Asia — Limited Wars in South Asia: Against the Nuclear Backdrop

Air­pow­er

We all know that the air­pow­er is faster to mobilise, is more flex­i­ble and can achieve strate­gic and tac­ti­cal sur­prise bet­ter than oth­er ser­vices. Air­pow­er is also deci­sive because it can cause heavy and pre­cise destruc­tion. It pro­vides mobil­i­ty, aer­i­al obser­va­tion and close air sup­port. It is ide­al­ly suit­ed to ini­ti­ate and achieve suc­cess in a lim­it­ed war con­flict. Con­trol of air is the sin­gle great­est manoeu­vre and fire­pow­er advan­tage. Along with oth­er Air Force pri­or­i­ties, we need to make close air sup­port most respon­sive to Army needs.

Rapid mobil­i­sa­tion

The soon­er an inter­ven­ing force can arrive to influ­ence the course of a mil­i­tary event, the less­er is the chance of the con­flict devolv­ing into fire­pow­er inten­sive, waste­ful slug­ging match. Rapid mobil­i­sa­tion out-paces ene­my and has the same asset as sur­prise. For a lim­it­ed con­ven­tion­al war envi­ron­ment, we may need to car­ry out strate­gic re-loca­tions of some of our com­bat for­ma­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly those that take a long time to be moved and deployed. Also, we need not wait for full mobil­i­sa­tion to start operations.

 -

The mil­i­tary is expect­ed to be able to react quick­ly to the chang­ing cir­cum­stances, in order to localise, freeze and reverse the sit­u­a­tion on the ground and to arrest the dete­ri­o­ra­tion, enhance deter­rence and dimin­ish incen­tives for escalation

Sur­veil­lance and intelligence

With­out ade­quate intel­li­gence and con­tin­u­ous sur­veil­lance, even the best of plans can­not suc­ceed. We require a very clear strate­gic, oper­a­tional and tac­ti­cal pic­ture and assess­ment with the help of all pos­si­ble tech­nol­o­gy and human intel­li­gence. We have to obtain real time intel­li­gence and ensure that it reach­es those who need it in time. We need much bet­ter inte­gra­tion of sur­veil­lance and oper­a­tional resources like satel­lite imagery, air recon­nais­sance, radars, armed heli­copters and so on to reduce force gen­er­a­tion time.

Sur­prise

In a lim­it­ed con­ven­tion­al war, due to short dura­tion, sur­prise as a fac­tor becomes more impor­tant than ever before. Strike the ene­my at a time or place or in a man­ner for which he is least pre­pared. A pro-active strat­e­gy and con­tin­gency plan­ning in peace­time have dis­tinct mil­i­tary advan­tage. But that would be a dif­fi­cult polit­i­cal option.

Rapid reac­tion forces

In a lim­it­ed or small-scale war, tem­po and speed dic­tate that light, Rapid Reac­tion Forces com­pris­ing ele­ments from arms, ser­vices, with embed­ded air force capa­bil­i­ty. We need more Spe­cial Forces for such missions.

The basic engine of attri­tion will be the syn­er­gised and inte­grat­ed appli­ca­tions of fire­pow­er — artillery, mis­siles and all oth­er fire­pow­er. Mas­sive and sur­gi­cal­ly applied fire­pow­er will cause dis­rup­tion, destruc­tion and dis­lo­ca­tion and pro­vide a deci­sive edge in a war. Air deliv­ered fire­pow­er and long-range artillery will not only affect enemy’s morale, it will offer free­dom of move­ment to the manoeu­vre ele­ment. How­ev­er, in dif­fi­cult ter­rain con­di­tions like Siachen, Kargil and north-east, we must have a clear under­stand­ing of what fire pow­er and tech­nol­o­gy can or can­not do.

Elec­tron­ic warfare

A con­flict in future could well be decid­ed on the basis of bet­ter exploita­tion of the elec­tro-mag­net­ic (EM) spec­trum. Its impact is all per­va­sive: to assist in anti-ter­ror­ist oper­a­tions, pre­vent attacks against civil­ian or mil­i­tary tar­gets. The e‑bombs have the advan­tage of no col­lat­er­al dam­age and less­er like­li­hood of loss of life. Con­cert­ed R and D and user inno­va­tions into the var­ied uses of the EM spec­trum are an urgent requirement.

Infor­ma­tion war

These days, media report­ing catch­es events at their source, when the events are still history’s raw mate­r­i­al. Robust report­ing of the past has now giv­en way to brit­tle report­ing. The result can be unpre­dictable swings in pub­lic sen­ti­ment, com­pound­ing the government’s chal­lenge of build­ing sup­port for the war. And it is not pos­si­ble to resist the trans­paren­cy pres­sure any­more to be trans­par­ent. Peo­ple — ana­lysts, jour­nal­ists, investors, employ­ees, or mem­bers of the pub­lic — have high stan­dards and con­sid­er know­ing sit­u­a­tion­al infor­ma­tion to be their right, an enti­tle­ment rather than a lux­u­ry. The les­son, there­fore; don’t try to seal all lips. The com­mu­ni­ca­tions effort — dai­ly brief­in­gs, live broad­casts and so on — must start from the very top and go down the chan­nel in a planned manner.

Con­clu­sion

Mere pos­ses­sion of nuclear weapons does not stop con­flicts. A ques­tion that often aris­es, ‘are we, there­fore, ade­quate­ly equipped and trained for the more like­ly form of con­flicts or the less like­ly form?’ Are we pre­pared for yes­ter­day or tomorrow’s armed con­flicts? India now is con­front­ed with the task of defend­ing itself mil­i­tar­i­ly against nuclear armed adver­saries. The action has to be effec­tive but not so effec­tive as to cause inad­ver­tent esca­la­tion. These para­me­ters demand new war fight­ing strate­gies and doc­trines that the Indi­an polit­i­cal and mil­i­tary lead­er­ship is not used to tra­di­tion­al­ly. It is a con­flict sit­u­a­tion and a strat­e­gy, that puts a pre­mi­um on achiev­ing speedy deci­sion on the bat­tle­field and then ter­mi­nat­ing offen­sive action before the con­flict degen­er­ates into attrition.

Cur­rent­ly, our oper­a­tional plan­ning caters more for reac­tive all out con­ven­tion­al war set­tings; much less for lim­it­ed war sce­nar­ios. A reac­tive strate­gic cul­ture tends to erode our deter­rence capability

Cur­rent­ly, our oper­a­tional plan­ning caters more for reac­tive all out con­ven­tion­al war set­tings; much less for lim­it­ed war sce­nar­ios. A reac­tive strate­gic cul­ture tends to erode our deter­rence capa­bil­i­ty. For the new strate­gic envi­ron­ment, there is a need for the armed forces to pre­pare dif­fer­ent lev­el joint plans, which can be imple­ment­ed at a short notice, or dur­ing the course of mobil­i­sa­tion. Such con­tin­gency plans and their full impli­ca­tions will need pri­or politi­co-mil­i­tary dis­cus­sions: even ‘in prin­ci­ple’ approval of the Cab­i­net Com­mit­tee on Security.

Last­ly, with the con­flict becom­ing mul­ti-dimen­sion­al, the armed forces require geo-strate­gi­cal­ly aware and spe­cialised polit­i­cal guid­ance and net­work­ing. We also need to re-organ­ise net­work­ing of the armed forces with­in and with oth­er gov­ern­ment and non-gov­ern­ment agen­cies which could have an impor­tant role to play in any future armed con­flict. Only then it would be pos­si­ble to suc­ceed in such conflicts. 

There may be sev­er­al sit­u­a­tions where both the ini­tia­tor and the affect­ed nation are tempt­ed to use con­ven­tion­al weapons and forces. The ini­tia­tor is tempt­ed to give it a greater push with con­ven­tion­al forces to achieve the desired results, as it hap­pened in 1947, 1965. In the 1999 Kargil war, it did so despite our nuclear weapons capa­bil­i­ty. On the oth­er hand, the affect­ed nation, when pushed to the wall, may use its con­ven­tion­al forces to bring the proxy war into the open rather than fight with all the lim­i­ta­tions of a ‘no war no peace sit­u­a­tion’. Pak­istan did in 1971. We almost did in 2002.

About the Author
Gen­er­al V P Malik PVSM, AVSM, VSM (retd)
Gen­er­al Ved Prakash Malik assumed charge of the Indi­an Army, as the 19th Chief of Army Staff, on 30 Sep­tem­ber 1997. He was dec­o­rat­ed with the Param Vishisht Seva Medal (PVSM) in 1996. He took over as Chair­man of the Chiefs of Staff Com­mit­tee with effect from 01 Jan­u­ary 1999. He coor­di­nat­ed and over­saw the plan­ning and exe­cu­tion of Oper­a­tion Vijay to suc­cess­ful­ly defeat Pakistan’s attempt­ed intru­sion in the Kargil sec­tor dur­ing May to July 1999. 

Defence and Secu­ri­ty Alert (DSA
Defence and Secu­ri­ty Alert (DSA) mag­a­zine is the only ISO 9001:2008 cer­ti­fied, pre­mier world class, new wave month­ly mag­a­zine which fea­tures par­a­digm chang­ing in-depth analy­ses on defence, secu­ri­ty, safe­ty and sur­veil­lance, focus­ing on devel­op­ing and strate­gic future sce­nar­ios in India and around the world.

Team GlobDef

Seit 2001 ist GlobalDefence.net im Internet unterwegs, um mit eigenen Analysen, interessanten Kooperationen und umfassenden Informationen für einen spannenden Überblick der Weltlage zu sorgen. GlobalDefence.net war dabei die erste deutschsprachige Internetseite, die mit dem Schwerpunkt Sicherheitspolitik außerhalb von Hochschulen oder Instituten aufgetreten ist.

Alle Beiträge ansehen von Team GlobDef →