As reported by the Indian media, Indian Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Gen. Deepak Kapoor at a seminar enunciated a two-front war doctrine disclosing that the Indian Army was working on replacing its five-year-old doctrine of ‘Cold Start’, known to be Pakistan-specific, with one premised on taking on Pakistan and China, simultaneously.Against the backdrop of what seems to be a well-coordinated plan for India to militarily intervene in Afghanistan in the future, as discussed two weeks ago, Gen. Kapoor’s disclosure is surely worthy of attention.
REACTIONS
It elicited appropriately strong reactions from both the Pakistan foreign office as well as from its military establishment. While Chinese reactions, as known at this time, have been reflected in some critical media accounts, Chinese officialdom has, thus far, apparently not taken any notice.
That is perhaps only natural considering that the Indian COAS’s views expressed at the December 2009 seminar have been reported only partially and have not, in any case, been unveiled as official policy at this point in time.
Be that as it may, a few informed views and insights on the subject, from Pakistan and India, may still usefully be examined here for general edification.
Let me begin with a recent write-up by Dr. Subash Kapila of the South Asia Analysis Group (SAAG) wherein he attempts an analysis of the Indian Army’s new war doctrine.
Kapila begins by arguing that such a policy was long overdue, among other things, because there is a distinct possibility of disintegration or Talibanization of Pakistan with her nuclear weapons falling into the hands of the Taliban and/or al-Qaeda. Against such a sombre backdrop, Kapila gallops on, Pakistan’s Army might be tempted to go for “military adventurism against India to divert her public’s attention” from serious problems at home.
Interestingly coming to China and her understandable concerns over Tibet, the SAAG analyst says China wants with Pakistan’s assistance to – horror of horrors – “confine” India to South Asia. He goes on to suggest that the strategic cooperation between India and the United States has generated further “strategic disquiet” in Beijing’s heart.
India, he ardently believes, should be rightfully flexing her military, economic and diplomatic muscle way beyond the confines of South Asia as consonant with her global power-in-the-making status!
Kapila says that it is precisely against the above backdrop that Gen. Kapoor’s baby should be viewed. “In the past five years, the powers that matter in the global strategic calculus have viewed India as a regional power and global power-in-the-making; consequently there are expectations that India should ready itself for a greater strategic reach and out-of-the-area shouldering of strategic responsibilities.”
IMPOSSIBILITY
To recap a number of salient points reportedly made by the Indian Army chief. Among them: “The armed forces have to substantially enhance their strategic reach and out-of-area capabilities to protect India’s geo-political interests stretching from the Gulf to the Malacca Straits.”
At an earlier seminar in New Delhi in November last year, Gen. Kapoor stated that “a limited war under a nuclear overhang is still very much a reality in the Indian subcontinent.” According to a Pakistani freelance columnist A Siddique, Gen. Kapoor described the trigger for unleashing such a war, thus:
“Purely humanitarian grounds if the diaspora is under threat, sovereignty of nations being questioned such as attacks on missions abroad (read attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul) and national assets (read Mumbai like incidents) and foreign soil being used constantly for attack by state and non-state actors (familiar barrage of unending propaganda by the Indian government and media).”
Siddique identifies three main reasons to explain the Indian Army chief’s utterances. First: India is still obsessed with the thought of finding space for a conventional war with Pakistan in the presence of a nuclear deterrence.
Second: the Pakistan Army’s successful counter-insurgency operations in Swat and the FATA area was bad news for the Indian Army chief who wishes to take advantage of the internal security situation in Pakistan for India’s benefit.
Third: By boasting of acquiring a capability for simultaneously taking on China and Pakistan, Gen. Kapoor is bestowing a status upon India which though highly desirable from an Indian perspective, simply belongs to the realm of impossibility.
Muhammad Jamil, another Pakistani analyst, points out that India has only a quantitative edge over Pakistan but falls short of in qualitative terms. To bolster his argument he recalls that as far as nuclear capability is concerned, “Indian scientists had confirmed that at least the test of a thermonuclear device had failed because shockwave readings recorded were those of a conventional nuclear device and certainly not a hydrogen bomb.”
TWO-FRONT WAR
While reminding all that even Nazi Germany’s awesome war machine failed in its two-front war during World War II, he points out that US’s own two-front war – in Iraq and Afghanistan – is not going all that well. He casts doubts that India, which is bogged down in Kashmir and is now increasingly involved in crushing its Maoist insurgency, can really made good on the general’s bravado.
As far as China is concerned, India’s hope of also taking her on militarily is simply unreal. China’s overwhelming military advantage over India – in terms of manpower, terrain, sophistication, logistics and economic power – is obvious to even a layman, not to mention that China’s military might and ability to project power far beyond its boundaries is so pronounced as to create anxieties even in the Pentagon.
Jayadeva Ranade, a former Indian official, reveals China is building seven modern airfields in Tibet, while sixty are planned by 2020. The number of fighter aircraft near Lhasa has increased, so has the network of border defences, roads and intelligence outposts. PLA troops no longer have to go via Lhasa but can directly reach many border locations from the Chinese mainland, reducing transportation time.
India’s two-front war strategy is pie-in-the-sky. Perhaps it is only to scare Maoists, both of the Indian as well as Nepali varieties!
