear weapons states, including those that have embraced no first use, face a conundrum. Nuclear weapons are weapons of the last resort, fundamentally different from conventional weapons. War is a traditional tool of statecraft, but the weapon to end all wars cannot be a standard instrument of an ordinary war — it can only be the final recourse for dissuasion. It cannot be chance, for then it will fail to deter. While embracing a declaratory policy to avoid nuclear war, the state concerned must simultaneously demonstrate that it has nuclear war fighting capacity — the resilience to take the pain of a first strike, and both the ability and resolve to inflict massive and intolerable destruction on the attacker.

For improving its punitive capacity, China is seeking a sea-based nuclear deterrent, deploying mobile solid-fuel missiles, and moving missiles below the surface in elaborate tunnels in mountainous terrain, undetectable from space, called the “Underground Great Wall.” The same motivation has led India to similar pursuits. India’s missile force, the weak link in its deterrence, is under rapid repair. Its transformation is enabling the shift toward strategic deterrence. In the past half-dozen years, India has invested in improving the command, control, communications, and intelligence systems and its second strike capacity, including the survival of the decision-making structure. The National Command Authority deserves credit for this. Simultaneously, the sea-based leg of the triad of delivery systems is taking shape — even if at a slower pace than the situation warrants. India might also have to do more to communicate effectively that its deterrent carries credibility.

In popular domestic imagination, India’s assurance of “credible minimum deterrence” is confused with minimum credible deterrence, as if it connotes an arbitrary limitation. The essential prerequisite for nuclear deterrence is as much the sufficiency of the retaliatory capacity as the surety of response. This hinges on the size and nature of the arsenal and delivery systems, their survivability in the event of a pre-emptive attack, and the realisation by a potential adversary that the costs of attack outweigh the gains.

All nuclear weapons states that have robust missile programmes retain their first strike capabilities, since conventional missiles of short and intermediate ranges can be mated equally with nuclear or non-nuclear warheads, and can be used to attack nuclear facilities. At times doubts arise about the “responsible” behaviour of certain states, such as when Chinese President Xi Jinping did not mention China’s no first use doctrine in a defence policy speech delivered in December 2012 to the Second Artillery Corps, or when the Chinese Defence White Paper, released in April 2013, did not contain the standard reiteration of this doctrine, thereby creating doubts about a shift in its nuclear policy.

While India remains watchful, most P-5 states appear to be settling into a more stable deterrence, discounting first strike weapons, despite holding a range of nuclear weaponry and delivery mechanisms. Under the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the U.S. and USSR had agreed to eliminate their intermediate and shorter range missiles between 500 and 5,500 kilometres. Pakistan alone is going in the other direction.

Myth of flexible response

The U.S. and Russia did contemplate flexible response and limited use of nuclear weapons in specific theatres in the hope of containing damage to their homelands. A graduating use of nuclear weapons is not possible, except in theory books and planning exercises. Envisaging escalatory nuclear weapons exchanges is even more difficult in India’s security context: here, the space and time span between launch and delivery is non-existent. “Controlled” nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia is hard to imagine. Between India and China, or between India and Pakistan, it is impossible.

Admittedly, nuclear weapons can be used for coercion, but up to a point, and with some success only against a non-nuclear state. The experience of Kargil 15 years ago demonstrated how the leaders of the Pakistan Army took the wrong lesson from deterrence. They believed that with the advantage of stealth and shock, they could upset the conventional status-quo, without inviting an effective riposte for fear of a nuclear exchange. This was a serious miscalculation, as they discovered to their cost. Changing India’s defensive nuclear doctrine to complicate their calculus will be irresponsible. India can survive a first strike but Pakistan cannot. What incentive would Pakistan have to consider a second strike if it believed India could attack it first? As for the growing non-nuclear threats to security, India can meet them by augmented conventional preparedness, hardened defences, upgraded equipment and a strong indigenous armament industry.

Toward a more secure India

The foremost threat to Indian security today comes not from its nuclear posture or externally, but from social deprivation and anaemic economic growth. Unshackling its entrepreneurship, accelerating infrastructure development and regenerating growth will make India safer. There is a clear vision in India on what has to be done. The new government should focus on how best and quickly to do it.

As Shyam Saran, Chairman of the National Security Advisory Board, has said, it would be best to put to rest any further speculation of a change in India’s nuclear weapons policy. For a credible deterrent, constancy of doctrine in its core essentials has definite merit. The Bharatiya Janata Party has embraced the national inheritance on no first use. India’s nuclear deterrent can be made more robust, meanwhile, by continuing the work to guarantee the efficacy of its retaliatory strike.

(Jayant Prasad was India’s Ambassador to Afghanistan, Algeria, Nepal and the U.N. Conference on Disarmament.)

[shiv]

Posted by Sridhar in the other forum
Weak Claims on Nuclear Dynamics - Swaran Singh, The Hindu

EVOLVING DYNAMICS OF NUCLEAR SOUTH ASIA: Air Commodore Tariq Mahmud Ashraf (Retd.), PAF;
KW Publishers Pvt. Ltd., 4676/21, I Floor, Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi-110002. Rs. 980.

Some titles like Evolving Dynamics of Nuclear South Asia will never go out of fashion. And, if a much-awarded former fighter pilot were to offer a manuscript, most publishers may not even read it before committing to publish it. Such pitfalls are worse in case of authors. Their life is often driven by deadlines; deadlines that can produce still-born scripts with a few flashes that help them survive readers’ intolerance.

The book under review is a collation of sketchy summaries of the author’s, and yes, others’ earlier writings and documents. This makes it spasmodic, excessively repetitive; threatening to kill reader’s interest with unnecessary details, leave alone typographic, grammatical and factual errors. But its few insightful assertions can provide a peek into the mindset of the Pakistani Air Force.


American ambivalence

Its first convincing assertion is on the U.S. role in nuclearisation of South Asia. From the late 1960s, the U.S. is shown as aware of Pakistan providing China access to US-supplied military hardware. From the late 1970s, the U.S. has conclusive evidence on the Pakistani nuclear weapons programme. And yet, it chooses to look the other way, as Pakistan is first an ally in SEATO and CENTO and then its frontline state in Afghanistan. Special national intelligence estimates in 1983 record how, following India’s nuclear test in 1974, China gave “verbal consent to help Pakistan develop a nuclear blast capability.” By the 1990s, the U.S. was aware of the Chinese buying equipment from its European allies either directly in the name of Pakistan or indirectly.

In the backdrop of China’s atomic tests in 1964, Secretary to the Prime Minister, L.K. Jha, embarks on a tour of nuclear weapon powers seeking nuclear security guarantees in return for India signing the NPT. The U.S. here is shown ready to give nothing more than a private verbal assurance, that too in the backdrop of some UN resolution sermonising on non-use against non-nuclear powers. In his meeting with Jha, Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara is shown (a) warning India against overreaction to perceived threat from China, (b) downplaying the significance of U.S. military supplies to Pakistan and (c) suggesting that India cut her defence budget by 25 per cent and reduce military manpower by 200,000.

The second point the author brings out is the underlying cause of divergence in Indo-Pak nuclear policies and perceptions. For him, while Pakistan’s motivations flow out of military considerations, India’s motivations emerge from political considerations. This implies that Pakistan sees its nuclear assets as a military weapon while India sees them as instruments of political power.

Therefore, while Pakistani nuclear decision-making has been controlled by the military, remains shrouded in secrecy, focuses on a defined enemy (India), and is happily restricted to a nuclear ‘dyad’ believing that Pakistan will be the first to use nuclear weapons, India has demonstrated strong political control, transparency with a published doctrine that prescribes a ‘triad’ capability and one that sees self-defence as its purpose and believes that nuclear weapons only deter nuclear weapons.

For Pakistan, nuclear weapons are not only meant to deter the onset of war but, if war becomes inevitable, also deter possibility of devastating defeat. The nuclearisation of South Asia, for the author, has not just enhanced the strategic stability but significantly reduced the possibility of an all-out conventional war. But he believes that this strategic stability remains premised on both sides enhancing transparency. He also exhorts that, given the rudimentary nature of their nuclear weapons and delivery systems, both India and Pakistan should abstain from thinking about counter-force or counter-value targets and contemplate only counter-space (sparsely populated) targets or naval assets on high seas.

As his third useful assertion, the author re-enforces how the Strategic Planning Division (SPD) has become inordinately powerful. Khalid Kidwai, head of SPD for over a decade, virtually single-handedly controls Pakistan’s nuclear establishment more in his personal capacity. Also, SPD continues to be manned almost exclusively by Pakistan Army officers who formulate not just Pakistan’s nuclear policy but even arms control and disarmament postures. The SPD has its own command of 10,000 troops to ensure the security of all nuclear institutions and installations.

Though designed originally to act as staff for National Command Authority (NCA), “the SPD over the years has assumed significant executive authority.” What is interesting is that Services Force Commands are shown as falling directly under the SPD’s administrative control. These Service Commands have authority limited only to training, technical and administrative matters. The operational planning and control rests with SPD as it functions in name of the NCA under the overall direction of Prime Minister.

The author reiterates how even while the NCA has overwhelming participation of politicians, “none of these political entities can be expected to overrule the military.” Leave alone politicians, he says, even the Pakistan Army does not take the Air Force and Navy into confidence in undertaking its major (mis)adventures.

Nuclear terrorism

Terrorists gaining access to Pakistan’s nuclear material, even assets, has been another constant concern. The spread of technology and expertise indeed makes it possible that these may fall into the wrong hands. However, terrorists getting a ready-made nuclear device and having the expertise and wherewithal to detonate it remains a far-fetched proposition. They may obtain minor quantities of fissile material and use these to produce a ‘dirty bomb’ but this is not likely to help their cause. Instead, they may be tempted to try and sabotage or occupy nuclear installations to bargain for their demands, but nuclear assets are normally protected far too well.

Though terrorism remains a serious threat inside Pakistan, the state remains equally worried about threats from outside. These include possibilities of surgical strikes by India, Israel or even the U.S., or strangulation by the sheriffs of non-proliferation. The author assures that Pakistan’s nuclear assets are secure in view of their secret locations, screening of personnel and frequent changes in manpower.

Substantive contradictions

In the end, most these assertions however must be taken with a pinch of salt because the book is full of contradictions. Chapter five condemns Pakistan Army exercising “an inordinate percentage of control over the nuclear potential… [which] is unacceptable and must not be allowed to materialise” and then Chapter seven scorns “the mess that the politicians and the bureaucrats have made of this country” and justifies as “rightly so” that the military “trusts neither the political leadership nor the bureaucracy” and that “armed forces will continue to dominate in all aspects.”

Similarly, while Chapter eight says “Israel cannot be eliminated as a focal point of our nuclear employment doctrine”, Chapter nine declares “Pakistan’s nuclear doctrine would not envisage any threat other than India.” Then in chapter nine itself, while at page 132, the author wants Pakistan’s nuclear doctrine “to be a ‘living’ document which is amenable to rapid modifications and adjustments”, on page 135 he wants “suitable legislation to be enacted to preclude any arbitrary.” One can list many more contradictions but hopes that authors and publishers will be far more responsible before readers reject them altogether.

[ramana]

I now think the TSPA got the Gauri missile to rid themselves of Fizzileya's role in the unclear detergent. Before that they need the solahs and santaras. Given a chance they would make all the TSP forces under TSPA with Army Generals in charge of the three branches.

[Austin]

Pavel Podvig March 27, 2014 ( Webinar )

“Modernization of the Russian Strategic Forces”

https://s3.amazonaws.com/ucs-webinars/S ... 5-8-14.mp4


BIO:Pavel Podvig is an independent analyst based in Geneva, where he runs his research project, "Russian Nuclear Forces". He is also a Senior Research Fellow at the UN Institute for Disarmament Research and a member of the International Panel on Fissile Materials.

[Prem]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/12/opini ... .html?_r=0#
India's Nuclear Imposture
By ABHIJIT IYER-MITRA

ALBUQUERQUE — When the Bharatiya Janata Party announced it would “revise and update” India’s nuclear doctrine if elected this month, the proposal was widely interpreted to mean that the party would renege on India’s 1998 pledge never to use nuclear weapons in a first strike. The party has since backtracked, ostensibly because of the media backlash. That’s unfortunate. Although the “no first use” doctrine, known as N.F.U., may seem prudent in theory, India has diluted the concept to the point of absurdity, with dangerous consequences: a buildup of its conventional forces, which has caused Pakistan to harden its nuclear stance.In August 1999 a panel of independent experts convened by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee issued a draft nuclear doctrine containing a commitment to N.F.U. That inclusion seemed designed to assuage the international community, which India had rattled the previous year by conducting nuclear tests. Yet the government started backpedaling almost immediately, presumably because it realized that the N.F.U. pledge undermined the rationale for conducting the tests in the first place: to deter an attack from China, with which India had fought a crushing war in 1962.On Nov. 29, 1999, Jaswant Singh, a member of Parliament, dismissed the draft doctrine, saying it was “not a policy document of the Government of India” because the panel that put it together had legally nebulous authority. (Within a week, Mr. Singh was made foreign minister.) By 2003, when India issued an official nuclear doctrine, its N.F.U. pledge had been watered down to authorize a nuclear retaliation after a chemical or biological strike. Then, on Oct. 21, 2010, Shivshankar Menon, the national security adviser, stated that India would apply N.F.U. only with respect to non-nuclear weapons states.But even as India’s civilian authorities have, in effect, authorized a nuclear first strike against nuclear states like China and Pakistan, they have not given the military control of operational nuclear weapons. (In established nuclear states, the weapons are in the hands of the military, subject to civilian oversight, and launch codes remain with the government.) Nor does India’s military appear to have conducted war games simulating the first use of nuclear weapons.
Instead, the government has authorized a massive increase in its conventional forces. A 2012 article in Time magazine estimated that India would spend $80 billion on “military modernization” over the following three years. The navy plans to expand its current fleet of more than 130 vessels to about 200, including submarines and aircraft carriers, over the next decade. During the same period, the army expects to supplement its 1.1 million strong force with another 100,000 troops, and the air force will acquire some 350-odd fighter jets.These efforts are intended to deter China. But China seems basically unfazed, and has responded simply by expanding roads, railways and airfields in Tibet. On the other hand, Pakistan, which does not have the resources to match India’s buildup of conventional forces, is compensating — overcompensating — in the nuclear arena.
A 2011 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists projected that within a decade Pakistan would have enough fissile material to make between 160 and 240 nuclear bombs, more than double the expected capacity of India and possiblymore even than that of Britain. Pakistan has started deploying tactical nuclear devices on short-range rockets along its border with India. Brigadier Feroz Khan, the former director of Arms Control and Disarmament Affairs in the Strategic Plans Division, the ultimate overseer of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and activities, has argued that this move makes sense only if launch authority is pre-delegated to field commanders — suggesting that it has been.
In short, India’s diluted version of the N.F.U. doctrine makes an already dangerous security situation in South Asia more dangerous still. Everyone would be better off if the government did away with it.The problem is that no political group currently has the wherewithal to try to fix these ambiguities, not even the B.J.P., despite its tough-on-security credentials.
The obstacles are structural and cultural. The post-independence government of Jawaharlal Nehru was wary of military overthrows, which were endemic across the developing world at the time. Consequently, India’s security apparatus was structured so as to keep the military on the sidelines of major security decisions. Contact between the chiefs of staff and the defense minister remains sporadic and mostly ceremonial. While civilian authorities are unfamiliar with operational realities, they rarely take advice from the generals. And thanks to a convoluted reporting system, the higher echelons of the executive branch see military reports only after they have been sanitized by lower-level, nonexpert civilian bureaucrats, rarely hearing directly from either ground commanders or their superiors.The civilian authorities came up with the N.F.U. without consulting the military, and when they realized it was a blunder, they diluted it, again without consulting the military. Why? Because they distrusted the military. The only way to rationalize India’s untenable interpretation of N.F.U. now would be to give the military more control over nuclear weapons — but the government can’t do that because it still distrusts the military. And so however self-defeating India’s current nuclear posture, it is likely to endure, regardless of who wins the election this month.

[Anand K]

While civilian authorities are unfamiliar with operational realities, they rarely take advice from the generals. And thanks to a convoluted reporting system, the higher echelons of the executive branch see military reports only after they have been sanitized by lower-level, nonexpert civilian bureaucrats, rarely hearing directly from either ground commanders or their superiors.

Why does Mitra make the charge that the Military is totally decoupled from the Executive as far as nuke warfighting is considered? It is true there is decades old distrust and inertia but isn't it a stretch saying that some babu makes all decisions decisions on weapons deployment or other tactical decisions (well, he uses the term "operational realities") AND on strategic aspects?! Or is he saying we have a "political commissar" with every Agni hidden in camouflaged bogeys in some rail yard or something?

At the same time he points out suggestively to the possibility that Pakistani field commanders have launch authority. Is he finding fault at the "de-mated" concept altogether in effect and wants Indian 2-star brass in full control of ready-to-serve nuke weapons? Is he saying no political authorization is required ideally when he charges "they have not given the military control of operational nuclear weapons". We can assume there are contingencies and protocols for a NCA decapitating wipeout but short of that readiness state and launch are and should be a political decision.
And how could he explain our move towards SSBNs and SLBMs if the executive is dead set against giving the Military any sort of control?

BTW, why is he bringing the unrelated concept of our legitimate, un-frenzied conventional buildup into this issue of political control of nukes? That link is not very convincing. He says "Nor does India’s military appear to have conducted war games simulating the first use of nuclear weapons" - but what exactly has our strike/holding corps got to do with an Indian massive nuclear first strike which will be against the enemy's ready-to-strike nukes deep inside their territories. And if we strike their positioned armies too we ain't gonna send our own people into the nuked zone right away would we?. A first strike should have made enough of an impression (or why do it in the first place?) and any ground war would be just the gravy.... like keeping the Shakargarh bulge for good after dozens of our nukes finishes off Pakistan for all purposes.
I mean.... we have wargamed non-NBC warfighting for 70 years and also gamed NBC warfighting, at least in Brigade level, for quite some time. So what exactly does he want us to wargame? Our invasion of Tibet, Xinjiang, Qinghai and Sichuan after our devastating massive first strike on Chinese 2nd Artillery and PLA forces in Tibet? Corps sized formations simulating cutting through irradiated land?

Conphused onlee.

[ShauryaT]

Shyam Saran: Is there merit in India turning into a 'tough' state?
I am not surprised with Shyam Saran's line of arguments and rather agree with some portions of his message in the entire article but IMO, he chooses the glass half empty side of the equation rather than the glass half full side. He is very smartly trying to equate "toughness" to being Jingoistic and dumb and making a link of this paradigm to the nuclear policy, for its continuation as being "smart". Now, someone needs to counter that message.

n the nuclear domain, much of recent commentary suffers from this same predilection of intending to appear tough and muscular without fully understanding the nature of nuclear weapons and the current nuclear security environment. The Cold War world of an essentially binary East-West nuclear equation has now been overtaken by a much more complex, uncertain and shifting multilateral, multi-regional equation among several states with nuclear weapons whose dynamics are entirely different and mostly unpredictable. There is a new and added dimension of a possible link between nuclear weapons on the one hand and the forces of international terrorism and activities of non-state actors on the other, which cannot be dealt with by doctrines of deterrence. India has to be sensitive to this danger because of well-known developments in our own region. Its nuclear posture must be mindful of this complexity and avoid actions and policy revisions that could trigger countervailing actions by other states, which could then lock the country into an escalatory process that acquires a momentum of its own.

The frequent recourse to doctrines that had a relevance in an East-West context to argue for revisions in our own nuclear doctrine ignores not only the complexity of a multi-nuclear world but also the fact that these doctrines were themselves abandoned because they were deemed not to be credible. Western strategists eventually recognised that any crossing of the threshold from conventional to nuclear, even at the theatre level, would inexorably lead to a strategic exchange, given the action-reaction dynamic especially in the fog of war.

Theatre nuclear weapons (TNWs) are spoken of as if they were a mere variant of conventional weapons, that such weapons "may kill a few soldiers" or disable a tank column. TNWs are not comparable to conventional weapons, even at relatively low yield. The variants that have been developed in the United States range from one kilotonne yield to 300 kilotonne yield. By way of comparison, the atomic bomb that ravaged Hiroshima had an estimated yield of 15 kilotonnes. When TNWs are used as a battlefield weapon or as a "bunker buster", cratering, blast and radioactive fallout would lead to an extensive, widespread and lethal destruction and loss of life.

In fact, the distinction between strategic weapons and TNWs mostly lies not in the differences in their yields but in the command and control over their deployment and use. TNWs, by their very nature, must be placed under theatre commanders, while use of strategic weapons requires political decisions at the highest level and would be subject to elaborate checks and balances. This is why the introduction of TNWs introduces such a high degree of instability in any nuclear equation. The answer to such instability is not to threaten even greater instability from our side, but to work patiently for a more stable deterrence. The "no first use" commitment promotes stable deterrence.

[NRao]

"Tough" tends to have a negative connotation. Perhaps "Strong" is a better work.

Also, Abhijit Mitra uses a very old, widely used, flawed logic: Pakistan can react to Indian posture, but India is expected to stay stagnant no matter what happens around her. But then the only place this noise can come out of is the NYTimes.






On a more contemporary topic - "I feel for Ukraine":

Ukraine may have to go nuclear, says Kiev lawmaker

[SSridhar]

Games nuclear powers play - G.Parthasarathy, Business Line

On July 8, 1996, the World Court ruled that countries possessing nuclear weapons have not just a “need” but an “obligation” to commence negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament. Nearly two decades later thanks to the disinclination of so-called “established” nuclear weapons powers — US, UK, France and Russia — the ruling of the World Court remains an ever-receding mirage. Even today, a quarter of a century after the Cold War ended, the US deploys an estimated 150-200 tactical nuclear weapons in Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, Germany and Turkey, its NATO allies.

The US has for long held the position that it would not hesitate to use nuclear weapons for its security and to protect its NATO allies. The 1999 NATO doctrine retained the option to use nuclear weapons against states possessing chemical or biological weapons even if they had signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT). NATO’s new strategic concept adopted in 2010 avers that it would retain nuclear weapons as long as anybody possessed them. While the former Soviet Union had declared it would never be the first to use nuclear weapons, the Russian Federation adopted a “first strike” doctrine in 1993, which was subsequently reaffirmed.

The Bush administration was prepared to use nuclear weapons even against non-nuclear weapons states in regional conflicts. In contrast, the 2010 Review by the Obama administration avers the US will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states that are signatories of the NPT and in compliance with their nuclear non-proliferation obligations.
China and Pakistan

China adopted a No First Use (NFU) policy in 1964, stating it would “not be the first to use nuclear weapons at any time and under any circumstances”. It reiterated this policy in 2005, 2008, 2009 and 2011. But some Chinese statements have cast doubts on whether their NFU pledge would apply to states like India which have not acceded to the NPT.

The Pentagon has noted that “there is some ambiguity on the conditions under which China’s NFU would apply”. China has offered to sign agreements on “no first use” of nuclear weapons with the other five NPT “recognised” nuclear weapons states. It has signed such an agreement with Russia and concluded a “non-targeting” agreement with the Clinton administration immediately after our nuclear tests. New Delhi should seek and obtain a formal confirmation from China that their NFU pledge applies to India.

While Pakistan has not formally enunciated a nuclear doctrine, the former head of the strategic planning division of its Nuclear Command Authority Lt-Gen. Khalid Kidwai told a team of physicists from Italy’s Landau Network in 2002 that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons were “aimed solely at India”. Kidwai said Pakistan would use nuclear weapons if India conquered a large part of Pakistan’s territory or destroyed a large part of Pakistan’s land and air forces. Kidwai also held out the possibility of use of nuclear weapons if India tried to “economically strangle” Pakistan or pushed it to political destabilisation.

This elucidation by the man who was the de facto custodian of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal for over a decade and a POW in India in 1971-1973 was a precise formulation of Pakistan’s nuclear thresholds. It now appears that Pakistan’s military wants to also keep open the option of mounting further Mumbai-style terrorist attacks. India has no intention of either destroying Pakistan’s armed forces or conquering its territory. Pakistan cannot, however, assume it would be free from an appropriate Indian response to 26/11 style terrorist attacks.

Under threat

The threats by Pakistan to use tactical nuclear weapons in a conflict against India arise for two reasons. First, Pakistan wants to warn India and the world that it will respond with nuclear weapons if Indian forces cross the border in the event of another 26/11 style terrorist attack. This is a crude resort to blackmail to enable Pakistan to perpetuate cross-border terrorism. Second, there is a cold calculation in this thinking. India’s nuclear doctrine is premised on restraint. India has pledged “no first use” while voicing a commitment to developing a “credible minimum deterrent”.

Realistically, India’s nuclear deterrent will be credible only after Agni 5 and the nuclear submarine Arihant become fully operational. India’s doctrine also contains provisions for a massive response, should Indian territory or India’s armed forces anywhere be subject to attacks by nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. Pakistan evidently believes that if it uses tactical nuclear weapons against Indian forces attacking or poised for attack, India will not risk a massive retaliation, as this would lead to a full-fledged nuclear conflict.

Signal response

Given these circumstances, we need to review how we should signal to Pakistan and the world that we have the capability and willingness to inflict damage on Pakistan’s military if it resorts to the use of tactical nuclear weapons. Lt-Gen. Kidwai has clearly spelt out Pakistan’s thresholds. India has no reason to cross these thresholds while responding to a 26/11 type strike emanating from territory under Pakistan’s control.

Thanks to liberal assistance from China, Pakistan has developed the capability to build a large arsenal of plutonium-based weapons — both strategic and tactical. There is, however, no need to change our basic commitment to NFU. We need to be firm and clear about our intentions.

[Anand K]

Kidwai said Pakistan would use nuclear weapons if India conquered a large part of Pakistan’s territory or destroyed a large part of Pakistan’s land and air forces. Kidwai also held out the possibility of use of nuclear weapons if India tried to “economically strangle” Pakistan or pushed it to political destabilisation.

Lt-Gen. Kidwai has clearly spelt out Pakistan’s thresholds. India has no reason to cross these thresholds while responding to a 26/11 type strike emanating from territory under Pakistan’s control.

Kidwai Kaake's uvaacha got me thinking - this destruction of large part of their forces or territorial capture etc will not happen overnight right? Do we have the capability to do that in a short while? I mean, unless we do a massive strike (needn't be a Operation Focus type first salvo) with some sprinkling of nukes perhaps it will take some time to beat them down to this "Red Line". The view of General Lodi, who was Kidwai's associate, (the article was discussed here) was that while this "slow fuse" was lit the Pakistanis could also overtly and covertly demonstrate will to nuke the attacking forces - and follow the tactical-to-CV nuclear escalation if required. I guess the thinking was that they can rely on 3.5 to press for cease-fire and withdrawal in the meantime and the PA can maintain the "trapped and stopped the Kufr successfully" spin and solidify their position in TSP.

But IMO the problem is that Kidwai's isn't the only Paki view about nuke warfighting. There are those who advocate red-lines close to the border...... and even to credible intelligence that a major Indian strike is on the way - a Massive FU stance! IMO as of now most people agree that the Pakis have an asymmetric doctrine (and consequently red lines to an Indian conventional attack) AND some capability to execute it - but nobody knows where the Pakistani Red Lines actually lie, least of all the Pakis themselves (until the bullets actually start flying). That's a lot of Dark Territory right there and given the Indo-Pak situation, all the more critical. (PS: The tactical nuclear exchange, if it occurs, might be a low yield strategy or even a cul-de-sac from the Indian POV as I said earlier here - that might be really why nobody from the GoI is going for tactical-to-CV nuclear escalation publicly and instead sticks to MR).
I wonder why G.P. is confident that the Kidwai position is the right one? Also he is implying we should act in such a way that the Kidwai Red Lines are not breached - which I am sure narrows our military options. On that note what decent belligerent will not try to blockade the enemy's SLOCs (that absurd red-line about economic strangulation)? Isn't that a howler right there? Anyway, G.P. sticks to the Shyam Saran stance of NFU + MR response any WMD use.

[ramana]

NRao, When you post you cut to the chase very quickly!!!

[ShauryaT]

What we ought to do in this thread is to see, what are our various perspectives on the levels and conventional actions at which deterrence fails, triggering first use, in a India-Pak scenario.

While the infamous four point formula of Gen. Kidwai is out there, let us put our own hat and those of other thinkers to play this game and see at what point things fail. How far can we push?

Shiv ji and others have made comments on the lines of "we should smash the PA" as a conventional response to Pakistan's asymmetric warfare. Let us see, what smashing means with a nuclear overhang and to what extent do folks think, the PA can be pushed and more importantly what objectives can be achieved.

Let me start that with a paper, which seeks to explore such lines.
Countering Pakistan’s Asymmetric Warfare

Military Responses
The military responses would range from covert operations, abrogation of the
existing ceasefire along the LoC, surgical/precision strikes on the terrorists
at one end of the escalatory ladder, to a limited/all-out war against a nuclear
backdrop on the other. Given the possibility of escalation, the necessity of
being operationally prepared at all times is critical.

Escalation Control
Any form of response from India to Pakistan for its abettment of terrorist
attack, particularly a military response, is likely to elicit a reaction from
Pakistan. Such a reaction could take the form of pulling out of Pakistan
Army troops deployed along the Durand Line (to which the international
community is highly sensitive, as mentioned previously), raising the ante
in the escalatory ladder and nuclear saber-rattling. Therefore, a range
of escalation control measures would have to be built into the response
mechanism.

Conclusion
The proposed approach and responses are fraught with the risk of escalation.
However, for far too long, India has been hampered by its ‘guarded and
no-risk’ approach, due to which, despite India’s conventional superiority, What do people think is the India-Paksitan relative combat power and fire power ratios?
Pakistan has continued to pursue its strategy of ‘bleeding India through a
thousand cuts’ with impunity. For too long, India has been tagged as a ‘soft’
state and a ‘sponge’ state. It is time India recognises that hard decisions are
unavoidable. What would be the objectives of such hard decisions? A ‘cost-free’ option may not be possible. Clearly, the options
are between a ‘proactive approach’ or ‘confrontation by design’, with the
risk of military escalation and loss of life on one hand and ‘reactive approach’
or ‘inaction’ with the further loss of life through terrorist attacks by default
on the other. Pakistan must be made to realise that its asymmetric warfare
strategy to seek parity with India will no longer be the ‘low cost’ option. The
cost of asymmetric warfare option has to be raised to such a level that it is
no more considered a viable option.