by Balaji Chandramohan

It is expected that the new government will focus on expanding its strategic presence in the Indo-Pacific, while simultaneously attaining a credible strategic deterrence against both China’s and Pakistan’s conventional and nuclear threats. India will strengthen its capacity to engage in limited warfare against both China and Pakistan. India’s maritime strategic outlook will be a major element in its conception of the Indo-Pacific and that will constitute a part of its Grand Strategic outlook. The new government will appoint a Permanent Chairman of the Chief of Staff Committee as an interim measure to creating the office of Chief of Defence Staff (CDS)

Summary

As India returned the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party to office, the country’s renewed strategic orientation under Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be of interest to the countries in the Indo-Pacific, including Australia. It is expected that the new government will focus on expanding its strategic presence in the Indo-Pacific while simultaneously ensuring that it attains a credible strategic deterrence against both China and Pakistan. It is believed that the new government will undertake the above measures as a part of its Grand Strategy without altering the existing civil-military relationship.

Analysis

Revision of India’s Limited War Doctrine and Nuclear Doctrine

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in its election manifesto stated that it would consider revising its position on India’s Nuclear Doctrine, which currently emphasises a “No First Use of Nuclear Weapons” policy. History indicates, however, that the BJP, when in power, will not hesitate to conduct further nuclear tests to increase India’s nuclear deterrence capabilities.

On the other hand, India, under Modi, will likely follow a muscular foreign and strategic policy which includes reaching out to countries in the Indo-Pacific to help strengthen their existing defence capabilities. In the case of New Zealand, for example, closer defence relations would see India working with the New Zealand Defence Force to obtain enhanced logistical systems and training for amphibious operations and better co-ordination in counter-terrorism operations.

India’s recent history of counter-terrorism operations includes cross-border operations in Pakistan in February 2019 and an earlier strike on 29 September 2016. Those strikes demonstrate that India has expanded its counter-terrorism ambit to include strikes on foreign territory. These aspects are included the Land War Doctrine (2018). The LWD-2018 follows in the footsteps of the earlier iterations of Indian Army (IA) doctrines, following the nuclearisation of the Sub-continent in 1998.

While acknowledging that the space for conventional operations is shrinking (p. 3), in an implicit reference to Pakistan, the LWD claims that conventional operations will remain central to the Indian Army’s conflict spectrum. In this context, the LWD mentions that Integrated Battle Groups (IBGs), which have been structured in accordance with the terrain on which they operate and on a case-to-case basis, will be used to achieve the goals of the limited aims strategy.

The doctrine does not make clear, however, if these operations would still remain within the ambit of limited conventional objectives or evolve into full scale conventional operations if the nuclear threshold is breached. This might depend on the magnitude of the nuclear breach, but it is an important question to answer, because ramping up to full scale conventional operations might require a different scale of logistics. The declaratory value of the doctrine in signalling to the adversary is however ambiguous given limited conventional battle militates against the idea of war-fighting after the nuclear threshold is crossed.

The latest iteration of the IA doctrine has been christened the Land Warfare Doctrine (LWD) 2018, and is a follow up to the first-ever Joint Doctrine of the Indian Armed Forces, released in 2017.

The concept of a two-front war against India’s two primary adversaries, Pakistan and China, first found mention at a closed door conference at the end of 2009, which reviewed the 2004 Indian Army Doctrine (IAD). The LWD refers to this as a “multi-front environment” involving an external collusive threat from Pakistan and China coupled with a hybrid (defined in the LWD as, “a blend of conventional and unconventional, with the focus increasingly shifting to multi domain warfare varying from non-contact to contact warfare”) approach to war-fighting.

The army could argue that it has been transparent. The army chief had at the outset of his tenure acknowledged the existence of the Cold Start Doctrine and had indicated that he would operationalise the Integrated Battle Groups. The Cold Start Doctrine (CSD), introduced in the Indian Army Doctrine (2004), envisages a quick launch of multiple limited offensives by Integrated Battle Groups into Pakistani territory. He stated last year that the army’s Perspective Planning Directorate had been tasked with producing its doctrine.

Cold Start was reportedly devised following the Indian Army failure to mobilise quickly in response to the December 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament. India’s mobilisation along the Line of Control (LOC) in Kashmir, code named “Operation Parakram”, occurred at a slow pace and it took three weeks for the Indian military to move 500,000 troops and three armoured divisions and support units (the so-called strike corps) to the border. (The Indian military also sustained around 400 casualties during mine-laying operations.)

As a result, CSD was developed by the Indian Army in 2004 to facilitate smaller scale, rapid, and decisive conventional offensive operations into Pakistani territory in the event of Pakistani-sponsored asymmetrical attack on Indian soil before the international community can actively intervene, and before Pakistan would feel compelled to launch nuclear retaliatory strikes to repel an Indian invasion. It is still fully unclear what CSD specifically entails, and senior Indian officers have on purpose remained ambiguous about it. What may be surmised is that, as Ladwig notes: ‘Cold Start emphasised forward deployment, decisive offensive strikes launched from a standing start with a minimal mobilisation period and pre-emptive strikes on enemy forces.’ Cohen and Dasgupta cast further light on this doctrine, noting that:

It had three main objectives: 1) to avoid triggering an enemy’s nuclear response; 2) to move so fast that Indian political leaders could not halt or terminate it; and 3) to secure India’s objectives before the international community could intervene.

Offensive operations against Pakistan in retaliation for terrorist attack were commonplace in the 1990s and 2000s. In September 2016, India conducted “surgical strikes” against terrorist camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. The operation involved a helicopter-borne unit and Indian Special Operations Forces, which, given Pakistan’s strong air defences in the region, made some analysts sceptical about the precise nature of the operation. (Notably, the Indian Government decided not to implement CSD-type operations following the 2008 Mumbai attacks).

In its most ambitious conception, India’s limited war strategy under the CSD doctrine calls for armoured thrusts into Pakistani territory supported by mechanised infantry formations and air power within 48 to 72 hours of a military confrontation with Islamabad. These blitzkrieg-style operations would heavily depend on close co-ordination between the Indian Army and the Indian Air Force given the pivotal role close air support and overwhelming conventional firepower would play in such a campaign.

Consequently, to make this invasion force nimbler and easier to co-ordinate, a complete re-organisation of the Indian Army was envisioned. First, the army would strengthen its holding and pivot corps stationed along the LOC with new offensive capabilities: division-sized integrated battle groups (IBG) consisting of artillery, armour and aviation elements each capable of limited offensive operations. These IBGs are central to the Indian Army’s offensive military doctrine and also featured in the Indian Army’s recently released Land Warfare Doctrine.

Second, the Indian Army would dis-aggregate three of its strike corps into division-sized IBGs and move them closer to the India-Pakistan border. One of the strike corps is also slated to be restructured into a rapid reaction “sabre corps”, according to media reports, reportedly capable of immediately conducting offensive operations into Pakistan in the event of a conflict.

India’s Military Modernisation Joint Aspects in 2019

It is understood that for India to offer offensive strike operations and have a credible deterrence against both China and Pakistan, the new Indian government will focus on military modernisation.

Their priority should be on pushing the government to announce the Permanent Chairman Chief of Staff Committee (PCCOSC). The PCCOSC’s appointment, as an interim step towards creating a Chief of Defence Staff, would still allow for a joint command structure and establish the position of a Chief of Staff. The army’s recently issued Land Warfare Doctrine would then be a part of a joint doctrine that would synergise the operational concepts of the three services and enhance counter-threat capabilities.

The final joint aspect will be to push through pending anomalies of the last pay commission, including the recent rejection of enhanced military service pay for JCOs by the Ministry of Finance. The morale of the services would be enhanced if the government is convinced of approving a Non-Functional Upgradation, specific to the armed forces, which would introduce the “one rank, one pay” system to serving personnel and veterans alike.

As the new Indian Government tries to prioritise its strategic calculus by enhancing its diplomatic reach, internally the government has laid the budget with focus on Indian military modernisation and refining the armed services’ current priorities.

Unlike in authoritarian military regimes, where the military dictates the allocation in funds for the armed services, in democratic countries the elected civilian leadership will have the final say in the allocation of funds.

As the new government has prioritised the military’s modernisation to equip the Indian armed forces for fourth- and fifth-generation warfare, the allocation of funds to meet that goal is interesting. For example, the Indian Navy gains increased funding for ten new projects, including both modernisation and enhancing existing weapon systems. The focus has been more on acquiring more aircraft carriers to add to its operational capability in the Indo-Pacific region.

To meet its continental objectives, the finance budget has allocated US$166 million to accelerate the development of the Railway system in the border areas. The major part of the modernisation plans aims to develop a robust infantry and mechanised mountain strike corps aimed at neutralising the threat from Pakistan. That modernisation of the Indian ground forces may include creating three mountain strike corps that are aimed at countering Chinese forces. The key unanswered question is how that mountain corps may be raised, given the current allocation of resources for the Indian Army.

Second, China’s Second Artillery Strategic Forces have received an increased allocation of funds in the latest Chinese budget. Consequently, there is probably a need to re-deploy the existing three strike corps in India’s central region from an orientation towards Pakistan to China on the Tibetan Plateau. To deal with such drastic changes, there is a need to completely re-work the existing system of strategic deployment within the Army establishment which, of course, includes changing the existing status quo of having three strike corps orientated towards Pakistan to one aimed at countering China’s increased assertiveness in India’s northern borders.

Third, the main problem in Indian defence budget is that the Indian Government has not come out with either a defence budget like in many parliamentary democracies or the Defence Review System followed in the United States. That makes it difficult to analyse the strategic priorities that determine when and where military forces will be deployed. It needs that strategic foresight to push for the desired increases in the operational capabilities of the existing services and also to have greater co-operation in the planning of operations, which could probably be overseen by the Chief of the Defence Staff.

At present, the Chief of Staff Committee under the oversight of the Indian Ministry of Defence performs that function, but greater coherence can only be achieved if the strategic priorities of the political establishment are picked up by the military establishment.

It is expected that the new government’s strategic shift will be aimed at the Indo-Pacific region, specifically South-East and East Asia. That focus would align closely with that of the United States.

Conclusion

The key question surrounding India’s strategic and operational priorities and the defence budget is how the Indian armed forces will establish itself as a counterweight to China especially in the maritime domain despite New Delhi having its strategic fixation with Pakistan. This is of interest especially to countries such as Australia which have sought greater strategic co-operation with New Delhi.

Indian authorities have tried to solve the problems affecting the Indian armed forces at the operational and tactical levels but not the strategic level, which means that the defence budget remains ambiguous and that for it to change, greater civil-military interaction must take place.

The concept of single point military advice to the government may be accomplished by creating the Chief of Defence Staff model as followed by other Commonwealth countries or the Joint Chief of Staff model followed in the United States. At present, India’s Chief of Staff Committee is doing the above job, but greater coherence could only be achieved if strategic priorities are picked up by the political establishment under the new government.