In a recent article in a widely read Web journal the well-known strategist Brig. Gurmeet Kanwal (retd.) discusses nuclear options should Pakistan reach its redlines quite early in a conflict. Kanwal writes that Pakistan has “been vocal in holding out the threat of tactical nuclear warheads (TNWs) against Indians. For almost three decades, India has shown strategic restraint despite grave provocation. However, first in Pathankot in January 2016 and then in Uri in September 2016, India’s red lines were crossed and the government was left with no option but to include military measures in its response.” Quite obviously because we seem to have accepted Pakistan’s declaratory policy of threatening early escalation to the nuclear step, India seems to have given itself very few options of imposing costs on Pakistan. So far, it has restricted itself to minor cross-border raids, the latest of which Kanwal describes as “carefully calibrated military measures.”
These kind of calibrated military measures have been taken several times in the past also. This particular raid by about 25 troopers on June 30, 2011, killed 13 Pakistan Army troopers and in retaliation for an earlier Pakistan Army’s gory deed decapitated three dead Pakistani soldiers and brought their heads back as trophies. The assault sites were also carefully recced by UAVs and the Indian assault team wore night vision gear and carried special assault weapons. The only difference was that the military leadership of the time didn’t call them carefully calibrated military measures or “surgical strikes”. However, it is admitted that earlier cross-border strikes by Indian troops were on one or two targets, the present one reportedly at about four or five jihadi targets simultaneously. The big difference between then and now is that the 2011 attack was against regular Pakistan Army while the recent attack was against a jihadi terrorist gang.
Neither the earlier attack nor the latest one resulted in any restraint on further cross-border strikes from the other side. Hence, the utility of our retaliation must be questioned. It is time for India to seriously contemplate higher steps on the escalatory ladder, like decapitating terrorist leadership or destroying terrorist camps, which are deeper inside PoK or Pakistani Punjab. But we seem to have locked ourselves in box of our making, having internalised Pakistan’s bombast of a low threshold of pain before it embarks upon a nuclear adventure. That is largely because our nuclear theologians have tended to believe Pakistani declarations of early crossing of their vaguely stated redlines. I disagree with their belief that Pakistan will employ theatre nuclear weapons (TNW) even for a single major retaliatory territorial ingress by an Indian armoured column. The escalation costs are too much even for an irrational actor like Pakistan postures itself to be. I don’t believe the Pakistani declared policy is anything more than a posture since it knows the destruction that will descend upon it. That is if it takes India’s policy as gospel?
It used to be said that Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev used to have sleepless nights when Richard Nixon was US President because of Nixon’s madman reputation. We have also seen how declared policy goes out of the window when confronted when Nikita Khrushchev backed down when the US Navy blocked Soviet naval vessels bound for Cuba during the Cuban Missile crisis of 1962. Like Brezhnev, we too seem to have locked ourselves into knots. On the contrary its generals are very rational persons and have given themselves free space for military provocations by professing irrationality. This is a carefully crafted policy knowing how unprepared civilian leaders are for coercive diplomacy. That is why coercive diplomacy is out of the purview of Pakistan’s civilian leadership. In our system the military is not even a partner in policy planning and ignorancemakes our civilian leaders more prone to believing the impossible.
I also hold that India’s declared posture of massive nuclear retaliation is not logical. To threaten complete annihilation of Pakistan for even the use of a single TNW is quite incredible. I believe if Pakistan knows annihilation is in store for it even for a single TNW why will it do that and await complete destruction? Why not go for a major preemptive strike in the first place? We must be ready with a flexible response with a bigger TNW or multiple TNWs as options. First of all, I don’t believe Pakistan’s redlines are so down the ladder. They will only be crossed when our conventional forces inflict unacceptable losses. Hence, I conclude that below the nuclear threshold there is much more space for step-by-step escalation of conventional warfare. The Pakistani redlines will appear as we get closer to its complete defeat. And the retaliation will then not be with TNWs but with strategic nuclear weapons. This is the space our military should be given.
However, Pakistan could become a more irrational player if the mullahs seize military power. Hence, we are better off with it under the jackboots of the generals, and even better off with a full democracy. If mullahs seize control, we must contemplate a full Pakistani first strike at a lower threshold and calibrate our responses accordingly. Incidentally, this has been gamed many times and we have always found that the escalatory ladder has many steps to climb before the nuclear threshold. And the nuclear threshold is an impossible or near impossible line to cross for even an irrational actor, as Pakistan currently postures itself to be. Generals are very rational people and generally abhor huge battlefield costs.
